Early Voting in City Elections Starts This Week!

The weather may not our best friend this week, but early voting in Texas for local elections is going on right now. We'd like to make your participation in Dallas a little easier by providing tips and links below to useful websites and downloadable documents you can use and share with friends, family, and neighbors.

Remember: Dallas County residents can vote at ANY early voting location in Dallas County during the early voting period, regardless of where you live in the county! Convenient!

For a map listing of all the Dallas County early voting locations and basic info you need on the e-voting process during early voting, download this handy little flyer created by Ben Rush: http://tinyurl.com/DallasEarlyVote2009 or go to www.dalcoelections.org .

To get an excellent voter's guide to Dallas County's various City Council and School Board races, and the two charter amendments on the ballot in the City of Dallas, check out the League of Women Voters of Dallas website at: www.lwvdallas.org

For the surrounding cities and counties, please check with your local county elections office and your local branch of the League of Women Voters for their voting guides.

In the city of Dallas, we additionally have two city charter amendments up for a vote that relate in some way to the plan to build a convention center hotel adjacent to the Dallas Convention Center. In brief:

·       Proposition 1 is directly linked to the convention center hotel controversy. Voting "No" maintains the status quo, allowing the city to own a hotel, as the current development plan requires. Voting "Yes" will block the current development plan, by restricting the City of Dallas from owning a hotel.

·       Endorsements - The Vote "Yes" organization has no endorsement list at the www.notaxpayerhotel.com website. The Vote "No" organization has an extensive list of endorsements at the www.votenodallas.com website, including the Dallas Citizens Council, Greater Dallas Regional Chamber, every major chamber of commerce in the Dallas area, 120 associations and companies, and more than 25 of the major Dallas-area hotels.

·       Proposition 2 seeks to open a city-wide vote any time the city of Dallas seeks to offer financial incentives in excess of one million dollars for development outside of hospitals, public works, or infrastructure projects . Voting "No" maintains the status quo, allowing the city to continue to negotiate and provide financial incentives without putting it to a city-wide vote. Voting "Yes" would result in more public management of city spending on economic development projects, but also result in added ballot measures and a longer development negotiations process in Dallas than other major cities.

For more information on the city charter amendments, please check out the League of Women Voters of Dallas voter's guide linked to above, and also the following websites:

www.votenodallas.com
www.notaxpayerhotel.com
www.dallasrighttovote.org

Please make an effort to vote in our local elections. I know many of you came out to vote in our recent historic election last fall. Participating in our municipal elections is an essential follow-through to our proud act of citizenship in November. We have twice as many early voting locations and fewer ballot items this time around - Let's get out there and show our collective roar again!

Tracy Clinton

(slightly damp from my early voting)

For questions or comments, email us at frontdesk@progressivecenteroftexas.org or call 214-485-2720.