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Tuesday, Jan. 19, 1999

Candidates for City Council weigh in with their agendas

Five hopefuls file for candidacy; others have expressed intentions to run

By JAMES A. SUYDAM
Staff Writer
The race to win a seat in April's City Council election officially started Monday with five filings.
   Those officially running as of Monday are: Lance Bruun, District 4; Melody Cooper, at-large; Rex Kinnison, District 5; Jesse Noyola, District 3; and Jack Best, at-large.
   Best, Noyola and Kinnison all announced their candidacies Monday. Another candidate for District 3, Aida Araiza Lopez, announced her candidacy Monday but did not file.

District 3

   Both Lopez and Noyola will be running against City Councilman John Longoria, who has said he intends to seek re-election in the district that includes a portion of southern Corpus Christi and western portions to the Tuloso-Midway area.

Lopez

   Lopez, 42, is a program director for the Coastal Bend AIDS Foundation.
   "We're going to be running a poor man's campaign," Lopez said. "We've been told that it could run anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. Well, so far, we've raised $618, but we've got lots of support from the community."
   Lopez is a former chairwoman of the West Oso school board and was president of the Universal Little League from 1981 to 1988. Lopez earned her high school equivalency certificate after attending West Oso High School and earned a vocational nursing degree from Del Mar College in 1981.
   Lopez said she's reluctant to make any campaign promises at this point but that she would work to ensure the delivery of the city's basic services on a equitable level to all citizens.
   "In District 3, we need basic public safety issues to be raised to the top issue," Lopez said. "It takes too long for police to respond out here. Our crime rate is high. We need to increase the number of police in our neighborhood."
   Lopez also said she would work to ensure more accountability at all levels of city government and would work to represent the whole community.
   Noyola, the brother of Nueces County Commissioner David Noyola and West Oso School Superintendent Danny Noyola, is a ramp agent for Southwest Airlines, where he has handled cargo and baggage for the past 14 years.

Noyola

   "I'm running now just because I want to get involved with the community," Noyola, 36, said. "All of my brothers like to get involved with the community."
   Jesse Noyola attended West Oso High School, where he took a government class taught by his older brother, Danny. He has coached youth basketball, football and baseball, but he has never run for an elected office, he said.
   Noyola said he decided to run when he decided that Longoria was no longer representing the community.
   "And I think I could probably help out our community," he said. "I'm all for public safety, economic growth, equal representation and working to build some trust with City Hall."
   Noyola, a member of the Transportation Workers of America, Local 555, said he also wants to represent the employees of City Hall.
   "There are people who have worked here for a decade and are earning like $8 an hour," he said. "That's pretty low wages. Lots of them need second jobs."

District 5

   Rex Kinnison, a certified public accountant who once shared office space with City Councilwoman Melody Cooper, Monday joined the race for the District 5 seat to which she has said she will not seek re-election. Instead, Cooper will run for an at-large seat.
   Abel Alonzo has announced his intentions to run for District 5, but has yet to file.
   Kinnison, 45, who ran unsuccessfully for the City Council in 1995 and 1997, said he will bring a level of financial expertise to the City Council.

Kinnison

   "We're just starting to face some real financial challenges ahead, and it's going to take us some time to get out of this situation," he said. "But I'm a real firm believer that this city is a really nothing more than a big business, and it needs to be run that way. It needs to be more cost efficient and more effective."
   Kinnison, who moved to Corpus Christi from Mississippi in 1981, has been active in civic and professional organizations, including Coastal Bend Youth City, the Mayor's Commission on Crime and the Crime Control and Prevention District. He is the president of the Corpus Christi Chapter of the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants.
   Kinnison graduated with honors from the University of Mississippi with a degree in accounting.

At-Large

   Former City Councilman Jack Best, a local dentist, said he missed public life and announced his candidacy for an at-large seat. He will run against Cooper, and Bob Jones, who also recently have announced their candidacies.

Best

   Best, 68, said he wasn't quite done being a councilman when voters rejected him as an at-large representative in 1997. Best held a City Council seat from 1979 to 1981, from 1985 to 1987 and from 1993 to 1997.
   "I really enjoyed it," Best said. "We were able to accomplish a lot of things, and it sure feels good to drive around town and see what I helped accomplish, but there's more to do."
   Among his list of objectives: opening Packery Channel, elevating the JFK Causeway, organizing the city's engineering department and increasing the number of firefighters and police officers.
   Best, who was born in Corpus Christi, is an Air Force veteran and is a past appointee to the seven-member state Committee to Study the Development of Texas Beaches.
   Bob Jones has yet to file, but also has announced his intentions to run at-large.
   Jones, 50, a former pastor and radio talk-show host who now is an insurance salesman, said he's going to run on the same platform he lost on in 1997 when he ran for an at-large seat.

Jones

   "The same things I said then are applicable now," Jones said. "The tail seems to be wagging the dog over there. The staff is running the city and the Council just sits there like Velcro to everything that they throw up there."
   Jones is a member of the Regional Transportation Authority board and the Art Institute of South Texas.
   Jones said he wants to run because he feels an obligation.
   "It's time for the people who have the skills and the talent to digest the kind of information that the city staff gives them to not only step up and ask staff the tough questions, but to offer the city manager guidance."
   Jones graduated from Temple University.
   Staff writer James A. Suydam can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at suydam@scripps.com

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  © 1999 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.