District Judge Mary Roman has returned $1,200 in questionable campaign contributions in response to an allegation the money came from a defendant who was sentenced in her court and was intended to influence her decision.

There's no evidence that Roman knew about any such deal, but the 175th Judicial District Court Judge is refunding the money as her reelection battle against Republican Kevin O'Connell comes down to the wire.

When Martha Garza's husband Anthony Lopez was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one of retaliation, they hired attorney Humberto Saldaña to take his case. Lopez was facing years in prison, but Garza said their lawyer suggested they give a campaign contribution to Judge Roman.

This election has been interesting, all right, but long, starting with a Republican candidate who never stopped campaigning after 2008. With a full local ballot, too, including a proposed sales tax increase for the mayor’s education initiative, voter fatigue may finally be sinking in.

Most pundits are predicting President Obama will win the Electoral College by some degree. Locally things may add up differently, but not necessarily because of the proposed Pre-K 4 SA sales-tax increase – an issue that doesn’t break strictly along partisan lines.

Early voting turnout in Bexar County this election is down from 2008, even after the numbers are adjusted to account for fewer registered voters. In 2008, 375,784 voters cast their ballots before Election Day, setting records many observers attributed to enthusiasm for Pres. Obama. This year, 348,353 cast early ballots, a decline of more than 27,341 votes. If you adjust the number for registered voters, there were still 3 percent fewer early voters than four years ago.

Sixty-five percent of early votes were cast in centers located in the city’s Northside, an increase of 2 percent over 2008. Two locations that helped boost the Northside’s numbers were the Brookhollow Library, with an increase of 42 percent over 2008, and the John Igo Library with a 34 percent increase.

One Northside location that registered a sharp decline from 2008 was the UTSA campus early voting site. That location drew 30 percent fewer voters this presidential year, which could reflect declining enthusiasm for Obama in young voters.

It was late at night on May 20, and Bexar County Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz was driving erratically, drunk as a skunk. A San Antonio Police officer pulled him over and gave the stumbling Ortiz a ride home. The clearly inebriated Ortiz was never charged. A scandalous bombshell plastered on the front page of the San Antonio Lightning website, it was sure to sink the Sheriff's chances of re-election in November.

Only one problem: it wasn't true.

The "tip" to the news website was a sign of just how desperate some opponents are to get rid of the embattled Sheriff, who is completing his first term in office. The incumbent pulled less than 44 percent of the vote in the May primary, where he faced four opponents. But he survived the July 31 runoff against Andy Lopez despite the pseudo-scandal. He now faces a well-funded Republican opponent.

At 66 years old, Susan Pamerleau looks great for her age and still has the firm, authoritative handshake of an Air Force Major General (retired) and the laser focus of a corporate executive from her days as a senior vice-president at USAA.

I asked Pamerleau the question many people have posed in recent months: why would you run for Sheriff?

A vote for Pre-K 4 SA is a vote for the team that brought you the convention-center scandal.

This election season, San Antonio voters are deciding whether to support Pre-K 4 SA, Mayor Julian Castro's proposal to use the remaining 1/8 cent of our local sales tax to fund an eight-year early childhood education initiative that will serve 22,400 four-year-olds, most of them low-income.   

Voting against Pre-K 4 SA pretty much feels like voting against innocent little children. After all, Pre-K 4 SA on its own will not cost local households much: the median estimate advertised by the Mayor’s team is less than $8 a year. Critics argue it will cost some households as much as $60 annually, but that hardly sounds back-breaking. And it will no doubt enroll hundreds of children who might not otherwise attend a pre-K program, and as a result those kids will have a much better chance of succeeding in school and life.

Nonetheless, opponents of the initiative have mustered persuasive arguments against it. Arguably, the money could be better spent expanding and improving existing programs, and the Pre-K 4 SA campaign has failed to make a convincing pitch that it can identify and woo its main target audience – the eligible families who haven’t enrolled their children in public-school pre-K classes for one reason or another. (On that note, some of the ideas for promoting parent engagement once children are enrolled sound more suited to CPS and the court system: “ ... family case management that may include home visits ...” Uh, no thanks.)

All of these points can be debated to a standstill, but there's a more fundamental reason to have reservations about the initiative.

Pre-K 4 SA was designed in part to further the career of an ambitious politician who's being auditioned for a national role by the Democratic leadership and major news outlets. But even as Castro has blossomed on the big stage – aided by glowing reports of his comedic timing (?!) and brilliance – at home it's becoming clear that he doesn't have the stomach for the mundane but crucial details of governance or the spine to stand up to powerful interests at City Hall.

Pretty much everyone agrees that San Antonio’s public schools need a lot of help, even by the standards of a national education system in crisis. In large swaths of the city, college readiness hovers around 2 percent of the high-school graduation-age population. By some estimates, only 10 percent of the city’s students will graduate from college within six years of finishing high school. The only big city in Texas with a smaller percentage of bachelor’s degrees in the workforce is El Paso. Et cetera.

In an effort to address these problems, Mayor Castro has staked his reputation on a bold move to build a sales-tax supported Pre-Kindergarten program outside of the public school system, accountable to City Council (the proposal also feeds money and professional development into existing public school programs). But Pre-K 4 SA is not the only game in town.

Choose to Succeed is also making an end run around San Antonio’s public school districts by providing seed funding to help high-performing charter school management organizations (CMOs) open facilities in the Alamo City. (Although charters get state operational funding comparable to traditional public schools, they do not receive state moneys for facilities — a consortium of charters is currently suing Texas over this and other impediments to growth in the charter school industry.)

The George W. Brackenridge Foundation’s Victoria Rico describes the project as a “loose affiliation of community leaders and philanthropists,” including the Brackenridge and Ewing Halsell Foundations, as well as former mayors Hardberger and Cisneros, among others.

State Representative John Garza announced Friday he is reimbursing his campaign approximately $6,000 for questionable expenditures. The move comes just after my story revealing Garza used campaign funds to pay his wife $4,000 for campaign work and a Christmas Eve dinner with his family and other unnamed "supporters." The Republican lawmaker is also refunding money used to buy a tuxedo and other clothing at Men's Warehouse and boots from Cavender's.

Below is the press release sent by the Garza campaign.