El Paso Politics

There's a great scene at the end of the movie Tombstone where Wyatt is talking to his old friend Doc Holiday on his deathbed. Holiday had just been visited by a Catholic priest, presumably giving him his last rights. Doc Holiday who had led a less than godly life utters a famous line, "It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds." I wonder how many times a day Max Grossman must do the same thing, or if he even cares how much of a complete hypocrite he has become. Grossman participated in the closed-door meeting that very likely violated the Texas Open Meetings Act (ironically abbreviated TOMA), and yet had the AUDACITY to cry foul on social media about former Mayor John Cook! NOW Grossman cares about gross violations of Texas law? Where was his concern for gross violation of Texas law when he was participating in a meeting that was not open to the public, held in secret, and there was a conscious effort to try to side-step TOMA? Again to quote 90's hip hop artists Onyx, ...

Way to go Chicano activists, you just screwed over the very people you were trying to protect. And that is what you get when you get for allowing yourselves to be used by Max Grossman so he can save what he really cares about, buildings - not people. Walk with me, I'll explain. Grossman got a lot of miles by lying to people about a little ol' lady that was being kicked out of her place because of the location of the proposed arena. He very frequently made it sound like the City of El Paso itself was kicking her out. What really happened was the landowner saw the potential to make money even though he was outside the proposed footprint. The City was already going to help residents within the footprint and the agenda item for the last meeting was all set to expand that assistance to residents outside the footprint. We already know that given the chance the landowners will try to make a profit when and where they can and the arena provides that opportunity. So council participates...

Shout to to KTSM who has been killing it for local television coverage lately. They've done a few really interesting packages lately and last night was no different. Republican Mayoral candidate David Saucedo bombed an interview with a reporter and the story surrounding his involvement with a local non-profit that is allegedly in financial ruin under his watch is probably going to mark the end of his viability for mayor. Which was always far-fetched to begin with considering his Rick Santorum-like voting record. Here's a link to the interview and trust me, you're going to want to watch it over and over because there is just so much awkward hilarity in the video. I haven't seen that much awkwardness in a video since the time City Rep Peter Svarzbein had to go because his mommy was calling him. Let me give you some back story before we go further so that you can fully appreciate the hypocrisy and TERRIBLE PR failure on this one. And let this be a lesson to mayoral candid...

My nation of haters love to call me a thug. I don't know if its the tattoos or the barrio thing or what, but its one of their favorite things to say about me. But you've NEVER heard of me trying to get gangsta with it over politics in a restaurant. So at Thanksgiving everyone advised that we should refrain from talking about the election to avoid a family fight. In El Paso, we apparently have to avoid talking about the arena at Christmas in order to avoid a family fight. (I'm still going to, and I'm going to piss off a lot social justice people. When I laid this out for you hopefully it will teach you a lesson about getting coopted by Grossman) Anywho, KTSM and the Times ran the stories on what happened with the altercation between the Mayor and former City Rep Ann Morgan Lily's husband. You've seen or read the story so I won't bore you with a retelling of the story but a few quick observations. #1 - Never touch another man's wife. That entitles the husb...

Seriously, what in the blue hell is going on with this city council and apparently, alum? This council has become the biggest joke of an elected body in the county - and this is a county that includes both Socorro and Vinton. And this is a council that is even worse than the one that had a member of council allegedly give a hummer in a Hummer! First things first. Jim Tolbert. That is the fastest political fall from grace I can think of this side of Willie Gandara. Straight-up nosedive, face-plant fall from grace. As if the Ruth's Chris Steakkouse Rachel Quintana-esque letter wasn't bad enough... What is frustrating about elected officials is when you find out they are idiots like the rest of us and do and say things they shouldn't. But here is the problem, God love the guy, but what Jim Tolbert did was wrong and completely indefensible. I don't know if it is the Trump-ification of American politics or what, but we have very quickly grown to expect very little out of our...

Republican Mayoral candidate David Saucedo was the President of the Board of Directors of the Boys & Girls Club of El Paso until early October of this year. The organization is now facing serious financial troubles and according to a recent news report, most of it came under Saucedo's watch. Click  this link  to watch the story. Word of problems in the organization surfaced yesterday swirling around the allegation that they weren't able to meet payroll. The situation was apparently so bad and out-of-control that the CFO was let go two weeks ago for financial reasons. Let that marinate for a second. Their financial situation was so bad, that they couldn't afford to pay the person in charge of their finances. As of Monday, the Executive Director Dr. Joseph Villescas was let go and in a statement from the organization the only explanation was that the Boys & Girls Club was "...going in a different direction..." Some would say that is a polite way of saying Vi...

According to an email from the City Attorney, an Ethics Complain has been filed against Mayor Leeser and City Reps Svarzbein, Tolbert, Limon, and Niland. The Ethics Complain was filed by Jud Burgess, the guy from the James No-Bond Facebook campaign. Interestingly that is a guy who is probably open to an Ethics Complain himself for not filing a campaign report properly on the amount of money he spent in his campaign against the EPISD Bond. (Gotta love El Paso politics) The complaint is relating to the closed-door meeting they had with Max Grossman and others regarding the proposed location of the downtown arena. The problem is that the Ethics Commission doesn't have authority of open meetings violations that I am aware of. I think its more of a law enforcement or DA issue and I'm betting it will get kicked out fairly quickly. Stay tuned for more details. (Media, feel free to use the screenshot, but make note of where you got it)

Word in the barrio is that a local non-profit is facing some tough financial times, even possibly not being able to make payroll of $6,000 this week. Right before the holidays too. The interesting thing is that the nonprofit is tied to a mayoral candidate. Hard to argue you should be in charge of the city's checkbook when you can't make payroll for the nonprofit you work with. More on this as it develops...Ho ho ho!

There has only been one successful recall in El Paso County - and that was in Socorro. Recalls are really hard to make happen unless you're strategic. And recalls are almost never strategic because they are almost always done out of emotion. Just like this one. This recall makes no sense, unless you believe there is something else at play. Here's what I mean. Why would you recall a member of council that has to give up her seat to run for mayor soon anyway? All you're gonna do, best case scenario, is cost tax payers more money for a special election. Thats if you get enough signatures. But with Niland all set to run for mayor, why would you even bother? She has to resign to run anyway. Sorta pointless, except for grandstanding. She's gone anyway, focus on the replacement. Unless... The movida isn't to get rid of her seat, but to get rid of her chances at a mayoral run, which are slim to begin with. Its probably giving his team a little too much credit, but David Sau...

Prominent immigration lawyer Antonio Williams has announced his candidacy for District 3, the seat currently held by City Rep Emma Acosta who is term limited and running for mayor. Williams is currently the State Democratic Executive Committeeman for the El Paso County Democratic Party. Williams has been an active member of the community around Cielo Vista for many years in addition to being an outspoken party activist. In addition to being one of the brightest and most-articulate speakers in town, Williams has a strong reputation for his work ethic. Interestingly he lives in the same neighborhood as fellow District 3 candidate Jaime Barceleau. Williams announced his candidacy formally last night at a Democratic Party event. This race, that also includes Cassandra Brown, will pit two young progressive candidates against an older self-described, "conservative" in Jaime Barceleau. This race may still end up with other candidates and will most assuredly result in a run-off.

Don't have a lot of details but apparently there has been a notice of intent to recall City Rep Cortney Niland, possibly others, regarding the downtown arena. This letter was signed by someone named Michael Patiño and lists a downtown address. A source indicates that there may be petitions filed against all city reps and that there is a press conference planned for tomorrow.  

Its almost like a scene in a movie where I now have white people challenging my barrio card because of the downtown arena because they've been like sheep and bought into the narrative of another white guy. You know, because we all need white people to tell us whats best for us, like all the minority kids that are saved by that white teacher who comes to the hood to make a difference. So to set the record straight, I don't give a shit where you put the arena, so long as its not at the rail yard because that would mean closures in the valley. That would screw over more poor brown people and no matter how much frosting you put on that shit cupcake, I ain't eating it. I'm not going to apologize for being the one that says that screwing over a larger group of poor brown people is right for the sake of saving some building that Pancho Villa may or may not have taken a piss on in the last century. You could put it directly on top of Rosa's Cantina for all I care. But lets ...

Its pretty much an open secret that EPISD Board President Dori Fenenbock views the school board as a stepping stone for another seat.  And frankly, that makes a lot of sense. YISD Board President Shane Haggerty is running for District 4 in the next round of city council races and after several years of being on the school board the experience has positioned him as the front-runner for the seat. Big budget experience, knowledge of the legislative process, he took over a dysfunctional board, fought for transparency, passed a bond, etc. All of that is really good experience and looks great on campaign material.  Oh yeah, and he's a Haggerty in the Northeast. Its not like that hurts or anything. People in the Northeast have been represented by a Haggerty in nearly every possible level of government from State Rep on down.  Fenenbock is a different and more interesting story. She went into the job with the whispers of a run for another office already murmuring. Haggerty spent ...

The County and City have had a pretty palpable beef for a few years now. I mean we aren't talking Tupac V. Biggie or anything, but Ray Charles could see the two levels of government often have issues with one another. The MPO, the Police Chief's comments recently, and some are wondering if the downtown arena is another one. The MPO beef is because they compete for money for projects so its natural that there will be a little blood shed. Several elected officials, mostly from the County, chastised the city for not doing anything about the Chief's comments earlier this year. So how does that lead to the downtown arena? Simple. Max Grossman. Grossman, as I have now chronicled over an extended period of time - often uses his title from the county and letterhead from the El Paso County Historical Commission to send out opinion-based documents to the public that are often factually inaccurate or exaggerations, that give the impression that it is the official position of the count...

The El Paso County Historical Commission is seeking members. Follow this link to read a story on the issue in the El Paso Times.  Please, please, please consider joining. That commission is supposed to tell our story but the commission is made up of people that don't look like El Paso. Seriously it's whiter than the Trump Administration. And the fact that it doesn't reflect the community it's supposed to represent is a travesty that needs to be fixed. That is why the story of El Paso is disproportionately about freaking cowboys as opposed to all the other important history of our region. Also, we need counters to Max Grossman. He's emotionally reckless and spouts off at the mouth to the wrong people, talks shit about electeds (even friendlies) impulsively and then has to go back later and apologize and delete something he said on Facebook.  Here's a pic I took yesterday of a building in south El Paso that was being demolished. Guess who you haven't heard a p...

I fully expect to get a lot of Hateraide for this post, so if you've got beef with what I'm about to say, once again my phone number is (915)694-5714 and you can email me at thelionstarblog@gmail.com. That being said, I'm not a fan of the lights at the plazita. They are beautiful. They are very nice. There are a lot of them. But they have absolutely no soul. The decorations at The Fountains have more soul than what we have at the plazita now. I took my kid out to the tree lighting event and it was great fun. The city went all-out and even have an ice skating rink downtown now! All things to be proud of. I've never really bought-in to the idea that business leaders in El Paso were trying to make downtown less brown. I just figured that they wanted to drag El Paso kicking and screaming into the future and a lot of the griping was just people who don't like change. But the plazita is almost unrecognizable from its former self, which like many of us El Pasoans had its f...

Two colleagues getting into it in a parking lot at work is hardly earth-shattering. I know I've personally flipped off at least a dozen co-workers at some point in my life. Who am I kidding? I was in the Army for 7 years, its probably more like a hundred. The very obvious difference is that Judges Ricardo Herrera and Patrick Garcia are not a couple of GI's in the field arguing over who is going to pull the next shift of guard duty. They are members of the judiciary, a profession that commands a particular amount of respect and reverence. There are strict rules and a certain decorum expected in a courtroom. For God sakes, you're supposed to stand when a judge enters and exits the courtroom. But if you read the article in the El Paso Times , that apparently was thrown out of the window one particular afternoon at the courthouse. The Times reports that the incident occurred around lunchtime in the parking lot at the courthouse. Herrera was with a couple of other judges he pals...

I am forwarded material all the time from readers and every time the Saucedo campaign puts out a newsletter a couple of my readers are kind enough to send it to me. The latest newsletter is focused on police as "square one in quality of life" in a pretty obvious attempt at securing the endorsement of the police union. Here's an excerpt from the newsletter. Hopefully the police union is being smarter than their sheriff brethren and will think twice about endorsing a Republican when opposition to unions is part of the GOP platform. But frankly that is pretty irrelevant. Why? Because the PD union endorsement is very likely going to City Rep Emma Acosta if Mayor Leeser doesn't rethink retirement. How can I be so bold in a prediction so far in advance of the election? Simple. Dora Oaxaca, Acosta's controversial staffer, just married Henry Rivera about 10 days ago in a Vegas wedding according to the Clark County website. Rivera is the money guy for the PD union. Congrat...

Okey dokey, I keep getting this question asked of me about Cortney Niland and her rumored mayoral bid so I'll go ahead a write a bit about it. Yes lots of people have heard that she may run for mayor and you get two versions of it - she's dead set on doing it whether the money guys like it or not, or she will only do it if she can manage to still keep her seat. The talk of her mayoral bid has become so loud that a lot of people are starting to look at who is going to replace her on council if she does. So here's the deal with the whole resign to run thing. Her announcement, if it happens at all, will likely not come until it is too late to order a special election to replace her. Essentially what COULD (not saying it will) happen is that Niland can wait until the last possible minute, there won't be enough time to order a special election, and it will just go on the November ballot a little less than a year from now. She would absolutely have to resign to run because of...