The Katy City Council on Monday night canceled May’s municipal elections after no one sought to challenge the mayor and two other incumbents.
The deadline to file to run was at the end of February. The only candidates to file were Mayor Fabol Hughes and council members Bill Lawton and Jimmy Mendez, from Wards A and B respectively.
That left them unopposed and automatically re-elected for additional two-year-terms, said City Secretary Missy Bunch.
After taking the oath of office in May, Lawton will begin a third term and Hughes and Mendez will start their second.
Bunch said it was fairly common in the small town west of Houston for incumbents not to face opposition.
“Filing was open for a little over a month,” she said. “We had a couple people pick up books but nobody else signed up.”
City leaders interpreted the lack of opponents as a vote of confidence from the public.
“It just kind of makes you feel good,” Lawton said. “I just don’t believe that people weren’t paying attention. I think they knew an election was coming up and the feeling has been that things are going pretty good.”
That would be the optimistic interpretation, yes. I don’t live in Katy and I know nothing of the politics there, so I don’t have any reason other than my natural level of cynicism to dispute that. Personally, I think elections are better when they’re contested. Katy’s municipal election results don’t appear to be on the Harris County Clerk elections page, so I can’t tell you how these three did in 2013. Anyone from Katy want to comment on this?
Please see the same story as being true in Sugar Land for all four at large seats and in Missouri City for two out of the four. Please see http://www.fortbendvotes.com for the election history of both these cities.