Behind the Trinity River Toll Road Scenes with Angela Hunt

Recently, when I was handed the assignment of writing a weekly political column for our Web site and blog, I hoped to go as long as possible without writing about the Trinity River vote, since people far smarter than I -- and Steve Blow -- have explored every corner of this debate for months. So, on Wednesday, I trudged down to City Hall to catch the council’s briefing session, hoping to find something, anything different to write about. Unfortunately, the pickings were slim.

The meeting began with Mayor Tom Leppert making various presentations to various do-gooders, recognizing them for random acts of kindness. I didn’t really pay attention to this part, except to notice that Mayor Tom will hug just about anyone who comes to the podium. I think this is the part of the job he enjoys the most. Just about everyone else on the council also seemed to love and cherish the innocuous act of saluting everyday folk for doing something nice. To them, this is what local government is all about, saluting the friendly while grinning widely on local access TV.

Later, during the public-speaker session of the meeting, a man talked about the trouble he had resolving a $19 ambulance bill with the city. When he was finished, several council members echoed the speaker’s frustrations, talking light-heartedly about how the city notified them about unpaid bills they thought they resolved 10, 15 years ago. Oak Cliff area Council member Dave Neumann added that he recently received a call on a tiny debt he didn’t even know he had.

“I got a ticket for a place I couldn’t have been,” Neumann chuckled, half indignantly.

Well, the rest of the council laughed uproariously at Neumann’s comment, as though he had inadvertently let on that he was caught doing something Larry Craig-ish. A grinning Mayor Leppert joked that the council should move on, while others continued to offer G-rated wisecracks. It was like an afternoon lodge meeting, with members playfully ribbing each other about their spouses as they enjoy a couple of beers under a row of moose-head trophies. Everyone seemed like they were having a gay old time.

Except for one council member on the edge of the horseshoe, who sat quietly and seriously, studying a stack of papers. I suppose I might have missed Angela Hunt's smile, since I didn’t have my eye trained on her the whole time, but it appeared as though the East Dallas council member was completely oblivious to the banter of her colleagues. She didn’t look annoyed or above it all, just disinterested and visibly apart from the rest of the politicians on stage. It’s that all-encompassing Trinity River campaign, hovering over City Council and casting a shadow over everything. What else is there to write about?

As you know doubt know by now, every single one of Angela Hunt’s council colleagues oppose her campaign to remove the high-speed toll road planned inside the Trinity corridor’s levee walls. This summer Hunt led a successful petition drive to place the fate of the toll road on the ballot on November 6, garnering the steadfast opposition of just about everyone in Dallas who’s ever run for elected office.

In addition to 13 out of 14 council members and Mayor Leppert, the unlikely pairing of former mayors Laura Miller and Ron Kirk have lined up in favor of the toll road, or the “Vote No!” campaign, arguing that the four- to six-lane highway is a critical part of the $1.2-billion public works project. Loyal Republicans, among them Kay Bailey Hutchison and Pete Sessions, and such steadfast Democrats as Royce West and John Wiley Price have also joined the “Vote No!” campaign -- as in, vote against referendum to sink the toll road -- as has every single business group in town, from the Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce to the North Texas Gay and Lesbian and Transgendered Chamber of Commerce.

Ed Oakley, who ran a brutal campaign for mayor against Leppert just this past spring, is with Leppert on the side of “Vote No!,” along with Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces, Tank Johnson, Jim Brady, Michael Vick and the dog from Frasier.

And, perhaps worst of all for Hunt, the woman directing the “Vote No!” Campaign is Carol Reed, who wins just about every election she directs and is now serving as the Regional Finance Director for the Rudy Giuliani presidential bid. She’s basically the New York Yankees of political consultants: Reed may land the candidates and causes with the most money, but she also rings the most out of them. Now she’s conducting a stunning cross section of political personalities, some of whom have spent years of their lives sparring over tax deals and stadium projects and zoning conflicts, at long last joining hands on the side of one $1.2-billion project.

“How can all these people be wrong,” Reed says.