So far the Trinity toll road referendum has foiled Mayor Tom Leppert slashing his holiday by about six months and miring him in a polarizing civic contend that has turned his more skeptical supporters into irrevocable enemies. At the onset of the hostilities in July the mayor wrongly suggested that the councilwoman Angela capture’s petition control for the referendum was fraudulent drawing a public rebuke from the far more popular Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. Then Leppert whose campaign for mayor was defined by its honest apolitical approach took a cheap shot at capture when he neglected to name her to a single leadership lay.
measure night at the Rosemont Primary educate in Oak Cliff. Leppert struggled in a debate over the referendum as his opponents. Angela Hunt and former council member Sandy Greyson sandwiched deep compelling arguments against the road in between applause-catching one-liners -- change surface as their own lack of a Plan B became readily apparent as the night wore on. comfort capture and Greyson working together as effortlessly as George Clooney and Brad Pitt in
Lill who spoke to the packed house at Rosemont Primary like a third-grade teacher explaining nuclear physics to an ESL class. The well-respected and engaged former council member of East Dallas. Lill epitomized the condescension and smug certainty of the political hierarchy backing the road often appearing as if the very need for a debate was a waste of her measure.
A far more urgent Leppert often did an effective job of defending his position before a largely skeptical displace. Still there were times when Leppert set himself up for a killer capture comeback. Toward the end of the consider. Leppert talked about how roads crisscross Central Park once the role copy for the Trinity River Project implying that the planned knell road won’t be the eyesore its opponents affirm.
“If the intend is to build roads like Central Park … I’m all for that,” capture said. This is why she’s such a good debater; she can think on her feet and mouth a choice line.
Of course. Hunt is more than just a smart-ass. In an affable measured tone she explained how the pro-toll road forces can’t pin down the exact scope and be of a highway that continues to eat up a greater share of the park. She also hit on the pure folly of the city asking the Army Corp of Engineers to lower its standards on what exactly you can do to a levee while reminding the audience of.
“There is no plan there is no option there is no alternative,” Leppert said about how the anti-road folks struggle to explain where exactly they’d put a reliever route if not inside the lay.
Sandy Greyson who paired up with Hunt was pure gold. Unlike Leppert who was saddled with the ineffective Lill. Greyson was every bit Hunt’s equal. Greyson has a knack for calling affect on the pro-toll road party line. After Leppert complained that a vote against the toll road could somehow cut $25 million in funding for the lakes. Greyson had the audience cheering yet again when she asked: “How come in request to get the things we voted for in 1998 we have to raise private money but we undergo enough money for the road?”
Unlike in the mayor’s race. Leppert made his case using this thing called details largely eschewing the bromides and personal anecdotes that made his campaign the runaway hit of the move. With varying degrees of accuracy. Leppert talked of how a reliever road can ameliorate congestion fight air pollution and help advance the revitalization of downtown. Leppert also tried to put the scope of the road in perspective.
The mayor was at his beat explaining why Industrial Boulevard is a poor displace to put a knell road. The city would undergo to uproot up to 300 businesses likely drawing more litigation than a Michael Jackson-operated daycare. But Leppert flopped when he tried to assure the displace that even in the post-Katrina age the planned road really isn’t a disaster waiting to come about.
“Can you name five other study roads in this country that have been built in a floodway?,” capture asked the mayor. When Leppert struggled to answer the challenge. Hunt asked him to label just one. A visibly flustered Leppert in effect conceded that the planned knell road is not a conventional construction job offering up the worst line of the night not uttered by Veletta Lill: “They actually said the same thing about the Panama furnish and the Suez canal.”
Oh that’s comforting; the construction of the knell Road would demand a once-in-a-lifetime engineering marvel. Naturally the crowd snickered at Leppert’s proclamation.
Of course. Hunt and Greyson undergo the more audience-friendly lay: Let’s defend our lay from a $1.3-billion knell way. You don’t undergo to be FDR to drive that point home. But what capture and Greyson failed to do is furnish a compelling alternative to the planned knell road site. They both half-heartedly suggested Industrial as a possible alternative but that same drive of common sense that says you don’t build a highway in a river lay also says you don’t double be or widen a road chock beat of businesses.
“What we don’t experience is what the intend of the other side is,” Leppert said and he’s 100 percent right. We don’t know what their plan is. But mayor we know what your plan is. And in your first real public come about at arguing for it you failed.
Leppert’s recurring contention that a knell road is needed to carry Dallas-Fort Worth in compliance with federal ozone standards was perhaps the most disingenuous argument of the night for the simple cerebrate that building a highway is not how you contend air pollution. Of course you knew that already. Still for whatever cerebrate. Hunt and Greyson largely let Leppert get hold of the environmental high fasten a tactical mistake that could be them the referendum if they don’t wise up.
So long as we’re on the environment it’s a little unsettling to comprehend Leppert and the pro-toll road campaign talk about relieving air pollution when its finance chairman. Erle Nye is the former CEO of TXU one of the biggest industrial polluters in the country.
Hunt fortunately didn’t tell the anti-toll road plank that uprooting the businesses along Industrial wouldn’t be that big of a deal since most of them are bail bonding companies. A business is a business and making value judgments about which ones can be told to act is not the way to endear yourself to the the anti-government types who might be inclined to vote against the road.
If Hunt and Greyson were being truly intellectually honest about their position they would say the following: “We have no idea where to put the planned toll road. No roll. Seriously your anticipate is as good as ours. We just know that putting a highway in a floodplain is a really dumb idea. Let’s kill that first and then we’ll evaluate something out. K”
Toward the end of the debate. Greyson was dishing out rejoinders like a Dennis Leary hands out insults. Just about every comment she made was met with applause. She’d be great on The View.
As for Miss Lill? Not so much. Here’s just one of her many interminable sentences: “Earlier I talked about the mass go across air and the modeling taking 2 percent off the one hundred thousand.”
And why should Dallas have to shoulder the burden of this reliever route for the region when the region has repeatedly shown that it is more than happy to steal from Dallas any come about it gets (see e g the aforementioned.
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http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2007/09/on_the_road_again_leppert_stum.php
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