And yet, the alliance turned the city around - not into Oz but into one where "civil rights, the environment, education, open government and quality of life issues" were paramount and, crucially, at a time when the state and federal governments were gridlocked, showed that town and city governments could enact legislation at the grassroots level, that shoe leather could defeat all the propaganda that Big Oil spent millions on - $3.1 million, to be moderately exact - to manipulate a municipal election.