Low Voter Turnouts | Casey's Last Word

The recent City Council elections have some people wringing their hands about how many people sat on their hands.

Barely one of 20 registered voters went to the polls in the city elections.

In some school board elections, the rate was even lower.

Most notable, of course, was the race in the Lytle school district, where one tally looked like a soccer score.

Christina Mercado triumphed over Patty Cortez by a vote of 1-0. 

City Election Analysis | May 17, 2013

Watch May 17, 2013 | City Election Analysis on PBS. See more from Texas Week.

A look at the results and the impact of the San Antonio City Elections. Republican Strategist Kelton Morgan and Democratic Strategist Christian Archer join Rick Casey for a discussion of how the city will be impacted by the results and what initiatives we may see taking place in the next two years.

The Cost of Downtown Hotels | Casey's Last Word

Mayor Julian Castro’s “Decade of Downtown” appears to be about making San Antonio better for San Antonians, not for the tourism industry.

Due largely to public investments ranging from the River Walk to the massive Convention Center, San Antonio already attracts more visitors than any other Texas city.

On his web site, Castro doesn’t tout the number of hotels being built under his watch.

He boasts of efforts that “have spurred plans for the construction of more than 2,400 housing units in the center city by 2014.”

Yet it is controversies over new hotels that dominated the front page this week.

Rethinking Women’s Health | May 10, 2013

Watch May 10, 2013 | Rethinking the Texas Women’s Health Program on PBS. See more from Texas Week.

Abortion politics in the last Texas Legislative session led to massive cuts in family planning programs for low-income women. University of Texas researchers say there were tens of thousands unwanted pregnancies that otherwise would have been avoided. Bills promoting further abortion restrictions this year have taken a back seat as legislators work in harmony to restore family planning funding.

Pushback on Aquifer Protection | Casey's Last Word

There’s a long-standing tradition in the Texas Legislature.

If you want to pass a bill that would curtail the ability of the people in Austin or San Antonio to place environmental regulations on developers, you get a legislator from somewhere else in the state to carry the bill.

For example, the two times a bill was introduced in the Senate to undermine regulations by San Antonio, Austin and San Marcos to limit development over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, it was carried by Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston.

The reason is simple.

City Elections – District 2 | May 3, 2013

Watch May 3, 2013 | Debating the Issues in District 2 on PBS. See more from Texas Week.

We conclude our look at San Antonio City Council races tonight with candidates for District 2. The district runs through most of the city's East side. Ivy Taylor has represented the district since 2009 and is being challenged by three candidates, including Norris Tyrone Darden.

Double Entendres in Court | Casey's Last Word

In the past I have accused U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of misdemeanor alliteration.

Now come some law school professors to charge him with a more serious infraction: double entendre in the first degree.

The case involves a legal challenge to the City of San Antonio’s regulations regarding strip joints.

An ordinance passed last year requires that what the city calls “human display establishments” must require female employees to wear the equivalent of bikini tops and bottoms, not pasties and thongs.

Otherwise these HDE’s will be classified as “sexually oriented businesses” and fall under considerably stricter regulations.

Biery does indeed submit to the obvious temptation.
 

•  See full text of Biery's order

City Elections – District 7 | April 26, 2013

Watch April 26, 2013 | City Council District 7 Debate on PBS. See more from Texas Week.

We continue our look at the San Antonio City Council races with candidates for District 7. Justin Rodriguez represented the district before winning a seat in the Texas House. Cris Medina was his former aide and won the seat in 2011. Medina now faces three opponents, including Gloria Rodriguez, former CEO of AVANCE San Antonio.

Boston massacre, West tragedy | Casey's Last Word

It’s hard, during Fiesta, to think of April as being the cruelest month.

Poet T.S. Eliot meant it metaphorically, of course, but the metaphor was rooted in a different geography from ours.

Eliot grew up in St. Louis. 

Then he spent most of the rest of his life either in England (like Chaucer, from whom he borrowed the metaphor) or at Harvard, where he studied and later taught.

It was a colder latitude than ours, and it was before climate change started accelerating.

I lived in Boston for several years 30 years ago, and April was a cruel month.

You had a week or so of spring – the first warm sun since early October – and then late April or even early May would deliver another blizzard.

Here the first half of April is the end of spring and the last half the start of summer. 

April begins nature’s cruelty.  But this year, April has already marked an unusual amount of man-made cruelty.

City Elections – District 6 | April 19, 2013

Watch April 19, 2013 | Debating The Issues in Council District Si on PBS. See more from Texas Week.

We continue our look at San Antonio City Council races, this time with candidates for District 6 on the West Side. Incumbent Ray Lopez has represented that district since 2009 and now has three opponents, including Greg Brockhouse, former Chief of Staff to District 4 Councilman Rey Saldana.