Fall Richmond election possible for 2 new seats
After voter approval to nearly double the number of elected officials in Richmond, the city’s commission and mayor are slated to consider next month whether to call a fall election to fill the new seats.
A proposition approved May 7 increases the number of city commission seats, now two, to four.
Richmond’s elected leadership will be more in line with similarly sized cities, which typically have between four and six city council members, said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League.
Previously, Richmond was likely the only city in Texas with its own charter that had only three elected officials, Sandlin said.
The proposition gained support from 82 percent of Richmond voters.
At a May 13 meeting, City Manager Terri Vela and City Attorney Gary Smith laid out preliminary
plans for electing the two additional commissioners.
At the commission’s next monthly meeting June 20, Mayor Evalyn Moore and commissioners Jesse Torres and Barry Beard are scheduled to vote on proposed ordinances to set a Sept. 10 election for the two new seats, assign numbers to each commission position and contract with Fort Bend County to run the election.
In accordance with the city’s charter, the additional commissioners would be elected to three-year at-large terms and require at least half of votes cast in their races to win, Smith said.
Early voting would begin Aug. 24. There will not be any voting on Labor Day.
The last day to file for a place on the ballot would be July 11, Vela said.
According to a proposed ordinance, the positions held by Torres would be No. 1, and Beard’s would be No. 2.
The new positions would be Nos. 3 and 4.
The ordinance would have one new commissioner position up for election in May 2018 and another a year later.
The commissioner elected to one of the new seats would serve for 1½ years and be up for election in May 2018, the same time as Torres.
The person elected to the other new seat would serve for 2½ years and be up for election in May 2019, the same time as Beard.
Beard, 67, a banker at Moody National Bank, was elected May 7 with nearly 60 percent of the vote.
In accordance with Richmond’s charter, no commissioner seat will be up for election the same year as the mayor’s position.
Moore’s term will be up in 2017.
The May 7 ballot item to boost the number of commission seats stemmed from a petition by Richmond resident Tres Davis to increase representation of low-income and minority communities in the city’s government.
Davis has run unsuccessfully for commissioner twice in the past, including against Beard in May. Davis garnered about 20 percent of the votes in a three-candidate race.
Voters narrowly rejected another proposition from Davis’ same petition that would have had commissioners elected from single-member districts. In that proposition, 53 percent of voters opposed the proposition and 47 percent supported it.