San Antonio elections

Two Saturdays ago (the eve of Mothers Day) elections took place in San Antonio, surrounding communities, and indeed thru-out Texas. There were five bond proposals up for voters' approval or denial, and all the S.A. City Council members and the Mayor had to run for re-election or step down due to term limits. So, even tho' it wasn't a general, Presidential, election and early voting numbers weren't spectacular, I certainly more of my fellow registered citizens cast their ballots.

The matter of term limits irritates me. Some time in the recent past (before I moved here in January of A.D. 2002) an ordinance was forced into the city charter, making mayoral and councilmanic terms a mere two years. Making matters worse, members can be re-elected only once. The current City Council and Mayor are very conscientious about governing this huge city, and they've done basically a very, very good job as public servants! And we CANNOT re-elect all of them! This is a terrible shame! What were they thinking about, those who set those foolish term restrictions in place? Corruption and a "good-ol' boy" situation -- that's what they must have been thinking of and seeking to fight. Oh, well and good, but WHAT good can any elected official really do of a lasting nature in a mere two years, or if re-elected one mere time, four years?

Ah, sigh, let me get off my soap box, dear reader. My own councilman (and fraternity brother), Chip Haass, could not run for a third term. The two men running to succeed Chip both struck me as excellent candidates for the District Ten spot on the Council. I chose to cast my vote for the younger, Rey de los Santos. The other candidate, John Clamp, won. But I'm not sad that my choice didn't win, I just wish the percentages for the two had been closer.

As for Mayor Phil Hardberger, he won re-election in a landslide over six opponents. That he got almost 80% of the vote isn't surprising, it's a measure of how good and effective he's been as our Mayor. And all five bond issues passed, too, after the Mayor had devoted his campaigning energy to these rather than his own re-election.

Of the five Council members who could run for re-election, only Elena Guajardo lost. I was somewhat sad about this, because she volunteers in Kairos Prison Ministry and always struck me as just as conscientious as the others. However, Elena had a couple of things working against her. She's openly lesbian (but that didn't seem to keep her from initial election) and early in her service on the Council a man sent her an e-mail complaining about a night club on Fredericksburg Road in her district and then committed suicide after his company, Zachary, learned from her that the e-mail was sent from a company computer terminal. The e-mail mess is a tragic situation, and because I didn't know details or Elena's side of it I didn't hold it against her. But apparently several of her constituents did, since she hadn't ever spoken up about her side of the matter, or apologized for "causing" the man's death.