The council always reorganizes at its first meeting after every City Council election and this year’s election will officially be over at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Only one polling place will be open this year, at the Trinity Christian Academy, 1110 E. Houston St.
According to City Secretary Tomas P. Saenz, the polls will open at 7 a.m. for voters living in Ward 1 and will close at 7 p.m.
Saenz usually has the results of council elections posted inside a window at the front door of City Hall after the votes have been counted.
However, the results will not become official until the council has canvassed the votes and accepted them by formal motion and a vote.
Once the election results are accepted, City Attorney Frank Warner will take control of the meeting and call for nominations for mayor.
Currently, John Fulghum, former mayor pro tem, holds that position after former Mayor Kenneth Chesshir resigned the position at the council’s March 24 meeting. Fulghum was elected to replace Chesshir at that time.
Two councilmen, Michael Scotten and Jimbo Martinez, abstained from the vote to elect Fulghum to the position.
Martinez said then that he thought Chesshir should hold the position until after the May 9 election.
Councilman David Carabajal was then elected mayor pro tem.
That could all change Tuesday night.
Once a mayor is elected, he or she will take over the meeting and the council will nominate a mayor pro tem.
Beeville’s mayor has no administrative role at City Hall. The person who holds that position presides over City Council meetings and serves as the city’s representative at various public events.
The two people vying for the Ward 1 City Council seat are its incumbent, Scotten, a 43-year-old petroleum landman, and Belinda Saldivar Granado, a 52-year-old administrative assistant for County Judge David Silva.
Scotten is completing his first two-year term on the council and Saldivar is seeking public office for the first time.
Chesshir, who also was facing an expiring term this year, did not file for re-election. That means he will end a 16-year stint as the Ward 5 councilman and a 13-year run as the city’s mayor.
His replacement will be 43-year-old Libby Hitchcock Spires, a certified public accountant.
She did have an opponent at one time, a 22-year-old Coastal Bend College student. But he withdrew his intended write-in candidacy within a couple of weeks of filing for the position.
Spires is expected to be declared the winner in Ward 5 by a vote of the council on Tuesday night.
I prefer to early vote.