Mayors will be elected Saturday in four of the state's largest cities, including Fort Worth.
Mayor Mike Moncrief is facing his first serious opposition since he first was elected in 2003 -- mostly from former City Councilman Clyde Picht, whose campaign signs read "ImPicht Moncrief." The other mayoral candidate is a businessman who lost past local races.
Picht, a council member from 1997-2005, said he was urged to run for mayor by those who want ethics and the people's voice at City Hall.
He has accused Moncrief of ignoring residents' concerns with urban gas drilling, which was initially embraced as an economic bonanza. But as the number of wells and gas well permits has drastically increased in the city, more residents have complained about noise, safety hazards and energy companies using eminent domain to acquire property for pipeline easements.
A group even held a protest last year accusing city officials -- especially Moncrief, whose family has been in the oil business for three generations -- of siding with gas companies instead of neighborhoods.
But Moncrief said the city, which has a gas drilling task force, has revised ordinances to address residents' concerns about the environment and drilling too close to schools, homes and parks. In fact, Fort Worth's urban drilling situation is working so well that other cities consider it a model and have sent their officials to visit, he said.
Moncrief also said his knowledge of the industry has helped the city and that he has no financial interest in any wells in the county.
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"The challenge of urban drilling is that rigs that were in the middle of the country are now next to parks and neighborhoods where operators are being told to be quiet and dim the lighting," Moncrief, seeking his third term, told the AP. "That is an adjustment for them as well as the city to try to strike a delicate balance. We've learned as we've gone down this path together."
Elsewhere, former state comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn is in a tough fight to win back her old job in Austin where she served three terms from 1977-83. Strayhorn, however, says this race is about the future, not the past.
"I have never been more energized or excited about a campaign," Strayhorn, battling it out with two City Council members and two political newcomers, told The Associated Press. "I will be a leader, and I will be accountable."
Austin voters must decide if the 69-year-old Strayhorn, in the twilight of her political career, has the right leadership and vision for the city facing a $30 million budget shortfall next year. Term limits bar Austin Mayor Will Wynn from seeking a third three-year term.
The Austin American-Statesman has endorsed City Councilman Brewster McCracken, who seems to be leading the pack with his pledge to keep attracting clean-energy businesses, as well as jobs in the biotech, health care and film industries. Councilman Lee Leffingwell has promised to protect police and other basic city services, and is supported by several groups usually key to a mayoral win.
But Strayhorn, always a firecracker as a campaigner, is using the same bombastic approach she did as comptroller when she butted heads with lawmakers over the state budget, and in her failed 2006 bid for governor when she was just trying to be heard in a wacky four-person race.
She has dropped the "One Tough Grandma" nickname for the much shorter "Carole" in the mayoral campaign, while railing about a city budget she says is out of control, gridlock on Austin-area highways and an ambitious idea to bring a topflight medical school to the capital city.
In San Antonio, nine people are vying to be the new mayor because term limits prevent Mayor Phil Hardberger from seeking a third two-year term.
Julian Castro, an attorney who narrowly lost the 2005 mayoral runoff against Hardberger, led the pack in fundraising and early polling.
Castro's main opponents are two San Antonio city councilwomen, Diane Cibrian and Sheila McNeil, and a public relations executive with backing from the business community, Trish DeBerry-Mejia. The other candidates have considerably less name recognition and campaign funding.
Most of the campaigns' focus has been on ensuring the economy remains stable and takes advantage of the thousands of additional military jobs moving to San Antonio, self-proclaimed "Military City U.S.A." Other concerns include typical municipal issues, such as road maintenance and public safety.
El Paso Mayor John Cook appears poised to win a second four-year term, according to an El Paso Times poll. His five challengers are all first-time candidates.
But two appear to be gaining more name recognition: mortgage broker Gus Haddad, who has served on several city committees, and businessman and former professional baseball player Alfrank Catucci.
