Last night Mayor Laura Miller and I exchanged several e-mails about the Trinity Parkway referendum issue, which I am writing about in my column for tomorrow's paper version of Unfair Park. At the end of that exchange, Miller conceded that opponents of the referendum have hired “blockers” to go to polling places to stop people from signing petitions for a referendum on the Trinity River toll road, and she told me some names of people paying the blockers.
My e-mail to her: “So who's paying the blockers?”
Hers to me: “Donors for the campaign are Citizens Council, Harlan Crow, and I don't know who else has given. I suggested we use people involved in the project, like members and Trinity Trust/Commons, to man the polls and ask people not to sign the petition for all the reasons I gave above. Apparently, with all the great number of polling places, we need more manpower. They are not supposed to ‘block’ people. Just give them the reasons we don't want a vote -- primarily because what we have now works and there is no parkway solution available other than the BVP [Balanced Vision Plan].”
See Buzz tomorrow for a discussion of the political ethos of “blockers” and the tradition of initiative and referendum in America. A little homework preparation in advance: Merriam-Webster’s New World Dictionary defines a “sap” as a bludgeon or short club. --Jim Schutze
