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From: "Tom
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Subject: NOTHING
DEMOCRATIC IN THE "SMART GROWTH" VISION FOR HOUSTON'S
SUSTAINED FUTURE SUCCESS
Date: Sun,
20 Jun 2004 17:54:35 -0500
In response
to Mr. Crossley's Op-Ed, it is my observation that there is nothing
in the "Smart Growth" vision for Houston's sustained
future success.
It is only proper that elected officials make long range policy
decisions with the ratification of a majority of properly informed
voters. This is in contrast, to say, METRO with it's pack of
pro-rail, unelected and unaccountable lemming bureaucrats,
who admitted to spending over $3 million of taxpayers funds to
trick voters into approving their "Solutions" [Smart
Growth driven agenda] scheme.
Yes, people are getting older, and the same senior citizens who
fought fascism and Communist aggression still want to drive their
cars, or be driven to where they need to go. Even the elderly
resist being herded like "Sheeple."
Yes, there are still millions of immigrants coming to Houston.
They are typically fleeing the despots, Socialist Central
Planners and corrupt governments, just to encounter the same
political cancers thriving here in the United States. These highly
motivated people came to Houston yearning to be free to choose,
not to be forced onto the Toy Train as their only "Transit
Option."
Yes, global oil production is constantly manipulated. Prices
too are subject to an array of artificial factors utilized to
ratchet-up prices. Then, there are the ever-increasing taxes
extracted so as to enable the wasteful government spending
to grow.
The argument is that we all want life to be easier and less difficult,
and therefore we should exchange our liberty for a nanny state.
We are to abandon our "American Dreams" manifested
in single-family suburban homes, as well as the mobility
afforded by passenger cars to live in beehive-style, taxpayer
subsidized apartments along a government-run tram.
If not a METRO evolution of POTTERVILLE, the "Smart Growth"
NUTS [New Urban Transit Supporters] want to convert Houston to
become more like the BRONX in New York.
I recall a short video clip played on a network newscast several
years ago, when US troops efficiently defeated the Taliban in
Afghanistan. A young boy was asked what his first wish was now
that he was liberated. Without hesitation, living in a 13th-century
society, he immediately replied that he wanted to save enough
of his meager earnings to buy a car.
People will no more give up their cars to be forced on the tram
than they would give up their cell phones to use hardwired
pay telephones when commended to by the central planners.
If as predicted, the Latino population will triple, and these
folks risked their lives to come here in order to breathe free,
I would surmise they will resist complying with the Leftist "Smart
Growth" agenda.
The majority of HUD-funded first-time homebuyer transactions
these past ten years were to Hispanic families which were for
homes situated outside the IH-610 Loop. Most Asian homesteads
are in subdivisions outside the IH-610 Loop. Both groups rely
on rubber-tired modes of transportation.
If the price of gasoline continues to rise, the market adjusts.
People will buy more hybrid cars, and become more efficient with
their trips.
One can not expect Houstonians to trust METRO's "Transit
Backbone" which has already has collided with 44 cars and
a pedestrian operating a wheel chair, and can not traverse nominal
street flooding in the first few months of operation.
The intelligentsia has long favored Socialist transit
modes such as rail. In this month's issue of Scientific American,
page 18, there is a reprint of a 150-year-old story titled "USELESS
INVENTION?" written by the Paris correspondent for the New
York Times. The Times reporter ridiculed a French inventor (M.
Leroy), who had spent ten years and all his resources to
develop a steam-powered car, who was gravely injured testing
his machine. Little has changed in the minds of the pro-rail
intelligentsia over the past 150 years.
Our elected officials should LEAD all Houstonians, not merely
follow the pro-rail lemmings "Smart Growth" scheme.
Tom Bazan
P.O. Box 2786
Houston, TX 77252
832.673.0018
BAZAN, a long-time
real estate broker, appraiser and environmental consultant, is
the Independent Candidate for the 18th Congressional District
of Texas, running to replace Sheila Jackson-Lee
www.BazanForCongress.com
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Original article:
June 20, 2004, 12:10AM
Could new plan lead us in wrong direction?
By DAVID CROSSLEY
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