Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Next Houston Mayor Is..

Mayor-elect Sylvester Turner celebrates his victory at his Election Night watch party at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Dec. 12. Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / © 2015  Houston Chronicle
Sylvester Turner!

The Houston runoff election was yesterday with early voting concluding on Wednesday.  \It was tight, but thanks to the voters in the Ft. Bend County southwest section of the city, the early vote, and the unions that knocked on doors and turned out the vote, the kid from Acres Homes that grew up to attend the University of Houston, Harvard Law and has repped his old neighborhood for 26 years in the Texas Lege will be our next mayor.

When he is inaugurated as our 62nd mayor in January, Turner will become the second African-American mayor of Houston, but the first African-American Houstonian to be elected to the job.

Turner surprisingly came out of early voting when it closed Wednesday with a healthy 4% point lead, but the King voters came out to play today and made it a nailbiting evening.   The overwhelming 3728-227 Turner win in Ft. Bend County put him over the top, and King conceded at 10:35 PM.

And in this one, every vote counted.

In his victory speech at the George R. Brown Convention Center Mayor-elect Turner promised to be a mayor for all Houstonians.

"In this room tonight you see a reflection of the City of Houston.  Whether you voted for me or not as we move forward is irrelevant.  As far as I'm concerned, from this day as we move forward, I will do my very, very, very best to represent every single Houstonian in this city, whether you voted for me or not. Every part of this city deserves to be represented."

And yeah will be reminding you from tonight through this first term that trans Houstonians live in the 700 square miles of Texas soil we call home and are some of the 2.2 million Houstonians you'll represent starting in January.

Looks like I'll need to make plans to be at this historic inauguration at the Wortham Theater in January and the first city council public comment meeting in 2016 to remind the mayor-elect and the new council members that trans people are Houstonians, too  



2 comments:

lovely said...

I thought lee brown was elected first. that's not the case? just wondering....

lovely said...

I figured it out. lee brown isn't from Houston. lol. got it. thanks.