SAFEclear, public safety, and revenue enhancement
Mayor White, Czar Saperstein, and Councilman Berry continue to insist that their new $AFEclear initiative is rooted in concerns of public safety, and not revenues for the city.
Interestingly, they ignore the fact that we have enjoyed several much more motorist-friendly programs designed to clear the freeways when there are problems.
There's the free program operated by the Harris Country Toll Road Authority on their roads.
There's Bellaire's motorist-friendly policy described in this story by Rad Sallee.
And there's the old Motorist Assistance Program operated by TXDOT, Metro and Harris County, which presumably is now barred by municipal ordinance from offering the level of assistance it once provided for free.
One can't help but wonder why this growing menace of a safety issue that was previously on nobody's radar couldn't have been addressed in a less intrusive manner by simply boosting these existing citizen-friendly programs. If the safety issue had really become as menacing as Mayor White, Czar Saperstein, and Councilman Berry contend, then certainly it's a public safety issue that at least is as deserving of public expenditure as Chief Hurtt's stun guns.
But that approach would have cost money, rather than creating a new wrecker oligopoly that would pay the city for the privilege. What a convenient arrangement -- aside from those pesky complaining motorists (otherwise known as taxpayers and voters) and the fact that the mayor's new wrecker oligopoly is not nearly as efficient as promised:
But Sugar Land mortgage broker Lee Farb and his son, Daniel, 7, spent an hour and 35 minutes on a narrow strip of dirt separating the roaring West Loop from its busy northbound frontage road near Memorial Park.
A tire, the "doughnut" spare, on Farb's Volvo blew at 10:05 a.m. "I just recently got a flat and hadn't changed it back yet," he acknowledged.
Farb has an American Automobile Association towing policy, but they told him that Safe Clear wreckers had priority on the freeway, which includes the dirt strip.
That segment of the loop is assigned to Allied Collision Center, but its trucks were handling other calls and could not respond immediately.
Two police cars and a sheriff's Motorists Assistance Program (MAP) truck showed up, along with a wrecker that is not part of the Safe Clear program. Its driver, Lazaro Martinez, said he offered to tow Farb for $125, but was refused.
At 10:40 a.m. the first Safe Clear wrecker arrived. After looking at the low-hanging air dam under Farb's front bumper, however, the driver decided he could not tow the car without damaging it.
That's when a frustrated Farb sought help from [Czar] Saperstein, who was riding the freeways to see how the program was working. He drove up after hearing about the problem on a police scanner.
What an unbelievable arrangement!
As in previous instances, when politicians say it's not about the money, it's almost always about the money. We're not particularly surprised that Mayor White is attempting to squeeze every dime he can out of the Houston citizenry without a formal tax increase, but it is disappointing to see former conservative councilman Michael Berry acting as the mayor's point man so frequently.
RELATED: Houston talkers focus on Mayor White's SAFEclear program
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/04/05 08:09 AM | Print |
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.