It had looked as if I could hit the snooze button all the way through tomorrow’s runoff elections here in Beaumont, Texas. But alas, something happened over the weekend to breathe life into the sole local campaign on the ballot and it happened right under my nose.
Around noon on Saturday I walked the three blocks down to the ATM machine on Broadway and found a flock of fire trucks on the next block. (What is it with fires in my neighborhood lately?) A long, thick, yellow hose, called a “supply line” by firefighters, lay in the street. I walked over to the next block, which is Liberty Avenue. I could see that a building — I thought it was a house — had received some damage from fire and smoke.
It wasn’t until I watched the news that evening that I learned the structure that burned was the office of attorney Marsha Normand. Normand is in the Democratic runoff election with former federal prosecutor John Stevens for Criminal District Court judge in Jefferson County. What’s more, even though arson had not been cited as a cause for the fire, Normand said she believes the fire is politically motivated. How exciting if that was the case! How embarrassing if it was not!