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Lonnie Allsbrooks

District E overview

Oct 10th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Here’s the Chron overview of the special election in City Council District E to replace CM Mike Sullivan.

David Martin

The establishment guy is David Martin, a member of the Humble Independent School District board. Until he resigned in August, he was one of Mayor Annise Parker’s appointees to the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. He has the endorsement of incumbent Mike Sullivan, who is resigning the seat to run for county tax assessor-collector with a year left in his council term. Martin is the only candidate who has organizational endorsements, including those of the Houston Police Officers’ Union and the Houston Apartment Association, as well as from former District E Councilman Rob Todd and state Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Humble. He is a managing director at Marsh & McLennan Companies.

Elizabeth Perex

He is cut from the same cloth as Sullivan, who is among the chief critics of the mayor and representative of the district where Parker fared poorly in her re-election last year. Martin describes himself as “a Republican, fiscal conservative, a Christian. I believe in good schools, I’m pro-business.”

Lonnie Allsbrooks

Yet, unlike his opponents, he is not throwing rocks at City Hall.

“I want to work with the mayor to get things done for District E,” Martin says. “I think she respects me and I respect her.”

The upstarts: Lonnie Allsbrooks and Elizabeth Perez.

Here are the candidates’ websites: Martin, Perez, Allsbrooks. As of this morning, Perez and Martin had 30-day campaign finance reports filed; she showed a paltry $375 raised and $1500 spent, with a $4500 outstanding loan to herself, while he raised $15,150, spent $3,742, and had $11,407 on hand. Martin is a first time candidate for Council, Perez finished third in the open At Large #2 race in 2011, Allsbrooks finished last among eight candidates for At Large #1 in 2009. Martin is also the lone Kingwood candidate, and the last two Council members from District E have been from Kingwood. I did not have the bandwidth to try to schedule interviews with these candidates, so I can’t give you an impression of them beyond that. (I did interview Allsbrooks in 2009.) If you live in District E, what is your impression of these candidates?

Three for E

Aug 27th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

There will probably be more when all is said and done, but at this time there are three candidates running for District E this November.

The candidates are:

Lonnie Allsbrooks – Former owner of Beer Island bar in the Heights. Ran for At-Large Position 1 council seat in 2009. Moved to Kingwood earlier this year. Wants to promote restaurant/hospitality industry issues.

Dave Martin — Humble Independent School District trustee, Harris County-Houston Sports Authority board member. Clear favorite of Sullivan, who served with him on the Humble board. Managing partner at Marsh McLennan, a professional services and insurance brokerage firm.

Elizabeth Perez – self-employed accountant who lives near Hobby Airport, plaintiff in unsuccessful suit to overturn the city’s drainage fee. Ran for At-Large Position 2 council seat last year.

Sullivan submitted his resignation last month. I presume the filing deadline for this will be in September sometime. Candidates from Kingwood have won the last two times the seat was open. We’ll see if that streak continues.

UPDATE: As noted by outgoing CM Sullivan in the comments, the filing deadline for District E has passed, and these three candidates are it. I guess I thought it would be later than this because that’s usually how it is for city elections; the filing deadline in 2011 was September 7. Be that as it may, this is your lineup. My thanks to CM Sullivan for the correction.

Eight days out: Spending on voter outreach by At Large candidates

Oct 30th, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

As with the Controller’s race, I took a look at spending on voter outreach for At Large candidates in the 30 day out report. Given that some large number of people have no clue about who is running for these offices, I figured I’d better look at the 8 day out reports as well. Here we go, starting with the big field in At Large #1:


Candidate         Amount   Purpose
============================================================
Karen Derr      1,000.00   Advertising (HBAD)
Karen Derr        150.00   Advertising (Jewish Herald Voice)
Karen Derr        251.00   Advertising (Allen Jamail)
Karen Derr      1,813.78   Advertising (Allen Jamail)
Herman Litt       300.00   Advertising (Charity Productions)
Herman Litt       600.00   Advertising (Jewish Herald Voice)
Herman Litt    15,998.63   Mailer
Herman Litt     1,110.65   Yard signs
L Allsbrooks    2,000.00   Signs
S Costello        840.13   Push cards
S Costello        970.30   Push cards
S Costello     80,000.00   Media buy (Rindy Miller)
S Costello     12,625.00   Production
S Costello     79,975.00   Media buy (Rindy Miller)
S Costello        297.42   4 x 4 signs
S Costello      2,846.98   4 x 4 signs
Don Cook          315.73   Yard signs
Don Cook          432.24   Postcard mailer
Rick Rodriguez  1,500.00   Door hangers
Rick Rodriguez    650.00   Web ad (Houston Chronicle)

Costello’s media buy is the big news here. You figure that has to be an advantage for him for getting into the runoff, as nobody else is doing anything remotely like it. Only Litt has sent a significant amount of mail, so advantage to him as well. I’ve been getting text messages from the Lonnie Allsbrooks campaign, but did not see an expenditure listed for text messaging; it may have simply been classified as “phones” or “phone service” or some such, however. I also didn’t see anything relating to video production, but that expense may be recent enough to not be in the 8 day report. He does have a contribution of $7280 listed in this report from “The New Beginning hosted by Nosa Edebor”, which I suppose could be an in-kind donation of the video production, but 1) it wasn’t listed as such, and 2) that’s above the $5K contribution limit. There was also a $12,125 contribution from the 30 day report that I’d forgotten about till I went back looking for something that might relate to this, with “friends of Barrett Brown” written in the in-kind box. Not sure what that’s about, but again, over the $5K limit. Oops.

UPDATE: I received the following in response to this:

We, here at the Allsbrooks Campaign, saw your latest blog entry about the At Large Candidates spending on voter out reach. We noticed you had some questions about our expenditures and our contributions.

1. First there is the question of text messages. Those are sent directly from our campaign phone and not by an outside company, so that is included in our “phone service”.

2. Secondly there is the video production of our latest video or slide show on YouTube. That video was done by a friend of Mr. Allsbrooks and will be on our next campaign finance report. Given it came out after the final day of our last report.

3. Lastly there is the question of our actual contributions because they appear to be over the $5000 limit. The “friends of Barrett Brown” and “The New Beginning hosted by Nosa Edebor” were two separate fundraisers that had nothing to do with the video production. The reason they are over the $5000 single person limit is because they were hosted by those people and other people were contributing to the campaign.

Thank you for you time,
Allsbrooks Campaign 09

So there you have it.

At Large #2:


Candidate         Amount   Purpose
============================================================
Sue Lovell     30,450.00   Media buy (Rindy Miller)
Sue Lovell      1,418.04   Mail
R Shorter         375.00   Advertising (D-Mars)
R Shorter         750.00   Signs
Griff Griffin      70.00   Signs
Griff Griffin     160.00   Push cards
Griff Griffin     300.00   Flyers
Andrew Burks    1,957.19   Signs
Andrew Burks      376.80   Campaign Literature

My understanding is that Lovell’s purchase is enough for a week on cable – MSNBC was the station I’d heard – but I have not seen a video of her ad, nor have I seen it myself (no surprise since I never watch cable news). Anyone out there seen this? As for the rest, I guess they finally had their fill of Subway sandwiches at Griff’s headquarters, as I saw no more purchases of them. Good news for Lovell that nobody else is spending money, bad news that Griff and Burks come with built-in name recognition, thanks to their tireless efforts to be on a ballot as often as possible. She may win without a runoff, but it’s easy to imagine those two getting 20-25% of the vote each, and that leaves her very little room to get to 50% plus one.

At Large #4:


Candidate         Amount   Purpose
============================================================
Noel Freeman    4,354.90   Printing & processing bulk mail
CO Bradford       125.00   Radio ad (KWWJ)
CO Bradford        75.00   Ad (Williams Temple)
CO Bradford     1,000.00   Ad (African American News & Issues)
CO Bradford       650.00   Radio ad (KCOH)
CO Bradford     1,948.50   Door hangers
CO Bradford     2,704.52   Push cards
CO Bradford     2,186.65   Campaign signs
CO Bradford       420.00   T-shirts
CO Bradford     5,347.55   Door hangers
CO Bradford       500.00   Texting campaign info
CO Bradford       225.00   Ad (Jewish Herald Voice)
CO Bradford       300.00   Ad (Our Tribune)
CO Bradford       530.43   Yard signs
Curtis Garmon     357.63   Car magnets
Curtis Garmon     525.01   Push cards
Curtis Garmon   1,428.48   Bumper stickers
Curtis Garmon   2,458.36   Signs
Curtis Garmon   1,200.00   Ad (KSEV)

We knew about Freeman’s mail piece, which attacked Bradford; I’m not sure if that had gone out before and this is a second mailing or if it’s just going out now, but he’ll need it to counter some of Bradford’s outreach. As with Gene Locke, Bradford has a paid field campaign, though of course not nearly as large, and he’s been on the radio. Bradford has the better name recognition, too, which cuts both ways for him. Garmon is basically self-financing – he listed no contributions on his form, and all of his expenditures were filed on the Schedule G form, which is for spending money loaned to oneself for the campaign.

Finally, At Large #5:


Candidate         Amount   Purpose
============================================================
Jolanda Jones   8,521.44   Printing
Jolanda Jones  23,115.12   Direct mail
Jolanda Jones  21,273.92   Direct mail
Jack Christie   3,003.94   Signs
Jack Christie   5,000.00   Ad in mailer (Tx Conservative Review)
Jack Christie   5,000.00   Ad in mailer (HCRP)
Jack Christie   8,865.10   Mailer
Jack Christie  30,000.00   Mailer

Jones hits the mailboxes in a big way, though as yet I have not seen what she may have sent. Anyone gotten this? Christie did pretty well in this period after having squat to report with 30 days out. He raised $48K, helped by six $5K donations, including one each from Bob and Doylene Perry. He also spent $62K, which includes that $30K mailer, which was a loan to himself. Makes you wonder what things would be like if he’d gotten an earlier start. Regardless, I think his late push has the potential to make this a race again. I still expect CM Jones to win, but Christie could sneak up on her and force a runoff. I did not see any reports for Davetta Daniels or Carlos Obando; at least in the latter case, he may have been distracted.

Coming Monday: Spending in the district Council races.

UPDATE: See the note above from the Allsbrooks campaign. As of this morning, reports from the Obando and Daniels campaigns were available online. Obando had some expenditures on signs, and Daniels had three entries totaling $3500 on “advertising/marketing”, whatever that means.

Roy on the air

Oct 27th, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Behold the power of Roy:

Just as a reminder, Barack Obama got 61% of the vote in Houston last year. I don’t know how effective a boogeyman he’ll make, though I suppose that depends on where the ad airs. Roy’s eight days out report gives no hint of that, and all we know for sure is “it’s on cable”. If you see this on your TV, please leave a comment and let me know. Houston Politics, Martha, Mary Benton, and Greg have more.

You won’t see this on TV, but At Large #1 candidate Lonnie Allsbrooks sent me a link to the following campaign video on YouTube:

I confess, I’m not exactly sure what the message is that’s being conveyed, but there you have it.

Finally, because some things just need to be linked to, I give you this. I knew this was coming, and yet I was unprepared for it.

At Large action

Aug 14th, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

We’ve certainly got a fascinating Mayor’s race going on this year, with three viable candidates that can all plausibly claim a path to victory, but it seems to me that there’s a lot of interesting stuff happening in the At Large races as well. Marc Campos writes about a development that could affect one of them.

Yesterday, Commentary’s shop sent out an email announcing the supporters for Rick Rodriguez, candidate for H-Town City Council, At Large, Position 1. We will be helping him out this election season. Rodriguez is being taken very seriously. One opposing campaign asked him to consider running in At-Large, Position 4 race – no thanks. Another major interest group asked Rodriguez to run in At-Large, Position 5 – no thanks again. It is pretty obvious to Commentary that local political players know that Rodriguez has a strong base and is a force to deal with. Stay tuned!

Stace made notes of this as well. The email Campos’ shop sent included State Sen. Mario Gallegos, who I’m told made numerous calls on Rodriguez’s behalf, State Rep. and former City Council Member Carol Alvarado, and current City Council Members Ed Gonzalez and James Rodriguez, as supporters. And according to David Ortez, who attended Gene Locke’s event at Doneraki’s on Tuesday, at which Locke announced the endorsement of Gallegos, Alvarado, and several other local Latino leaders, Locke has “informally endorsed” Rodriguez as well. I wish I’d seen that before I conducted my interview with Rodriguez, who was as non-committal about his preferred candidate for Mayor as just about everyone else has been, but oh well. That’s an impressive amount of support for Rodriguez, and established him as someone to watch in a race that already has several strong candidates.

Having said that, Rodriguez still has to establish himself. He finished fourth in the District H special election, with 9.5% of the vote. He entered this race late, and reported essentially no money raised as of July 15. He has not won any endorsements yet; the Tejano Dems went with Herman Litt. All this backing puts Rodriguez on the map, and may position him to get into a runoff, but winning it would be another matter; ask Joe Trevino about that. Let’s not forget, Steve Costello raised a ton of money in the first six months, and has won several endorsements; he announced the support of the Houston Contractors Association and the Houston Apartment Association Better Government Fund today. Herman Litt starts out as a fave among many Dems for all the work he did on things like the Johnson-Rayburn-Richards dinner last year, and he came out of the gate with a lot of endorsements from establishment Dems. Karen Derr has been running longer than anyone in this race, and has raised a pretty respectable amount, though she didn’t have much cash on hand as of July 15. She has won some group endorsements as well. Lonnie Allsbrooks trails in all of these categories, but I sure see a lot of his signs in yards around where I live. Point being, this is a crowded field, and everyone in it has a base.

So I can understand the reasons why there might have been suggestions to Rodriguez that he consider another race. I’m going to guess that one reason why he might prefer At Large #1 to #s 4 or 5 is that he might not want to wind up in a runoff against an African-American candidate when there’s a strong likelihood Gene Locke will also be in a runoff for Mayor. On the other hand, a lot of the votes in this year’s runoff are likely to come from Districts A and G, and while Locke has certainly spent time courting Republican support, it’s not at all clear to me that those folks would go on to vote for C.O. Bradford and/or Jolanda Jones as well.

And that brings me to the other At Large races. Melissa Noriega in #3 is uncontested so far, and will likely get nothing more than token opposition. Pretty much everyone likes her, and nobody likes running against an incumbent, especially one with good fundraising numbers. Sue Lovell in #2 has three opponents, first-timer Roslyn Shorter plus perennials Andrew Burks and Griff Griffin. Unlike 2007, when Lovell spent a lot of her time helping Wanda Adams, James Rodriguez, and Jolanda Jones get elected and wound up in a surprisingly close race against the do-nothing Griff, Lovell is taking her re-election very seriously this time. She’s raising money like never before. I see no reason why she won’t win easily, but I daresay she won’t take anything for granted.

At Large #4 hasn’t changed from the beginning. Bradford and Noel Freeman are fairly evenly matched. Both have won some endorsements. Neither has raised a ton of money. Bradford has more name recognition, but that’s not necessarily a positive for him. I understand the logic that would go into gaming out various runoff scenarios, as described above, but I still don’t quite understand why At Large #1 has five candidates and this race has (for all intents and purposes) two. And I say that as someone who likes both of these gentlemen.

And finally, there’s At Large #5. A month or two ago, I’d have expected Jolanda Jones to cruise to re-election. Carlos Obando, whom I interviewed recently, is a nice guy and I thought he had some good things to say, but he has no money and no obvious backing, and it’s just hard to knock off an incumbent in our system; it’s only happened once since we adopted term limits. Now Jones has two more opponents, and I daresay a larger number of people who would prefer to vote for someone else, but I don’t see any of that translating into support for any one person yet. All three of her opponents have fared poorly in previous elections – Obando lost a GOP primary for HD134 last year, Davetta Daniels lost by a 2-1 margin for HISD Trustee in 2007, and the less said about Jack Christie’s abortive attempt to win this same At Large #5 seat in 2007, the better. I can envision there being enough of a not-Jolanda vote to force a runoff, and I can envision the challenger coming out on top in that scenario, but until one of these folks shows me something, like winning an endorsement that Jones has lost or getting some establishment support on his or her side, I think the smart money stays on the incumbent. Again, while I understand the reasons for running in At Large #1, I can’t help but think there’s an opening here for someone.

Interview with Lonnie Allsbrooks

Jul 27th, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
18 comments

Lonnie AllsbrooksReturning to the At Large races, the next candidate for this year’s interview series is Lonnie Allsbrooks, who is running for At Large #1. Allsbrooks is the owner of the Beer Island bar in the Heights and has been in the restaurant/entertainment business his whole career. His entry into this race was sparked by a dispute with the city over a beer-and-wine license for a second Heights establishment. Allsbrooks is a resident of the Heights.

Download the MP3 file.

PREVIOUSLY:

Karen Derr, At Large #1
Brad Bradford, At Large #4
Stephen Costello, At Large #1
Lane Lewis, District A

Rick Rodriguez to announce for At Large #1

Jun 15th, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

I’d heard rumors to this effect, and now it’s official: Former District H candidate Rick Rodriguez is joining the race for At Large #1 in November. From the email announcement:

Rick Rodriguez to launch campaign for Houston City Council At-Large, Position 1.

Richard “Rick” Rodriguez is a native Houstonian and a 23-year veteran of the Houston Police Department. He is a product of public schools, attending the Houston Independent School District’s DeZavala Elementary, Edison Jr. High and Austin High School.

For 11 years, he was assigned to the Gulfton Police Storefront where he worked on the front lines in community-oriented policing. In addition to regularly riding bicycle patrol in this neighborhood, he served as the primary liaison officer to many businesses, civics, schools and church organizations. He is currently the president of the Houston Police Organization of Spanish Speaking Officers, a title held since 2007.

“I am running to be the next Council Member for At-Large Position 1 to continue my career in public service in a capacity that will allow me to directly serve all our communities. I look forward to crafting a detailed plan of action in partnership with the leaders of our city.”

He will formally launch his campaign for City Council At-Large, Position 1 on July 2, 2009 at Casa Grande Restaurant located at 3401 N. Main at 6:00 PM.

Rodriguez joins a field that includes Herman Litt, Lonnie Allsbrooks, Steve Costello, and fellow former District H candidate Karen Derr. I presume he’ll update his website shortly.

More on Lonnie Allsbrooks

Apr 24th, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Lonnie Allsbrooks, the most recent entrant in the race for City Council At Large #1, sent a missive to Swamplot about problems he’s had trying to open a second establishment with a beer and wine license. It’s not easily excerpted, so just go read it for yourself. Two things I have to say:

1. What I know about the Heights being dry is that it’s because the formerly independent city that once was the Heights was dry, and that its annexation by Houston didn’t change that. As far as I know, an election would need to take place to overturn that. I remember seeing a map once that showed the dry/not dry boundaries, but I don’t recall where I saw it. If anyone can shed a little light on that, I’d really appreciate it.

2. The race for At Large #1 is now officially more fun than it was before. Read the Swamplot post and you’ll understand.

UPDATE: An email to Whitmarsh’s list reminds me that Beer Island had a Tommy Thomas sign on it last year. That wasn’t exactly in touch with area sentiment.

Another contender for At Large #1

Apr 22nd, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

The following press release hit my Inbox today:

Lonnie Allsbrooks announced his intent to become candidate for At-Large Position 1 for the City of Houston.

Lonnie Allsbrooks, a successful small business owner from the Heights, has decided to run for the City of Houston At large Position 1. As a resident of Houston for the past 38 years, Lonnie Allsbrooks has come to value and appreciate this community, but has realized there is the potential for growth and change.

Lonnie stated, “The reason I am running for this position is to give the people of Houston a representative that is fair, honest, and genuinely willing to take the time to listen to the needs of the citizens of this community. I am that person.”

Lonnie Allsbrooks currently resides in the Heights where he owns and operates his small business, Beer Island. He is also in the process of opening a small café in the Heights called The Trail Mix. After the encouragement and support from other small business owners, Lonnie is excited about his decision to run for city council and the possibility of making a difference in the Houston community.

Beer Island, for those not familiar with it, is on the southeast corner of Studewood and White Oak, catty-corner from Fitzgerald’s. I attended a meeting of the Woodland Heights Civic Association a couple of years back after Beer Island and its across-Studewood neighbor the Sixth Street Bar and Grill opened at which the topic of discussion was the loud live music being played at those locations. I live about six blocks away, and there was one night I recall where I could sing along with the band from my front porch. The meeting was a bit contentious, but in the end everything appears to have been worked out – at least, I’m not aware of any current complaints, and I’ve not heard any more music from either of those location. That’s all I know about Lonnie Allsbrooks, who joins a field that includes Herman Litt, Steve Costello, and fellow Heights resident Karen Derr.