Tag Archives: Mayor

The hole the Sports Authority is in

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Sure is a great time for stuff like this to happen, isn’t it? Harris County taxpayers may have to inject up to $7 million a year into the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority for the next two years due to a … Continue reading →

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Tuesday mail call

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

After several politics-free days, my mailbox was overflowing with campaign literature today. Two pieces from the Houston Turnout Project, one that generically advocated early voting and one that advocated for Annise Parker, using language that I daresay we’ll all find … Continue reading →

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Eight day out finances

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Chron story about the eight days out finance reports, which is all about the Mayor’s race. City Councilman Peter Brown, who polls show leading the pack, poured an additional $801,000 of his family fortune into the race, pushing … Continue reading →

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Brown leads in KHOU poll

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Another good poll result for Peter Brown. According to [an 11 News / KUHF Houston Public Radio] poll, 24 percent of likely voters in the Houston mayoral race plan to vote for Brown. This is up sharply from the five … Continue reading →

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Roy on the air

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Behold the power of Roy: Just as a reminder, Barack Obama got 61% of the vote in Houston last year. I don’t know how effective a boogeyman he’ll make, though I suppose that depends on where the ad airs. Roy’s … Continue reading →

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Parker polls and claims a lead

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Annise Parker campaign has released an internal poll (PDF) that shows her in the lead of the Mayoral race. A recent Lake Research Partners’ survey of likely voters in Houston’s upcoming mayoral contest shows that City Controller Annise Parker … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: Republicans (very quietly) for Roy

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Saturday edition of the Chron the past couple of weeks has had a feature in the City & State section called Campaign Watch, which is a blog-like collection of short items relating to the 2009 elections. For some odd … Continue reading →

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Early voting, five days in

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We’ve completed the first business week of early voting, and the spreadsheet has been updated to show the totals so far. Thursday was the slowest day so far, with 2889 in-person ballots, which I attribute to the torrential rain in … Continue reading →

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Locke v. Brown

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

So here’s the new Gene Locke ad: Everybody noticed the pause, right? Hey, if the electorate isn’t paying close attention to the details, you may as well make the most of it where you can. And here’s the Chron story … Continue reading →

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Be like Bill

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

On the matter of where the Mayoral candidates stand on environmental issues, I don’t mind that they’re basically indistinguishable. As long as they follow the good example that has been set for them, it’s fine by me. To improve air … Continue reading →

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Brown ad #5

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

You’ll probably see this without my help, but here’s Peter Brown’s fifth, and presumably final (modulo the runoff) TV ad: I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing the Brown ads all over the place. I haven’t seen a Parker … Continue reading →

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Those up-for-grabs conservative voters

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron gets one more story from the crosstabs of their poll. A Houston Chronicle poll conducted last week shows that [Peter] Brown, who has saturated the city with TV, radio and mail advertising, has a commanding lead among self-identified … Continue reading →

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Ashby rises again

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

It lives! The developers of the Ashby high-rise announced today they will appear before Houston’s General Appeals Board at 5 p.m. Thursday to ask that the original uses designed into 23-story high-rise be allowed. “Removing these amenities completely contradicts city … Continue reading →

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Early voting, Day One

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

As I seem to have a love of spreadsheets, here’s a Google spreadsheet that will keep track of the daily Early Voting returns by location. Counting mail ballots and absentee in-person voting, 6162 people voted yesterday. For comparison purposes, here’s … Continue reading →

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We’re for more land use regulations, whatever that means

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

As long as Zogby was polling the Mayor’s race, they may as well ask about some other stuff, too. Like whether or not you like the Ashby highrise. Out of 601 people surveyed between Oct. 12 and 15, 71 percent … Continue reading →

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Bikes in the Mayor’s race

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Local bicycle activist Peter Wang contacted the four Mayoral campaigns to ask what their position is on getting METRO to install bike hangers in the light rail vehicles and allow bicycles in the vehicles during rush hours. Here’s how they … Continue reading →

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More details on the Chron poll

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here we have crosstabs and more details about that Chron poll from the weekend. The first thing that leaps out at me is that they also polled the Controller’s race: “If the election for city controller was held today and … Continue reading →

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Casey on the Chron poll

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Rick Casey has some good observations about that Chron poll that was released Saturday. The main point I want to focus on is here: [Peter Brown] leads with 24 percent of the vote, but given that he had the airwaves … Continue reading →

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Parker profile

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

And here’s the Chron profile of Annise Parker, which I didn’t get to link to last week and which rounds out their four-part series. I’ve linked all of them on the 2009 Elections page in case you want to go … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: It’s a twofer

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Well, this is unusual. Houstonians are fortunate to face a difficult choice for mayor this year between two exceptional candidates, public law attorney Gene Locke and City Controller Annise Parker. It’s likely one or both will be in a runoff … Continue reading →

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We’ve got mail

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Campos observed the other day that he’d hardly received any campaign mailers so far this year. That’s largely been true for me as well – before this week, I’d gotten the Peter Brown pieces, an Anna Eastman mailer, and maybe … Continue reading →

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Chron poll: Brown leads

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Campos teased the news earlier today, and now the story is up: Peter Brown leads in a new Zogby poll of the Mayor’s race. According to the poll, Brown leads the field with 23.8 percent of the vote, followed by … Continue reading →

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Correction!

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Now that everyone has had a chance to look over everyone else’s campaign finance reports, a number of candidates have made some corrections to their reports. Former City Attorney Gene Locke and City Controller Annise Parker received money from donors … Continue reading →

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What the candidates say about mobility

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Citizens Transportation Coalition has done a candidate questionnaire every election in which the hopefuls are asked a bunch of questions about various transportation-related topics. This year is no exception, and as always there are a lot of detailed questions … Continue reading →

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Roy gets his moment in the sun

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Chron overview of Roy Morales, which like the Locke and Brown stories was done with a bit of gauze over the lens. Well, except for the bit where they quoted those mean ol’ bloggers. Political observers and bloggers … Continue reading →

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Interview with City Controller Annise Parker

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We wrap up our 2009 interview season with a conversation with Annise Parker. Parker is serving her third term as Houston City Controller, having served three terms as an At Large Council Member before that. She is a native Houstonian … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: A late roundup

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Some recent endorsements in City elections over the past few days. Going back to last week, here are the endorsements from the Houston Black American Democrats (HBAD): Mayor – Gene Locke Controller – Ronald Green At Large #1 – Karen … Continue reading →

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Interview with Council Member Peter Brown

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Our next Mayoral candidate interview is with City Council Member Peter Brown, who is currently serving his second term as the Member from At Large #1. Brown is a Houston native and UH grad who served six years in the … Continue reading →

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The Mayorals on public safety

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Reading this story about the Mayoral candidates and their public safety plans, I have the same questions that I’ve had from the beginning. How do they plan to pay for the things they want to do? Hiring more officers, obviously, … Continue reading →

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Brown’s fourth ad

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Team Peter maintains the air assault: Okay, I’m a math major, so maybe I’m the wrong person to bring this up, but shouldn’t that be “I look at city government differently than other politicians”? I had to watch a few … Continue reading →

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Interview with Gene Locke

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

And we come to the end of the campaign interview season for 2009 with a conversation with each of the three leading contenders for Mayor. First up is Gene Locke, a native of East Texas and longtime resident of Houston … Continue reading →

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Change in course on 287 (g)

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron notes a change in course on how the city wants to deal with undocumented immigrants. Mayor Bill White is distancing himself from a controversial federal program that trains local law enforcement to identify suspected illegal immigrants, saying this … Continue reading →

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So what do you think will happen?

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Dr. Murray offers some thoughts on turnout in the November election. Public interest may finally be picking up a bit, but I still think turnout will lag well behind 2003, when 304,907 ballots were cast in the city. Two reasons … Continue reading →

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KTRK Mayoral forum

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Anyone catch the KTRK Mayoral forum? The four major candidates vying to be Houston’s next mayor took some of the first steps toward engaging each other directly in a live televised debate on KTRK Wednesday evening. With just four weeks … Continue reading →

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