Monday is the last day to register to vote in the November election.
While a relatively light ballot, voters in Santa Fe will vote in the city’s first bond election, Friendswood voters will decide whether it’s OK to have a drink, and Bolivar Peninsula residents will vote on a new board for the utility district.
Meanwhile, voters countywide will help decide a slate of constitutional amendments, including whether to change beach access laws.
At the top of the ballot are local elections in Friendswood, Galveston, Santa Fe and the Bolivar Peninsula. Those will be combined with a set of state constitutional amendments that voters will consider on what is traditionally a low turnout election.
In Friendswood, voters will decide whether businesses in the city’s downtown district should be allowed to sell alcohol. The downtown is dry with the exception of private clubs and those businesses that sell temporary private memberships in order to serve alcohol.
In Santa Fe, voters will pass judgment the city’s first bond election and decide whether they want to increase taxes to build a new police station, public service building and expand the city’s library. The $8.9 million bond issue will be divided into three ballot propositions for each of the projects.
If all pass, the city’s tax rate will jump by about 50 percent.
In Galveston, voters will decide who the new members of the school board will be in three contested races, while the members of the utility district in the Bolivar Peninsula Special Utility District board of directors are also up for a vote.
For Galveston County residents, this also will be a test election for the use of super precincts on Election Day that will cut the number of polling locations in half and allow voters to cast their ballots at any voting location in the county.
The only countywide election issue on the ballot will be 11 state constitutional amendments. While many of the proposed amendments focus on property appraisals and tax issues, a couple are likely to draw local interest.
Proposition 9 would for the first time make the general provisions of the Texas Open Beaches Act a part of the state’s Constitution and would define what is a state-owned public beach.
The measure also would authorize the Legislature to make laws to protect the rights of the public to have access to beaches, which actually already is guaranteed under the open beaches laws but, if passed, would have the weight of the Texas Constitution to strengthen the laws.
Proposition 11 would restrict the use of eminent domain by preventing any taxing authority from taking private property under eminent domain provisions and then turning it over to a private entity.
If passed, the amendment also would require a two-thirds majority in the state Legislature to grant eminent domain authority.
Homeowners frustrated by ever-increasing property valuations will probably be interested in Proposition 2, which would restrict appraisal districts from considering anything other a house’s value as a residence that is listed as an owner’s homestead “regardless of whether the property may have a higher value if it were used for other purposes.”
Proposition 3 also focuses on appraisal districts. It would set standards and procedures for how property valuations are conducted.
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At A Glance
Early voting: Oct. 19-30
Election Day: Nov. 3
Online: Read about the 11 constitutional amendment propositions and find links to voter information in the Politics blog at galvnews.com,
