For the none Houstonians, Houston has a black mayor, Sylvester Turner. He ran for mayor first all the way back in 1991. He lost to Bob Lanier, who became a popular mayor, in a close runoff. Turner was leading the race and in the closing days and was accused in a television news story of insurance fraud with a client of his. Turner is a lawyer. It pretty much killed him. The news reporter's name was Wayne Dolcefino, a local Geraldo type investigative reporter. For those who remember, do you think that story was fair in the timing?
I remember him saying "men and women in blue" over and over again, I think even at his concession speech. The bigger story would have been whatever mafia hit Kathy Whitmire witnessed that forced her to disappear off the face of the earth.
Locally produced TV content is filler and locally produced radio is borderline worthless, so anything that moves the needle without breaking the law is probably fair game. This American Life had a pretty good story about two different news stations deciding whether to report some youth referee's sex offender record.
I’ll have to see what my wife remembers about that. Pretty sure she knew Dwight Thomas who was a key figure in the alleged scam.
I was at a function in 2001 where Dolcefino was the speaker. He talked about Marvin Zindler being his mentor and he wasn't at all apologetic about running the Turner story. For those who don't know Zindler is the reporter who outed The Chicken Ranch, the subject of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas PBS had a special on Turner tonight and he pretty much said it was unfair but didn't go into much detail. Turner was valedictorian of his Klein HS class. Just thought that was interesting
Totally forgot, Turner isn't the first black mayor.. The runoff in 91 was between Lanier and Turner who defeated incumbent Kathy Whitmire. Whitmire's police chief, Lee Brown became the first black mayor. Houston has had some good mayors imo but its admittedly not the most informed opinion. One thing i have learned about politics is mayor is a very functional position with very tangible responsibilities that demand very tangible results in judging their performance.
Pretty funny that an accusation of insurance fraud used to be (pre-2016) enough to torpedo someone’s chances or even hurt them politically.
1991? How old are you? I didn't pay any attention to city politics in high school, and then I was gone for college. The first mayor I paid attention to was Bill White.
Made me curious so I had to check it out. She lives in Hawaii but also teaches at the University of Maryland. She moved there in 2001 and was remarried a year later. Don't think she's been seen in Houston since she came to support Annise Parker's first run at mayor. It was a shame she didn't have higher political aspirations.
Now, insurance fraud, election fraud, outright racism, infidelity, etc., etc., etc., etc. isn't enough to knock a candidate off.
You do realize insurance fraud is a crime right? He was associated with someone who fakied his death. Turner won a $5MM libel suit Edit: thought you knew all things early 90s Houston @realpgabriel In all seriousness this obviously was a big deal to black Houstonians. I forgot he won a libel suit, i didn't know what the story was till yesterday. What i remember is my dad said when 13 showed up at Turner's door a feminine male friend answered and that's what really killed him. Edit: this article talks about the male friend. It also says the station won an appeal https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ho...o-making-his-mark-on-mayor-s-race-6587759.php
https://amp.click2houston.com/news/investigates/why-the-city-of-houston-hired-a-95000-intern A throwback
Really, it's not unheard of, when you have some hotshot you think would be good for your company somehow, to create a position to get a guy into your organization. And this guy does have a JD. And maybe he's just bursting with ideas and energy and the mayor can just tell he's destined for great things, and maybe Turner is hoping to catch a little utility from this guy as he rockets to greatness. But his linkedin doesn't really reflect that potential if there is any. Several short stints of just a couple of months each. His longest gig was doing PR for a city council member. I think the pay is robust, though not extravagant like they try to suggest, but it's not clear why they'd want to carve out space for this guy.
They are. I first saw something on it Sunday Also on Khambrel Marshall's Houston Newsmakers show he had Councilman Boykins who is gonna run for mayor. Boykins was lighting into Turner albeit about the Firefighters Pension and something about the police chief.
Dwight Boykins, Tony Buzbee, Bill King, Sue Lovell and Sylvester Turner debate tomorrow night 10/2 at 7 pm. Stream live at abc13.com then replayed at 10:30 pm on channel 13. Should be fun.
