Here’s the Chron overview of the special election in City Council District E to replace CM Mike Sullivan.
David Martin
The establishment guy is David Martin, a member of the Humble Independent School District board. Until he resigned in August, he was one of Mayor Annise Parker’s appointees to the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. He has the endorsement of incumbent Mike Sullivan, who is resigning the seat to run for county tax assessor-collector with a year left in his council term. Martin is the only candidate who has organizational endorsements, including those of the Houston Police Officers’ Union and the Houston Apartment Association, as well as from former District E Councilman Rob Todd and state Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Humble. He is a managing director at Marsh & McLennan Companies.
Elizabeth Perex
He is cut from the same cloth as Sullivan, who is among the chief critics of the mayor and representative of the district where Parker fared poorly in her re-election last year. Martin describes himself as “a Republican, fiscal conservative, a Christian. I believe in good schools, I’m pro-business.”
Lonnie Allsbrooks
Yet, unlike his opponents, he is not throwing rocks at City Hall.
“I want to work with the mayor to get things done for District E,” Martin says. “I think she respects me and I respect her.”
The upstarts: Lonnie Allsbrooks and Elizabeth Perez.
Here are the candidates’ websites: Martin, Perez, Allsbrooks. As of this morning, Perez and Martin had 30-day campaign finance reports filed; she showed a paltry $375 raised and $1500 spent, with a $4500 outstanding loan to herself, while he raised $15,150, spent $3,742, and had $11,407 on hand. Martin is a first time candidate for Council, Perez finished third in the open At Large #2 race in 2011, Allsbrooks finished last among eight candidates for At Large #1 in 2009. Martin is also the lone Kingwood candidate, and the last two Council members from District E have been from Kingwood. I did not have the bandwidth to try to schedule interviews with these candidates, so I can’t give you an impression of them beyond that. (I did interview Allsbrooks in 2009.) If you live in District E, what is your impression of these candidates?
Perez is a charlatan. She claims to be interested in the community, but is owner of a derelict rental property in Meadowcreek Village. If she wants to cut city taxes, she needs to start by keeping up this property. Multiple times in the last year, the city of Houston has had to pay to have her property mowed due to neighbor complaints.