The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission’s annual public hearing kicked off Wednesday with an unusually festive scene outside the agency’s Austin offices: a tailgate party where hundreds of people from around the state cooked out, shared cold drinks and talked about the reason they’d come — the potential construction of border barriers through state park property in far West Texas.
Cardboard cut-outs of desert animals with slogans like “Don’t fence us in” and “No wall, no wire, no way” lined the walkway leading to TPWD headquarters, mirroring chants from the crowd –– all hoping that the agency that oversees the state park system would finally respond to months of public outcry about the possibility of large-scale federal border wall construction on public land.
