Another Council hopeful tosses his hat into the ring, though we don’t know exactly which office he intends to seek just yet.
Tom McCasland
Tom McCasland, who took over the Harris County Housing Authority after it suffered in scandal, will run for an at-large city council seat this year, according to a campaign treasurer designation.
McCasland told the Chronicle Thursday that he has not yet decided which of the five at-large seats to seek, but that he plans to make a decision over the next month-and-a-half. Incumbents are term-limited in at-large positions 1 and 4, and those vacancies have drawn most of the candidates over the past six months.
“I’m taking a look at all the options,” he said.
The HCHA director designated a treasurer for a campaign committee and a separate specific-purpose political action committee to support his campaign this week. He said he currently is assembling a campaign team and raising money.
See this Chron story for some background on McCasland, and this story for a brief refresher on the mess he inherited at HCHA. The Houston Politics post also mentions that McCasland worked on Bill White’s 2010 campaign for Governor. Far as I can recall I’ve never met him and don’t know anything about him beyond what I’ve noted here. Sometimes, people who say they’re running for “something” but don’t specify what wind up not running for anything. We’ll see what happens here.
Meanwhile, two other candidates who had previously been reported to be running for something have confirmed their candidacies. The first announcement to hit my inbox this past week came from Amanda Edwards, who is now officially a candidate for At Large #4. You can read her press release here.
The other candidate to confirm what we had expected to be true is Bill Frazer, who sent out a media advisory saying that he will formally announce his candidacy for Controller on February 17. Frazer is one of three sure candidates, with two others still on the periphery. February is prime candidate-announcing time, so expect this sort of thing to continue for the next few weeks at least.