Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief's Trinity River Vision Referendum Could Backfire

There was an article in this morning's Seattle P-I that caused me to think of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision.

In Seattle there is currently a several billion dollar project underway to fix a section of state highway, a section known as the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

This section of road is elevated along the Seattle waterfront. The viaduct has been damaged by previous earthquakes and could easily collapse in a serious earthquake.

So, the plan is to take the viaduct down and replace it with a tunnel.

It took years for the state of Washington and city of Seattle to come up with a plan with sufficient support to implement it. Since this is a state highway project it has not been put to a vote of the people.

The current mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn, ran for mayor opposing the tunnel. In Fort Worth when the lack of a public vote on the Trinity River Vision is criticized, some have actually opined that the public has elected officials in favor of the TRV and not elected officials opposed to the TRV.

Which is the same as having voted or not voted for the TRV project

If the Fort Worth Way were the Seattle Way I guess this would mean the tunnel project would be stopped, since the people elected a mayor who opposes it.

The article in the Seattle P-I, this morning, was a good example of the stark difference between how things are done in Fort Worth and how they are done in Seattle.

Keep in mind, the Alaskan Viaduct tunnel replacement is a state highway project. Not the sort of thing the public usually votes on. While the Trinity River Vision is a public works project of the sort that usually never goes forward unless the public has approved of it.

I'll copy the article from this morning's P-I below and replace the key Seattle words with Fort Worth words and then ask yourself if you think you'd ever read an article like this in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram...

Trinity River Vision Referendum Could Torpedo Moncrief

A coalition of groups, supported by the mayor and his allies, is trying to collect 16,000 signatures by the end of the month to put a Trinity River Vision referendum before voters in August. Moncrief says if Fort Worth were to approve the TRV referendum, he’ll stop opposing the Trinity River Vision.

“I’m not playing politics on this,” Moncrief told the Star-Telegram on Thursday. “I’m not terribly interested in being a mayor who said, ‘I told you so.’”

But “I told you so” is Moncrief’s best potential future argument about the Trinity River Vision, which he has made the signature issue of his time in office. Moncrief is taking on the entire political establishment with his strident opposition to the uptown project. He’s crosswise with the City Council, the Tarrant County executive, the governor, the unions (in Fort Worth?) and the business community. Trinity River Vision proponents seethe that Moncrief is trying, at the last moment, to gum up a process that has been going on for 10 years.

The mayor says the whole point is the public should have a say on this project – ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Moncrief wants the people to have a voice. How ironic that the people’s voice – feared so much by his adversaries – could end up depriving Moncrief of his own.