There was never a North-South love affair on Castro's Council, but lately the mismatch has become overtly partisan and very public
Last month, Mike Beldon arranged a breakfast meeting at El Mirador between District 9 Councilwoman Elisa Chan and Christian Archer, the campaign strategist behind the election and national rocket launch of Mayor Julian Castro. So what? you might think. Before he worked for Castro, Archer engineered the surprise win and successful City Hall career of Mayor Phil Hardberger – an early champion of Chan. Beldon, a successful businessman and popular campaign treasurer who’s served that role for both mayors, was also Chan’s first treasurer.
The meeting, however, was anything but a happy reunion of old allies. Chan has aggressively questioned Castro and City Manager Sheryl Sculley on a number of high-profile initiatives in the past two years, including the Mayor’s Pre-K program, the Nexolon solar-manufacturing incentive, and the recent SAWS rate increase. But the relationship between Chan, who represents the city’s most reliably conservative political district, and the popular Democratic mayor, has deteriorated rapidly and publicly in recent weeks, as Chan became the unhappy poster child for the Mayor’s proposed ethics reform. Those reforms would increase the list of public entities with which elected City officials are prohibited from doing business – a direct poke at Chan, whose engineering firm has worked on contracts with VIA, the public transit agency for San Antonio and Bexar County.
Chan’s firm had nothing to do with the Convention Center ethics breakdown that theoretically inspired this latest round of reform. And it wasn’t lost on her that the newspaper reports linking her name and business, Unintech, with the need for additional ethics rules appeared around the same time that at least one member of the Mayor’s political team was talking to potential Chan opponents for the May elections.
San Antonio loves a good public scandal and 2012 did not disappoint. From expensive meals fueled by public dollars to political candidates caught living out-of-bounds by hidden cameras, it’s worth taking one last sniff of the old year's biggest stinkers before we shovel the yard and wait for the next politico to step in it. Here are some of the top fails of 2012, and my predictions for what the New Year may bring.
Political operative JoAnn Ramon was climbing into her car to leave a campaign event at a San Antonio hotel when her cell phone started ringing. The call was from a candidate she'd recently helped elect to the Texas House of Representatives.
It was a hot lazy Sunday in the middle of July when Democratic candidate for House District 117 Tina Torres and her boyfriend returned to the house she owns in Gold Canyon near Stone Oak. As Torres stepped out of her car holding a shopping bag and wearing sweat pants with a white T-shirt, a private investigator hired by her political opponent was sitting in a car across the street, 
It didn't take Ciro Rodriguez long to figure out why so few doors were opening for him Saturday morning on Sorocco Street. He had to look no further than the woman and her two young children standing on the sidewalk.
The entrance to Camelot II sits directly across from Montgomery Elementary School, which is quiet over the summer break. Few cars go in or out of the small subdivision, and there’s almost no sign that a couple hundred yards down Winsford Street the First World is in full retreat. 
It's too late to ask your own questions of local political consultants Christian Anderson, Christian Archer and Kelton Morgan, but pour another cup of coffee and enjoy the video of our June 28 Readers Forum, thanks to NOWCastSA.com. Moderated by PdA's Greg Jefferson.
