Look, the Queque is feeling alienated and standoffish right now, that’s why we flaked on Tuesday’s Courthouse pep rally big-upping the Spurs on their fourth Larry O’Brien-op. And we won’t be tallyhoing to our old haunt the Central Library this weekend (and it has nothing to do with Gates of the Alamo author Stephen Harrigan’s Saturday appearance). Sometimes we have to shun the things we say we’re devoted to: And maybe that’s why City Council candidates Morris Stribling and Diane Cibrian skipped out on the District 8 accountability assembly they committed to, thrown by Communities Organized for Public Service and Metro Alliance, in the district they hope to represent. The Queque’s sure the no-shows had nothing to do with the sun setting on the host organization who’s opposed the city’s business interests for decades. But let’s imagine for one moment it did, that future Northside reps couldn’t be bothered with a barrio-style interest group fixed to the West and Southwest sides — then perhaps COPS/Metro were right to oppose single-member districts back in 1976, when they said at-large council elections allowed better access to City Hall power brokers.
Early voting ends Friday. Runoff election is June 12 for districts 5 and 8. Polling info at: Sanantonio.gov/clerk
/elections/ElectionInfo.asp. Current election coverage at Sacurrent.com.
The Queque Emergency Broadcast System interrupts this regularly scheduled gossip column with the following alert. This is not a test.
***BRAIN DRAIN ALERT FOLLOWS***
Say bon voyage to Danny Hosein, graduate of Trinity University’s political-science department. The Queque’s been tracking Danny’s progress with misty-eyed hope ever since the young activist contacted us about our March article on State Senator Rodney Ellis’s Stop-Investing-in-the-Darfur-Genocide proposal. Hosein was spearheading the push for Trinity’s investment board to jump on the socially responsible investing wagon, and he prevailed. (In fact we all did; don’t think it such a coincidence that President Bush announced his economic sanctions against Sudan shortly after Texas passed SB 247 — see “Winged legislation,” page 9.) On March 16, Trinity issued a press release affirming that it was moving towards dropping its “business assets that support the government of Sudan and indirectly support genocide in that country.”
The problem is the rest of the press release, headlined “Graduate Receives Scoville Peace Fellowship.” Yes, Danny’s going to DC, where he’ll collect a monthly stipend while working as a legislative assistant for David Culp, one of the nation’s few nuclear-disarmament lobbyists, at the Quaker-founded Friends Committee on National Legislation. The Queque’s heart’s been all over the place: First we were jealous, then we were proud, and now we’re fuming. As Hosein explained to us via email: “I don’t plan on coming back to San Antonio permanently. I’ll come visit my friends at Trinity periodically during the next year, but I don’t foresee myself back there in the near future.”
In May, our resident brain-drain expert (and Current contributor) Heywood Sanders hijacked a Southwest Voters Union event on the $550-million bond proposal, with a scathing critique of San Antonio’s attitude toward education, including hard data showing San Antonio as 50th in the nation for college-educated adults (23.5 percent of our over-25s, according to the U.S. Census bureau). “It’s sad to say, but it’s a common story,” he told us, particularly with Trinity grads, who have trouble finding jobs and, perhaps more desperately, someone to date.
The Queque declares this emergency and poses you this question: How come we can slice Carol Burnett’s childhood house in thirds and heave it eight blocks down the road, but we can’t entice young, ambitious idealists like Danny to make a home here?
A stealth San Antonio campaign — one the Queque hasn’t paid its membership dues to be a part of — is being waged in banquet rooms all over the city. The objective: Charter reform, aka “SA term-limits confidential.” Pro-change forces with names exalting commerce are gathering and will be coming to a ballot near you as early as this November, if a recent Hispanic Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee confidential email is to be believed. And yesterday’s “Eggs and Issues Roundtable Breakfast,” thrown by the Greater Chamber SA Chamber, featured speaker Trish Deberry Mejia, part of the PR firm that cooks up the mayor’s boilerplates for his and the Foundation for the Future’s campaigns. That her topic happened to be “Charter Reform” tips the Queque off that a cash-rich push to expand term limits is on the horizon.
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