|
Gehrig Saldaña
Stan Aten
Rafael Rodriguez
Gehrig Saldaña
Gehrig Saldaña
David Tuthill
| |
10/24/07 VOTE YES means
NO TOLLROAD IN THE TRINITY FLOODWAY!
Guess you have heard Mayor Leppert's radio adv by
now. In case you haven't, listen to
60-second radio ad.
(Thanks
to Sam Merten's
Vote No! Radio Ad Begins Today
on DallasBlog.com.)
Not very impressive. The Mayor continues to just flat out mistate the
facts.
I am very disappointed in Mayor
Leppert. It's nothing personal because I was not personally vested in Tom
Leppert as a candidate. It's just I thought he had some integrity, and
nothing he has said or done in this campaign has remotely indicated I was right.
Now, he is participating in debates that exclude the VOTE YES team. Jim
Schutze covers it best in
Council Member Makes Sure Tom Leppert Will Win At Least
One Trinity Toll Road Debate
(DallasObserver.com,
UnFairPark 10/16/07). Unfortunately any doubt as to who is behind
the exclusion of the VOTE YES team is removed by this exchange between Sam
Merten and Mayor Leppert from
The Mayor and Me: Round 3
(DallasBlog.com, 10/23/07):
|
Dallas Blog:
I wanted to ask you what you thought about…
Mayor Leppert:
“Remind me who you’re with again.”
DB:
Sam Merten, Dallas Blog. I wanted to ask you what you thought about Vote
Yes! not being invited to this.
Leppert:
“Probably, uh, there’s a lot of things that they’ve done that I haven’t
been invited to.”
DB:
What about Councilman Neumann inviting Vote Yes!, then uninviting them
on the 29th? How do you feel about that? Don’t you think…
Leppert:
“The only thing I’d say is there’ve been a lot of functions I know
they’ve had where I haven’t been invited or Dave hasn’t been invited or
other folks haven’t been invited to.”
DB:
What about the idea of uninviting them? I mean, he extended the
invitation…
Leppert:
“I’m not going to comment on that because I’m not close enough to know
the circumstances or anything else, so I can’t comment on that. I
understand they weren’t invited tonight.” |
I certainly know how Sam must
feel having Mayor Leppert not recognize him after several interviews.
Little people who don't belong to the various Chambers of Commerce or the
Citizens Council are not actually people Mayor Leppert deems worthy of
recognition. It's a typical ODB attitude toward the common masses who pay
the taxes.
We do matter. More importantly, the TRINITY VOTE YES team has the facts.
We may not have the $$ Mayor Leppert's team has to spend, but we have the facts.
If you got the Trinity Vote Yes mailer, it lists 10 reasons to Vote Yes:
1. Trinity Toll
Road is nearly $1 billion over budget.
2. No major road in America has ever been built in a floodway.
Ever.
3. Ranked one of the most wasteful projects of its kind in America.
4. No federal funding will be lost if we remove the toll road from
our park.
5. Dallas will get none of the toll revenue.
6. The Trinity Toll Road will increase traffic and air pollution.
Period.
7. Economic growth will come from the park and a low-speed road.
8. The experts agree: this toll road is bad for Dallas.
9. The people agree: it's not what we voted for.
10. The Trinity Toll Road will ruin a world-class park.
These are all good points, but you know the real reason to VOTE YES. The
Trinity River will flood the Trinity Toll Road, no matter how many lies and
promises Mayor Leppert's team makes.
On Monday, former council members Sandy Greyson and John Loza, former DART Board
member Joyce Foreman, DallasBlog's Sam Merten, Dallas County Treasurer Joe Wells
and I represented VOTE YES in a panel discussion moderated by Lisa Hembry at
Dallas iMedia Network.
The Vote No
people had some interesting claims. Former councilmember Bob Stimson
lamented about the businesses that would be lost if Dallas were to put the toll
road or reliever road on Industrial Blvd.
When was the last time you were on Industrial Blvd.? I mean when you
didn't have jury duty or something else unpleasant? There are some
interesting antique stores, but there are lots of bail bonds offices and liquor
stores. It's
just not anything to lament. Look at all the businesses and homes that
Arlington took by eminent domain to make room for Jerry Jones.
Interestingly, Arlington has another tax item on their ballots on November 6th.
They have to raise their sales tax to pay for hiring more officers to police
Jerry Jones' stadium. Almost every week there's another shooting in
Arlington. The happy talkers convinced Arlington voters that all the city
would need to make things good would be another sports facility. Never
mind that an entire neighborhood would be wiped out and people would lose their
homes where they had raised their children.
Of course, no one will oppose a sales tax dedicated to police. I supported
our police and firefighter referendum for their pay raise. The same people
asking you to VOTE NO on November 6th opposed paying our cops and firefighters
what they deserve.
The real world where you and I live is too mundane for Our Downtown
Betters and apparently for Mayor Leppert. You and I think our
neighborhoods deserve adequate police and fire protection. You and I
respect the natural force of a river. Common sense says you don't build a
Billion dollar road in the middle of a river. The ODB and Mayor Leppert
think they are superior to nature.
You know what else? The Mayor's river toll road is not funded, no matter
what he and his gang claim in their one-way debates.
Here's another exchange between
Sam Merten and Mayor Leppert from
The Mayor and Me: Round 3
(DallasBlog.com, 10/23/07):
|
DB:
Can you explain how the $1.3 billion breaks down? Who’s paying for what
because you say 90 percent…
Leppert:
“Sure. The $1.3 billion has roughly about $300 million worth of
contingencies in it. The city pays the $84 million number that Ron [Natinsky]
played with. Then you’ve got miscellaneous monies that I haven’t added
up that are probably, when it all gets totaled, probably about $30 or
$40 million. The rest of it is financed through the Tollway Authority.
The Tollway Authority goes out, raises bonds, the bonds are what pays
for it, and then the revenues from the tolls are what pay for it.
There’s nothing different to that. That’s what’s being done all over the
world today. It’s a very straightforward, straightforward proposition.”
DB:
So roughly a billion you’re saying from the NTTA?
Leppert:
“Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing, go, if you want to, and I know there’s
a lot of things I’ve asked folks to do that they haven’t done, but if
you want to go look at the roads, the road projects, that TxDOT or that
you see in this region are doing, eight out of 10 of them are over a
billion dollars. That’s what it costs for doing roads.”
DB:
Here’s what I want to get at as far as you’re saying the NTTA is going
to commit a billion, now what I have done is I talked to the NTTA and
they said they’re not on the line for anything. They’re not committing
to anything.
Leppert:
“Well…would you commit if you had this referendum sitting in front of
you?”
DB:
But don’t you think to say…
Leppert:
“I feel comfortable. They have told me and I’ve asked them the question.
Where we’re going, if we can go forward, is this viable? Can you finance
the bonds? Yes. And the answer is yes.”
DB:
They’ve told you…
Leppert:
“Yes.”
DB:
They can finance…
Leppert:
“Yes.”
DB:
A billion dollars worth of bonds? |
The Mayor says there's no money for a sensible
route for a reliever route along Industrial Blvd. or Loop 12. But, when it comes to a road in a river floodway,
there will not be the money needed either. This is a foolish waste of
taxpayer dollars. As County Treasurer Joe Wells points out, the "other
people's money" Mayor Leppert and his VOTE NO gang claim will be available or
lost (depending on the Nov. 6th outcome) is OUR money. State $$ and
Federal $$ are monies that you and I (the little people) have paid into
government. It's OUR Billion dollars that Mayor Leppert wants to waste on
building a road in a floodway.
No matter how much the VOTE NO team
spends, they lose. They might win the election on November 6th, but
they have been exposed. Other cities will go after those same $$ with more
sensible plans to build roads that won't be destroyed by a river doing its
natural thing.
We have 3 weeks to get our people to the polls. What are you doing?
Who are you calling?
sb
| |
|
