Mayoral Race: San Antonio Living “Debate”

On Monday, San Antonio Living on News 4 WOAI hosted a Mayoral “Debate” with the four leading candidates for San Antonio Mayor. If you don’t know who they are, they include Shelia McNeil, Julian Castro, Diane Cibrian, and Trish DeBerry-Mejia. The show started with an opening roundtable discussion with all four candidates. [CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO]. Diane was trotting out the same old argument against Trish about her firm being involved in the process of building toll roads (a claim that I haven’t fully been able to investigate). But there are no active contracts to build toll roads. Diane didn’t want to talk about the fact that there was a recall campaign against her by the Texas Toll Party for her roll in toll roads with her work on the MPO. The video is an interesting 11 minutes long. Diane seems to pick up ideas along the way … parroting what other candidates say and co-opting the ideas and making them her own.

Then the four candidates sat down for individual one-on-ones with the host, Shelly Miles. In the order they took place:

Shelia McNeil – CLICK HERE

Julian Castro – CLICK HERE

Diane Cibrian – CLICK HERE

Trish DeBerry-Mejia – CLICK HERE

I can’t figure out how to download these videos off of the dayport system that WOAI uses … if anyone knows how to let me know I would like to post them on to YouTube so that they are visible in case WOAI takes them off their system.

I have made it clear that I have endorsed Trish DeBerry-Mejia. She has practical business experience that can help this city realize its true priorities. But the videos are their so in the words of Fox News … I present. You Decide.

’09 Mayoral Candidate Town Hall with SACurrent

Go to the San Antonio Current for a live streamed online Town Hall Meeting with the candidates for San Antonio Mayor at 6:30 PM (CT) on April 14, 2009 (Tuesday)

Get more information from the San Antonio Current. SA Conservative will have full post-Town Hall coverage after the event.

REMEMBER: Early Voting for the San Antonio Municipal Elections (May 9th) will begin April 27th.

Sheila McNeil has her Fence Painted on Your Dime

Graffiti is a problem in the City of San Antonio (CoSA). Residents are fined if gang members (“taggers”) tag their property (I suppose they would also be fined if they tagged their own property … I guess). Residents must also paint their own fences or property at their own expense … that is unless your in City Council. Councilwoman (and candidate for Mayor) Sheila McNeil had CoSA workers paint her fence on her property on the east side. Here is the story from KENS 5 Eyewittness News:

Neighbors in the Sunrise Subdivision on the Eastside say tagging sprouts like weeds in the spring. So, who cleans it up? Homeowners are supposed to make the repairs. But some are complaining city councilwoman Sheila McNeil got city crews to clean up hers.

 McNeil claimed a harship, as city crews re-painted her fence Monday. But KENS-5 could find no record of chronic tagging problems at her home.

Her neighbors, on the other hand, have been cited by code compliance for their graffit problems. They say it’s not fair.

 “Her fence gets tagged, and the city comes out and paints her fence. Now, what makes her so much better that she gets her fence painted and we have to do it ourselves, out of our own pocket and the city pays for hers?” said homeowner Robert Hewitt.

 There are changes proposed for the city ordinance that deals with graffiti. However, those changes haven’t made it before the council yet. 

I guess Councilwoman McNeil’s hardship was that she has a campaign to run. In these kind of economic times when people might not have the money to pay for paint … Sheila McNeil made everyone in this City pay to paint her fence. Now with nearly two million people in this city the cost is in theory minimal to everyone, but the graffiti abatement program is not your personal Honey-Do program. Its irresponsible. She also probably had it done because she is running for Mayor. How would it look if a Mayoral candidate has graffiti on her property? Perish the thought. Here is a link to the video: http://www.kens5.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=345174&shu=1

I will continue to follow this story … trust me I will.

 

UTSA San Antonio Mayoral Debate

Last night, the four leading candidates for San Antonio Mayor were at the University of Texas-San Antonio for a 90-minute Mayoral Debate. These four candidates were Trish DeBerry Mejia, Julian Castro, Sheila McNeil, and Diane Cibrian. I think the debate shows that this race is really between Trish and Julian, Sheila and Diane left something to be desired (specifically the latter). There were plenty of interesting moments that I will share with you.

• Julian stuck to his basic message he had back in 2005 that you shouldn’t have to go away for college “to make your dreams happen.” Even though he could have gone to St. Mary’s for college and law school but didn’t. 
• I was right when I previously said that Diane Cibrian wants to you to think she is the next Phil Hardberger when she was asked if there was one thing she disagreed with the Mayor on. Sheila mentioned the new Parade Ordinance and I can’t remember what Julian said, but Diane looked at each of them and said basically ‘Well, that wasn’t the mayor who did that.” She then proceeded to say that there was nothing she disagreed with Mayor Hardberger on and that he has just been fantastic. While Mayor Hardberger has been a great Mayor, I think everyone in town can come up with at least one thing they didn’t like that he has led on. (For me its Main Plaza … I just don’t get why it was done).
• It really was a bad debate night for Diane Cibrian. She needs to practice what she might say and do a lot more prep before she does this again. There were two very prominent missteps. First was the question of raising property taxes in Bexar County. Diane first said “I will not support a vote to lower property taxes.” She would later correct herself … but its a quote that will live on for her. The other was on the subject of the rumored sale of Market Square. While Diane may have meant to say she didn’t support the sale … she said, “I do not support Market Square and I never have.”
• Trish was the first to discuss desalination investment as way to diversify the San Antonio area’s water supply away from relying solely on the Edwards Aquafer.
• Trish also focused on small businesses and helping them thrive in San Antonio, as well as regional partnership with areas around SA like Austin, the Valley, etc.
• The entire night Diane tried to one up the other candidates (I know that kind of the point) by calling them out and staring at them while she basically verbally face slapped them. It was unprofessional and a very noticable lack of class.
• The other thing about Diane was that she tried to make it seem like she was working with every committee on every topic. A friend of mine said that if there was a question about Mars and aliens, she would claim to be working on a city committee with NASA to ensure it happened. My question is … what results has Diane Cibrian gotten if shes been doing all that. Not enough to be mayor if you ask me.
• Julian constantly seemed to be speaking down to me … and picked up on a lot of what other candidates said before it got to him. If he went first it was a lot of generalities. He also moved away from promising that he wouldn’t raise taxes, saying that no Mayor could responsibly say that … it just sounded like we were stupid for thinking that a Mayor would try to lower the burden of taxes from the government. I guess we were wrong.

So after all of that I came to the conclusion that Trish DeBerry Mejia is the best choice for the next Mayor of San Antonio. She has the leadership and creativity to move the City of San Antonio forward. For more information on Trish, visit her website at www.trishformayor.com.