Arlinghaus responds to Campbell column

Charles Arlinghaus, President of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, has posted a response to Commissioner George Campbell's column in this morning's Union Leader:

I have found the commissioner to be a very pleasant and sincere man. I applaud him for wanting us to be less ill-informed. I'm pretty sure though that he didn't challange any of the data I used. Perhaps he can refer us to other public documents. A few points.

(1) he doesn't dispute my assertion that the DOT does a terrific job and we annually take more bridges off the red list than are added to it. The study I refereneced is older but more recent documents include similar and updated data here: http://www.nh.gov/dot/org/projectdevelopment/planning/documents/03-04_Bridge.pdf
This from the commisioner's website announces that we annually remove about 45 bridges while only 32 are added. Good job.

(2) I think I used the term 10 year highway plan although we have officialy changed the name to 10 year Transportation Plan. But I use that document specifically because I had thought the commissioner told me that it was what the department's priority. Find it here: http://www.nh.gov/dot/org/projectdevelopment/planning/documents/09-18_TenYrPlan.pdf page 2 of the introduction (after the bill and all that stuff) says specifically that the plan has 2.3 billion of projects and 2.1 billion of revenue. I don't think that document is either ill-informed or misleading.

(3) The central assertion of my piece is not that $120 million is a bad evaluation. Obviously it's a good one and that's why they selected that piece of road for the transfer. My assertion is that the transfer itself allows money to be transfered from the turnpike fund to the highway fund and get around the prohibition on the use of toll money for anything but the turnpikes. You'll note from his text that he doesn't dispute that. One would hope not. After all it was the governor who said as much in his budget speech to the legislature. The speech is here: http://www.governor.nh.gov/speeches/documents/021209budget.htm

The line is "This plan includes having our turnpike system purchase a part of Interstate 95 that is now part of the Highway system. That sale, funded by a 50-cent increase at the Hampton toll, will provide $15 million a year for the Highway Fund."

I'll check with the commissioner to see what other public documents he wants us to look at and report back later. For now I'm just happy to note that my piece was based on his own documents and that he doesn't dispute any of them. Despite the tone of a sentence here or there, I appreciate the compliment.

Charlie Arlinghaus, Canterbury