TDH: 6/6/11

Early voting starts today in the Place 3 run-off. Below, we take a closer look at the closing salvo Randi Shade's campaign fired against Kathie Tovo: her vote in the belabored Bradford-Nohra zoning saga.

Over the weekend, the Shade campaign released the following video on the Bradford-Nohra house, a contentious historic zoning case initiated against the owner's wishes that spanned three years and a trip to the courthouse:

In the text that accompanies the video online, you see Shade quadrupling down on her neighborhood association rhetoric (under the presumably correct assumption that those votes are lost to her anyway): “What happens if it's your home that you need to modify to care for an elderly parent, or welcome a new child? Will my opponent listen to your needs, or will she put a neighborhood association's wishes above yours, without even allowing you to make your case?”

However, the Tovo campaign also put up a response page over the weekend, noting that Shade initially voted for historic zoning on the site the first time it came to council, in 2009. Without directly addressing the sympathetic Helen Nohra angle, the Tovo campaign write that, despite Shade's initial approval, “Almost two years later, when Shade was running for re-election in January 2011, the winds had apparently changed. Shade then abandoned her earlier position and voted against zoning the same property as historic, despite pleas from prominent local architects and historians to preserve the home. In short, Shade was for historic zoning before she was against it.”

… And if that wasn't enough unflattering archival footage for you, the Shade campaign's also up with a new TV spot, this time knocking Tovo for her equivocation on Water Treatment Plant No. 4.

Tovo has pointedly declined to offer a yes or no answer as to whether she would act to stop construction of the plant if elected. She continues to do so on her website, but offers “Should the question come before the City Council again, please be assured that I will evaluate all information and seek to understand the full economic and legal implications before casting any vote.”

And of course, environmental opponents of WTP4 would tell you it's exactly because we're in a drought that we shouldn't build the plant … but that's a whole 'nother story.

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