I have no time limit, honey

"Mae Smith, the 64-year-old mayor of the teeny Central Texas town of Holland, seized the civic center lectern like a dragon-slayer ascending the throne. In a fiery red pantsuit and a voice that echoed without the help of a malfunctioning microphone, she and her cohorts revealed to a crowd of about 50 souls clad in denim and plaid a little-known weapon against the foe of all in the room: Gov. Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor.

The weapon, Smith said, doesn't involve marching on the Texas Capitol, like more than 1,000 did last year, some on tractors and horses. It doesn't involve clever Web sites that have been launched with cartoon characters and screaming rainbow text. And it doesn't involve confronting TxDOT big shots at public hearings across the state, like thousands did last year.

No, the mighty sword revealed by Smith is something called the Eastern Central Sub-Regional Planning Commission. 'It's a mouthful,' Smith acknowledged quickly of the bureaucratically nebulous name. 'You ought to try saying it with a lisp.' "

From, "Putting up a roadblock of questions," by Lisa Falkenberg in the Houston Chronicle (March 19, 2008), posted on the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog.

Note: According to Falkenberg's commentary, Texas law requires state agencies, "to the greatest extent feasible," to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." As Falkenberg explains, "the law may require TxDOT officials to sit in a room for hours, months, years, maybe even decades, as members of the Eastern Central Sub-Regional Planning Commission dwell on how the corridor might affect their water lines, EMS response times and any unforeseeable impact on their rural way of life. ... ECSRPC commissioners plan to prolong the 'coordination' process until, as Smith puts it, 'they do it right or change their mind. I have no time limit, honey.' "

For more on the massive proposed Trans-Texas Corridor highway/rail project, see: the Texas Dept. of Transportation's Trans-Texas Corridor web site, and -- for opposing viewpoints -- the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog.