Lubbock Left

The City of Lubbock will hold an election on Saturday, May 10 along with other cities, area school districts, and water districts. Today I want to focus on the City of Lubbock election only. We have elections in City Council districts 2 and 4 as well as the Mayor.

My prediction: All three races could go to a June runoff election, and I believe that all three races will go to a runoff.

My reasoning is as follows. In the race for Mayor, David Miller and Tom Martin will be in pretty much a dead heat for the top spot — more or less a rematch of 2006. Roger Settler has enough name recognition to pull upwards of 20% of the vote. Two front-runners pulling roughly the same number of 80% of the voters plus a 20% candidate equals a runoff between Miller and Martin.

In City Council District 2, I anticipate a similar situation with two front-runners and a minor candidate. Incumbent Floyd Price and challenger Armando Gonzales will be the top contenders, and challenger Gilbert Salinas will draw just enough votes to force a runoff.

In City Council District 4, I anticipate a runoff between Paul Beane and Jerry Bell. I believe that there is no clear front-runner in this race — each candidate will basically bring out their own “base” of voters plus whatever uncommitted voters they can. I just think that Beane and Bell will draw the most votes. We will probably have a 40-40-30 or 35-33-32 type of situation.

What are your predictions for the 2008 City of Lubbock election?

Local candidates are getting more web-savvy these days, and most of our Lubbock City Council candidates have a basic website up by this point. Here’s what I’ve been able to find so far:

City Council District 2

Armando Gonzales
www.armandogonzales.com

Floyd Price (incumbent)
City of Lubbock Website

Gilbert Salinas
no website

City Council District 4

Paul Beane
www.paulbeane.com

Jerry Bell
bell4lubbock.com

Tom Keisling
no website

City Council District 6

Jim Gilbreath (incumbent)
City of Lubbock Website

Mayor

Tom Martin
www.tommartinformayor.com

David Miller (incumbent)
City of Lubbock Website

Roger Settler
no website

If I’ve left out a website, please let me know in the comments.

The filing deadline for the May 10, 2008 City Election has passed, and the ballot is being finalized.

In the order they announced, they are:

Tom Keisling

Retired businessman Tom Keisling was the first to announce (last Wednesday at the Science Spectrum).

“I’m just the common sense, conservative guy,” Keisling told supporters at the Science Spectrum. “I’ve got 30 years of experience in businesses that I’m going to bring to the City Council.”

Keisling, 52, owned an automotive equipment business in Lubbock until he sold it last year. His wife, Debbie, recently retired after 20 years with the Lubbock Police Department.

Keisling said he wanted to focus on basic needs - safety, streets, water and sewer.

“We need to maintain what we have and fix what needs fixing,” he said.

(from http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/030608/loc_254329027.shtml)

Paul Beane

Paul is a morning radio host on “The Rebel” 105.7 KRBL. My girlfriend enjoys listening to him on the way to work.

KRBL-FM General Manager Paul R. Beane is a long time Lubbock radio veteran with 43 years in the broadcasting business.

During his career he has owned several stations, and early in his career worked for the legendary Gordon McLendon, the father of modern Top 40 radio.

He delivers news, sports and commentary mornings, from 6 until 9 on the Rebel, 105.7 FM.

Jerry Bell

Jerry is the Current Chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission. He’s an active member of the Lubbock Rotary Club. He is also a former candidate for LISD At-Large.

Word is that Jerry Bell is the choice of current District 4 Council Member Phyllis Jones, who is not seeking reelection.

Lubbock City Council District 4 is the highest-turnout Council District. In 2004, there were five candidates for the position. I’m not sure what having fewer candidates means this time around, but all three seem to be serious candidates. Jerry Bell is a seasoned campaigner already, Paul Beane is an established local media figure in his own right, and Tom Keisling got the drop on everybody with an early announcement and a flood of early signs all over South Lubbock (especially near Tom Martin signs).

No doubt about it — City Council 4 has the makings of an exciting race.

Today I picked up a copy of the 3rd petition to recall Linda DeLeon that Roger Settler turned a few days ago. The petition contains 707 signatures according to Settler. 494 valid signatures are needed to force either a resignation or a recall election.

Things are pretty busy in my life right now, but I am interested in studying this petition to see what I can see. I haven’t entered the petition into a database, but I’ve looked over each page and come up with a few early items of interest:

• Approximately 450 signatures are missing voter registration numbers.
• Approximately 160 signatures failed to check whether they voted for DeLeon in the election in which she was elected.
• Lots of Texas Tech students signed the petition

My very early guess is that this petition won’t make it.

My opinion remains that this whole “recall DeLeon” business is a big waste of time. It’s more of a media circus based around a few local personalities than anything else. I don’t believe that a petition to recall Linda has enough support in her district to succeed.

Related A-J Coverage:
http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/022208/loc_249589813.shtml
http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/022308/loc_250018828.shtml

Tuesday night I attended the public unveiling of the downtown Lubbock revitalization plan, brought to you by the downtown commission of the City Council and by the consulting firm EDAW.

The presentation was well done, but nothing really new to those of us who have been attending the previous downtown public meetings. The highlight was a video featuring several downtown businessmen talking about the project in a more personal way.

I am still putting some serious thought into this whole downtown revitalization project. Parts of it sound very reasonable (like a residential district, arts campus, and designated pedestrian-only areas), and parts of it sound extravagant and wasteful (an arena in the Depot District, for example). I don’t think jumping at the whole plan is gonna fly.

However, It’s clear that some sort of coordinated effort to develop downtown is necessary. The major downtown developers and landowners have been sitting on their hands for decades, waiting to sell at a price higher than the market will bear while remaining unwilling or unable to renovate. That’s why most of downtown Lubbock looks like a ghost town.

The only ones doing exciting things downtown are:

• Lubbock County government: the courthouse skybridge and the jury pool / elections office building come to mind
• A few enterprising small businesses: Red Carpet, Labowskis, La Diosa, Off Broadway Books, etc
• and a handful of small-scale building owners: the lofts & apartments on Main, La Bodega office building, etc.

I think we need a balanced approach. Lubbock voters can be stingy or generous with the City’s purse strings depending on the general mood. Right now, I think small projects are more likely to be approved by voters than big projects.

Details of the proposed downtown revitalization plan are at downtown.ci.lubbock.tx.us.

According to the A-J, it appears that Roger Settler has picked up a set of recall petitions to recall Council Member DeLeon a third time.

http://www.lubbockonline.com/updates/test/update5.shtml (not a permalink, will go away after a few days)

The target is 494 valid signatures by Feb 21st.

Once again, I plan to play the home game and do my own analysis once the petitions are turned in. Detailed analysis will be posted here, and I’ll probably post a summary at the LubbockOnline forums as well.

Disclosure: I do not support the recall petition, but I support the right of the recall organizers to try as many times as they like. I do not live in District 1.

One of my readers emailed me and asked me to make a post highlighting an important happening last week in Lubbock: the City of Lubbock removed two works of art from display at the Buddy Holly Center for the increasingly popular First Friday Art Trail event. The two works by local artist Lahib Jaddo were of a breastfeeding woman, shown below (click the thumbnails to see full-size pictures):

The reason I didn’t blog about it last week is because it has been very well covered in the Lubbock media and internet community. For my readers around the State (or living under a rock in Lubbock), here’s more than enough to get you up to speed:

AP Wire story:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5373554.html

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal article:
http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/121307/loc_121307034.shtml

Shelly Gonzales’ Woman-to-Woman blog:
http://www.lubbockonline.net/blogs/shelly/index.php?entry=entry071217-143948
http://www.lubbockonline.net/blogs/shelly/index.php?entry=entry071214-123959
http://www.lubbockonline.net/blogs/shelly/index.php?entry=entry071213-144103

Chad Hasty Show blog:
http://chadhasty.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/city-of-lubbock-censors-art/

Tex Slim’s blog:
http://lubbockcountyregister.blogspot.com/2007/12/rightwing-gets-art-banned-at-lubbock.html

Discussion thread at LubbockOnline.com forums:
http://forums.lubbockonline.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000745

What’s particularly galling about this censorship is that one of the works depicts breast feeding, which is an activity protected by State law. Furthermore, accounts of the censorship indicate that it was done by an assistant city manager over the phone without even seeing the works in question.

Reassuringly, I am seeing outrage over this censorship from all over the political spectrum in Lubbock. Sometimes people just recognize a bad decision when they see one. The problem, of course, is that it happened in the first place.

Sunday’s A-J included an editorial from Lubbock Mayor David Miller. I’m surprised because it’s not that bad of an editorial.

A few points that I like:

• He recognizes that Lubbock citizens want “time to build consensus on what our taxpayers believe is needed to position our city for the next 100 years.” Good.
• He regognizes the importance of maintaining our core streets like 34th St. Also good.
• He wants to address Lubbock’s ridiculous teen pregnancy and STD rates: “Doing nothing is no longer an option.” Absolutely.

I am pleasantly surprised by the Mayor’s editorial, but, as always, deeds will speak louder than words.

The Lubbock City Budget that passed on Thursday with a split Council includes a one million dollar transfer from Lubbock Power and Light to the City.

Abel Cruz over at El Editor has, I believe, the correct perspective on the million dollar transfer in his editorial. The voters already spoke clearly about the separation of LP&L from the City Council and the manner in which franchise fees will be paid to the city. What happened Tuesday at the LP&L Board meeting and Thursday at the City Council meeting was not what voters had in mind, and it smacks of a time when the City would raid the coffers of LP&L whenever it was politically convenient.

All I can say is that I hope this is a one-time incident. The City Council and the LP&L Board should work out an equitable franchise fee system that makes economic sense and respects the wishes of Lubbock voters.

As you might expect, Organized Labor — the folks that brought us THE WEEKEND — throws a great party, especially on Labor Day!

The Lubbock Central Labor Council had its Labor Day Picnic yesterday, and about 100 people showed up. Council members DeLeon and Klein both made appearances, and Commissioner Gutierrez was there too. Guy Watts, brother of Mikal Watts, was there with some Watts campaign staff as well. (This is the second Watts campaign visit to the Lubbock area that I’m aware of.)

I think organized labor is needed more and more in America, and in new fields. I would love to see an IT workers union, for example. Unions are one of the few remaining checks against the power of big business. Government hasn’t been doing the job lately for some reason…

…Hey! Have some pictures!

And of course, being organized labor, there were plenty of adult beverages to go around. :)