El Paso Politics

There is an unprecedented amount of screw ups in the local Democratic Party this season. Which is saying a lot because the local Democratic Party is typically a case study in what not to do in elections and campaigns. Trust me when I tell you I will have some really great stuff to make you hip to in the coming weeks that will be equal parts hilarity and stupidity. You're gonna love it. But I have also been doing my homework on all the candidates while I've been taking a little holiday break and found out some interesting things about all of them. I'll share the relevant stuff as its appropriate to. In the mean time I want to talk about the Tax Assessor Collector race again because its just so hilarious to me. That is the race in which the appointed Tax Assessor Collector Ruben Gonzalez was running for a full term against Siria Rocha who pretty much ran the tax office while she was there. Beating an Hispanic female countywide who is younger than you is always tough but given...

I know, I've been away for awhile. You'll have to excuse me, I've been off on a water planet living on an island becoming one with the Force. In my absence I have been catching up on some reading of my blogosphere adversaries. Since the only one I read regularly is David K it took some time to catch up to some of the stuff thats been put out there, especially considering Martin Paredes might be the most boring person in the galaxy to have a conversation with given how long-winded and pointless his posts are. Any who, I'm sure you all are expecting some end-of-year list or something from me and I'm really sorry to disappoint but I just sorta don't have it in me this year. I mean if I wanted to, I could probably do a list of Top 10 Times DK, Ali Razavi, and Martin Paredes promised some sort of major controversy story and it didn't pan out. What ever happened to this big "Watergate" style story at city hall, or this huge YISD thing the Persian answer ...

Stick around until the end and I'll tell you why a lot of people are wrong about this Jim Darnell thing. You are missing a big point and all jumped to the wrong conclusion. I almost don't know where to start so this post is likely going to be all over the place. The fact that council hasn't put the city manager on administrative leave represents a complete failure on their part to start rebuilding the trust with this community that has been damaged. But the fact that Gonzalez has the nerve to go on vacation now, is an embarrassment. When your bosses aren't happy with you, the last thing you should be doing is going on vacation. You should be the star employee until it all blows over. You should be the first one in and the last one out. This is Marie Antionette "Let them eat cake" and Nero fiddling while Rome burns all in one. There has to be a reason council is not putting Gonzalez on leave and I think the reason is fear. No I don't think that Jim Darnell ...

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush will be making a stop in El Paso on Friday. I don't have too many details but sources indicate its just a fundraiser event at 10am at the El Paso Club. This would be the first Republican candidate to stop in El Paso during this presidential cycle. Typically the local GOP tries to keep a lid on visiting Republican dignitaries to El Paso so I haven't been able to get details on the event yet. Jeb Bush's son George P. Bush is the Texas Land Commissioner and he has been to El Paso several times during his tenure. More to follow.

Well the fact that the District Attorney, Tax Assessor-Collector, and constable races may be the most lively races in this election cycle, demonstrates just how nothing significant happened yesterday as the filing deadline expired to appear on the March Primary ballot. Several of the judges that are up for re-election showed up to the Democratic Party headquarters waiting to see if they had opponents. There were no surprises on the judicial front. District Attorney Jaime Esparza is facing two challengers in the race, Yvonne Rosales and Leonard Morales. Esparza has been in office more than 20 years and both candidates are older than Esparza was when he replaced a long-term incumbent. His challengers are stronger than his previous ones. Neither of his candidates are certifiably insane and at least one has been working hard and started pretty early. Obviously both Rosales and Morales have a steep hill to climb but a run-off is possible if a few things bounce their way. Its a long shot, bu...

Today is the filing deadline for candidates wishing to appear on the March primary ballot. On the GOP side there is no excitement. No one cares who is going to be the sacrificial lamb selected to run for congress or any other office they make a feeble attempt at campaigning for. Except me. I'm crossing my fingers that Barbara Carrasco runs for something. I can't wait to highlight that lady's policy positions for all the world to see, although that won't be fun until we are in the general election cycle. Don't expect any major surprises on the Democratic side either. Anyone who is a legitimate contender for an office already started campaigning months ago. People who have a real legitimate chance of winning always start early, unless you're the once-in-a-lifetime type of candidate like Mayor Leeser with lots of money and years of name ID. The only place you might, just maybe, see a surprise is with a few of the judicial seats. Like I said, the male judges are pre...

Last night on ABC 7 Xtra there were two things that were alleged that I don't think have been mentioned before and at least one of them has the potential to be yet another problem that has to be fixed at city council. First lets look at the dramatic part. In the video below at around the 13:00 minute mark City Rep Ordaz is being questioned by host Maria Garcia about a meeting between Ordaz and City Manager Tommy Gonzalez regarding Noe Hinojosa. I haven't heard this story before but from the conversation it appears Ordaz is basically saying Gonzalez has been less than truthful about when he met Noe Hinojosa. Garcia understands the gravity of what is being said and from what I gather in the piece she's asked Gonzalez about this before so she pretty much corners Ordaz about whether she is 100% sure of what took place. Ordaz elaborates about a text message that was allegedly mistakenly sent to Noe Hinojosa instead of Representative Noe and herself from the city manager. Ordaz s...

I rarely comment on national politics because well, I'm a progressive liberal Democrat and you all pretty much know where I stand on a lot of national stuff. But obviously Donald Trump has made me make an exception. Here's the reality about Trump. Right now, he is the Republican Party. I know its pretty shitty that after all the real leaders that party has had over the years, the Party of Lincoln has been hijacked by Trump. The real problem with Trump isn't just that he says such stupid things and gets all kinds of negative attention for the GOP brand that will not likely rinse off before next November. Its not even that he may decide to take his ball and run as an independent in November either, although I acknowledge that is a major concern for the GOP leadership. The real problem for the GOP with Trump is that so many people right now actually LIKE him in their party. That is a scary thing for the GOP when you think about it because it exposes all the idiots and racists ...

I wouldn't put it passed this council, but it appears that an item on the agenda for the next city council meeting is marking the end of City Manager Tommy Gonzalez. Based on Tuesday's city council meeting and these articles in the El Paso Times and the El Paso Inc , its pretty freaking difficult to see how the city manager survives the recent developments having to do with the financial advisor. A few months ago the very same reps that are expressing disappointment in the city manager were the ones pushing for his raise. That led to some going to city council and calling an agenda item to revisit the raise "an embarrassment". I wonder where those people are now. But back to my point, when City Rep Cortney Niland, who was once one of Gonzalez's biggest supporters is now openly critical of the city manager and seems to be on a quest to find out who is responsible for several developments relating to the RFQ for a new financial advisor, you know the city manager is...

More to follow. Stay tuned to local news outlets. 

Gotta give props to City Rep Cortney Niland for her comments regarding the fee hike El Paso Electric is going after. During yesterday's meeting when the agenda item was being heard Niland laid out the numbers and essentially destroyed the utilities argument for a raise. She stood up for El Paso families, rate payers and users of solar energy. She even called them out on trying to go over city council's head and called on the El Paso legislative delegation to protect the rate payers.  Which means she just made it an campaign item for HD 75 and 77. All that was missing was for her to drop the mic. So I give credit where credit is due and Niland earned it yesterday.  Well done. UPDATE: I forgot to add today's cat video. Here you go...

So I was trying to monitor the city council meeting today and found out that after several weeks they are still not set up to let people with an Apple device stream the meetings. They can't even get that right. And out of frustration I got to thinking about all the crap they seem to mess up on. Seriously, its enough to make even a progressive liberal like myself start thinking like a crazy "government bad" Frankenstein's monster from the GOP. But then I thought to myself, hey its the Christmas season or Channukuh or Hanukah - not sure what the correct spelling is there, and maybe I need to let a little more kindness in my heart. So I decided I was going to write down a list of all the things the city is really good at. Without further adieu, here is a list of all the things I think the city does really well: Shit, I got nothing. I'm sorry, my bad. I can't think of anything. Oh wait, I have something! Parking tickets! When you go downtown and visit your city ha...

Last night City Representative Larry Romero went on KVIA for ABC 7 Xtra with Maria Garcia. So let me start by saying kudos to him for actually going on air and facing the questions. That took guts. There are many take-aways from it but the main one for me is that Romero is indignant about what has been unearthed, he essentially blames the Times for his woes, and is completely detached from reality. Romero believes most of his constituents are happy with him and that anyone not happy with him either lives outside his district or is the product of the imagination of the El Paso Times. But there were a couple of things that I think were really important during the conversation last night. I've heard the city manager and Romero both refer to the displeasure of Rep Romero "and other members" of council toward First Southwest as the City's financial advisor. But no one ever says exactly who. No one has come and and named names. Garcia read my tweet asking that question on t...

Educator and businesswoman Georgina Perez has filed with the Texas Democratic Party to run for the State Board of Education. In an election cycle that has thus far been pretty safe for incumbents Perez tossed her hat in the ring for a position currently held by Martha Dominguez. Dominguez will be familiar to some because the last time she ran, she actually tried to withdraw from the race but because of filing errors was unable to be removed from the ballot. She ended up winning the election and has been the area's representative to the State Board of Education ever since. "The SBOE is an important entity that has been hijacked by extremists that are more concerned with advancing an ultra-conservative agenda and rewriting text books than they have been overseeing the education of Texas youth. El Paso needs a strong voice to advocate on our behalf and I think I bring that tenacity to the table", Perez said. Perez said running a family business and her years in the classroom...

The fact that Jim Tolbert had to file an ethics complaint and that it didn't come from members of council themselves sends a terrible message to the community. It either says we are incapable of fixing our own mess and need a citizen to do it for us - or it says we are in complete denial that there is a problem and don't think there is anything to fix in the first place. But yet again we demonstrate our complete incompetence as a city. Somehow, according to Tommy Gonzalez last night, El Paso is ranked somewhere as the 3rd Best Managed City in Texas. That is fucking incredible when you consider the failures on the part of the city as it relates to the MPO, the engineering department, street paving, the financial advisor, and the biggest city screw up of all...the plazita. More on that in a minute, but now we can add another example of how the City sucks worse than Tony Romo on a Sunday...the city's Ethics Commission. If I'm not mistaken the commission has the power to ac...

Embattled City Manager Tommy Gonzalez kept a speaking date with City Rep Emma Acosta's community meeting last night despite an ethics violation being filed against him and City Rep Larry Romero yesterday. I had a chance to ask him about it. My beloved camera is dead, so I only have audio but you can hear his response a little further down in the post, along with a hilarious response to a question he asked the audience that I'm guessing he wishes he hadn't asked. He asked what people think of when they think of El Paso and people started to itemize a bunch of negative stuff including several people saying "corruption". Before we get into that let me say this about the city manager. He showed up, he knew he was going to be asked tough questions, and he stood there and took it like a man. He was poised and never appeared to be too rattled. He also had to put up with something that annoys the crap out of me that happens with Acosta's meetings more than any other c...

I struggled with myself a bit about whether or not to write this post because its about a project I care a lot about and had a front row seat for most of it. The fact that the project had been stalled for so many years and has finally come through is extremely satisfying - but State Rep Mary Gonzalez taking credit for it is extremely annoying. So despite the fact that I agree with most of her politics and I have supported her in the past, and consider her a friend, I feel I wouldn't be honest with you readers if I didn't set the record straight. Several hundred residents in the Montana Vista area, the poor part, not the rich part, have been without sewer service for many years and over time many of their septic systems have failed. Some have open cesspools and others leak. Its a terrible situation to have to live in. State Rep Mary Gonzalez is taking the credit for a project going through that she shouldn't be taking credit for. Well, not to the degree that she is. And it s...

If you haven't seen the full interview on KVIA of City Rep Larry Romero by Maria Garcia of KVIA and Elida Perez of the El Paso Times, click here to review it. Romero understandably hasn't wanted to talk much about the series of controversies he's been facing lately so the two basically had to wait him out and catch him before he went into the agenda review meeting the other day. Just a tip for you electeds out there, don't avoid the media even if its uncomfortable. You look shady and you will inevitably get stuck with a camera in your face at a time that is not of your choosing. Make yourself available and if you're smart, do it on your turf at a time of your choosing so that you can at least be prepared for it. Obviously Romero is hostile to the reporters because he doesn't want to answer any questions. None of the questions asked were out-of-bounds, unreasonable, inappropriate, etc. There were all on-point and frankly they could've even been sharper. And ...

The race that will get all of the attention in the March Primary Election is the race to replace out-going State Rep Marisa Marquez in HD 77 that pits Lina Ortega against Adolfo Lopez. In terms of their candidacy the two are pretty evenly matched. Both are attorneys. Shapleigh held a fundraiser for Ortega, Dee Margo held on for Lopez. Lopez has a Cesar Blanco quality about him. Smart, very likable, dynamic good-looking guy that will do well on a doorstep. I should say does well on the door step because he's been walking. In terms of personality, he's just more likable than Ortega. I've met her three times now, she never remembers which is kinda funny to me, but is also likable. But she's not dynamic. You almost get the sense that she's reluctant about running. Lopez released a campaign video that features him in a sweatsuit straight out of Beat Street running around HD 77 which half reminds me of Rocky but also sorta reminds me of Forrest Gump. The point of the ad i...

The reality is that accepting the feria from Estrada Hinojosa through Carlos Aguilar was a mistake no matter how you look at it. The optics of the transaction alone were bad and Acosta is an experienced city rep with arguably the most politically experienced staffer of anyone on council. They should have known better. But the did the right thing in returning the money. I'm confused as to why she's defiant to the media about accepting the money in the first place but is still returning the money. I mean look, you're either defiant and you don't return the money, or you acknowledge a mistake and return the money. She seems to be wanting to do both at the same time. Its the Donal Trump school of politics that dictates you can't admit to being wrong because it somehow shows you're weak. Thats just silly. People are forgiving, but you have to acknowledge a mistake. A better way to have handled the situation would've have been for her to say that in light of recen...