Small Town News

City elections should be non-partisan

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Attempts to turn Kyle city elections from their long standing nonpartisan traditions, which go back nearly 100 years, fell flat as a flitter last weekend as three incumbents racked up victories at the polls.

Efforts to paint the winners - Mayor Lucy Johnson, and council members David Wilson and Becky Selbera - as something other than deep rooted, mainstream members of our community were ludicrous and insulting to the intelligence of most voters of all political stripes.

I have been involved in political life in Kyle and Buda for nigh on to 60 years. When I first hit town Charles Young was mayor. He was a very good one. When it came to presidents I was addicted to Jack Kennedy. The mayor was a Richard Nixon man, through and through. But he also brought badly needed public housing to town and it is appropriately named for him.

In the intervening years we have had many other good mayors and councils. James Miller was a Kyle-loving man who didn't wear a party label. Sandra Tenorio, a staunch Democrat, was a human dynamo of a mayor before she was 30. She led a unified town in a bitter but successful fight to grab a minimum security prison that brought more man 100 payroll checks to a town that was hurting during the economic decline of the late '80s. Big batches of us of all political persuasion stood shoulder to shoulder to show the type of unity that was absolutely necessary if success was to be the end result City politics are local - not national. Folks who worship at the shrine of Glenn Beck and Donald Trump tend to want to nationalize every issue. Life and politics aren't that easy. Few of us fit securely into any particular, absolute political mode and we shouldn't. Folks who have never seen any shades of gray are beginning to slowly fade from the political scene. Good riddance!

An additional note for the relative newcomers to Kyle who care not about the past but just the present: Stop by the local library (construction on a handsome new one is well underway -the result of recent unified Republican, Democratic and Independent cooperation). There you will discover that Kyle had a two-term Republican mayor as recently as January 2010!

When the next election time rolls around (and it will be sooner than you think), let's hope it is based on real issues and not fables or, at best, half-truths.



Copyright 2011 The Free Press, Buda, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2011 The Free Press Buda, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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