The headline of the Chron story on the District C election results amuses me: “Race for Houston’s District C council seat appears headed to runoff; Panzarella, Hellyar lead”. I mean, of course it’s going to a runoff. There were seven candidates, and none of them had the kind of significant advantage that one needs to have to get a clear majority of the vote in a seven-candidate race. The only question was who would be in the runoff.
I could have made a case for just about anyone in the race, but in the end Joe Panzarella, who I’m going to guess got at least a bit of a boost from the Chronicle endorsement, was the clear frontrunner. As of about 10 PM, with 17 of 20 vote centers reporting, he had 33.51% of the vote. Nick Hellyar was next with 22.41%, with Audrey Nath falling just short at 19.83%, which in this context represented 234 votes. She was slightly ahead of Hellyar in Election Day voting, but would have to dominate by a margin that I’m pretty sure is unattainable to close that gap. Patrick Oathout was fourth at 12.82%, with Angelica Luna Kaufman, Laura Gallier, and Sophia Campos following. Turnout will very likely fall short of the top tier, as there were just over 9K total votes cast at this point and something close to 11K would be needed to get to seven percent. I’ll update with a more accurate total in the morning.
For what it’s worth, I saw two friends post on Facebook on Saturday asking for advice about who to vote for, while a third one called me to ask my opinion. Amusingly, one of the friends who sought guidance on Facebook had received six comments when I saw the post, two each for Panzarella, Nath, and Oathout. It may be that the larger lineup of broadly acceptable choices held some people back; if so, we may see more engagement in the runoff. Which as noted will fall between the May 2 uniform election (in which no one in District C will participate) and the primary runoff (in which likely a decent amount will). Who knows what effect that will have. Anyway, congrats to Panzarella and Hellyar, and thank you to everyone else. See you in the runoff.
UPDATE: Final tally is in, turnout was 5.57%, which is below the top tier but not far off from it. This is how it is in special elections, especially in weird months.
Oh well. Looking back at the platforms and endorsements, I’m moving from Audrey Nath to Joe Panzarella, I guess. imho, Nick Hellyar gives off developer vibes – note the photo on his platform under “Housing” See the townhouses? You see NO parking for other residents. Half my block consists of townhouses, leaving minimal parking options for guests/repair people. More concrete leads to poor drainage, too. I could go on. Yet, Joe also gives off developer vibes – I want parking minimums, and mandatory setbacks; and, ye godz, single stair apartment buildings? The elderly and handicapped who live in the apartment building I occupied while waiting for my 824 SF ADU to be built would be toast. Literally. I could go on.