Whatever Bielek Wants, Bielek Gets

We may have to re-write the words of the popular Richard Adler and Barry Ross song "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets" from the 1955 musical, "Damn Yankees".  It will go like this: "Whatever Bielek wants, Bielek gets."




In a recent email to Rep. Jody Pickett, Judy Ackerman wrote:

From: judy Ackerman [mailto:jpackerman53@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2013 8:26 AM
To: jill.breitinger@house.state.tx.us; joe.pickett@house.state.tx.us
Cc: Escobar Veronica Asst. Ruben Vogt; vgescobar@gmail.com; Escobar, Judge's asst Celeste A. Varela; CountyJudge@epcounty.com; TxDOT ProjectManager Tony Uribe; TXDOT Bob Bielek; Moody Campaign Daniel Mahoney; Moody, Joseph; Moody, Joe For El Paso; joe.moody@house.state.tx.us; ngonzalez@bowlawfirm.com; Gonzalez, Naomi District76; Rodriguez, Jose Asst Corinne ; Rodriguez, Jose for Senate; Rodriguez Leg Aid Sushma Smith; Rodriguez, Aid Cecilia Rodriguez; Teschner, Richard; mary.gonzalez@house.state.tx.us; naomi.gonzalez@house.state.tx.us; marisa.marquez@house.state.tx.us; Marquez, Marisa State Rep Dist 77
Subject: Move Project Forward, FMSP Entrance

Dear TX State Representative Joe Pickett,

We need your guidance on how to ensure a timely resolution to a safe and effective entrance to the Tom Mays Section of the Franklin Mountains State Park.  At the Apr 2013 meetings of the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Transportation Policy Board (TPB), I understood that an entrance option would be selected (with public input) THIS FY so that funding would be locked in by the first quarter of next FY.  However, communication with Bob Bielek (below) indicates considerable delays. 

Note the original schedule:

Click on image to enlarge.

Thank you for your help.  I look forward to your suggestions on how to move this project forward.

Judy Ackerman

The communication with Bielek was this email:

From: Bob Bielek [mailto:Robert.Bielek@txdot.gov]
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2013 2:15 PM
To: judy Ackerman
Cc: Tony Uribe; Eddie Valtier
Subject: Bielek Re: Entrance to Franklin Mountains State Park

Ms. Ackerman:

As I told you, we have a large number of projects that are letting this month and next which have our staff fully occupied. I have asked the project manager, Tony Uribe, to have the consultants look at Dr. Bonart's suggestion as well as any others that may be similar. I also requested that we ask the folks at TPW about migration/forage trails. I know we have asked for this information before without sucess but will do so again.

I expect that we will get heavily involved in this project again after the letting rush is over, probably in September. Should you have any further questions please feel free to contact me.
Bob Bielek sent from my Blackberry

He had previously called Judy and Judy reported that he told her that [h]is preferred option is #6 [option 4 is supported by the TPWD and local environmentalists] with no change to original plans for the expansion of Transmountain Rd, at grade entrance with eastbound vehicles using a left turn lane and crossing 2 lanes of traffic headed down hill, west.

"He talked at length about a short span bridge, under Transmountain Rd, for hikers, bikers, and animals that would be located between the old entrance and the 3 culverts at the bottom of the arroyo."

Conservation activist, Dr. Richard Teschner, offered this comment to other comments Mr. Bielek made and which Ackerman had written down and shared with Teschner in an email:

Cleverly, TxDOT District Engineer Bob Bielek is seeking to give the impression that we’re still in the early stages of discussing the Tom Mays Entrance. Some quotes from Judy’s notes: 'TxDOT received one suggestion.' False. TxDoT received dozens of suggestions earlier this year, including one long one from me. 

'After the end of year rush, the end of August, [Mr. Bielek] will look at the Park Entrance project and the related environmental process.' Misleading. This project has been being “looked at” since before Mr. Bielek assumed the district engineership at the beginning of September, 2012. 

'He [Mr. Bielek] prefers option 6 [which] is the do nothing, no change, no cost option.” True—and that is the option he’s supported since last fall. '  I asked if he was working with TPWD and got a vague answer about 'somebody should be talking with them.' There’s no “should be” about it. Scott Boruff, Deputy Executive Director for Operations, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, has been talking with equally-high-up officials at TxDOT about the Tom Mays Entrance since (again) before Mr. Bielek took on the job of El Paso-area District Engineer, and has continued to do so thereafter. 

'Mr. Bielek was particularly interested in any work TPWD has done on identifying ‘defined migratory trails’.' If he picked up the phone he could learn. I suspect, however, that “defined migratory trails” is a red herring, one that TxDOT may hope will delay further consideration of Option 4 until the time has passed for it to be funded. (Another way in which “defined migratory trails” can be used as an Option-4 killer: to hope that such trails lie either well within the Park and thus way to the east of the Tom Mays Entrance, or way to the west of the Entrance and thus within an area zoned “commercial” or “residential.”) 

'Mr. Bielek expects no problem with east[-]bound traffic entering the park by turning left across 2 lanes of traffic headed downhill, westbound' etc. This “expectation” conveniently—shockingly—overlooks the rationale that TxDOT repeatedly used three years ago when appearing before City Council in defense of its proposed West Transmountain Loop 375 freeway: that the Safety Of The Public is the primary reason the freeway must be built. Vehicles entering Tom Mays are not public maybe? 

'Mr. Bielek expects to hold a public comment after Aug 2013.' Fine: we’ll be as ready for this public comment as we were for the previous public comment, a public comments whose public comments somehow didn’t get recorded, let alone publicized, by the TxDOT folks who were running the show. 

'In the environmental process he will look for ‘categorical exclusion’ and a finding of no significant environmental impact[;] otherwise there will be extensive delays.' Of course “extensive delays” will enable any option other than Option 6 (“Do nothing; retain the Entrance as it—at grade level”) to get defunded.

I also note how far off mark the “Project Development Schedule” is, and how parts of it put paid to the notion that Schedule is a paramount concern by TxDOT. See especially “Anticipated Environmental Approval—Spring 2013” and “Construction Letting—May 2013.” I also note the “Public Hearing” bullet: “Dec 2012/Jan 2013.” The public hearing/public comment was held back then. To schedule yet another one (“Mr. Bielek expects to hold a public comment after Aug 2013”) is at best disingenuous, at worst cynical and self-serving (as in, “Whoops, this meeting came too late”).

Joe Hardy/El Paso Citizens: "We have to keep training and strict rules and all that."

Lola/Bob Bielek: "You can tell me all them rules!"

Joe/El Paso:  "You're making things very complicated."

Lola/Bielek:  "Then be good boy."

Joe/El Paso:  "I'm trying to."

Lola/Bielek:  "And do like Lola tells you to do."