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On Friday, Mayor Laura Miller booted council member Angela Hunt off the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau board. The reason: Hunt’s opposition to the Trinity River toll road and her attempt to get a referendum on the ballot come November. Wrote the mayor in a missive to Phillip Jones, president and CEO of the DCVB, on Friday, “Since the Trinity River Project is a cornerstone of the work currently being done at DCVB, and since the DCVB has shown unwavering support for the project, it seems completely at odds with the organization to have a board member who not only opposes the Project, but will be collecting voter signatures starting this month to try to and dismantle the Project in an upcoming election.”
Miller also mentions that she and other many others have “tried to dissuade [Hunt] from her petition effort.” And that they’ve all failed.
At least Angela Hunt will now have more time to collect toll road referendum signatures.
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Turns out, far as Hunt’s concerned, Laura Miller is a big ol’ coward (the two spent Wednesday and Friday together, and the mayor never mentioned to Hunt she was getting the boot, which Hunt finds “troubling”), a big ol’ non-truth-teller (Hunt only wants voters to reconsider the toll road), and the mayor just proved herself quite capable of answering the question: What Would Ron Kirk Do? Because, see, what Laura Miller did to Angela Hunt Friday is what Ron Kirk did to Laura Miller in August 1999, when Kirk decided to put Maxine Thornton-Reese and not then-council member Laura Miller on the regional transportation committee after their dispute over the news sports arena. “The mayor should be placing the enormous needs of the city before his personal and petty vendetta,” Miller said at the time, adding that Kirk “decided to be punitive and petty and personal because he got his feathers ruffled because I disagreed with him.”
But, hey, why read our version? Here are Miller and Hunt’s letters in their entirety. Just like those between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, only completely different. Enjoy. –Robert Wilonsky
