story ideas:
- why such a non-story?
- most interesting districts: wanchai (lots of development projects and highly qualified candidates); island district (lantau, lamma etc), sham shui po - poorer district.
- do the voters have any idea what authority the dc's have over money and how the decisions get made? Do the DC's have any real influence over the Urban Renewal Authority, the HK Housing Committe or the Town Planning offices? If they get more money and power from the government to make influential decisions what guarantee do the communities have that developers won't hold sway over the decision-making process?

- tamar site - opposite admiralty - govt building development - does dc have any say in this?
- DAB - how important is this race for them
- Civic Party - this is the first time they've formed a party (universal suffrage)
- Democratic Party
- Liberal
- Association for Democracy and ppl's livelihood
(pan democrats)
- local issues vs. political party affiliations
- campaign financing
- tycoon influences on local issues? (look at who the campaign manager is)
- appointed vs. directly elected councilors
- why do district councils have most universal suffrage?
- what kinds of ppl run for dc?
- laboratory for democracy?
- vote-getting tactics/incentives
- training for legco politicians?

voting day:
- campaign banner rules/breaking rules etc

coverage tactics:
district council meetings - anybody can go in person
promises vs. actions
**people are the most interesting - who are the rising stars and newcomers?
- public record office - p.r.o.

other info:
pilot schemes for 4 district councils (see chester's story) -
used to be 3 tiers: legco, urban council, district boards then in 1998 urban councils and db's got basically combined, to make long story short
2003 vs 2007 - is this a prelude for next election (legco 2008)?

pro-beijing DAB- does well in district politics
(hard to make side-by-side comparison with legco by-election)

new territories: stronghold of DAB