So, Carl, What’s This Going to Be Like?

So, if there’s any sure thing tonight — based on the absentee vote totals now released — it looks like we will have a new member of the City Council: Carl DeMaio.

This will be interesting and few have really pondered what it will be like to have DeMaio on the council.

There are few people more excited about being in the spotlight than DeMaio. He will be a complete change from the current representative from District 5: Brian Maienschein.

I’ll make a few predictions: DeMaio will hold more press conferences than any City Councilman ever has. He will propose more laws (or changes to the laws). He will write more reports and his staff will need more caffeine than any other in this city’s history.

Is that good? Depends, I suppose. He could easily be a leader or he could be a polarizing force. In many ways, it’s like when Mike Aguirre won the City Attorney’s Office. Aguirre held a lot of promise for a lot of people.

DeMaio could be the Mike Aguirre of the City Council — it just depends on which side of Aguirre. He could be an affable, though excitable, leader working his staff to death with a sincere purpose. Or he could make enemies instantly and forever with an unworkable style.

We’ll just have to see.

— SCOTT LEWIS