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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Dean Hrbacek |
| Address |
Sugar Land, Texas , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
September 24, 1958
(65 years)
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| Contributor | TX DEM |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Aug 09, 2021 01:02am |
| Tags |
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| Info | Dean A. Hrbacek, CPA is an American attorney and Republican politician who served as the mayor of Sugar Land, Texas from 1996 to 2002. Before serving in that capacity, he served as a city council member.
Personal life
Hrbacek graduated from the University of Houston–Clear Lake with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in accounting and later received a juris doctor (J.D.) from the University of Houston Law Center. He is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Hrbacek would eventually go on to start a business law firm specializing in taxation based in Sugar Land.
Mayor of Sugar Land
In 1996, while serving as a City Council member for Sugar Land's affluent District Four, which included a large part of the First Colony master-planned community including Sweetwater Country Club (the one-time home of the LPGA), Hrbacek decided to run for the mayor's office being vacated by incumbent Lee Duggan who was term limited from seeking re-election after serving a total of ten years. Sugar Land city officials are subject to four terms of two years each, which totals eight years of service, though a member may run for Mayor after serving on Council.
Hrbacek won the election and was re-elected for two subsequent terms. During the time that Hrbacek served as Mayor and on City Council, Sugar Land was recognized and received awards multiple times for the quality of its management and innovative governance. The once sleepy company town grew into one of Houston's largest and most affluent suburbs as the city annexed several portions of First Colony, a large master-planned community that now comprises the vast majority of Sugar Land's southern area.
The development of the Sugar Land Town Square, seen as a strong economic engine for Sugar Land, began during the late 1990's with Hrbacek playing a major role in the development of the project. The establishment of the University of Houston System at Sugar Land, the creation of several regional parks, major economic growth, and the lowering the city property tax rate by over 30% were all highlights of his time in office. Hrbacek and his supporters also highly touted the expansion of US Highway 59, which runs through the center of the city and relieved congestion on the freeway in rapidly expanding Fort Bend County.
2002 mayoral campaign
In 2002, Hrbacek faced a tough re-election campaign for a fourth term against City Council member David Wallace, a businessman who had built up a base of support and had just been elected to the same City Council district Hrbacek held before becoming mayor. Wallace won the election after receiving the backing of several Republican leaders with whom he was allied in Fort Bend County and a local newspaper that was sued for libel by Hrbacek. Hrbacek faced a hard race, before losing to Wallace.
"Mayor Osama" controversy
Hrbacek's re-election bid was damaged during the race by former conservative Houston radio talk show host Jon Matthews. Matthews, who hosted a popular radio talk show on KSEV, endorsed Wallace and attacked Hrbacek through weekly newspaper columns in a local paper, whose Republican publisher was a strong Wallace supporter.
Matthews used non-issue personal attacks and referred to Hrbacek as "Mayor Osama" and "Dean Osama Hrbacek", a reference to terrorist, al-Qaida leader and suspected 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Columns attacking Hrbacek by both Mathews and the publisher of the paper along with radio attacks were made during the weeks before the May 2002 election campaign [1].
Following the election, Hrbacek filed a lawsuit against Jon Matthews and the newspaper publisher, B.K. Carter, over the comments, which claimed that the comments also damaged the reputation of Hrbacek's law firm [2]. The lawsuit filed in Fort Bend County District Court, Case ID 02-CV-127119, was dismissed.
Post-mayoral life
Dean Hrbacek has served as a precinct chair for the Fort Bend County Republican Party, and has become one of the more high-profile precinct chairs in the county Republican establishment. Hrbacek has also served as the President of the Fort Bend Republican Club., and also served as a delegate and caucus official at Senatorial District and State Republican Conventions since 2000.
Hrbacek was approached in 2006 by community leaders to consider running for the heavily Republican 26th District in the Texas House of Representatives, which comprises Sugar Land and several immediate areas such as the portion of the First Colony planned community in Missouri City. He decided that he would only run at that time if the incumbent Republican, Charlie Howard chose not to run. When Howard indicated he would run in 2006, Hrbacek chose not to create any division in the party and dropped out of the race.
Influence in 2006 congressional race (for Texas's 22nd congressional district)
Hrbacek served as a Precinct Chair delegate representing Fort Bend in the nomination process for the Republican write-in candidate to challenge Democratic ex-Congressman Nick Lampson and Libertarian Bob Smither in the general election to replace former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. On April 3, 2006, DeLay decided not to seek re-election following an indictment related to campaign finances by District Attorney, Ronnie Earle, in Travis County. To date, the charges are still pending.
Hrbacek was among the overwhelming majority of Fort Bend Precinct Chairs who rejected the efforts of his mayoral successor, David Wallace, to become the Republican nominee after several of the same Republican leaders who were allied with Wallace, including the then Fort Bend Republican County Chairman, used deceptive tactics in an attempt to position Wallace, much as they had during Hrbacek's failed 2002 re-election bid. The tactics used by Wallace's supporters and revelations of multiple lawsuits against Wallace for questionable business deals doomed his bid for the nomination.
Republican precinct chairs from four counties, including Harris, Brazoria and Galveston in addition to Fort Bend, nominated dermatologist and Houston city councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs as a candidate in 2006. She won a special election to fill the remainder of DeLay's term but lost in the write in campaign for the general election by 10 points to Lampson who was on the ballot.
2008 congressional race (Texas's 22nd district)
Following Nick Lampson's 2006 victory, Hrbacek was strongly encouraged to run against Lampson, given the latter's vulnerability in a heavily Republican district due to its strongly conservative nature. In fact, it was the most conservative district in the country that fell to a Democrat, having given George W. Bush a 2-to-1 margin of victory over Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004.
Photo Forgery Controversy
On January 18th, 2008, the Hrbacek campaign became embroiled in controversy after Scott Brochart, Hrbacek's campaign manager, admitted that a mailer sent to thousands of voters contained a doctored photo in which Mr Hrbacek's body was replaced with that of a thinner body-double. This story was picked up by the Associated Press and was run on several news sites including the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, the Washington Post, and Denver's CBS affiliate. It was only a few hours later that several blogs began Lampooning Mr. Hrbacek with doctored photos of their own. Other blogs dismissed the ethical implications saying that the controversy was a waste of ink.
A day later on January 19th, the Hrbacek photo forgery controversy became a true national story when it briefly displaced Nevada and South Carolina election day stories on the front page of CNN.com.
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