Sam Armijo is a Republican and former candidate for City District 1. He is one of the most fiscally conservative people we know (outside the Libertarian Party).
He deserves the praise of every Republican in El Paso for authoring Propositions 1 and 2, which will appear on the March 3 Republican Primary ballot. These were approved by the local GOP leadership and are as follows:
Proposition No. 1
We the Republican Voters and Taxpayers of El Paso City and County oppose the spending or commitment of tax dollars for the promotion, design, or construction of the proposed Deck Plaza over the downtown portion of Interstate I-10.
Proposition No. 2
We the Republican Voters and Taxpayers of El Paso City and County support being given a vote to choose between creating a double deck Interstate 10 instead of the widening of Interstate 10. The people of El Paso County were never given a choice in this matter. The widening of the Interstate harms our neighborhoods and destroys millions of dollars of taxable area. This puts a larger burden on the rest of the citizens.
Those of you who are Democrats and hate Republicans because, well, they are Republicans, please ask yourself what the local Democratic Party is doing to oppose wasteful capital improvement projects that explode our debt and increase our taxes.
The Republicans are doing what the City and County will never do: Give the voters a choice about whether they want to widen Interstate 10 through downtown and pay for a half-billion-dollar concrete slab over the top of it.
If these propositions pass, they will not have the force of law, but they will definitely put our local elected leaders on notice that we are no longer going to tolerate their corrupt, wasteful projects.
Btw, Sam wrote a lethal op-ed in the El Paso Times on the Debt Plaza last year.