Austin at Large: New Year, Same Old Stories: I-35 deal nearly done, Nate Paul’s new enemy, Chip Roy ready for his close-up – News
There’s a lot going on in this “typical section” of the TxDOT preferred alternative to I-35 right across from the Chronicle offices. Honoring the community that wants to go “no higher,” TxDOT says, it abandoned the idea of erecting new “managed lanes” (the blue lane in the center); instead, as you can see, this cross section is really 20 lanes and swallows us all. But look! There would also be an overpass on 41st Street that could have a deck hatch going all the way to the Airport, which might make our neighbors down the road in Cherrywood a little less angry. (Courtesy of TxDOT)
Hello foreigner! A minute has passed. I left the country just before the Council run-off and a lot has happened since then, so let’s catch up.
I-35: What is an SPUI?
It’s a “single-point urban interchange,” one of the “innovative intersections” the Texas Department of Transportation is loving right now, and in a few years you’ll be using a SPUI to get on, off, up, or down. I-35 at Airport Boulevard and Riverside Drive. That’s according to the draft environmental impact statement TxDOT just released for its I-35 reconstruction, which I’ll dive deeper into later this month. In its infinite wisdom, the US Department of Transportation (under Obama!) delegated to TxDOT the power to approve its own EIS and give itself the green light to move forward with what it calls the Capital Express project Central. Thus, it is highly unlikely that the mandatory public hearing scheduled for February 9th (my wedding anniversary! Sorry, honey) will change TxDOT’s mind to move forward with its preferred I-35 alternative (“Mod -3” or “Alt 3 Mod” if you’re keeping track).
Still, listening should generate some great theatrics. You can dive deep into the 517-page document and its 23 appendices at my35capex.com/draft-EIS. In short: TxDOT rejects the Reconnect Austin and Rethink I-35 visions of a freeway-free future, and disagrees with the vision co-created by the Urban Land-Austin Institute and the Downtown Austin Alliance, but attacks all of these community visions for features their best designs and incorporates them into Mod-3. Lots of hats and stitching and boulevard treatments of access roads and other things we’re still a little worried about who pays for. At this point, unless you have a specific request for revisions at a specific location along Mod-3 (citing Chito Vela), your activist energies are: I-35 best directed at holding TxDOT accountable and made sure there is no value-engineering all these improvements out of existence once construction begins. This could be a job for Mayotary Pete, assuming he doesn’t bail out of USDOT after fixing whatever is wrong with Southwest Airlines.
Nate Paul: Enemies with $$$
Everyone knows that something in the milk of the world-class property empire is not pure, but Nate Paul has been lucky to date not to have a spoiled party with abundant resources, who is chosen to shock real shit, unless you count the FBI, which has gone dark. on the Paul case since 2019. He has picked fights with such people, including the FBI and Bryan Hardeman – the local investor and Mercedes dealer who Paul thinks is out to steal his properties – but they have chosen not to engage. The nonprofit Mitte Foundation, which partnered with Paul on a deal gone bad, tried to break away from him quietly while still getting his money back, and Paul instead made those proceedings a circus that at one point featured Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to appear in person. to intervene. (That’s when Paxton’s own executive team decided something in his milk wasn’t clean, either.)
Now comes professional basketball player Avery Bradley, a former Texan and most recently a Los Angeles Laker, who has earned an inflation-adjusted $77.6 million in his career. He may not be good with money, which might explain why he invested with Nate Paul as well, but there’s likely still enough to keep Paul busy on the court for a while. The lawsuit he filed Dec. 22, as reported by the indisputable Paul Thompson of the Austin Business Journal, alleges breach of contract related to Bradley’s $6.75 million investment in World Class in three installments from 2017 to 2019, just before the FBI raid. -‘s. According to the lawsuit, he has been trying to cash out, as outlined in his original agreement, since January 2021 and has received occasional payments “without any corporate formalities” as Paul feels like it. That includes $100,000 that Paul admitted in his Mitte testimony was paid to “a professional basketball player” in violation of a court order to freeze his funds until the Mitte case was resolved. Popcorn time!
Is Chip Roy still a speaker?
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Our Suburbs, who still represents a swathe of Austinites in Congress, has been a leading spokesman and whip in the public whipping of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who while write this his miserable fifth round is over. So if not the Boob of Bakersfield, then who? If we assume there has to be someone with credibility in the right-wing Liberty party group, but who isn’t a moron like most of the nuts in said group, it might be Chip Roy! Talk about top failure. It certainly won’t be Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston Suburbs, who said of the 20 GOP caucuses, “They should be men and adults and say what they want, instead of playing these little games.” he said. Washington Post. “Stop saying nonsense like ‘Washington is broken.'” Except, you know, it is, right?
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