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Texas Attorney General Questions Legality of Houston’s Proposed Trucking Ordinance; City
Council Takes Action Today To Send Issue Back To Committee.
HOUSTON-Citing a lack of progress and lack of input from the stakeholders group, TMTA and
Texas Aggregates and Concrete Association officials were in Houston this week sharing their
concerns with Houston city council members regarding the trucking ordinance proposed by
Houston City Councilman Adrian Garcia this summer.
“We haven’t even had a meeting during the second 60-day delay since early October and
we still don’t have any answers to questions we posed back in July,” TMTA President
John Esparza said.
State Representative Mike Krusee, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, received
an informal opinion from the Texas Attorney General challenging the legality by which the city
seeks the authority to impose such an ordinance. The opinion was shared earlier this week
with the city council in the letter attached stating the associations’ opposition to the
proposed ordinance.
“We have been engaged in good faith now for six months on the issue and we cannot get
answers to simple questions we have raised from day one,” Esparza said. “It was made
clear to us that work is being done outside the stakeholders group on the issue and we can
no longer stand beside and play part to a process that doesn’t involve the very individuals
it would directly impact.”
“We provided Councilman Garcia approximately 40 questions when this issue first came to light
and we have yet to receive any substantive answers,” Esparza said. “Our opposition is borne
out of the frustration that we cannot get beyond the first step of the process.”
The Port of Houston Authority issued an independent economic impact analysis on August 29th.
The study reveals an adverse negative impact of $1.34 billion, the loss of 4,821 direct jobs with
an average salary of more than $48,753 which equals over $235 million in total lost wages.
A total of 16,499 direct and indirect jobs are at risk of loss or workload/wage reduction, and
$41.9 million in unrealized tax revenue.
The Houston City Council took action this morning to send the proposed ordinance back to
committee. The Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security will address the ordinance
during its regular order of business at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, December 10th, 2007. |