Early voting begins in local elections
Pasadena mayor, League City school bond, HISD ‘recapture’ among issues on ballots
Early voting began Monday for local elections next month that will determine who leads increasingly diverse Pasadena, the fate of a major school bond referendum in League City and whether Houston’s largest school district pays tens of millions to the state to comply with a controversial policy and avoid a potentially bigger financial hit.
Across Harris County, 1,153 voters turned out Monday for the elections, figures show. They included many who live within the Houston Independent School District and voted for a second time on “recapture,” a process through which so-called property tax-wealthy school districts pay the state to help fund districts that collect less.
The state ordered HISD this year to pay tens of millions to the Texas Education Agency despite its large population of Englishlanguage learner students and pupils living near the poverty line.
A vote “for” Proposition 1 would give HISD the green light to pay the state $77.5 million in recapture fees this June, a number that could balloon to $376 million by the 2019-2020 school year. A vote “against” Proposition 1 means the district would refuse to pay the recapture money, which Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has warned would lead to the state removing some of the city’s most valuable commercial properties from HISD’s tax rolls and transferring the tax revenue to property-poor districts such as Aldine ISD.
The suburbs also feature some high-profile races, none more so than the May 6 election for the next Pasadena mayor.
The working-class city southeast of Houston is the setting of a high-stakes battle over the voting rights of its burgeoning Hispanic population — rights that a federal judge found earlier this year were violated by a redistricting scheme pushed through a few years ago by longtime Mayor Johnny Isbell.
Isbell cannot seek re-election because of term limits, and seven candidates are vying to succeed him: City Council members Jeff Wagner and Pat Van Houte; John Moon Jr., a San Jacinto College trustee; two former Republican state representatives, Robert Talton and Gilbert Peña; Gloria Gallegos, a Pasadena school district administrator; and David Flores, a construction company manager.
The May election is widely viewed as a test of the political influence of Pasadena’s growing Latino population.
Isbell had backed a redistricting plan that created six district seats and two at-large positions on the City Council, replacing an all-district seat system. A federal judge rejected that arrangement in January, saying it was deliberately aimed at diluting Hispanic voting strength to ward off an impending power shift.
Isbell instructed the city’s attorneys to appeal, and the council voted last month to withhold payment from the law firm handling the appeal.
Incumbents challenged
Meanwhile, voters in Fort Bend and Waller counties will determine a number of school board, mayoral and council positions.
In central Fort Bend, incumbent mayors in the neighboring and fast-changing cities of Rosenberg and Richmond face re-election challenges.
Two candidates, Bill Benton and Edmund Samora, are seeking to unseat Rosenberg Mayor Cynthia McConathy, who stirred debate last year after sending an email to city employees inviting them to participate in prayer at the start of the new year. Richmond Mayor Evalyn Moore has been serving in her post since the 2012 death of her husband, Hilmar Moore, who had been the city’s mayor for 63 years. She now faces Tres Davis, who is running what an online fundraiser calls a “People’s Campaign.”
Meanwhile, in Stafford, longtime Mayor Leonard Scarcella, who has held his seat since 1969, is running unopposed.
Sugar Land has only one contested seat: that held by Harish Jajoo, a city councilman who ran unsuccessfully in 2016 to be the city’s first South Asian mayor. He chose not to seek re-election as a councilman.
Of note among school district trustee races, Lamar Consolidated ISD’s Anna Gonzales, who
was indicted on charges related to bribery in a case that was dismissed last year, faces an opponent in Joe Hubenak, the son of the late state representative and LCISD board member by the same name.
Letter sparks outrage
In Brazoria County, Pearland voters are heading to the polls to vote for mayor, City Council and school trustees. A letter from a real estate agent denouncing “liberal gay rights Democrats” trying to take over the city and school board elections there — which are nonpartisan — drew ire from many progressive groups, as well as longtime Mayor Tom Reid and two other candidates endorsed by the letter.
In League City’s Clear Creek ISD, the district is asking voters to approve a $487 million bond that officials say is needed to build new schools and keep up with growing student populations.
But conservative groups are concerned that the bond’s steep price tag includes too many unnecessary frills, such as $13.7 million to renovate Clear Creek High School’s auditorium.
Consternation over the bond has set up a showdown between two warring political action committees, or PACs, which have spread from national races down to municipal races and local bond referenda.
Only a few races are on the ballot in Montgomery County, none of them countywide. The cities of Cut and Shoot, Shenandoah and Oak Ridge North all have contested city council races, and nine municipal and special utility districts are setting new tax rates, seeking to float bonds and filling the seats for new directors.