El Paso Politics

Trust me when I tell you this isn't something trivial despite the award given.  Rep Svarzbein has been targeted by some dumbass anti-Semite out there. Svarzbein's galley was targeted for graffiti and there was some hateful language used.  If the assailant knew he was a Jew, then he knew he was a city rep too. This isn't something that should be taken lightly and is an attack on a public official.  It's a hate crime plain and simple. I hope it's not political. Because there is no room for that in political discourse. I have my disagreements with Rep Svarzbein and many elected officials in town but this kind of hatefulness has no place in politics. This is something that should offend us all. Elected officials all have their haters. It's part of the job. I have several of my own. It's hard enough to try to do your job without some hateful assholes out there with nothing better to do that fuck with you. I know, I have a couple of them myself right now like Mart...

By now you have likely seen this latest cartoon in the El Paso Times and its pure genius. It captures city council pretty well right now although conspicuously absent from the cartoon are Reps Svarzbein, Romero, & Acosta. And it shows the Mayor as the exhausted guy who has no ability to control the action. Pretty accurate if you ask me. Not sure why Ordaz is coming off the top rope but maybe she's gonna pull a Jimmy "Super Fly" Snuka. It would be really awesome if Mayor Cook come running down the ramp, slid into the ring, started dropping Stone Cold Stunners, flipped off the crowd and left a ring full of city council members knocked out while he climbs the ropes and drinks a beer. Just sayin'. My greater point is that I have to give Svarzbein credit. I watched Sicario. I can't believe he managed to get people to engage in a conversation about how the movie makes El Paso look when the movie has basically nothing to do with El Paso. Seriously, like nothing. No v...

Oh those zany kids that are doing marketing at the city have been busy marketing city services and projects lately. As you've seen previously city council has been participating. Well so has City Manager Tommy Gonzalez.  Word around the water-cooler at city hall is that this ad was 100% his idea.  So adopt a pet instead of buying one. You're not only gaining a pet but you're saving a life. Also, this ad could double as Mr. Gonzalez's Halloween costume.  I asked him if I could be Goose to his Maverick.  His response was "Negative Ghost Rider" Not really.

I've been pretty critical of City Reps Nikand and Svarzbein lately, although the critiques are fair and issue-based. I don't do personal.  But, I wanted to pass on some funny stuff from the last week that I thought you'd get a kick out of and shows that the two have a sense of humor. First let's start with City Rep Niland. She posted this Back to the Future meme on her Instagram account and I found it hilarious. Good for her. I've seen it ther places but the first time I saw it was on her account.  The next this I want to share is from Rep Svarzbein. I ran into him last week at a political event and he had a gift for me. It was an attempt at humor and probably a bit of a "fuck you" to me.  Gotta respect the moxie. If you recall I posted a video of him acting pretty silly as part of an effort by the city to promote their intranet to their staff.  Now I can't stop playing with the damn thing. Well played Svarzbein, well played.

Former State Board of Education member Charlie Garza is running for the state legislature again according to a recent tweet. Garza has run for state rep in the El Paso are previously against then-State Rep Chente Quintanilla.  He didn't fare well in the election running in an overwhelmingly Democratic district. He then ran for SBOE a couple of years later and won.  As you can see in the tweet he would be taking on State Rep Chris Turner. It will be difficult for Garza because he hasn't lived in the area very long but the Republican Party in the area is more rubato and better-financed than in El Paso.

She didn't have to do it because she wasn't wrong in the first place. But she did it anyway. City Rep Limón's public apology for her reaction to an outburst accusation from Rep Niland was the classiest thing to come out of city hall in a really long time. What I thought was great about the apology is that she was very specific about apologizing for how she reacted to the accusation from Niland that she was recording her, but held her ground on other issues. Limón was unfairly blamed for the altercation at a recent city council meeting and trying to expect City Rep Noe to play umpire and expect him to be a fair arbiter was unrealistic and he predictably took the side of his council ally. But, that didn't mean Limón had to respond the way she did, although one could certainly understand her frustration after having to deal with an adversarial relationship for so long. Limón lost her cool and she admitted it. She's a career administrator and educator, so she should be ...

The recall attempt of City Rep Larry Romero has ended abruptly. Here is the withdrawal of the recall effort. For those of you keeping score there was talk of the recall. Then Rep Romero allegedly started asking around about Gurrola (the person doing the recall). Then Tuesday Gurrola files the paperwork for the recall. Now on Wednesday he inexplicably withdraws the intent to recall. Many recall efforts have started and stopped in the past, but none has ever ended this quickly and without explanation. Never. You do the math.

I sat down with prominent El Paso attorney Fernando Chacon, affectionately known around town as Fernie the Attorney, to talk a little more about the article on BuzzFeed that featured problems at the El Paso Municipal Courts. Chacon played a prominent role in getting the courts to change how they punished people for tickets several years ago, which is why BuzzFeed consulted him on their article. City Council will be taking this issue up and I wanted to pick his brain on what he thought would be good policy recommendations to city council regarding the issue. Chacon also explains in more detail what the actual procedural problems there are with the municipal courts in addition to policy suggestions for City Council to consider when they take up this issue in the near future. (SIDE NOTE: This interview was done on video but its time to replace the old stand-by, she's starting to go out on me. Luckily I learned to record audio separately because its usually better quality than what a v...

Sources at city hall have indicated that an intent to recall has been filed against City Rep Romero. I don't have any other details yet but it was likely filed by former city rep candidate Adam Gurrola. More details to follow as they become available.

Many of you have heard the local push for a rehab of Valenti's public relations. I know, it might be the most clueless political message this town has ever seen that didn't come from David K's blog. What everyone wants to know is who is the person that is trying to actually feed people this garbage that Valenti is some sort of savior to this community. Multiple sources have indicated that the person behind the effort is Dr. Hani Annabi. The good doctor from what I am told, is quite the Valenti cheerleader and is a doctor at UMC. He gave that away when he wrote a letter to the editor the other day. I don't know if he's employed by UMC or has some sort of contractual relationship. Point being, he's a total homer for Valenti. The PR push that has consisted of radio and print publications so far. Both are pretty expensive. But since they are not connected to a political campaign, there is no disclosure requirement. Look, I wouldn't put it past Valenti to have co...

Every once in a while even I am surprised by something in El Paso politics. So since its Monday and everyone hates Mondays I thought I would bring a little joy to your hearts today.  I'm not sure who told him this was a good idea but after telling a constituent you can't answer a question because you have to talk to your mommy and then being the only Jewish member of council and being passed up on a trip to Israel, why worry about a little thing like dignity? I don't know if he thinks this stuff makes him look cool, but someone should tell him that it underscores people's concerns that an artist wouldn't take the job of city rep seriously.  I think he should call for a community forum on the topic and invite people to come and talk about how this video portrays El Paso. Its clearly a priority for him. 

A source at the city tells me City Rep Romero has been looking into the attendance record of one of his rumored recall challengers. Adam Gurrola was on two city boards at one point and according to my source Romero recently started digging around to find out if his young rival missed any meetings. First, let me state there is absolutely nothing wrong with Romero digging around. Anyone would do the same if they were also on the hot seat for the city managers raise and streetghazi.  The problem for Romero is that if he found dirt on Gurrola it would have to be some pretty freaking big dirt to overcome the negatives Romero is dealing with right now. So it makes sense that he'd dig around.  The other problem for Romero is that Gurrola will likely not be the only opponent he faces. If, and it's a big if because it takes some manpower and commitment to get the required number of signatures within whatever time frame allowed, there is a runoff, it is likely that other people also tak...

In case you missed it last night on the news or in today’s paper, there was even more bickering at city hall yesterday.   I know, shocker right? During the meeting Rep Niland spontaneously spouts off about being recorded by City Rep Limón during the meeting.  I  went  a step further than requesting text messages. Through the Freedom of Information Act I requested a copy of Rep Limón's cell phone video. I have obtained a copy of the cell phone footage that Rep Limón recorded of Rep Niland during yesterday’s council meeting.  Here is the exclusive footage: Who knew Niland was such a Britney fan? Obviously I’m kidding about the video. But it reminded me of something from a few months back.  A few months ago big shots from the Chamber of Commerce went in front of city council and argued (with a straight face no less) that revisiting the city manager’s raise was an “embarrassment” to the community. Well, it wasn’t an embarrassment. It was a responsible and neces...

In what is turning in to the longest public works project this side of Pharaoh's pyramid, the plazita downtown has hit yet another delay. Which means there is no guarantee that the plaza will be open by this Christmas. Which if you buy what the fancy new city hall decorations say about accountability then we should all be holding City Rep Cortney Niland for yet another delay in the project that was already a campaign issue since her re-election campaign. Well thanks a lot Honey Bader, no Christmas in the plazita again this year. Looks like we will be doing another Christmas at the library. Yay. Seriously, Honey Badger may have really screwed up big time. If you caught Tuesday's council meeting you'll see that Rep Niland was in rare form about a couple of items but lets talk about the plazita first because its going to be the one that probably causes her, and the average El Pasoan, the most grief. Watch this video of a KVIA story that aired yesterday and you'll see exact...

Ever since city council voted to give the city manager a raise the talk of recall began to swirl around City Reps Romero and Niland. In general I look at recall talk as sort of political terrorism. Its an extreme measure meant to accomplish nothing more than to blow shit up. And the talk of recall against Niland was probably at least partially attributed to the fact that she limped in to reelection by barely beating a candidate that was handicapped by not having any money, any name ID, a criminal record, no presence in the community and being associated with Hector Montes and Stephanie Townsend-Allala. And he still almost won. Niland still has to be in office for awhile before anyone can realistically move against her, although there has been plenty of talk of her trying to engineer a recall effort against Rep Limón. Well, until the city manager raise vote. Then that all seems to have gone away but the chatter was she had a candidate and a budget ready to go. Any who, the real recall t...

Remember that I post all campaign announcements that are sent to me, so if you see me and ask me why I haven't posted your event, ask yourself if you sent it to me.  Sending it to Don Williams is not the same as sending it to me.  This guy sent it to me. 

There are so many ways in which the County differs from the City and yesterday was one of the clearest distinctions between the two entities.  Where the City is dealing with in-fighting and staffers engaging in black-ops against other city reps and the City is struggling to get major things done, the County certainly showed they move with a purpose.  While the City struggles with their chief administrator and all the headlines he seems to make, the County just ripped the band-aide off and fired theirs seemingly out of no where.  It actually reminded me of something Rep Niland said when she went on the air a couple of weeks ago the day after it came to light that her staffer Jeremy Jordan had recruited and instructed interns to engage in negative political activities at the city. She said that a lot of that stuff was just an effort by the county to distract from all their problems.  Which is interesting if you're keeping score.  The City raised your taxes and gav...

In case you missed it there was an article in the Times last week that showed that City Manager Tommy Gonzalez was aware of the street paving projects that were part of pave-ghazi. You know, the one were Rep Romero was trying to get his own street paved. Well that would've happened but the plug was pulled when everything came to light.  Now we hear a story that City Manager Tommy Gonzalez hired Rep Romero's brother to help him out with his consulting firm. Back when there was the desire to revisit the raise for the city manager a series of big shots paraded in front of city council and said how great Gonzalez was and how it was, to use the words of a couple of the big shots, "an embarrassment". So riddle me this Batman... Still think it was a bad idea to revisit the raise or are you still okay with it? In other news... This is a pic of what's hanging up at city hall. I thought the inclusion of "integrity", "respect", and "accountability...

No wonder he lacks credibility. As if the Archie press release wasn't enough frivolity from the new district 1 rep, he topped it with a press release about a movie. I'm sure when you think leadership, you think press releases about movies.  I guess it could be worse. At least he's not trying to pave the road he lives on or anything.  Anywho, here's the funny part about his press release. He invites people to watch something he doesn't think they should be watching.  And then later they are gonna talk about all the negative stereotypes they just paid money to see.  Gotta love the logic. Good thing he's already taken care of all the important things in district 1 so he can focus on art again. 

Nestor Valencia has a great plan for the Hispanic Cultural Center. It's smart, makes sense, cost-efficient, and good for the tax-payer.  Therefore it's dead on arrival. But it's not gonna die for the reasons you might think.  Word around the campfire in city hall is that city reps are saying it's going to die because some reps don't like Limón asking questions and poking around on things. There is an idea that she needs to be involved in relationships with council members in order to get anything passed. In others words they want her to kiss their ass. That's not new to politics by any stretch of the imagination but it underscores exactly how this current council acts. No wonder so many are displeased with them.  It's no longer about who has the best ideas. It's about a certain majority wanting their collective asses kissed.  Who cares about what's best for the city right?