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In the bond package, a total of $635,000 is allocated for "intersection and road improvements," which includes a traffic signal and widening Precinct Line into "4 rural lanes" for a thousand feet north and south of where it crosses Trinity Boulevard. The project will actually cost $1.079 million. The additional $444,000 will come from a closed fund once used in new development projects.

That might sound good, were it not for the fact that city staffers have told Conlin that it will take about $7 million to do the job right. The old road, she said, must be widened over its entire length and a massive flood and drainage control project begun to protect the homes in the large housing developments the city is allowing to be built there. "This is an after-the-fact remedy, at best. Without it, it's a recipe for disaster."

When the east sector residents went over their list of needs that they wanted in the bond package, Conlin said, "Precinct Line rose to the top of the list. We said, if you don't fund anything else, spend the money to make Precinct Line and that whole flood plain safe for the people who live there.

"We got a band-aid."

At the Botanic Gardens meeting, Haskin said that the Precinct Line issue was going to be addressed, but not in the bond package. "We are working with the county and TexDot [Texas Department of Transportation] to get money to do that project," she said. "It will be a cooperative effort."

"This is not a perfect package," the mayor said that morning. "It's a beginning."

Moncrief acknowledged that Conlin and her group had legitimate concerns, but he said his job was to look at the entire city. There were many projects, he said, that bit the dust, but "they won't be forgotten." Moncrief said citizens told him that they wanted the streets fixed and the Southwest Freeway completed, and that's what he's aiming for. "It's a good package that will help the whole city."

For Chuck Silcox, who headed the council committee that put the package together after "many meetings with residents," the bond proposal does what the council promised. "We're going to fix more streets than we have ever done before," he said. "And we're not going to be raising taxes to do it."

McCloud calls the project "a work in progress." But he is also proud of the city's commitment to its miles and miles of deteriorating streets. "For the first time," he said, "we used a method that was able to identify all of the bad streets in town and their degree of disrepair. The bad ones went to the top, regardless of district or politics. This was one of the fairest processes I've ever seen."

Clyde Picht disagrees. All streets weren't treated equally, he said. In his district, "Risinger Road is still a dirt road, not much more than a trail," in an area between 1-35 and Crowley Road that is ripe for development. But it's also a low-income area, he said, and "those people are not high on our list of priorities."

Then there are the undesignated funds, he said, such as $8.6 million in "'community facilities' and we don't know where that's going."

Picht would have liked to have seen more of the money spread around for community centers and libraries in districts such as his and Conlin's. "I agree with her completely and will support her efforts [to defeat the package]," he said. "She's paid a high price for her right to speak out in a free society."