Election Update

Not much has happened yet, but voting is still 5 - 8 weeks off (with a mail in ballot voting is spread out over 3+ weeks). But we have had a couple of things come up:

• Eric Bodenstab has withdrawn from the race. I'm sorry to see him go as I think his heart was in the right place. But the bottom line is he did not have a chance.
• The League of Women Voters was told they could not broadcast on channel 8 and so decided to not have a debate. Interesting that the League didn't look for alternatives or push back - there were probably some egos that affected how this played out. Update: It's back on
• Adam Massey seems to have gotten it in gear - now has a nice website and has all of the usual suspects endorsing him. He's moved up in the big line.
• Phil Hernandez has a website and it's not bad. Phil has reasonable support and this could signify a more serious effort on his part.
• Eric Rutherford also has a website up but it's pretty minimal. (Hey, at least it's more than we get from the 5+3 below.)
• Yard signs are going up. Someone named "pancake breakfast - Martin Acres" has the most signs with Lisa Morzal and Macon Cowles close behind. Haven't seen any other signs up yet - wonder where all those recently used Ken Wilson and Angelique Espinoza sings are?
• Crystal Gray, Nabil Karkamaz, Lisa Morzal, Susan Osborne, & Larry Quilling don't have websites up yet. Crystal & Lisa might be able to pull off a win without one but in all 5 cases it shows a definite lack of effort on their part.
• Seth Brigham, Andrew Harrison, & Rob Smoke are all using MySpace as their campaign site. You could use MySpace as an effective campaign website - but none of these 3 are doing so.

I was going through the various candidate filings (yes I have no social life) and a couple of interesting questions pop-ed up.

1. Seth Brigham states that he is self-employed, is an Artist & Activist, and that he gets SSI disability income. The interesting question is, if he is employed how does he also get SSI? It is possible either as partial disability or he is in the grace period when the disability ended. Seth, could you tell us how this works in your case?
2. Crystal Gray has a second home in Tahoe City, CA (not a rental - a 2nd home). If she is living in California part of the year does that mean she will be a part-time councilwoman? Her form also says she is presently paid to attend Boulder City Council meetings. My mistake - that's her (pathetically small) pay for being a council-member
3. Best fund-raising so far - Angelique Espinoza at $850.00 and Philip Hernandez at $725.00 - both with about 10 contributors each.
4. Large self-funders - Philip Bradley & Philip Hernandez have each put in 2.5K of their own money (apparently if your name is Philip you must self-contribute the maximum). Alan O'Hashi has put in 2K of his own money and Eric Rutherford 1.2K of his own. (Note: Self-funding is generally a bad sign of a candidate's chances.)