In 1998, Dallas voters were asked to fund a beautiful vision for the Trinity River that would transform the area into a serene urban park. Illustrations of lakes, sailboats, and families having relaxing picknick graced voter brochures - which narrowly convinced voters to approve the $246 million bond proposal.
Today, greedy tollers seek to hijack the park and the park bond dollars for a high-speed toll road that will cut through Trinity Park. The toll road will eliminate 1/3 of the park space, and ruin the serene environment of what is left. And, the toll road is already projected to be more than $600 million over budget.
Here's the kicker, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recently acknowledged that the toll road will indeed flood due to its location in the floodway. But that doesn't stop the revenue hungry politicos.
Sadly, the toll tax special interests and our so called public servants continue to disregard the voters intention. They hijack tax and bond dollars, intended for something else, and fund otherwise unfeasible toll road projects. If “toll road”, or “toll tax” was not in the ballot language, then tolls should not be forced on taxpayers to foot the bill.
Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt and Dallas citizens are now organizing to fight the special interests. Volunteers are now now being organized to begin collecting 50,000 signatures at the end of April, so they may place a referendum on the ballot, to let the voters decide (again).
Visit them at www.TrinityVote.com.
3/16/2007
TOLLERS HIJACKING DALLAS PARK & PARK BONDS!
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2 comments:
The petition signing will start on April 30th.
Over the next 6 weeks, we are trying to get volunteers to collect signatures.
Thanks, Sal, for picking up this story.
There is a little more to this story than meets the eye. The reason the parkway was moved inside the levy was because the Army Corps of Engineers themselves said it couldn't be built on the levee wall itself because it would weaken it. It will be exceedingly difficult to build the parkway outside the levee, because the northbound lanes would have to go along Industrial Boulevard, which would result in the displacement of a lot of business and drive up the cost dramatically. I haven't seen the plans, but my guess is it would take the lanes precariously close to I-35E in places, too.
Why the planners couldn't figure this out beforehand, though, when this plan went for a vote in the first place 9 years ago, is beyond me. I probably would have voted against the plan if I knew the parkway would cut into the park itself. It just goes to show you that the government will screw anything up given the chance.
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