West Lake "Emperor" ousted by Toll Party
Anti-toll campaign claims victory
May 16, 2006
Central Texas Digest
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2006
Sal Costello and his anti-toll guerrilla movement say they have claimed a second electoral victim: West Lake Mayor Dwight Thompson.
Thompson, mayor of the suburb since 1996, lost Saturday to Mark Urdahl 55 percent to 45 percent. But Costello says that a phone poll conducted a few weeks before the election had Urdahl at 40 percent.
After finding out that Urdahl opposed a toll road plan that Thompson voted for as a member of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Costello's Austin Toll Party sent out 4,000 postcards in three mailings. The cards featured Thompson, who could not be reached for comment, in a crown with the title "toll road emperor" and called on voters to "stop Robin Hood tolls!"
The mailer said Loop 360 (Capital of Texas Highway) is still in the toll road plan, which is technically true but politically false. Thompson and a majority of the CAMPO board did not provide funding for Loop 360 and would have to vote again to actually make it a toll road.
Costello and his compatriots also claimed credit for Sarah Eckhardt's defeat of Travis County Commissioner Karen Sonleitner in the March primary. But they got nowhere in opposing well-funded Mayor Will Wynn and Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken, whom they had also tried to dump last year with a recall campaign that tanked. Wynn and McCracken won by 3-to-1 ratios Saturday.
— Ben Wear, 445-3698, bwear@statesman.com
© 2006 Austin American-Statesman: www.statesman.com
May 16, 2006
Central Texas Digest
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2006
Sal Costello and his anti-toll guerrilla movement say they have claimed a second electoral victim: West Lake Mayor Dwight Thompson.
Thompson, mayor of the suburb since 1996, lost Saturday to Mark Urdahl 55 percent to 45 percent. But Costello says that a phone poll conducted a few weeks before the election had Urdahl at 40 percent.
After finding out that Urdahl opposed a toll road plan that Thompson voted for as a member of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Costello's Austin Toll Party sent out 4,000 postcards in three mailings. The cards featured Thompson, who could not be reached for comment, in a crown with the title "toll road emperor" and called on voters to "stop Robin Hood tolls!"
The mailer said Loop 360 (Capital of Texas Highway) is still in the toll road plan, which is technically true but politically false. Thompson and a majority of the CAMPO board did not provide funding for Loop 360 and would have to vote again to actually make it a toll road.
Costello and his compatriots also claimed credit for Sarah Eckhardt's defeat of Travis County Commissioner Karen Sonleitner in the March primary. But they got nowhere in opposing well-funded Mayor Will Wynn and Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken, whom they had also tried to dump last year with a recall campaign that tanked. Wynn and McCracken won by 3-to-1 ratios Saturday.
— Ben Wear, 445-3698, bwear@statesman.com
© 2006 Austin American-Statesman:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Tuesday, May 16, 2006
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