El Paso Politics

I saw a couple of signs that made me chuckle when I was downtown the other day. I took pics of them to save them for a rainy day. Today happens to be a rainy day. First up, this edit of the "El Paso" on the County building where people gather for jury duty. Its called Liberty Hall by the way. Someone REALLY didn't want to be on jury duty! Also, it wasn't this lady that did it. She just happened to be walking across the frame. Second...Ain't Nutin' But A G Thang... Vato, you had ONE JOB! Someone spelled the Senator's last name with a "q" instead of a "g". I don't know if they've noticed it, but for whatever reason, I found it hilarious.

The editorial in today's edition of the El Paso Times underscores a point I have been making about Republican candidate for Sheriff, Tom Buchino. The editorial was about Crime Stats Again Puncture Border Myths and outlined the fact that while crime was up slightly nationwide, the areas that were consistently bucking that trend were urban areas along the border that have consistently seen drops in the rate of crime. But you already knew that because you live in El Paso. And that is really the point that I have been making about Buchino. Take a look at any of his social media, look him up on YouTube, etc and you will see that he clearly has an agenda of further militarizing the Sheriff's Department if elected. In the words of Levar Burton, "But you don't have to take my word for it..." forget the dress-up or the time he actually fired a weapon in his video and just check out what Buchino says in his own words in any number of his campaign videos. Here's one go...

For whatever reason Republican challenger for Sheriff of El Paso County, Tom Buchino has been getting a pass from media about his antics. As I've previously documented , much like Trump, Buchino's demeanor has been called into question. And much like Trump, guys who spend a long time being in charge tend to be pretty cavalier about the things they say about women. During the debate the other night Hillary Clinton spent a lot of time listing all the sexist things Trump has said over the years and broke out a new one we hadn't heard before - an insult Trump made to a Latina beauty pageant winner by calling her Miss Housekeeping. Which is why I'm glad people on social media like to tag me in stuff about Tom Buchino. I'm a Democrat and union supporter who believes that law enforcement should have a cooperative relationship with immigrant communities because it keeps us safer and I believe a sheriff should not be a hot head who loses his cool and punches people. So I...

City Rep Emma Acosta announced her candidacy for mayor recently. Apparently on an internet local talk radio program. I'm sure at least a dozen people caught the exiting announcement. Acosta's non-surprise entry into the mayor race underscores something that I have noticed about the mayoral race so far - there really are no credible Latino candidates running for that office, which frankly is a shame considering the size and population make up of the city. What is funny is that Acosta's announcement for mayor was not a surprise, but this is probably the first you're hearing of it. Proof of a botched roll-out. So before you crazies get your panties in a twist, understand that the point I'm making is that it really is remarkable that a city as old as El Paso has been governed by a minority of the population for a really long time. And its raza who elects them, so its not like anyone is putting a gun to our heads to choose them. But it is interesting isn't it? Quite ...

Shame on me for not doing this a long time ago and props to a close friend of mine for pointing it out. If ever there was someone worthy of public recognition for political work in this town it's my friend Jeannette Walker.  I first met her 8 years ago when we were both working on the first Obama campaign. What I admire about her the most is the she is a hard worker and does a much better job of rising above the local party bullshit than a lot of us mere mortals. Walker works for the Party and its values tirelessly. She's an example to us all and unlike a lot of people active in the party who basically show up to meetings to bitch and moan, she's a worker. And I admire that. 

The residents of District 3 are about to have a very interesting problem on their hands. They are about to have to choose between more than one qualified candidate. I don't recall how long its been since that has been the case. Previously District 3 residents would at best have one clear choice and then Lozano. So that is why the races where never close and why its been so long since they had to choose between more than one candidate. The quality of candidate for District 3 has improved by leaps and bounds in this election cycle and is going to give District 3 residents something to think about come election time. Essentially the race looks like it is going to come down to two really smart, qualified, dynamic, experienced,  and educated community leaders and Jaime Barceleau. Jaime Barceleau, who is using the EPISD Bond Election as a platform to launch his political career and probably learn how to campaign, was the first candidate out of the gate. He is essentially known for being ...

While the EPISD Bond is having some trouble gaining some traction in terms of support, understand that they knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to put in on the November ballot. They know most people that vote are going to vote for the Presidential or at best, vote straight ticket. So that means they won't be voting AGAINST the bond. All they have to do is identify the people that most often vote in bond elections and make sure they GOTV the shit out of them. GOTV means making sure they actually show up and vote. The group of people that normally vote in bond elections will be receiving all kinds of attention from the bond PAC, who apparently has a big budget. They were soliciting for people to work for the bond, which means paid block walkers for my buddy Mike to hit all his targets. You know who those voters won't hear from? The anti-bond people. Why? Because they are behind the 8 ball. No matter how flawed the bond is, and it is, if the only message those vot...

Yesterday I wrote about the results of an open record request that showed a police report that chronicled an alleged assault involving Republican candidate Tom Buchino as the alleged assailant. There are a lot of unanswered questions, which could've been answered but the guy who is clamoring for a debate really only wants questions on his own terms. Sorry Tom, but that isn't how democracy works. So we don't really know how serious the car crash was or how badly anyone was injured. We don't have any other mitigating circumstances because Buchino won't take an interview. So we are left to make a judgement based on facts. The facts are you have a Republican candidate who has a very militant posture who has a documented history of resorting to violence when he loses his cool in a tense situation. If you don't believe me, lets go to the video! Here is one example of Buchino playing dress-up with echoes of George W. Bush. All that is missing is a big banner that says ...

Documents obtained through an open records request with the El Paso Police Department indicate that Republican candidate for Sheriff, Tom Buchino, was involved in an assault against an employee of the city's Health Department back in 2011. Documents can be seen in their entirety here and here . According to two separate documents the incident occurred on the morning of August 7, 2011 at almost 9:00am. There was a vehicle crash involving the privately owned vehicle of current Republican candidate for Sheriff, Tom Buchino and a vehicle owned by the City of El Paso and driven by John Charles Mitchell, who worked for the Health Department at the City of El Paso. The report does not indicate if Mr. Mitchell was in a uniform or if he was in a marked city vehicle so it is unclear in what capacity Mr. Mitchell worked for the Health Department. The report does however indicate that he works for the Health Department and that the vehicle belongs to the city of El Paso. As you can see in thi...

Next to the justice system, the sheriff's office is the largest part of the County's budget. The office is the primary law enforcement entity in the county and oversees the county jail system. This November the incumbent Sheriff Richard Wiles will be facing challenger Tom Buchino. Wiles is one of the more popular Democrats in El Paso county and has a pretty long track record of his position on issues facing the community and the department. His opponent, other than being supporting by the El Paso County Sheriff Officer Association, is somewhat of a mystery. In fact, he's a bit elusive. I've tried for a couple of weeks to get an interview with Buchino through contact on Twitter and via email. Mostly its gone ignored but eventually some of the contact was answered and to summarize the email conversations Buchino was essentially doing what ever he could to dodge an interview. He kept putting up strange caveats like wanting to wait until after there was a debate between he ...

Lots to talk about with yesterday's Commissioner's Court meeting. I was all set to go on a rant about why in the blue hell is the Public Works head honcho presenting a bond plan to the court that has (shocker) even more funds dedicated to Ascarate Park in the form of storm water improvements for a park that has a FREAKING BODY OF WATER ON IT, while not including any such improvements for the plazita in San Elizario. But then I see this bullshit of cutting COLA from County retirees. Obviously the math is no where near the same, but the optics of VOTING FOR THEIR OWN FREAKIN' RAISE and cutting COLA from retirees IN THE SAME FREAKIN' BUDGET just looks absolutely terrible. Yes, they have to do something to fix the cost to the taxpayers for the pensions. No disagreement there. But you can't give yourself a raise and take away from someone else in the same budget. This is a self-inflicted wound and everyone that voted for it deserves every bit of criticism they get for it...

I'd need interns if I was going to respond everything stupid said by the out-of-town bloggers with blogs about me, but sometimes their stupidity floats to the top and I'm forced to deal with it like an over flowing toilet. Case in point, David K's latest spin around the conspiracy theory crazy-go-'round. So I'll keep this one short. David K doesn't live here but seems to think he knows who is involved in what. He's wrong. I haven't made up my mind on who I'm supporting for mayor because the election isn't until FUCKING next year. Morris Pittle is David K's buddy. David K's family does business with the city of El Paso so they absolutely have a dog in the fight, no matter how much he pretends they don't. If they didn't, then all his stories about how people complain to his mom about what he writes wouldn't matter. David K wrote his piece before that in an effort to prevent criticism of his buddy Morris' candidate. I don...

I'll get more into a rant about charter schools and why they are bad for public education and tax payers in a later post, but for now watch this video if you haven't seen it already. Here's the bottom line that I think is important for people to understand about the EPISD Bond. The very same people that are trying to pave the way for more charter schools into El Paso are the same people behind the bond. That should at the very least, be cause for concern. CREEED, which is an education PAC that is a love child of Texas for Education Reform, essentially the same people behind Texans for Lawsuit Reform, put a bunch of money behind candidates in the last round of school board elections at both EPISD and YISD. Their candidates at EPISD all won, their candidates at YISD all lost. And now EPISD has a bond going out to voters. Board President Dori Fenenbock has taken a position of participating in the PAC, which isn't something that has normally been done in the past, was a CRE...

David Saucedo announced his candidacy for mayor recently and the El Paso Times ran a story on it. You should click on the story to read more about Mr. Saucedo , but there is also cool video on the Times' website of his campaign announcement. There's a part where he speaks about El Paso's history and apparently there was only one person who clapped. It reminded me of the scene in Coming to America with Randy Watson & Sexual Chocolate. You can see his campaign logo. I don't really understand what the symbol is supposed to convey but there was some thought put into it from what I'm told. Saucedo's biggest problem is that #1 he's a madre Republican (as in supports extremists like Rick Santorum - did you ever google "santorum" by the way? If you haven't, don't do it from a work computer) and #2 his political input has been to support illegal speed bumps for Cathedral High School, supported Larry Romero, and supported the obscene raise for th...

Campaigns are the intersection of timing and opportunity. If any one, or neither, of the two aren't there, your campaign is going to lose. For Jaime Barceleau this is particularly true. Aside from a major character flaw that will come out during the campaign, Barceleau now has several problems. Aside from being the only candidate in that race that is going to be advocating for a 15% increase in taxes right before his own election, he is also going to be facing younger, more dynamic and talented competition. There will likely be a few more people to jump in the race but one candidate that joined the race this week and one that will be joining next week are candidates that immediately make Barceleau's chances of winning go from slim to none.  Cassandra Hernandez-Brown announced her candidacy in a press release yesterday along with a campaign fundraiser announcement - south of the freeway no less! From her press release: “I have been fortunate” stated Mrs. Hernandez-Brown “My moth...

Former Cit Rep Maria Reyes regained her seat on Socorro City Council following Saturday's election.  Reyes won a special election that was set to replace Sergio Cox who resigned over the fall out of a street paving scandal in which Cox had a street paved that was a dead end road and has almost no traffic but did have a property that Cox had a financial interest in. Cox had defeated Reyes a couple of years ago and now she will replace him on council to fulfill the remainder of his unexpired term. Her rejoining council will be a potential powder keg at least for a couple of months because City Rep Gloria Rodriguez and Reyes very famously have bad blood.  Rodriguez is termed out but is currently running for Mayor against incumbent Jesus Ruiz. That election is in November of this year. 

Jaime Barceleau is using the bond to further his political career.  Stevie Wonder can see that.  It's bad for the district, it's bad for the bond, and it makes the district look bad. The people in charge of the bond should realize that it makes no sense to have a declared political candidate as a key player in the bond.  Case in point, Barceleau apparently spoke with multiple elected officials about the bond over the last few days and at least on of them was angered by his pitch because it sounded like a veiled threat by harking back "to the people that elected you".  It's a bad idea and fixable. But they won't and it's only going to get worse. The tax payers are essentially footing the bill to further Jaime Barceleau's political career.  Coupled with bringing on Mark Smith, I see the EPISD PAC is off to a GREAT start!  Yes, that's sarcasm. 

Only this city council would think its a good idea to eliminate free parking in the downtown area on Saturdays. Downtown is only just now starting to blossom into something potentially really cool and this dumbass city council thinks charging people to park downtown is a good idea. Take a look around at other parts of El Paso that have more and better, shopping and entertainment options. Show me the ones that charge to park there. The answer is zero. This shit is not only incredibility short-sighted, but it underscores the fact that this council would rather find a way to charge you for more shit rather than finding a cheaper way to operate. I'm telling you, its a matter of time before they find a way to charge us to take a walk in a park that we already pay for. Unless you're a dog. Then you get a free splash pad you don't have to pay to use. The one that drove me the most crazy during the debate was the mayor. The mayor told someone who spoke during public comment that if...

I don't live in the EPISD area, but if I did and I was faced with this bond, I'd vote no. The sticker price is just outrageous coming in at almost 3/4 of a billion dollars. And while I'll be the first to say that we have to invest in brick and mortar projects for our students, but a big portion of this bond is to basically close some schools. That's not building, that is the opposite. Lets start with some stark realities that people need to remember. For all of you that complain about how high your taxes are, let me fill you in on a secret. The largest portion of your tax bill is the school district. They tax you the most and so when you have a high tax bill, they are most at fault. You guys bitch and moan about city council and the county, but the school district does you dirty every year. When you vote for a bond, YOU are raising your OWN taxes. Its "for the kids" but YOU are deciding whether or not to raise your OWN taxes. You're going to be increasing ...

Yesterday was Labor Day and it got me to thinking about unions in town. As you know I'm a lifelong union guy and do work for unions in town. That is why when I see unions do things that I know is ultimately going to hurt other unions, it bothers me. Thus my criticism of the El Paso Sheriffs Officers Association and others. But the one that I think is doing the most damage to unions in town is AFSCME, and mostly because of Hector Montes. This post has video of how Montes got what he deserved a couple of weeks ago at a Commissioner's Court meeting. Since Montes makes it a point to be the public face of an otherwise good union, its his public actions that are the problem. Very often it appears that Montes uses his position with AFSCME as a platform for him to advocate for his own view points rather than what is in the best interest of AFSCME or its membership. And example is that Montes is often critical of union-friendly members of governing bodies because he has a personal beef ...

Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees President Shane Haggerty is considering a run for District 4 on City Council. That seat is currently held by City Rep Carl Robinson who is termed out. Sam Morgan has already made his intentions known that he is interested in running for the seat and Haggerty would join the business owner in the field of prospective candidates. Haggerty's possible run has an immediate impact on the race for several reasons but mostly because he's a Haggerty running in the Northeast. Haggerty's have done really well in that part of town for many years. Shane Haggerty is one of the Democrat Haggerty's and has been a member of the fire fighter union for many years. Haggerty recently retired from the El Paso Fire Fighter Department and represents the Parkland area on the YISD School Board. Haggerty would likely have the support of the fire fighter's union which is one of the few unions in town that is effective in electing people they ...

In a stunning development Jaime Barceleau is running for city council in District 3!!!!! Just kidding. Its not a shocker. I mentioned it probably 6 months ago. His campaign team sent out a cryptic email about his campaign announcement last week thinking that they would get more media coverage by being coy about what he's running for. Unless he was going to stun everyone by announcing that he was going to run for President or Governor of Texas, this really isn't a surprise. But then again, there's lots of things about Jaime Barceleau that are cryptic. Sure hope he isn't going to rely on this election being about his integrity, honesty, or fidelity. Because if it is....he's fucked! Any who, he had his campaign announcement last night. This campaign should be REALLY interesting. As a candidate for public office, he's now a public figure and therefore, open to scrutiny. Stay thirsty my friends...

So if you read my buddy David K's blog today he touts Republican mayoral candidate David Saucedo III.  Thats because his buddy Morris Pittle is part of his campaign team. He didn't disclose that while he was implying everyone else has a dog in the fight.  It's certainly way too early for me to decide who I'm voting for considering the field hasn't even settled yet.  Ali Razavi is gonna be Team Dee all the way. That's why he's been doing open records requests between Escobar and Houghton. Forma backs Margo and tells Ali what to ask for. Pretty simple. Personally I think Sylvestre Reyes is a game changer if he actually jumps into the race. Say what you want about him but he didn't lose by a lot and the longer someone is out of office the more fondly they are remembered. He doesn't have to invest money into introducing himself to voters and he should have a pretty strong grasp of policy.  He's Chicano, well-known, and probably has access to campaign...