I spent Saturday going around to polling places trying to talk to the “blockers” hired by Mayor Laura Miller and others to keep people from signing petitions for a referendum on the Trinity River toll road. I consider myself a halfway decent street reporter, so I was very frustrated that I couldn’t get a single one of Laura’s blockers to even give me his or her name. I think I’ve had better luck interviewing people chained together at the ankle on their way from court to the jail.
The blockers were very shy.
In the video below, you will see my unsuccessful attempts to get names from a pair of Laura’s blockers outside the polling place at Northaven United Methodist Church. When I asked the guy with the really bad hair where he was from, he said, “I’m from zero.” Cool, huh?
Later on Frankford Road I spoke with Laura’s friend “Q” – just “Q” – from Detroit. And then outside Dan D. Rogers Elementary School, I chatted up a lady who was hiding behind a tree. Amazing thing about her: She could smoke an entire cigarette in three drags! I wonder where she and Laura first met. --Jim Schutze