The TCA (Toll Roads) And Local Politics Are Colliding

This is a broad story with a lot of moving parts, I'm going to try and keep this view of it succinct, I've covered more details in a previous article here, please read it to get up to speed if needed.

Assemblyman Bill Brough is very interested in limiting the TCA to their original mandate and supports a forensic audit of the organization. The TCA on the other hand is very keen to grow beyond their mandate throughout the state and beyond, including adding toll lanes to existing freeways and putting in toll roads where they are not needed or wanted. They are now many decades and many billions of dollars past what their original goal was supposed to be. This conflict has given rise to the TCA, through its network of politically connected supporters, to work very hard to make sure that only politicians who support them will end up in office in Orange County, this has made Assemblyman Brough a target and recently both he and his wife have put out public statements about it.

First, read Michelle Broughs "Letter to the Editor" in the Dana Point Times, she has a small error in there that she says "11 years ago" and I believe she meant to say "in 2011", so don't get hung up on that. Next, I'm going to paste the contents of an email that Assemblyman Brough sent to the OCGOP Central Committee on August 16th just before their August 19th meeting. Please read the whole thing for perspective and to truly realize how much the TCA is taking advantage of you financially, I have some additional information at the end:

Dear Fellow Central Committee Members, I hope that you are having a great summer. I am happy to discuss any of this email with you and show you any supporting documentation.
Best Regards, --BILL William P. Brough
Assemblyman, 73rd District
California State Legislature

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT I have worked in Republican politics for the last quarter-century on campaigns, as a staff person and the last decade as an elected official. One thing I learned over the years is when you kick the beehive the bees come out. This is exactly what is happening to me since I introduced Assembly Bill 1273, a measure to rein in the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agency (the toll road agency).

The original concept from 1987 for the toll roads has changed dramatically since its inception. The current plan has extended debt and increased tolls at least 12 times since 1996 - debt that will cost $11 billion by 2053. The toll roads have greater debt than six individual states!

Either from incompetence or governmental mission-creep, the toll roads have become a train wreck in need of massive reform. The toll roads have been collecting tolls since 1993 and will continue to do so until at least 2053 (barring another expansion of their self-proclaimed mission). Originally, the system was created due to a lack of transportation funding. Now, my constituents pay four times for roads and this does not include tolls for driving on the toll roads.

In addition to tolls, the toll roads charge a developer fee ranging from $4,126 to $5,797 for new single-family homes built. We have been paying these fees for years, via increased home prices and higher costs of goods, to an agency that was intended to ultimately turn over the roads to the public. When will it be enough?

GRAVY TRAIN FOR POLITICIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS
The toll roads have become a local gravy train for elected officials charged with overseeing it and numerous consultants who call these politicians their friends. Last year, Mission Viejo Councilman Ed Sachs was paid $7,753.20 as a toll road board member.

Recently the LA Times exposed Supervisor Lisa Bartlett’s campaign consultant’s firm, Venture Strategic, and their lucrative $5.8 million toll road public relations contract. Bartlett was closely involved in the decision process of awarding a multi-million-dollar contract to her campaign consultant. Bartlett’s fellow board members stripped her of her authority as chair to approve contracts for $25,000 and less. One of these contracts escalated to $517,000. See a pattern?

POLITICS AS USUAL

My scrutiny of the toll roads has threatened the livelihoods of politicians and their acolytes. I won’t stop until we right the out-of-control nature of the toll roads. It’s the right thing to do for the taxpayers of Orange County and California.

On the heels of launching her state senate campaign last month, Lisa Bartlett dredged up an eight-year-old false allegation against me. An allegation, that the Dana Point city attorney rejected after an investigation at the time.

Regarding her 2011 allegation against me – Lisa Bartlett did not tell the truth. Bartlett repeatedly told the media she filed a complaint with the city. In fact, no complaint by Bartlett was ever filed with Dana Point, and her story has been ever-evolving.

Of the other unfounded and false allegations made against me, Heather Baez was found without merit, Maria Elena Banks told two people - an elected official and another individual – that “she was asked to do it by someone in return for a job,” the final person, Jennifer Rodriguez, I met once in 2015.

During the 2018 primary, Bartlett’s former campaign manager Jeff Corless (he also consulted for Ed Sachs in his 2018 campaign against me) tried to push the same story with a local blogger, Aaron Park. My campaign manager discovered this and the blogger decided to not write about the story then, but is now launching daily, personal attacks against me – all that are false.

Despite my ability to produce actual supporting documentation, these individuals are able to attempt to ruin my reputation and intentionally hurt my two young children and my wife without producing one shred of evidence.

The timing of this politically motivated, coordinated attack began and continues after my introduction of legislation that would clean up the toll roads. Jennifer Beall, my disgruntled former campaign manager and assembly staff person, resigned from my office over the toll road legislation because her husband is a board member of the toll road agency. Sadly, Beall is leading the recent attacks on me.

Beall threatened that if I proposed my toll road legislation “bad things would happen to me” and “I will have primary opponents” both of which have come to fruition. A prominent Orange County elected official witnessed the threat.

There seems to be fewer and fewer limited government elected officials these days to fight for the taxpayer. Rather, many in the establishment class seek to enrich themselves at the expense of their constituents. I will never be one to go along to get along. I was elected to fight for good government and for the taxpayers of my district – no matter the consequences. I will continue to lead this and fight for my constituents over the interests of the establishment class no matter the lengths that they go and the lies that they tell in an attempt to deter and discredit me.

Understand that Jennifer Beall is the wife of our never-ending city councilman Tony Beall and is an elected member of the Republican Central Committee. Tony Beall sits on the TCA board and has been adamantly against any independent audit and has clearly said he only helped 2 of the new members of the San Clemente city council get elected because they had said they'd be more agreeable to the TCA, you can see that video from the TCA board meeting here. Isn't it interesting how the Bealls are involved in San Clemente and their city council race and their support is based on who is pro or anti TCA? The Bealls are involved in the TCA pretty heavily and make money from it and tying it back to RSM issues, pushing for this Dove Canyon Plaza rezone which will result in $500,000 in developer fees for the TCA, which is chump change compared to getting the 241 extension south into San Clemente, which will be nearly $100 million in developer fees for the TCA.

Now remember that Mission Viejo councilman Ed Sachs was mentioned, he is running for Broughs seat, and so a week after Broughs email to the central committee went out, Sachs penned this utterly bizarre and self serving article for the Orange County Breeze. What Sachs does in this piece is standard deflection and gas lighting, he doesn't address any of the specific allegations from Brough and simply go on the attack without including a single shred of supporting data, not even a single link to a supporting bit of information (I always make sure to link the heck out of my articles with supporting information). Sachs must not have thought too highly of his piece because he didn't even bother to share it to his Facebook campaign page. Even more bizarrely, while working on this article and referring back to Sachs piece, I saw a couple of negative comments show up only to disappear over the next hour, so the page is being scrubbed to make sure that no negative or challenging comments appear.

I can't find any record of Ed Sachs calling for Kavanaugh to step away from his Supreme Court nomination on the allegations made against him, so this tells me that Sachs is simply a self absorbed opportunist and doesn't have core principals. This whole affair tells me the Bealls are only interested in the perpetuation of their own personal power and growth of their wealth, they don't care about the people they purport to represent, if they did, then they'd actually listen instead of trying to manipulate the political landscape to match their own desires. There are a lot more details to come, stay tuned.