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Jonathan Hansen (Texas)
Jonathan Hansen was a 2015 nonpartisan candidate for the At-large 4 seat of the Houston City Council in Texas. Hansen lost the general election on November 3, 2015.
Biography
Hansen grew up in a small town outside of Houston. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.B.A. in finance, he began working for his family's three-newspaper publishing business. He worked there until the business was sold to a larger publishing company.
Hansen is an economics teacher and a high school swim coach.[1]
Campaign themes
2015
Hansen's website highlighted the following campaign themes:[2]
Decaying infrastructure
- Excerpt: "Priority number one must be to maintain public safety, but priority number two must be to rebuild and repair the city's surface streets so that the tall buildings, congestion, and concrete aren't the only cues one isn't an adventure-seeker on a 4x4 off-roading expedition."
Unfunded liabilities
- Excerpt: "The city must do our best, given budget constraints, to keep the promises made to current civil servants in defined benefit retirement plans (pensions) while promising only what taxpayers can afford to new employees in defined contribution retirement plans [the public sector version of a 401(k) which is called a 403(b).]"
Regulatory reform
- Excerpt: "Houston's municipal regulatory regime too often stifles and suffocates Houstonians' creative entrepreneurial impulses instead of enabling them to succeed and flourish. All regulations should be submitted to a cost-benefit analysis complete with economic impact study. Upon implementation, the most cost-efficient methods of enforcing regulations should be sought. Still, other regulations questionably encroach upon Houstonians' humanitarian outreach to the hungry and homeless as the municipal bureaucracy treats Good Samaritans like merchants and the needy as customers. Regulations that encumber those seeking to aid the least fortunate among us must be repealed."
Storm preparedness
- Excerpt: "Exposed overhead electric transmission lines leave the cityscape aesthetically cluttered and Houstonians vulnerable to long-term power outages when the next hurricane like Ike strikes - leaving the city in darkness while businesses lose billions of dollars in revenue. Long-range planning to transition the city from overhead to underground electric transmission must begin to be made now before another hurricane paralyzes commerce and jeopardizes public safety."
Government accountability
- Excerpt: "Houstonians should feel that their government is as accountable to them as they are felt held to account by their government. Tools such as CitiStat have helped improve the performance of municipal governments around the nation, and we should look at implementing them in Houston, also."
Parks, recreation and beautification
- Excerpt: "The city should conduct a comprehensive review of the parks system and explore innovative ways parks around the country - like New York's Bryant Park - are being re-invented by the private sector. Fewer, bigger, grander parks with better programming that are strategically located and encourage Houstonians to engage in a more active, healthy lifestyle should be prioritized over more numerous, smaller parks scattered haphazardly around the city that provide little public benefit besides serving as a visual reprieve between developments. Meanwhile, we should seek to line our highways and public thoroughfares with pleasant landscaping instead of billboards."
Elections
2015
- See also: Houston, Texas municipal elections, 2015
The city of Houston, Texas, held elections for mayor and city council on November 3, 2015. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was August 24, 2015.[3] In the race for At-Large Position 4, Roy Morales and Amanda Edwards defeated Larry Blackmon, Jonathan Hansen, Matt Murphy, Laurie Robinson and Evelyn Husband Thompson in the general election. Edwards defeated Morales in the runoff election on December 12, 2015.[4][5]
Amanda Edwards defeated Roy Morales in the runoff election.
| Houston City Council At-large Position 4, Runoff election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Amanda Edwards |
61.5% | 106,126 |
| Roy Morales | 38.5% | 66,372 |
| Write-in votes | 0% | 0 |
| Total Votes (100% of precincts reporting) | 172,498 | |
| Source: Harris County, Texas, "Runoff Election Results," December 12, 2015 | ||
| Houston City Council At-large Position 4, General election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
| Amanda Edwards |
34.9% | 67,261 |
| Roy Morales |
16.9% | 32,563 |
| Laurie Robinson | 16.4% | 31,628 |
| Evelyn Husband Thompson | 13.4% | 25,880 |
| Matt Murphy | 9.2% | 17,722 |
| Larry Blackmon | 5.8% | 11,101 |
| Jonathan Hansen | 3.3% | 6,444 |
| Write-in votes | 0% | 0 |
| Total Votes (100% of precincts reporting) | 192,599 | |
| Source: Harris County Texas, "Official general election results," accessed November 16, 2015 | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms " Jonathan Hansen " Houston. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
- Official campaign website
- Jonathan Hansen on Facebook
- Jonathan Hansen on Twitter
- City of Houston - November 3, 2015 General Election Candidates
Footnotes
- ↑ Official campaign website of Jonathan Hansen, "About Jonathan," accessed September 16, 2015
- ↑ Official campaign website of Jonathan Hansen, "Opportunities for a Greater Houston," accessed September 7, 2015
- ↑ Harris County, "Important 2015 Election Dates," accessed January 12, 2015
- ↑ City of Houston website, "November 3, 2015 General Election Candidates," accessed August 27, 2015
- ↑ Harris County Texas, "Unofficial general election results," accessed November 3, 2015
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