VP of the City Council; Robin Lumb, Bill Gulliford, and Clay Yarborough all Running for Job

[Patricia M. McBride]

Although you may not be aware of it, we have 3 folks who would like to be Vice President of the City Council during the next session.  Although I certainly have nothing against Robin Lumb and Bill Gulliford, both are new to council this year while Clay Yarborough is in his second term (so he has a history and it is true blue conservative).  Clay is the city councilman for my district, and I had the pleasure of working for his campaign this last time for both the primary and the actual run off.  Clay has a number of advocates and most of them worked on his campaign, and I heard so much about this fine young man that I had not been aware of from those others who also worked his campaign.  I also spent a good bit of time around him.

 

I would start by saying Clay's most recent endeavors have been to hold town halls and meeting to provide information about the poker room that is supposed to go in to the old Garden Ridge store and to inform people about what the options are for the zoning change being requested and who to contact to voice your opinion either for or against the poker room or the zoning change request.  clay has also been doing editorials in our new Arlington Monthly newsletter about Arlington issues and most of us now wait eagerly each month for our copy of the paper to arrive as it is filled with news about happening in our part of town and our updates from Clay.

 

The VP of the council is important as the opinion of the council VP carrys a good bit of weight, and Clay is a true conservative in a very real sense of the word. Because he votes on ALL the bills that pass through the council, having a conservative in the VP position is an important issue for everyone in the city who values conservative stances. Clay is the Arlington council person, and there is so much more that he does many people are not aware of. He drives around at night checking to see if street lights are out, drives around neighborhoods to be sure vacant houses yards are well kept and deals with those that are not, he ALWAYS gets back to constituents that contact him for help, he and Crescimbeni (another stellar council member) actually spent some Saturdays pulling weeds in unsightly medians rather than waiting for the city to take care of it, and any time there is a neighborhood cleanup or beautification, he always appears to help with the work. Crescimbeni also does a number of these things and many folks are not aware that these 2 guys do the amount they do for this community. During the time I was walking for Clay, a great deal came out about what Clay does (not from him, but from others working for his campaign). He doesn't brag about anything he does, but he has earned to respect of the folks who live here in Arlington.

Again, this is just a personal opinion and FCTP is not endorsing Clay or either one of the other folks running, but the VP position carries a lot of weight and Clay votes on bills that impact everyone in the city, so everyone has some skin in this game.  I am hoping some of you will write to the council to support Clay for the VP position.