13 look for seat on City Council

Appointment will fill post vacated by District 2’s Shaw

The applications are in: 13 East Side residents, including a former District 8 councilman, have raised their hands in hopes of winning an appointment of less than five months as the District 2 City Council member.

The post is being vacated by Councilman William “Cruz” Shaw, who resigned last month from the seat he won in 2017 because he was appointed to an associate judge position at the Bexar County courthouse.

The City Council is slated to interview all candidates Wednesday and make a final selection from up to three finalists on Thursday.

Among those seeking the seat is attorney Art Hall, the former District 8 councilman, who served two terms on the council during an era when that was all that was allowed. He and his family moved to the East Side about three years ago, and he has been an administrator for the Alamo Colleges District in the area of economic and workforce development for the last seven years.

Chris Dawkins, a former candidate for the state House of Representatives, also has applied.

The applicants list includes Dereck Hillyer, a member of the San Antonio Fire Department who’s in the process of retiring. Hillyer has been hoisted up by various East Side groups and neighborhoods as their choice.

With his ties to the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association, however, Hillyer is seen as a long shot for the seat even with an endorsement from the community. It’s unlikely the City Council would vote for a union member in the wake of the November charter-amendment election, which gave the union lopsided collective-bargaining rights and installed limits on future city managers’ salary and tenures.

Others on the list include a failed mayoral candidate, Stephen Lucke. Also, Lester Bryant, Walter Perry Jada Sullivan, Daniel Martinez, Christopher Green, Aubry Lewis, Denise Gutierrez-Homer and William Johnson.

The appointed council member will serve the balance of Shaw’s term, set to expire in June. That seat, along with the nine other council seats and the mayor, will be on the May ballot.

Shaw, who isn’t expected to of-