The deadline is March 1 for candidates to file to run in Richardson's city council election of May 11, 2013. This will be the first time in memory that the mayor's position will be popularly elected. After the jump, how all the races are shaping up with only a little over a week left to file.
Place 1: Bob Townsend (incumbent)
Place 2: Mark Solomon (incumbent)
Place 3: Scott Dunn (incumbent)
Place 4: Kendal Hartley (incumbent Place 5)
Place 5: Paul Voelker
Place 6: Steve Mitchell (incumbent)
Mayor: Laura Maczka (incumbent Place 4), Amir Omar (incumbent Place 7)
So far, there's only one contested race, the newly created elected Mayor's office, for which two incumbent council members are contesting, Laura Maczka and Amir Omar.
There's only one newcomer who has filed for any place, that's Paul Voelker in Place 5, which is being vacated by Kendal Hartley, who is running for Place 4, which is currently held by Laura Maczka, who is running for mayor.
There are a few other potential candidates who have picked up information packets from the city. Whether any of them file to run remains to be seen. As it stands now, this season's Richardson Idol is shaping up to be without much drama.
The Richardson ISD (RISD) school board election, whose filing period also closes March 1, contains one interesting race so far: George Clayton is challenging incumbent Kris Oliver. Clayton served on the State Board of Education before losing his seat in the 2012 election.
1 comment:
Thanks, Mark, for the start-up of Richardson Idol, Part Deux.
Just a note on something that the public will see and perhaps wonder about.
You have correctly described the situation of Kendal Hartley moving over from Place 5 to run for Place 4, Laura Gibbs Maczka moving over Place 4 to run for Place 7 (Mayor), and Amir Omar "moving" over from Place 7 (Councilmember) to run for Place 7 (Mayor).
Your readers should note that the Texas Ethics Commission states:
"A candidate may not represent that he or she holds an office that he or she does not hold at the
time of the representation. If you are not the incumbent in the office you are seeking, you
must make it clear that you are seeking election rather than reelection by using the word
“for” to clarify that you don’t hold that office.[emphasis theirs]" see Political Advertising at the TEC.
So, clearly, neither Mr. Hartley nor Ms. Maczka can run for "re-election". They can obviously explain their experience in their literature, but they just can't say "Re-elect XXX for Council", because they're not running for the same office.
Mr. Omar's situation is a bit fuzzier. He IS running for the same place (Place 7), but you could convincingly argue that it's NOT the same office (Councilmember versus Mayor). I would expect that Mr. Omar - as his signs around town already suggest - will also forego the use of the word "re-elect"...
And if this is all the confusion that we have in this campaign season, I'll be happy!
Bill
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