David G. Wallace
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David G. Wallace is an American businessman and politician from the state of Texas who is currently serving as the Mayor of Sugar Land, Texas. He has served in that position since 2002 and has been re-elected in 2004 and 2006.
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[edit] Personal life
David Wallace attended Union College in Schenectady, New York, and later received a scholarship at the University of Reading in England for international studies in Real Estate, Finance and Law, before graduating from the University of North Texas with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Real Estate Finance.
Before his foray into politics, Wallace was a businessman and "turn around specialist", having worked in the process of acquiring and/or creating over 100 companies and partnerships in a wide range of industries, ranging from petroleum products to telecommunications.
He also served in the Sugar Land community for a number of organizations, including the Fort Bend YMCA (where once served as President), the Literary Council of Fort Bend County (Advisory Board), and Child Advocates of Fort Bend County (Board of Directors). In 1999, he was the YMCA Volunteer of the Year. The following year, in 2000, the Fort Bend Association of Realtors named him "Volunteer of the Year".
Wallace also served on the Margaret Thatcher Foundation as a founding Texas board member before being asked to resign that position by Lady Thatcher[citation needed]. Wallace had business relationships with Lady Thatcher's son Mark Thatcher (see"Some Info On David Wallace"). The organization was founded by the former British Prime Minister to promote capitalism, democracy, freedom, and law rule in countries that were once controlled by Communist rule. Many of these companies, however, dissolved as a result of controversy and major legal matters.
Wallace later chaired the Investment Committee for the Perry Properties Realty Investment Fund which was affiliated with Will Perry, the son of top Republican contributor and homebuilder Bob Perry, until Wallace and Will Perry dissolved the business relationship.
He is married to his wife of 23 years, Kathy. The couple has two daughters, Whitney and Jacquelyn, and are active members of St. Laurence Roman Catholic Parish in Sugar Land.
[edit] Political career
In 2001, David Wallace was elected to Sugar Land City Council as a Single District Member representing District Four, which takes in several upscale neighborhoods in the southern portion of the First Colony master-planned community such as Sweetwater and Commonwealth.
Just one year into his first term as a member of City Council, Wallace decided to pursue a mayoral campaign against the incumbent three-term mayor Dean A. Hrbacek, also a Republican; the city of Sugar Land is heavily Republican. Wallace gained endorsements from the Chairman of the Fort Bend County Republican Party Eric Thode with whom he had a political alliance, and other prominent leaders in Fort Bend County, including former Sugar Land mayor Lee Duggan. On election night in May 2002, Wallace defeated Hrbacek, earning around 55% of the vote.
Since being elected, Wallace has cultivated the perception of his leadership in guiding Sugar Land policies and presided over a robust economy that resulted in lower property taxes, new jobs, and upgraded infrastructure. Wallace worked in the US Conference of Mayors and is a co-chairman with the Urban Water Council for the United States Conference of Mayors, as well as another co-chairmanship for the conference's Homeland Security Task Force.
During Wallace's time as mayor, Sugar Land moved city offices into a newly completed city hall that had begun under the previous administration and finished the addition of a terminal to its regional airport, also begun under the previous administration, and worked with expansion of First Colony Mall, also begun under previous administrations. Wallace's second term also saw the debut of Sugar Land's first in-city public access cable channel.
In 2004, Wallace was reelected with no opposition, and ran unopposed again in 2006.
[edit] 2006 Congressional Election
While Wallace ran unopposed in 2006, a political development was happening at the federal level in Sugar Land. On the night of April 3, 2006, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay decided to retire from Congress instead of facing a difficult re-election bid (for a twelfth term). On June 9, 2006, he officially resigned from Congress. DeLay has been the focus of an indictment issued in Travis County, Texas stemming from his funding of Republican candidates through such groups as TRMPAC, which funded Texas candidates, and ARMPAC, which funded federal candidates.
However, Texas Republicans were unsuccessful in removing DeLay's name from the ballot after Democrats won a court ruling to keep Delay's name on the ballot. As a last resort, DeLay withdrew from the election and left the campaign to a write-in candidate, which opened the doors for Wallace. An attempt by the Republican county chair in Fort Bend County to position Wallace as the leader in the race to fill the vacancy created by DeLay's resignation backfired when it was shown that a survey that was intended to highlight Wallace did not include several potential candidates and thus the validity of the survey was discredited. In subsequent straw polls, Wallace garnered only one third of the votes by county precinct chairs in his own county. The release of a long list of questionable business and personal financial issues, including connections to Mark Thatcher exposed by the DCCC, undoubtedly played a part in the rapid fall of his popularity.
During a closed-door meeting on Thursday night, August 17, 2006, Republican Party precinct chairs endorsed Wallace's opponent, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, to face Democrat Nick Lampson, a former Congressman from Beaumont who moved to Stafford, north of Sugar Land, with the original intent of challenging DeLay before he dropped out.
Wallace received only four votes -- less than 5% of the votes cast. Wallace previously indicated that he would continue to run even if Sekula-Gibbs received the party's endorsement; however, he announced on August 21, 2006, that he would abandon his write-in campaign and endorse Sekula-Gibbs, who won the remainder of Tom DeLay's unexpired term in a special election. Nick Lampson would go on to win the general election despite a strong showing by Sekula-Gibbs in a poll released one week before the election and a visit for Sekula-Gibbs by George W. Bush and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison just days before the election.
Wallace also announced that he would not run for re-election as mayor of Sugar Land. However, he did not rule out a run for the 22nd Congressional District seat in 2008, which is expected to be a competitive race as the district is heavily Republican; in 2004, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in this district by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. Additionally, Bush carried Fort Bend County, where Sugar Land is situated, by a double-digit margin.
[edit] Controversy and criticism
Several of Wallace's business ventures, including those created during his tenure with the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, have dissolved amid allegations of controversy, bankruptcy and other forms of litigation, and resulted in Wallace's being passed over for the Republican write-in nomination in 2006.
[edit] W.C. Perry-Imperial Sugar venture
In 2007, David Wallace was involved in a controversy related to conflict of interest concerns involving his affiliation with the W.C. Perry development organization and a brownfield reclamation project of property owned by the Imperial Sugar Company, including the company's historic refinery, which closed in 2003.
Wallace took a position as an executive with Perry at the same time that the city was involved in a joint effort for development of property surrounding the old Imperial Sugar refinery. The Sugar Land City Council established a "firewall" around Wallace in discussions related to the property after Wallace's involvement with Perry came to light. [1] Wallace resigned from Perry's group amid controversy and Perry filed suit against Wallace for fraud in January of 2007 [2].
