Continuing on from last night…
– The HISD bond referendum squeaked through, with 51.2% of the vote. There’s a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief today, especially when you consider that it only had 48% of the early vote, and had lost the early in-person vote.
– Four out of five Harris County bonds make the grade, with new-jail Prop 3 failing, much to my satisfaction.
County Judge Ed Emmett said the latest poll indicated that the jail bond would narrowly pass, but those who favored the issue must have turned out in fewer numbers than those opposed to it.
“There is no question that we need more jail cells,” he said.
There’s no question that we don’t need them. Maybe this will send a message; whether it will be received, I couldn’t say.
– The Council results story. Brief summary: It’s Wanda Adams versus Lawrence Allen in D, Michael Sullivan versus Annette Dwyer in E, and Jolanda Jones versus Joe Trevino in At Large #5. For those of you keeping score at home, if this election was a test of Latino political power, I’d say that between HISD winning and Trevino’s showing, the result is an A.
– I still can’t believe Sue Lovell nearly lost to Griff. That would have been the upset of the ages, and for no discernable reason I can fathom. At least Melissa Noriega put what I hope is the final nail in the coffin of Roy Morales’ political career with her 65% win.
– Was this a bad night for the local GOP or what? Never mind that their two candidates for At Large #5 combined for less than 25% of the vote, with nobody from their team in the runoff. That means that no Republicans will hold citywide office, quite a turnaround from 2003 when three At Large Council seats were won by GOPers. What really has to sting is the fairly easy win by the Cy-Fair school bonds, which will mean a property tax increase and which the locals thought they could beat because it’s one of their strongholds. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking this doesn’t bode well for them in 2008. Greg piles on as well.
– In the HISD trustee races, Paula Harris won by a surprisingly (to me) large margin in #4, while former Council members Carol Mims Galloway and Michael Yarbrough head to a runoff in #2. Sadly, Reginald Adams did not make a ripple in that race. It was a tough field for a first-time candidate, but I had some hope for him, and I hope we’ll see him again.
– In HCCS, Yolanda Navarro Flores held off Kevin Hoffman in a tight race, one in which Hoffman had the early lead. Neeta Sane won the open-seat race to replace Jay Aiyer. – I guess there’s no runoff for HCCS, since she had 43% in the three-way campaign.
(UPDATE: I hadn’t realized that HCCS District 7 includes part of Fort Bend County, which Sane won by a sufficiently large margin (PDF) to achieve an overall majority, with 51.46% of the vote. My apologies for the error.)
– Elsewhere in the area, the Pearland kids won a resounding victory for their anti-smoking ordinance, and voters in The Woodlands approved by a “significant” but unspecified margin the three propositions to ratify the no-annexation deal with Houston. Does this mean we have to look forward to another Roy Reynolds column in which he tells everyone who doesn’t agree with him what idiots they are?
– Last but not least, Dan Barrett led the way in the HD97 special election, which one can view optimistically or pessimistically. On the one hand, he was the top votegetter. On the other hand, the combined Republican vote was almost 70% of the total. On the third hand, Barrett ran a fiscally efficient campaign, and should have more resources available in the runoff. As always, these things are determined by turnout. The locals have asked for a December 11 runoff date – stay tuned.
That’s it for now. What do you think about what happened?