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The next mayor of San Antonio is Julian Castro and will he or won't he?

So I"m at the first-ever virtual townhall meeting for a political campaign in San Antonio! I got here late, so I can't really tell you what happened, lots of male bloggers and just met Julian's wife, Erica, who's due tomorrow. It seems I'm one of two female bloggers, here at the Julian Castro Headquarters on Mulberry and Broadway. It's fun to be here, the campaign people are real people.

I know Julian's mother, Rosie, a long-time activist in the Chicano movement. Like so many of my generation, she gave her son the best education she could -- Stanford and Harvard Law School. And he's certainly polished, I've seen him on television answering questions in a succinct, cool, tvbite way.

I first met Julian Castro as a progressive City Councilman in 1992 who stood up to the real estate developers who wanted to build a PGA golfcourse over the recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer. But the pressures on any city councilperson in this city are immense, and eventually Julian's courage took a backseat to the then-Mayor Ed Garza's rejection of a voter referendum -- and the golf course development was begun.

If I had arrived in time, my question to our future mayor is this: How do you feel about that vote now? The PGA Golf Course represented San Antonio's sad history of real estate development, the destruction of our environment, the religious belief in cars and highways to get us there and back, and the regressive tax structures that have kept San Antonio's poor, poorer still.

If Julian gets elected on May 9th, he could be Mayor for up to eight years (4-two-year terms)

Would you do it again, Julian?

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