LIV Meets @ 8 pm tonight: Volunteer Opportunities: Public Comments to Bastrop Commissioners on renaming road after Charlie Kirk

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Howdy LIV!

We are having our weekly Monday night online meeting at 8 pm tonight, February 23.

RSVP to join us tonight HERE.

This is an open meeting. Come prepared to talk about how you can help LIV get better organized. We have a yeoman's task -- to reach out to the 8+ million Texans who call themselves independent! We will share plenty of ideas with you tonight.

Also, you can sign up for next week's meeting is on March 2, Texas Independence Day. We will focus on how to petition for independent candidates to get on the ballot. Petitioing starts on March 4, the day after the primary election. (Go to our Events Tab to see both meetings.)

The following comments have been sent to the Bastrop County Commissioners Court about a resolution they will consider on the renaming of a road for Charlie Kirk. Please read carefully as we seek peace, understanding and depoliticized governance from all elected officials.

Public Comments – Bastrop County Commissioner’s Court, 2/23/26

Linda Curtis for the League of Independent Voters • LIVTX.org • 512.657.2089

Bastrop County Commissioner’s Court, 2/23/26

Greetings Judge Klaus and Commissioners. I am Linda Curtis, one of the founders of the nonpartisan membership association, the League of Independent Voters (LIV).

A LIV member was upset when she heard about the Resolution proposed by Commissioner Glass to ask our State Representative and Senator to move a bill to rename a portion of FM 969 after Charlie Kirk. 

I am, like Charlie Kirk, a “free speech absolutist,” not a free speech fair weather friend like we see on both sides of the political aisle too frequently and coming from high places. I am also completely committed to peace, for de-escalation of war (in all its forms) and, I believe Mr. Kirk was moving in this direction which may have precipitated his assassination. So, I am very sympathetic to his following. No one deserves the tragedy that befell Mr. Kirk and his family.

I also think that the proponent of the resolution, Justin Bezner, the new chair of the Bastrop GOP is a very good and very decent man who practices what he preaches, along with his wife, Jen.I do, however, oppose this resolution for the following reason. This court is all Republican, as are our State Rep and State Senator. The Texas GOP has been moving to lockdown one-party rule and it’s already boomeranging. That’s how we wound up with a House Speaker whose main purpose has been to obliterate local control by cities, counties and schools. 

Open government is under severe attack just as the freedom of speech that Charlie Kirk was dedicated to. Did I agree with him on his positions? No, but I respected his right to say them, to try to organize around them but not to bring the weight of government behind him to tip the scales for his views or anyone else’s I might agree with. How then should the Court address these sticky wicket issues? Try to get all sides to work out a compromise. If they cannot, then don’t do it — you have far bigger fish to fry than a road name change.

To my friends of all persuasions here in Bastrop County. How do you think we wound up with a subsidized data center with a Peaker power plant to fuel it, that threatens non-attainment in Travis County without a word peeped to the TCEQ from this Court or the all-Democratic Travis County Commissioners Court? Will it raise our rates? Who knows, because our local governments are either afraid to tell us or are denied real information like the rest of us who pay the bills. My message to the Court is simply this. The moment you take office is when your party hat comes off. 

It is also time for those on the court to consider stepping down from positions that conflict with a seat on this court. I’m happy to discuss this anytime. 

Thank you for your service.