Bay City Tribune

Matagorda County voters elected Harry Shannon as a new Port of Bay City commissioner and voiced a differing opinion than state voters on two of the proposed constitutional amendments in Tuesday's election.

Only two votes separated Shannon and incumbent Tommy Countz for the Port of Bay City commissioner position five with a final vote tally of 410 to 408.

Jimmy Brangan, who also ran for port commissioner position five, trailed with 360 votes.

County voters opposed propositions one and four by a slim margin in each instance - 47 to 52 percent on proposition 1 and 48 to 51 percent on proposition 4.

Proposition one, authorizes the financing, including through tax increment financing, of the acquisition by municipalities and counties of buffer areas or open spaces adjacent to a military installation for the prevention of encroachment or for the construction of roadways, utilities, or other infrastructure to protect or promote the mission of the military installation, according to information on the Texas Secretary of State's Web site.

Proposition four establishes the national research university fund to enable emerging research universities in Texas to achieve national prominence as major research universities.

It also transfers the balance of the higher education fund to the national research university fund.

Matagorda County's State Representative Randy Weber co-authored proposition four and voted in favor of proposing proposition one.

County voters fell in line with the state vote in favor of the remaining nine proposed constitutional amendments.

In all, eight-percent of County voters turned out for the Nov. 3 election with the most popular amendment being proposition nine, providing public access to Texas beaches, which captured 1,651 votes of the 1,699 of total ballots cast.