Richard Morrison – who took more than 41% of the vote as a political unknown in an unsuccessful but surprisingly close bid to unseat former congressman Tom DeLay in 2004 – will add some spice to the 2008 Fort Bend County Precinct 1 Commission race.
| Fort Bend Politics |
| By Bob Dunn |
At a meeting of the Fort Bend Democrats club on Saturday, Morrison announced he’s going to run on the Democratic ticket in a bid to unseat incumbent Commissioner Tom Stavinoha.
If, that is, Stavinoha wins a Republican primary that will pit him against Greg Ordeneaux. (Issac “Jack” Molho, who said in August he was 99% certain he also was running for Precinct 1 on the Republican ticket, apparently has embraced that other 1% and isn’t running.)
Morrison said he’d been contemplating a run, and then made up his mind a few weeks ago at a citizens’ meeting on TxDOT’s proposal to turn so-called Section C of the Grand Parkway into a toll road, on a route that runs close to Greatwood (where Morrison lives), Bridlewood and other area communities.
Morrison said Stavinoha attended the meeting, but instead of getting up on stage with state and local officials, he sat quietly in the audience. And while hundreds of residents in attendance voiced their strenuous disapproval of the toll road proposal, Morrison said Stavinoha told him he favors it.
“I went up there afterwards and said ‘Tom, you better change your position on this toll road,” Morrison recalled. “I said, ‘you’re not going to get six votes in Greatwood.’”
“Everyone in Briarwood and Greatwood is furious about this toll road,” Morrison told Democrat club members. “How can they trust their commissioner to do anything, because he may have taken a contribution from a road-builder, and now he’s sitting in the audience. You’ve got to take a stand for these people.”
Another issue that has strengthened his resolve to run, Morrison said, is “the fact that Tom and the whole commission supports this I-69 corridor coming through Fort Bend County – that’s the most ridiculous thing.” Building the corridor in the midst of Fort Bend’s suburban neighborhoods will be an invitation for industrial development, he added.
County officials have indicated in the past that they have no leverage to prevent the state from moving forward with major highway programs such as Section C or the Trans-Texas Corridor. To which Morrison replied, “that’s bullcrap.”
The Exception
Gary Gillen, whose recent surprise resignation as its chairman ignited a keg of chaos at the Fort Bend County Republican Party, still has party officials upset over his handling of the party’s October newsletter.
Printed but never mailed, 20,000 copies of the ill-fated publication sat on a mailer’s loading dock because, county GOP Executive Committee members said, Gillen wouldn’t pay for the mailing.
Gillen then had the publications hauled to his warehouse, told people at his resignation announcement that they’d never be mailed under his watch and, in envelopes postmarked five days after he resigned, Gillen sent out reimbursement checks to people who paid of ads in the newsletter. Gary told me on Thursday that he paid back all the advertisers.
One, however, still is waiting for that proverbial check in the mail.
Rick Miller, who announced he was running against Gillen for the office of party chairman, put a $1,200 full-page ad in the Newletter that Never Quite Was.
And while several other advertisers I talked to all said they received their reimbursement checks, Miller still hasn’t been paid back for that big ad.
Coincidence?
Call Fed-Ex
The episode involving reimbursement checks dated Nov. 7, accompanied by a letter dated Nov. 8 and mailed in envelopes postmarked Nov. 13 is a not topic with GOP precinct chairs.
In an email to county GOP Vice Chairman Linda Howell, one said, ”
I believe it is imperative and in the party’s best interest that you, as our lone remaining officer, contact (also resigned party Treasurer Richard) McCarter immediately and ask that he turn over the checkbook to you ASAP.”
And how soon is that exactly? “By ASAP I mean within hours,” the email states.
PAC Attack
About a year ago, Gillen touched off one of those proverbial firestorms when GOP Executive Committee members learned he’d formed a political action committee, called Fort Bend Republican P.A.C., through which Gillen took control – temporarily – of a premier local GOP fund-raiser called the Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner.
About a month ago, Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace set political tongues wagging when he formed a new PAC called the Fort Bend Conservative Club, in what some members have termed an attempt to drag the Republican Party kicking and screaming toward the center of the political spectrum.
About a week ago, county GOP Precinct Chairman Frank Hester got involved in yet another PAC, called Fort Bend GOP Conservatives. At this point, I have no idea what this one is about, because Frank didn’t want to talk about it when I asked him. He was listed as the PAC’s treasurer. And for now, that’s all the information the Texas Ethics Commission requires the new PAC to track.
What could it all mean, I wonder?
At a meeting of the Fort Bend Democrats club on Saturday, Morrison announced he’s going to run on the Democratic ticket in a bid to unseat incumbent Commissioner Tom Stavinoha.
If, that is, Stavinoha wins a Republican primary that will pit him against Greg Ordeneaux. (Issac “Jack” Molho, who said in August he was 99% certain he also was running for Precinct 1 on the Republican ticket, apparently has embraced that other 1% and isn’t running.)
Morrison said he’d been contemplating a run, and then made up his mind a few weeks ago at a citizens’ meeting on TxDOT’s proposal to turn so-called Section C of the Grand Parkway into a toll road, on a route that runs close to Greatwood (where Morrison lives), Bridlewood and other area communities.
