The SWAT Team
Episode Number: 1737Publication Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Sometimes governments get so out of control you want to call in the SWAT team.
That's what happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Where a new taxpayer group, called Stop Wasting Albuquerque Taxes, or SWAT for short, has stopped the big plans of Mayor Martin Chavez to railroad through a $270 million streetcar project.
When citizens suggested the streetcar's impact had not been properly researched, the powers-that-be said they'd commission a two-week study. They planned to rush a public vote, too.
Then citizens led by Silvio Dell'Angela, head of SWAT, started asking even more questions. About where the money would come from? And who would benefit? And why the council had sneaked through an extension of the transportation tax through 2020 and diverted half the funds to the streetcar project?
Next, a damning audit showed the waste and mismanagement of past transportation funds, and the Mayor signaled the retreat.
Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing said, "The proposed $270 million streetcar, designed to serve one small area of the city at the expense of the rest of the city and state, was a perfect example of government planning gone awry. It was only stopped by the outrage of concerned citizens."
You know it's a little scary to think about what politicians would get away with if it weren't for groups like SWAT.
Concerned citizens like you, not afraid to "get involved," are our country's real frontline defense.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
