The anti-taxpayer establishment has won re-election yet again in the Trinity River Water District Board election in Tarrant County.
Incumbents Marty Leonard and Jim Lane soundly defeated challengers Gary Moates, former TRWD board member Mary Kelleher, and Charles “C.B.” Team in a five-way dog fight for two seats with the two top vote-getters winning.
Kelleher, a fighter for transparency and the taxpayers when she served on the board, won only 17 percent of the vote in her bid to return.
Moates, who ran on a campaign of trying to detach the real estate development from the flood control and letting private businesses develop the land, was dead last with 13 percent of the vote.
Team, a real estate businessman, campaigned on a similar theme while also wanting to put “millions of dollars back on the tax rolls at maximum value … for the taxpayers.” He received 16 percent.
Leonard and Lane received 30 percent and 23 percent of the vote, respectively, to hold on to power.
During Leonard’s and Lane’s tenure, the TRWD has been shrouded in controversy surrounding the taxpayer boondoggle known as Panther Island, a real estate development program marketed as flood control that has cost local taxpayers over $300 million and federal taxpayers $60 million.
Taxpayers will have to be on the watch as the future of their tax dollars now hangs in the balance.
