Election notes

As I've noted before, this is a lifestyle blog much more than an "issues" blog (I'll leave all that controversial local stuff to The League City Blog), but every once in a while, some local "issue" deserves a comment.

I hope y'all voted in yesterday's primary because in many respects, it's THE election around here.  So many Republicans will run either unopposed or effectively-unopposed in the general election that, really, the choice of leaders gets made now and in the associated coming run-offs.  In our neck of the woods, it's not so much a competition between R and D as it is between R and R. 

The only candidate with whom I personally spoke at any length was County Sheriff candidate John Kinard, who it now looks like will be in a run-off with Henry Trochesset.  I was impressed by Kinard's personable, approachable style - clearly a thoughtful man quite capable of mentally integrating all the complexities of any given situation that a Texas Sheriff might face.  I'm a fairly conservative person myself in many (tho' not all) respects, but if there's one thing that rubs me the wrong way, it's that swaggering Republican machismo that has flourished like a bad disease in the wake of the extremely-polarized politics we've seen develop in America over the past number of years.  Kinard definitely did not strike me as embodying that stereotype.

In that conversation with Kinard, I delivered one message on behalf of Centerpointe subdivision: if League City and Galveston County decide to pursue the development of a large municipal complex including a new jail on the City's large undeveloped West Walker Street tract, they will face organized opposition from many people in this neighborhood and our surrounding sister neighborhoods.

Reproduction of a map from my original blog post.  Jails do not belong smack in the middle of bedroom residential communities.

I first blogged about that issue a year ago in this post which, in turn, was largely predicated on this Galveston County Daily News article that stated, among other things, "Officials from the city and Galveston County have discussed a potential partnership on the project, with the county possibly running jail operations..."

In my original post, I enumerated reasons why I thought this was a bad location for municipal operations that would include expanded jail facilities, and potentially a City-County jail facility at that. 

In response to my comments, Kinard noted, "That issue is dead for lack of funds".  I took this to mean that no corresponding bond election is going to be called in the near future.

That's nice, but what I would have preferred to hear, rather than "That issue is dead for lack of funds" would have been "That issue is dead for lack of common sense."  But for the moment, we'll take what we can get.

If I have an opportunity to speak with Trochesset on the same issue, I'll do it and report on my findings here.  Not that the County Sheriff will get to call the shots on it, but it's good to know where key players stand. 

In the meantime, get out and vote.  There will be run-off elections coming soon.

Speaking of this election, one of my great regrets (wah!!) was not getting good photo coverage of the Calder Road County Annex prior to the close of early voting.  It was an overwhelmingly obscene orgy of signage and crowds of political hecklers, to the point where this GCDN blog entry noted that the police were called to restore basic order.

Photo taken yesterday afternoon as the polls were open.  The Calder Road Annex was an early voting location, but not a regular polling place, which is why it looked so quiet yesterday, as opposed to the madness of the day before.

How the heck did they get that place cleaned up as fast as they did?!  There must have been a thousand bandit signs in front of it!!  And not only did they get all that propaganda stripped off their property, they even got their lawn mowed!!

Anyway, a lost Kodak moment, regrettably.  I need to be more on the ball.
:-)