A couple weeks ago, I spoke with Mayor Leppert after the Vote No! press conference. I gave careful consideration as to how I would report on our conversation and eventually decided it would be best to transcribe it, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions rather than include it in a column.

I spoke with Mayor Leppert again last night, this time after a Trinity toll road debate at the Fairmont Hotel sponsored by the Dallas Democratic Forum. My thoughts on our conversation along with our previous one will be in an upcoming column. However, I again felt compelled to give you a better understanding of how Leppert is handing questions about the Trinity toll road among other things.

For some quick context, one of the statements made by the Vote Yes! campaign is the recent addition to the Dallas North Tollway cost $264 million and is nearly the exact same length and width of the road that will be placed in the levees. They question why the Trinity toll road will cost $1.3 billion, or five times as much since the opposition claims the cost difference is not associated with the road being in a floodway. Leppert was unable to answer this question in last night’s debate.

I believe this comparison is a smart tactic by TrinityVote and I’ve always believed saying the high cost is not related to the engineering problems that result from building this road in a floodway (something never done before) is untrue.

Another thing Leppert and the opposition have said is the delays in this project are also not associated with putting this road in a floodway (again, something that has never been done before).

Finally, I’ve heard from sources that Leppert is still a member of the Dallas Country Club, which he supposedly resigned from in December 2006 during his mayoral campaign. This explains my last question.

Here is our conversation virtually in its entirety.

Dallas Blog: Mayor, I just wanted to…

Mayor Leppert: “Who are you with?”

DB: Dallas Blog. I just wanted to get a full explanation because I’m not grasping the whole inflation argument on the costs. In relation to the Frisco extension because that one was just completed and that was $264 million, same length…

Leppert: “Here’s what you do. Here’s what you do. Go on and look at TxDOT and their 10 priorities and you go tell me how many are over a billion dollars. Just go do that for me.” [begins to walk away]

DB: No, no, no. But, I want you to answer…

Leppert: [raises his voice] “You’re building this four years in advance. Construction costs last year, which I’ll be happy to show you, went up between eight to 12 percent. OK?”

DB: But…

Leppert: “OK. Let me do it this way. Simple math. If it goes up 10 percent for seven years, that doubles it. That doubles it. If you have two dollars today and you invest that at 10 percent at seven years you’ve got four dollars. It’s that simple. That’s the mathematics. It’s not me, it’s just the mathematics.”

DB: I understand the concept of inflation, but you contest that there is no additional cost associated with putting the road in the floodway, is that correct?

Leppert: “Oh, I can’t say there is no additional cost, but I can tell you the vast, vast majority of what was being said was because of inflation. Because you use dollars of the way back and now you’ve brought them today and in fact, they’re not even today. Those numbers have inflation factors in them plus 30 percent contingencies that go into the future.”

DB: What about the delay? What do you think went into the delay because again you say…

Leppert: “What delay?”

DB: The nine-year delay.

Leppert: “The past delay?”

DB: Yeah, I mean from beginning to now.

Leppert: “What did I say would be one of the issues of delay if we go to Industrial?”

DB: What did you say would be one of the delays?

Leppert: “Yeah, did I mention litigation?”

DB: Yeah, and eminent domain.

Leppert: “Five years worth of litigation is part of the reason that we’ve been delayed. Part of it is five years worth of litigation. We got caught up in courts.”

DB: What is the other part of that?

Leppert: “The other part I’m not sure is a delay. It’s just going through and doing the all the engineering, all the work that’s been done. There’s been an immense amount of work. If we stop now, we throw all that out and we start again because every assumption that’s been made, all the hydraulic work and everything else, that all assumes you’ve got a roadway in there. You wanna take that out? Let’s just be honest with each other and that’s it. If this is what people want, then that’s it. But if it’s Vote Yes!, the park as people envisioned it isn’t going to get developed. We’ll end up with the soccer fields. We’ll end up with Audubon. We can do Equestrian. A lot of the development you simply won’t do because you won’t have any improvement over the Trinity. Plus, you’ll lose a lot of land because all of the sudden, now you have to change the access points on the bridges. And you have to take, because of the way you have to redesign it, you’ll have to take out a lot of land -- land today that will be terrific land, especially along the south shores. That goes away. You won’t get any of the funding that comes for the dredging of the lakes. You won’t get the additional roads that go down there, so that goes out. This goes. Then you try to figure the chances of additional bond programs. I can tell you right now I was with probably one of the best fundraisers in this community and I said, ‘You know, help me understand. If this goes forward, what do you think the chances of raising any money are?’ Zero. And for this to go, we need to raise $100 million and we’ve shown a great propensity to be able to do it. They’ve raised $27 million, but it has come to a firing halt.” [appears agitated and anxious to stop at this point]

DB: Are you still a member of the Dallas Country Club?

Leppert: “I am not.”

DB: Thank you.

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