TrinityVote: Giving Voters A Say In Dallas
When Dallas residents voted in 1998 on a referendum to improve the city's riverfront, they thought they knew what they were getting into: a new park system along the Trinity River. The improvements, theoretically, would provide Dallas residents with a bustling park system to rival Chicago or New York City.
But nine years later, there's still no park and residents are getting a lot more than they bargained for-including a government-sponsored campaign to block the voice of the people.
Skyrocketing costs and a plan to place a high-speed toll road in the middle of the proposed park prompted concern among many citizens and city council members. Angela Hunt, a city councilwoman, tried to get the Trinity River Project back on track, but when she was ignored, she and many fellow citizens formed a group named TrinityVote. The group's mission is to place a referendum before the people of Dallas to allow them to decide how the new development will take form.
Brooks Love, a TrinityVote spokesman, explained that Councilwoman Hunt was told to stop criticizing the project by City Hall.
"Mayor Laura Miller has taken a very vocal stand against the TrinityVote effort," he said.
Love said the mayor wishes to decide for herself what is best for the project, rather than trusting her constituents.
Some of TrinityVote's opponents have accused it of trying to shut down the entire road project.
"We're not trying to kill the road," Love said. "We just don't want it in the park. Our goal is to give the voters of Dallas a say in the direction of the project."
Having a say is especially important now that the cost of the toll road has skyrocketed over $1 billion. But it's not just a matter of money.
"According to the city, the tollway will take up to one third of Trinity Park. You don't go picnic next to tollways," Love said. "The city's proposal would pave over the only natural green space that Dallas has. The parks and lakes that people were promised have not even begun due to the tollway. It has been nine years, and absolutely nothing had been done."
TrinityVote is currently in the process of collecting the 50,000 signatures needed to place the proposed referendum on the November ballot. The deadline for collecting signatures is June 29, and the group is confident they will have the requisite number needed.
In a further move to sidestep the will of the people, City Hall has hired "blockers" to slow down the signature drive. The blockers try to dissuade people from signing and place themselves next to or near the workers attempting to collect signatures.
Even with this interference, TrinityVote is succeeding. The people of Dallas are responding well to their campaign and it is estimated that TrinityVote is getting signatures from 70 percent of the people they talk to.
Once the signatures are completed and turned in, TrinityVote will launch a message campaign encouraging the people of Dallas to remove the tollway from the Trinity River Project. Although many people are against the very idea of the tollway, Love explains that it's City Hall's disregard for the people's wishes that is the basic problem.
"Whether you are for or against it, we want it to be about the democracy, to give the people a choice," Love said.
TrinityVote encourages all Dallas citizens to sign the petition by June 29 so the Trinity River Project can move forward with "one unified voice."
