Can it be just 18 months ago that Angela Hunt voted with the city’s business elite to give Hunt Oil its property tax break? My, how our little girl has grown.
The news yesterday that the District 14 councilwoman is launching a petition drive for a referendum to get the Trinity River toll road moved out of the proposed park along the river is welcome news. It’s not as welcome as junking the entire boondoggle, but it will do. We were lied to during the first bond vote and we have been lied to ever since. It’s about time someone other than Mitch Rasansky started telling the truth.
The reaction against the referendum, led by Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper, was swift and furious. No less than Ron Kirk and Her Mayorness, who apparently dislike each other as much as is humanly possible, ripped the proposal and agreed to work against it. Miller even wondered if we have a right to decide what to do with the toll road.
Wake-up call to the Mayor: Yes, we do. It’s our money. We’re paying for it. Just like we pay your salary and that of every single elected official who supports the plan. This includes councilman and mayoral candidate Ed Oakley, who is so infatuated with the Trinity project that I think he wants to move in with it.
It will be difficult to get the 50,000 signatures necessary to put the issue on the November ballot (that link, by the way, is where you can go to get a petition, per a question we got this morning). That’s half the number of people who vote in a citywide election, and organizers must get them in just 60 days. In addition, The Morning News will work diligently to undermine the effort, and the city’s elite will spend a lot of money in opposition.
But you know what? None of that matters. What matters is that we have a chance, in Dallas of all places, to show that we do know what democracy is. So let’s do it.
