I tried to give the new mayor a chance. Honest. I really don’t want to write this. But, sadly, he apparently has no interest in meeting anyone half way. It’s his way, and everyone else is not just wrong, but a criminal.
How else to interpret Tom Leppert’s decision to ask the district attorney to investigate potential fraud in some Trinity River toll road referendum petitions? If you can’t beat ’em, smear ’em. This extremely carefully written article in Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper doesn’t say there weren’t enough valid signatures. Leppert and his cronies know they can’t win that fight anymore. But what they can do is discredit TrinityVote in the run-up to the referendum. They figure: Throw around some innuendo, some half-truths, some guilt by association, and who knows what will happen?
This insults all of us who signed the petition. I will be more than happy to go down to city hall and show the mayor my signature and each of the signatures I gathered. Like the guy who owns my dry cleaner. Like the guy who owns my bar. Like the guy who owns my breakfast joint. (And Mr. Mayor, just in case you can’t figure this out, these are all small businessmen and women, the kind you claim you’re so eager to help.)
Finally, many of us reacted with outrage when Leppert’s opponent threw around the same kind of mud during the mayoral run-off. I’m glad to see Leppert is rewarding those of us who defended him by doing the same thing to us.
