Saturday I took a trip up to Austin to have lunch with a friend of mine and spend the afternoon in his ‘hood just north of downtown around Lamar and Koenig. The neighborhood is full of World War II vintage bungaloos and is really a nice, quiet neighborhood. So what was the draw? The annual “Thing in the Park” festival (formerly known as the Violet Crown Festival). It was your typical neighborhood festival with food booths, art displays, community information and sack races. Huh? Yes, you read right. There were sack races with people really participating in the races in those good old feed sacks we remember growing up. While it may seem simple that festival really had a sense of neighborhood fun that we seem to be missing these days. Read more…
Today WOAI reporter Mireya Villareal provides a glimpse into the budgetary and spending habits of our city council members in all the districts. The report highlights mostly issues with the travel budget, with some council members exceeding their budget by almost $10,000 in the case of mayoral candidate Sheila McNeil. As you look at these budgets you notice that none of them exceeded their planned budgets for 2008. But when you look deeper you find that several significant line items were grossly exceeded, leading one to believe the item was abused for other purposes, travel being the most significant. So is there an issue with how our council members manage their offices? Read more…
This legislative session Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) authored a bill (SB 315) that would change the redistricting process for congressional districts to be managed by a bi-partisan commission instead of the normal partisan wrangling that occurs in the Texas legislature every decade. However, the Austin-American Statesman’s Postcards blog is reporting that Sen. Wentworth has pulled the bill from consideration after a “split among Republicans continued to block a vote on the issue.” Rather than endure a potential floor fight on this or end up unsuccessfully getting the bill scheduled Wentworth threw in the towel and pulled it from consideration. Read more…
I just took a look at the early voting totals at the Bexar County Elections Office and the numbers just aren’t that exciting. Today’s final total was 8,003 with a cumulative total of 36,773 to this point. If you figure there might be a last minute surge of 10,000 on Tuesday that would bring the total of early voting up to 46,773. Compare that with 2007 when 51,931 voted early in the municipal election or 2005 when 56,284 voted early you can see that 2009 is not proving to be a stellar year. If you figure 48% of the electorate will vote early in the municipal election we’re headed to a turnout of only 97,444 at the end of the day Saturday. That multiplier is the same one being used by the Burnt Orange Report for the Austin municipal elections. It’s a reasonable multiplier since municipal elections end on a Saturday instead of Tuesday. We’ll see how well I am at projecting elections but any way you slice it San Antonio just didn’t turn out for this election as in year’s past.
Updated 5/5/2009 9:03 pm – I pulled in today’s votes which came in at 12,571 (2,571 more than I predicted) so adding the new numbers in the projected final vote should be 102,800.
Updated 5/9/2009 1:35 pm – Brian Chasnoff, Express-News reporter, is blogging about today’s election and reports light turnout in many parts of the city. Based on that report and from prior numbers of early voting I’m sticking with my projection. It’s a shame San Antonians just don’t turn out for municipal elections.
Yesterday in a great analysis piece on the expected outcome of the San Antonio mayoral race the San Antonio Mayor blog speculated about whether Cibrian could finish in second place. That sparked a series of comments that made me start thinking a little about the situation and what the campaigns might do. Prior to that entry a lot of us gave our predictions for what the final Castro result would be. San Antonio Mayor put him at 57% and I put him at 55%. Regarding second place there was a lot of debate about what the strategy should be for Cibrian and DeBerry-Mejia. You see, if Castro wins with anything above 50% this race is over. There is no run-off. So both Cibrian and DeBerry-Mejia have to drag Castro down below 50% to even have a second chance at this race. Read more…
This week marks the home stretch of the San Antonio mayoral race, one that started as early as last July when Julian Castro wrote this opinion piece to the Express-News published on Independence Day. Diane Cibrian entered the race around the middle of November with a statement to the Express-News. Trish DeBerry-Mejia jumped in around the same time with hints at her run as early as the November election. Sheila McNeil probably took the longest of any candidate I’ve seen to jump in when she entered at almost the last hour before the filing deadline. Finally, after 6+ long months of campaigning we are in the last week of early voting capped off with the general election next Saturday, May 9th. So where have we ended up in this race for the center seat? Read more…
In case you needed more information there are a couple of other blogs covering this election. San Antonio Mayor provides some really good information on the mayoral race with some interesting information regarding polls and finances. While it does have a pro-Castro spin you can still pull some good information about the state of the race and some good analysis on that information. It will be interesting to see where this blog goes after the mayoral race. Name change or just keep following the new mayor after elected? In the case of District 8 there is a blog called District 8 Race that is keeping track of the candidates running to replace Councilwoman Diane Cibrian. Lately it has been keeping track of the campaign finances and shows some interesting information regarding Jody Sherrill. It appears Sherrill may be out of money. As was stated in the blog “I’m not sure how viable he really is now.” Does this mean we’ll have a Williams and Berlanga run-off even after the E-N endorsed Sherrill?
It’s good to see these other blogs covering the municipal elections. Through their diligence the voting public has a lot more information about the candidates and the election. Hats off to both for their coverage.
This is the only weekend early voting will occur on during this election. Voter turnout has once again been dismal for a municipal election. After a great voting experience in the Presidential race in 2008 it is really a shame San Antonians are not exercising their right in the local elections for city council. This year we have a great field of candidates for mayor as well as some great races in city council. I strongly encourage everyone to stop by an early voting location and cast your vote for the city council races. As Tip O’Neill said before “All politics are local” and this really is the case in this election. All you need is your drivers license to vote. The list of polling places is listed at the Bexar County Elections Office. Early voting will end on Tuesday of next week. As we say in Texas, vote early and vote often.
In today’s Express-News Tracey Idell Hamilton writes about the latest gaff in Mary Alice Cisneros’ campaign for re-election in District 1. Apparently, according to Hamilton, Cisneros has sent out a mailer which contains projects she is taking credit for yet either never had any dealings with or was a part of routine city business. In one case regarding a Blanco Road bond project that voters approved “Cisneros said her association with the project began when she went to the polls and voted for it.” Isn’t that what we all do as voters? Does she think her showing up at a poll was the critical moment for that bond project? Come on, this is starting to sound juvenile and downright comical on her part. Read more…
After the mayoral race is over it will be time to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the future of San Antonio in the post-Hardberger era. A lot was accomplished by Mayor Hardberger and the next mayor will have even more challenges to deal with such as balancing a budget in a tough economy, addressing the needs of the BRAC expansion, transportation, and a host of other issues. While it’s pretty obvious who I’m supporting for mayor that doesn’t mean I’m going to give him a free ride. I supported him because I feel he has the ability to move San Antonio forward and will solicity help to make that happen. To help facilitate that discussion I plan to host a series of blog entries focused on the various issues with open comments for each. This will give people an open thread to provide their input. Of course this won’t happen until the dust settles and we have our next mayor. I’m encouraging others to participate in the comments. Of course “rules of the road” will apply which are clearly listed in the Guidelines section of the blog. I’m not censoring the comments, just making sure they stay on topic and don’t stray or develop into a bashing. That’s not the intent of this series. Look for the series very shortly after the election is complete.
First day figures came out for early voting yesterday and it appears San Antonio is once again headed for a dismal turnout for the municipal elections. According to the yesterday’s figures early voting on the first day was only 198 votes more than in 2005. At 3,598 the number increased by only 6% from 2005. This is pretty low considering the fact that in 2005 48% of the voters voted early compared with 60% in 2007. In the 2008 Presidential election 79% of the voters voted in early voting. So with trends indicating more voters tend to vote early a 6% increase doesn’t track well to top 2005 numbers. Read more…
This week started early voting for municipal elections across Texas, including San Antonio. The dates are from April 27th to May 5th with hours and locations listed by the Bexar County Election Department. The date for the general election is scheduled for May 9th, a Saturday. With this many options to vote there is really no excuse for San Antonians to not vote in the municipal election. Unfortunately a majority of eligible San Antonio residents will not vote in the election. In 2005 the last year of a hotly contested mayoral race only 17.73% of the electorate voted in the election. In 2007 that figure was even worse at 10.16% with an incumbent Mayor Hardberger running for re-election. While early voting doesn’t seem to improve the turnout it could reduce the cost in staging the election. Read more…
Last week during Fiesta activities I ran into Donze Lopez a couple of times towards the later part of the week. Donze is a key part of the Trish Deberry-Mejia mayoral campaign. As some may know I haven’t been the kindest to him in some of my comments. That behavior stems from some things that happened earlier in the campaign cycle. More on that in a minute. During one of the encounters Donze asked me why I had to be so mean. While I blew the comment off at the time it made me reflect some yesterday and I honestly owe him an apology. I have been mean to him in comments in an unwarranted manner. Just as I’ve said regarding Trish that my opposition to her candidacy is not personal, the same applies to Donze. Read more…
On Wednesday the US Supreme Court will focus its attention on an Austin garage and the role it is playing in one of the most significant voting rights lawsuits in recent history. The case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder (08-322), will test “the constitutionality of Congress’ 25-year extension of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965″ according to SCOTUSblog. At stake is the “preclearance requirement” that forbids nine states and nearly six dozen counties with histories of racial voting discrimination from making changes to their election laws without receiving approval from the DOJ or a panel of three federal judges in Washington. The case is predicted to be the most significant civil rights case before the Court in recent history. Read more…
I am sorry to not provide any new postings recently. I have been involved with Fiesta, so much that I ended up catching the bug that was running around the Commission offices. Bad timing but such is life. I’ll be busy throughout the weekend but may try to get a posting out this weekend in the down time. A couple of topics I want to try to touch on are early voting, the diversity of Fiesta, and a piece I’m building on crowd sourced news. The later one should be an interesting one to complete. Lately there has been so much on the future of news in America. I really believe that newspapers as we know them today will cease to exist and a new model for reporting and distributing will emerge. In the meantime, enjoy Fiesta and do it responsibly. The last weekend is probably the most intense of the week and we should all do our part to insure the safety of others.
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