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Silvio Dell'Angela has come to The Trib's conference room a few times over the years, so I had a pretty good idea what was to befall our mayor and City Council.

Dell'Angela, 68, is one of those guys who does not stop. Ever. If he gets ahold of an issue - and there are few that escape his notice - the calls, the e-mails, the lobbying, the attempts to convert . . . they never end.

He's the human infomercial. He is in my e-mail inbox more often than my creditors, which is saying something. And I'm not alone.

So, when the Silvio Show got rolling this month, it surprised me not one bit when Dell'Angela and others stood in front of the Modern Streetcar proposal as if it were a Chinese tank and they were students in Tiananmen Square.

Dell'Angela and his group, called SWAT, or Stop Wasting Albuquerque's Taxes, would not be moved. And thanks solely to their hard-headedness, the streetcar has been diverted to a public vote.

Two weeks ago, this did not seem possible. The City Council in an early November meeting voted to extend a public transportation tax that was to end in 2009 and made it plain that the streetcar - at a breathtaking cost of $270 million - would happen.

End of story.

But an enraged Dell'Angela - tapping into the discontent a lot of people feel about the streetcar - basically grass-rooted the City Council into agreeing to put the thing to a public vote. Dell'Angela and the council disagree on when this vote should take place, but the fact that it's going to take place at all is a testament to the power of persistence.

"I don't want the credit," Dell'Angela says, taking great care to name a lot of people who helped him. "That's the wrong image of this movement. . . . I don't mind doing the heavy lifting, but I'm not the leader. I'm was sort of the coordinator."

Whatever. Whether it was as leader, coordinator, gadfly or pain in the rear, Dell'Angela helped do the impossible: He blunted the combined power of Mayor Martin Chavez and the cadre of councilors who want the streetcar. And while it's likely the streetcar will have a big-bucks lobbying effort behind it when it does come to a public vote, do not underestimate this tall, blunt Bronze Star recipient who talks about issues with all the smooth of a meat cleaver.

"This brought out a lot of discontent in a lot of people," he says happily.

It did. And discontent is power.

Truth is, I'm not sure I agree with Dell'Angela's take on the streetcar. It's one of those high-dollar projects that, if handled right, could do great things along the Central Avenue corridor. On the other hand, it could flop like a Ben Affleck movie - and cost way more to make.

I definitely don't agree with his take that the councilors who voted to extend the transportation tax were "arrogant" in the way they've handled the issue. They're hired to vote; they voted.

But I do admire a man who says he's going to stand up for what he believes - and is going to ask you to consider his opinion, join his movement, challenge authority. That's America.

Meet Silvio Dell'Angela, and you're likely to hear about the good in this country, and not just as it relates to this issue. His parents were Italian immigrants who knew just what sacrifice meant. Their son got a college degree, served in Vietnam, and settled in Albuquerque in 1978. You can love him or loathe him - and at City Hall, it's loathe - but you can't say he doesn't care.

Oh, Silvio cares. He cares enough to e-mail me with everything from rough critiques about Tribune editorials and the folks who write them to his thoughts on the inexplicable center-field hill at Isotopes Park. (Yes, Silvio, I agree!)

Sometimes, the man's just plain exhausting - and I know the City Council would agree.

But you know what I say to that?

God bless America.