For weeks nothing has really captured the attention of readers but politics, politics and more politics. I certainly am glad that by the time this column is read it will be over. The fat lady will have sung a song and the decision of the voters will prevail—maybe.

All of the political folks anticipate that a lawsuit by one side or the other side will result from this election. Nope, no hanging chads this go round, instead it will be something more like short-circuiting modems or questions on the actions of poll workers or something else that will throw a kink in the kilter.

In the meantime, what’s up with President George W. Bush and his apparent inability to properly identify a local official. G.W. was out at Sugar Land Airport last week singing the praises of Mayor Dave Williams. A lot of influential Republicans were looking around trying to figure out what town Mayor Williams was from. A couple said they figured old George W. was reading the wrong script and this Williams fellow must be an official at the next stop that the President had scheduled.

Well, one person did figure it out—Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace. He stood up in the midst of the Presidential plaudits and cleared up the confusion of the locals who were mystified about that mysterious unknown mayor.

Those cushy conferences

Planning ahead is an earmark of a good professional and Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Human Resources Director, Denise Haenel is indeed planning ahead. On this week’s agenda of Fort Bend County Commissioners Court, Sheriff Milton Wright is requesting that Haenel be approved for travel to Las Vegas , Nevada in June of 2007 to attend the annual conference of the Society of Human Resource Management.

District Attorney employee Colleen Hermann will be making the trip to Vegas this year from Nov. 28 through Dec. 1 to attend training sponsored by the National Institute of Crime Prevention Association.

Haven’t yet seen any requests for exotic Hawaiian meetings, conferences or training sessions, but the fiscal year is young.

With all the publicity Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers got this past week, you’d think he was a candidate running for office. A lot of people in the community found the signs that Andy put out offensive, some thought they were well intentioned but not too well thought out and ultra-conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh reportedly felt they were right on, so to speak.

The one thing Meyers focused on during the resulting interview was his feeling that this country needs immigration to replace all of the aging baby boomers that are rapidly approaching retirement age. And, he said, the process for citizenship should be streamlined so these new residents can become viable U.S. citizens without waiting five or more years to earn their citizenship. He makes no bones about the fact that illegal immigration should not be tolerated.

Now few can argue with Andy’s hypothesis. However, lots of folks think Andy is one notch lower than a snake’s belly and nothing he can say will most likely change that feeling.

A whole bunch of Democrats were talking loudly about voting old Andy out of office. Known to be just a teeny bit cocky, Andy pointed out that number one, he wasn’t running for office, and number two, he doubted a Democrat had ever voted for him anyhow.

I hate to admit that a politician is right—but on this one it may be so. So, it is up to the Republicans to decide if Andy is a good guy or a bad guy and it will be interesting to see if the memory of this year’s pre-election hullabaloo over the signs will linger until the next election when he will be up for reelection. How much you wanna’ bet that everyone will remember the name but forget why they remember it.