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Sunday, August 6th, 2017

The Rise and Fall of the “Freest Little City in Texas”

Author:     James McCandless
Source:     Texas Observer
Publication Date:     Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 9:46 am CST
 Link: The Rise and Fall of the “Freest Little City in Texas”
Stephan:   When I tell you that Republican/libertarian policies produce inferior more expensive, less productive, less pleasant to live under social outcomes I am not engaging in political or partisan speech. I deal in facts. Look at what the Trump Administration and a Republican congress are doing at the federal level. Look at what Sam Brownback has done to Kansas at the state level. Now let's look at the local level. The failure scales up or down, and is consistent at every level.

Art Martinez de Vara was the architect of Von Ormy’s incorporation as a liberty city.
Credit: Kin Man-Hui/San Antonio Express-News

The abandoned cop cars sat in Trina Reyes’ yard for eight months. She wanted them gone, but there were no police to come get them. Last September, the police department in Von Ormy — a town of 1,300 people just southwest of San Antonio — lost its accreditation after it failed to meet basic standards. Reyes was mayor at the time, so the three patrol cars, as well as the squad’s police radios and its computers, ended up at her home. It was just another low point in a two-year saga that she now counts as one of the most difficult experiences of her life.

“This is one of the worst things I’ve ever done,” she said of being mayor. “I’ve never dealt with such angry people. I’m washing my hands of everything. … I’m going to travel. I’m going as far away from Von Ormy as I can.”

For the last […]

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