Posted on 06/17/2007 2:49:45 AM PDT by gop4lyf
Leppert elected Dallas mayor
Tom and Laura Leppert basked in the cheers of supporters Saturday night at Gilley's.
Tom Leppert is Dallas' new mayor, his victory launched from a crime-fighting, business-minded platform and fueled by overwhelming support in the city's northernmost neighborhoods.
Mr. Leppert, 53, had never before run for elected office. He's lived within Dallas' city limits for fewer than four years. He rarely visited City Hall.
But the retired construction company executive's insistence that a political outsider with farsighted vision is best positioned to address Dallas' docket of needs resonated throughout the city – even in the southern sector, his opponent's home territory.
And in the end, that opponent, three-term City Council member Ed Oakley, couldn't convince enough Dallasites that his nearly two decades of political experience and encyclopedic knowledge of municipal government better suited him to address the city's high crime rate, bolster its fragile economy and improve city services.
"I cannot tell you how optimistic I am," Mr. Leppert told a throng of supporters at Gilley's nightclub in Dallas' Cedars neighborhood. "We are going to have a new City Council – and a new leadership – that will work as a team to make this the finest city in America for our families. We ran a positive campaign, and one that every single member of my campaign, and every resident of Dallas, can walk away from and be proud of. This is going to be a great city because all of you will be working together to make it so."
The Rev. Frederick Haynes said Mr. Leppert's election marks a turning point in Dallas history. "The healing has begun," he said. "Dallas will no longer be divided north and south, east and west."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
You mean Dallas doesn't love its Arse Bandits?
lol! You know, I keep hearing about how Oakley’s gayness wasn’t a factor, but everyone the I talked to that didn’t know he was gay decided on the spot to vote for Leppert when I told them!
I’m up here in Collin County, is this new mayor a good guy? Conservative, etc.? I know that recently the RATS made headway in the state houses, so is this backlash already? I heard very little about it since I don’t take the DMN.
Oakley refused to answer the questionnaire.
Dallas, Like Canada, Mexico, Colombia and France, is fed-up with their old, leadership.
That's how he was able to retire at 53.
Both candidates were unacceptable on the illegal alien issue. In the City of Dallas, there is nobody in city government with the spine to handle the illegal alien issue. Not that they could anyway. The city is really run by the city manager who is unelected. The mayor in Dallas is just a pretty face to stand around at ribbon cuttings and the person who gets to run council meetings.
“The mayor in Dallas is just a pretty face to stand around at ribbon cuttings and the person who gets to run council meetings.”
Does this mean Laura Miller’s face wasn’t all that great, she fell down a lot at ribbon cuttings, and she couldn’t run a meeting? So many people are glad to see her go. I don’t understand it.
Laura Miller was in on the ANTI-GUN meetings the New York City Mayor Bloomberg ran in 2006. Soon after she returned she did some homework for Bloomberg and made sure Dallas banned TOY guns (as if that’s the most important thing that needs to be done in Dallas-but it sets up an image in impressionable mothers and young children). For that reason alone it is VERY good that she is gone and Leppert is favored by the TSRA, as indicated in the alert below.
TSRA Alert
April 24, 2007
To: Dallas TSRA Members and all Dallas area gun owners
From: James Dark, Executive Director, TSRA
The Texas State Rifle Association offers the following information regarding the eleven candidates for the office of Mayor of the City of Dallas. Candidate questionnaires were sent to all candidates. Of the eleven candidates, five responded. All five candidates responded with favorable questionnaires, while six candidates chose to ignore the questionnaire. This shows a possible indifference to your Second Amendment rights, and TSRA members, and any other gun owner, are urged to consider this issue in light of the City of Dallas’ recent participation in New York City Michael Bloomberg’s Coalition of Mayors.
The Bloomberg coalition, ostensibly created to target illegal gun trafficking, has denigrated to a Bloomberg led circus which targets legal gun owners, legal gun dealers, and simple law-abiding citizens. Recently, Bloomberg sent several private detectives to make “simulated” gun purchases in Southern states, presenting false identifications, and lying on Federal Firearms forms to make these “simulated” purchases. When Bloomberg presented his “evidence” to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, he was told (in a scathing letter) that the only prosecutable crimes had been committed by his private detectives, who were hired with New York City tax dollars to annual salaries totaling $800,000.
The City of Dallas doesn’t need to ally itself with a New York City billionaire Mayor with presidential aspirations who conspires to commit Federal felonies to advance a political agenda outside of his own city.
After outrage from their constituents, several mayors have already withdrawn from the Bloomberg coalition, and the Texas State Rifle Association encourages Mayor Laura Miller’s successor to do the same. All five candidates who returned favorable questionnaires indicated that they would not ally themselves with this elitist group of mayors who selectively read the Constitution.
Early Voting in the Dallas Election begins on April 30, 2007. The election is on May 12th, 2007.
The results of the questionnaire are as follows (candidates in alphabetical order):
John C. Cappello A
David S. Coats ?
Jennifer L. Gale ?
Gary E. Griffith A
Roger Herrera A
Donald Wayne Hill ?
Darrell Eddy Jordan ?
Thomas C. Leppert A
Edward P. Oakley ?
Ejike E. Okpa A
Max W. Wells ?
Legend:
Letter Grade from A to F indicates degree of dedication to the Second Amendment and Texas Law.
?” indicates an indifference to the issue of firearms and the Second Amendment that should be carefully evaluated before supporting the candidate.
The questions on the questionnaire were as follows :
1. Article 1, Section 23 of the Texas Constitution states, “Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State, but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.” Do you agree that the Texas Constitution guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms?
_____A. Yes
_____B. No (Explain if necessary)
2. Texas law contains a firearms preemption provision, which guarantees that the state occupies the entire field of firearms regulations. Preemption provides for a uniform set of state firearm laws and prevents municipalities from enacting a patchwork of confusing and arbitrary local restrictions across the state. In 2003, the Legislature overwhelmingly passed, and Governor Perry signed, SB 501, closing a loophole in the state criminal trespass law that city and county governments were using to post signs banning CHLs from certain governmental buildings and properties. Most of these locations were never off-limits under the state’s carry law and the practice clearly conflicted with the state firearms preemption law, the state’s carry law, and the State Constitution. Would you, as Mayor of Dallas, seek to manipulate or distort state law to prohibit CHLs from additional city buildings or city properties?
______A. Yes
______B. No
______C. Undecided
3. New York’s mayor, Mike Bloomberg, has instituted a nationwide coalition, Mayors against Illegal Guns. The group was founded in 2006 by Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino with stated goals to curb gun violence. However Bloomberg has moved beyond public safety saying that people who want to carry concealed weapons on the streets are a very small number of extremists. There are currently 258,162 citizens of Texas licensed to carry a concealed handgun and 40 states have concealed handgun laws. As Mayor of Dallas, would you align yourself with this group of elitist gun control mayors out of touch with what’s important to Texas and Texans?
______A. Yes
______B. No
______C. Undecided
4. Are you a member of TSRA or NRA?
______Yes #_________________
______No
5. Do you have a Texas Concealed Handgun License?
______Yes
______No
6. What public offices have you held?________________________
What is up Collin County?
Hey, wait, I live in the "wilds" of Plano... we're doing pretty good in Collin Co I should say ;-)
I'll make a note that You are close by.
K4
“...except a little too much rain compared to what we were used to...”
You can send all of your excess rain to Memphis. We need it badly. We’re about 14” below the norm for this time of year. Please send it to us, pronto.
I wish I could. Also, I spoke to my Mom last night out is So. Cal and they are WAAAY behind also.
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