Mario Castillo must be a great disappointment to his constituents; he lets Whitmire run over him. He needs to observe Lina Hidalgo in action.
District H Councilman Mario Castillo entered Wednesday intending to delay the item further in an attempt to better inform concerned residents and try to strengthen protections in the purchase agreement between the city and TxDOT.
“This is not about stopping the project one bit,” Castillo said. “This is about ensuring that my district, which is heavily impacted by this project, is as impacted as least as possible in a negative way.”
But, through the discussion among council members, Castillo said it was clear there was little chance to change the city’s position on the agreement and wanted to go ahead with the vote.
Part of the discussion was that the agreement would not change and scrapping the sale altogether would lead to the city losing out on the sale and not having any protections in place in a memorandum of understanding because TxDOT could likely claim the land through eminent domain.
“You take it to court with three commissioners that have no stake in it … we will lose the agreement,” Mayor John Whitmire said. “We risk what we get in return.”
What would the city lose? Money, they have to pay people for the property they take. That is Whitmire bending the knee to his MAGA lords and Castro bending behind him.
Whitmire does not want people to have the freedom to speak against his MAGA tendencies.
Whitmire said he would have allowed the additional delay but feared it would just give groups against the project an additional chance to speak out.
“We’re past that discussion,” Whitmire said on any plans to modify elements of the project.
