San Antonio activists are being bullied by their public officials – with their own tax dollars – for engaging in bipartisan activism to prevent the forced imposition of an overwhelmingly unpopular streetcar program.
Local taxpayers recently filed a lawsuit against Via for their attempt to cobble together a bond package backed by Advanced Transportation District funds for the purpose of constructing the Westside Multimodal Center.
As previously noted, Via promised voters none of the ATD funds collected would be used for light-rail. Name-game ad-hominems aside, they now want to use ATD backed bonds to construct their multimodal center, which has local taxpayers visibly upset.
The plans for the multimodal center clearly illustrate that it is central to the proposed streetcar system, a complete reversal of their 2004 election promises.
Via has tried everything they can to sneak this past voters, including obfuscating the source of the funds, and now outright bullying of engaged citizens.
Just today, the taxpayers filing the suit – George Alejos with LULAC, and George Rodriguez with the San Antonio Tea Party – have been threatened with sanctions by Via’s laywers – in an attempt to bully them out of opposing this massive boondoggle.
In other words, Via is threatening to use taxpayer money to bully taxpayers for trying to oppose their widely unpopular scheme – bipartisan opposition, at that.
Sadly, this isn’t the first instance of a government entity (or elected officials) attempting to suppress the free speech of those who oppose their agenda. If this shows us anything, it’s that now is the time to shout louder than ever for accountability.
