FYI - The election for Hoover Mayor and City Council is on August 26, 2008, which is 357 days from today, September 4, 2007.
 
Qualifications for Mayor and Council Member  are:
 
Min. Age: 18
State Resident: 90 Days
US Citizen: 1 Day
Registered Voter: Yes
 
Must be a resident of the city for 90 days prior to election.
 
The qualification period is in July.  The candidate will go to the City Clerk's office and register.  In case of a runoff, that date will be October 7, 2008.
 
Sources:
Alabama Secretary of State's Office:
http://www.sos.state.al.us/election/general/miniqual.htm
http://www.sos.state.al.us/election/index.aspx
 
Hoover City Clerk's Office
http://www.hooveral.org/Default.asp?ID=134&pg=City+Clerk
 
As stated in an earlier post by THE Hoover Forum's administrator, we will provide any candidate, including incumbents, their own board for question and answer, discussion of topics, which will be open to all.  To take advantage of this, you may PM the adminstrator or send an e-mail to moderator(at)hooverforum.com .
 
This post will be updated with more information as we receive it.
 
Good luck and see you at the polls!

My guess if that we'll start seeing people line up as candidates in early 2008.  I assume that the mayor and all the current CC members are going to stand for reelection.  Ironically, I've talked to two potential candidates that most likely won't run because they see the problems facing Hoover as being too difficult to solve.  The current mayor and CC and anyone running against them are going to have answer some very hard questions.
 
1.  Should we have an elected school board?  The position, at least right now, of the current administration is that we shouldn't.  Their standard answer is that it would open the door for the AEA and Paul Hubbard to control the board.  Fact is that the current way (appointing members) is a great way to offer political payback to contributors.  As for me, I'd rather trust the citizens of Hoover to make the right decision as to who leads the system.  We can always kick them out if they screw it up.  How many of the current board members would be reelected if they had to face the voters of Hoover?
 
2.  City budget.  It's in real trouble.  The city has always depended on sales tax revenue to fund everything from schools to public service, and it's way below budget.  We have got to have political leaders to address this important issue.  Over the years the city built up a reserve fund of about $35,000,000.  If things don't improve soon, they'll burn through that in no time.
 
3.  School funding.  Yes, the school board has it's own funding sources, but it has to know that it can depend on a certain amount of money each year from the city.  Good schools are the basis of so many things.  Without good schools property values are going to suffer.  Less people are going to want to live in Hoover and it becomes a vicious cycle.  You only need to look at the Birmingham school system to see where this eventually leads.  A quick story.  The company I work for just hired an executive that moved from Texas.  Before he moved he researched all of the over the mountain cities.  He chose to move to Liberty Park instead of Greystone even though he and his wife liked a house in Greystone much better and when I asked him why, his answer was he had researched both school systems before he came and thought the Hoover system was in too much turmoil.  He's right.
 
4.  Spending.  This administration seems to have no concept of not spending money you don't have.  New fleet of police cars, a new senior center, new parks, and added city staff are all nice and look good to the voters, but can we afford them?
 
5.  R'chase Galleria.  It's old and needs to be redone.  For years it was the cash cow for the city.  People would drive for hours to shop there.  No longer.  The owners and the city are going to have to, in partnership, decide what needs to be done and do it or we'll have another Eastwood Mall on our hands.  Thank God for Patton Creek and Lee Branch (which the current mayor said we didn't need) or the city budget would be really hurting.
 
6.  Hoover Met (or whatever it's called now).  It used to be the best stadium around.  No longer true.  We'll not be able to keep the SEC baseball tournament long without some major renovations.
 
Anyone that wants to be mayor or a member of the CC are going to have to address these difficult issues.  I'm not sure who's going to be running, but the jobs going to be tougher than it ever has been.
 

169 days and counting and I'm not hearing anything about possible candidates.  Has my grapevine taproot been hacked off?  Is there any noise out there about possible candidates other than the incumbants?

Mayor Tony has a well "oiled machine". Kida like Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is in PLACE, from the Police Chief to the Senior Citizens.  
 
He has "paid" those constitutes from police raises to senior citizens facilities and they are the ones that VOTE!
 
Unless it is a present City Council person no outsider is going to break that kind of "bonding".
 
If no new candidate doesn't surface soon, it will be to late to grow the "grassroots".
 
Unless one makes a change we are going to continue to get what we have been getting.