Hall wins Council seat. Marty now has a friend, maybe

Sam Hall trounced former city councilman Paul Young in the Pensacola City Council, District 2 run-off yesterday. The PNJ called it an upset, but many felt that Hall had the definite advantage for three reasons:

• Hall had been campaigning for nearly a year.
• Hall had tapped into a feeling in the District of having been under represented by J.D. Smith for years.
• And this was Save Our City’s last hurrah – having lost every other race. They were more motivated to vote.

Also Paul Young simply didn’t work has hard as Hall and you can’t win district races without walking the streets.

Interestingly, Sam Hall called me yesterday to compliment Duwayne on his 11/23 article on the race. Sam said that he will work hard for his district and make sure they aren’t left out. I don’t think he will follow Marty “Dr. No” Donovan on every issue, but he also won’t always vote “Yes” with the Nobles-Wiggins group.

When Donovan was first elected, he was also a “what’s in it for my district” councilman. His big issue was Bayou Texar – which the council did a big dredging of within the first year after his election. Then Donovan had to search for issues – unfortunately he decided to start voting against anything or anybody that he didn’t personally like.

That’s why you could see Marty vote for a referendum on the Community Maritime Park -saying the people have a right to be heard. Then vote against a referendum on expanding the DIB — totaling ignoring the voters in the DIB areas.

Time will tell if Sam Hall will be different.