There may not be any endorsements today, but there’s still some local election news, starting with this piece on City Council At Large #1 and its frontrunner, Peter Brown. I just want to point out this bit of muddled thinking from candidate Roy Morales:
Morales said he doesn’t support the position of Mayor Bill White and the Police Department that immigration enforcement should be handled by federal authorities. He said the city should work with them to enforce the laws, including detaining undocumented people to await deportation, but it shouldn’t use racial profiling.
“We’ve got to think all this out,” he said, adding that the city should seek solutions with county and federal authorities. “We owe it to our citizens to try,” he said.
You could start by telling us how you would pay for all this extra police work as well as the facilities needed to store the undocumented folks they pick up. Adding in a little bit about how a cop on the beat can tell who’s a legal resident and who’s not without harassing a bunch of citizens and documented visitors would be nice, too.
Over in District I, the Alvarado Diploma Dustup gets a second day in the news cycle.
UH Communications Director Eric Gerber on Monday said he was prohibited by privacy laws from providing detailed information about Alvarado. But he released a statement saying that in 1999, numerous UH requirements for a bachelor of arts degree were revised. The writing proficiency exam was dropped.
“Since that time, students who had enrolled under earlier degree plans have been allowed to petition to waive this obsolete requirement,” Gerber said in the statement. “Such requirements are routinely approved.”
I presume he meant “such requests are routinely approved”, but whatever. There’s nothing in here that alters my belief that Carol Alvarado could plausibly have thought she’d jumped through all the hoops to get her diploma. Perhaps she should have known, and perhaps she should have been more careful, but completing the coursework for a degree and claiming to have one is still in my book not the same level of offense as not completing the coursework but still claiming the degree. Voters can certainly see it differently, but to me this is not a resignation-worthy infraction. Greg and Dos Centavos have further thoughts.