The Alamo City is no stranger to pivotal fights in Texas. One such fight unfolding is between the city transit authority’s liberal leadership and taxpayers. Citizens opposed to a planned light-rail system have gathered the necessary petition signatures to place a city charter amendment on the November ballot that would rein-in the transit agency behind the project. Enter the San Antonio streetcar saga. We’ve reported on this story before, how transit leaders have employed questionable tactics to push a project to which a majority of citizens are opposed.
Organizers have far exceeded the minimum number of signatures to give voters a say on the measure. The proposed amendment would require any light-rail projects on city-owned rights-of-way to be approved by the voters first. Despite the bi-partisan will of their citizens and an unfavorable ruling by the state attorney general, city, county, and transit agency officials are on an all-out offensive to try and bully, manipulate, and otherwise force the project into motion.
No matter what the obstacles, it is clear that San Antonio leaders will remain fanatically obsessed with chaining taxpayers to the wasteful city transit project. Now, citizens have no choice but to make leaders to listen. Transit agency officials have reacted in a predictable fashion to this bad news, accusing the opposition of “misinforming” the public on the project. Through all their leader’s artifice, failed initiatives and doubletalk, it is clear that residents of the Alamo City will have none of it and are prepared for a showdown.
