El Paso Politics

I wrote a while back about how the County of El Paso has lost their damn mind creating a policy to start charging for the time necessary to do open records requests. And now that I have gone back and watched the debate, I'm even more convinced that this policy was not only bad for transparency, but appears to be a policy that has one purpose and one purpose only, to help County Judge Veronica Escobar further her political career. That should infuriate everyone and it undermines the faith people have in openness with government. Let me explain my opinion on this. The County, and by County I mean the Judge, will argue that this policy makes sense because all other governmental entities charge a fee and that the County's fee is nominal and far less than any other level of government. Probably true - but completely irrelevant. I didn't realize until I went back to watch the debate that during the discussion of the item there was little to no mention of why the issue all of a su...

Say it with me again y'all: ONLY IN SOCORRO! If you miss a city council meeting, its like missing an episode of Game of Thrones. You have to binge watch their YouTube channel to catch up to all the drama! City Representative Yvonne Colon-Villalobos was the subject of two complaint letters sent to the City of Socorro due to alleged behavior and legal infractions during the early voting period of the last round of elections in Socorro. In an email I obtained, Rep Colon-Villalobos blames the Elections Department. The complaint was centered around the behavior of Colon-Villalobos and her tag-team partner City Rep Maria Reyes, and covered a range of things from their behavior of yelling and fighting with other campaigns, to being told repeatedly by County and Election staff to not enter the polling place. The duo are supporting Colon-Villalobos' work subordinate Ivy Avalos for mayor. I'll get to why she blames the Elections staff shortly but first, walk with me. There was some d...

The El Paso Times recently did a story about the amount of Republican contributions Dori Fenenbock has received. I wrote a piece about it and the short of it is that surprise, surprise, the vast majority of the contributions were from Republicans. As you may recall, I mentioned Fenenbock's spouse being super excited on the Election Night for the bond because it was in November. I mentioned he was giddy about Trump winning and a lot of the people that attended were really annoyed. Fenenbock has almost no voting history, and she's basically done nothing for this community before she ran for school board, which she is still in the middle of the first term of. But the voting history she does have, as I've mentioned before, is Republican. And her husband donates a lot of money to Republicans. I've mentioned that before, but let me show you what I mean... Because its a lot of contributions. So in terms of federal contributions, the Fenenbocks gave to 13 different Republican p...

The County unanimously voted to impose a fee on persons submitting certain open records requests. And they were unanimously wrong for doing so. Some might say I'm sensitive about open records because of the bullshit Emma Acosta and Mike Noe pulled on me a little over a year ago. I'll accept that. First, lets address the elephant in the room. And by elephant, I mean the Republican Dori Fenenbock. The reality is that this decision by the Court was in response to the fact that the County Judge's office is getting a shit ton of open records requests from Fenenbock's campaign. The Judge is in the congressional picture and of course Fenenbock is going to try to go through her long public record. Thats a consequence of being a sitting elected official and having a long history. People are going to go through it. I resent having to pay for public documents out of principle. They are public, which means they are mine. Why do I have to pay you, for my shit. Government things they...

Word around the water cooler in the county courthouse is that there is likely to be an increase in filing fees to run for office in Socorro because the County is likely to require security at the polling places. I can't underscore how big of a deal it is that you have to have security at a polling place to keep order. This is on the heels of a complaint sent from election officials to the City of Socorro about on-going behavior and violations of election rules at polling places in Socorro. The very sad point of the complaint letters was the fact that it identified at least two members of council, Maria Reyes and Yvonne Colon-Villalobos, along with their mayoral candidate Ivy Avalos. Its shameful that polling places aren't seen as secure places, especially in places like Socorro. Socorro has a frightfully low voter turnout and this turn of events, with a couple of their city leaders being the alleged cause, doesn't encourage people to vote in that community. And to be clear,...

File this under that really full folder called Only in Socorro... Once again City Reps Maria Reyes  and Yvonne Colon-Villalobos find themselves in the middle of controversy - and their mayoral candidate Ivy Avalos (Colon-Villalobos' subordinate). I've heard reports of their behavior during the campaign, but Soco is particularly Loco during election season. And if you've never campaigned in the valley, its something of a contact sport. Its very confrontational and in your face. Socorro has refined this to nuclear purity. Do you know how bad your behavior has to be to get complained about in Socorro? The police are often at polling places in Socorro. So if something rises to a complaint in Socorro, its especially egregious. Its even more egregious if its the actual elections personnel making the complaint. Normally they are the people that you do the complaining to. Instead, they sent letters of complaint to the City of Socorro because their behavior was so bad. This demons...

Heard about a couple of funny things that have happened in the courthouse. Okay, not funny. Troubling is probably a better word. I'm still getting the details but I'll give you the basics of what I know on an incident involving a couple of judges. There is a lawyer that has cases in two courts on the same day, at the same time. That is a common in the court house and these learned individuals typically act like adults and work this shit out. But once in a while, they get in pissing matches. So one judge is pissed that the attorney isn't there and - there are two versions to this story so I'm trying to verify which one is most accurate - either went down to the other court in his robe, or sent his bailiff, to go get the attorney. The attorney was in jury selection in the other court. I'll give you names and everything once I get the correct version of the story. I mean judges have a pretty fucking sweet work schedule. Go to any court almost any day of the week and it...

The Bishop of the El Paso Diocese Mark Seitz penned a letter condemning draconian immigration enforcement. Republican Catholics are going to be challenged by what the bishop wrote in his letter because it runs contrary to their politics But there was on particular line that drew my attention, "We must continue to denounce the evil of family separation, the militarization of our border communities, for-profit immigration detention, the mistreatment of asylum seekers, and the disparagement of our Muslim brothers and sisters." For-profit immigration detention. Essentially that is the policy we practice in El Paso County, right now, as you are reading this post. Its an embarrassment and shameful policy that people think is somewhere far off, or some corporate jail facility. Well if you listen to what county leaders say, it describes El Paso County perfectly. We even expanded the jail annex to accommodate even more. Today Sheriff Wiles will be in front of County Judge Veronica Esc...

Dori Fenenbock raised a ton of money. Seriously, its a lot of money she raised and she raised it really early. Its so much money, I'd say she's the front-runner at this point. That amount of money puts a lot of pressure on County Judge Veronica Escobar and her super-secret bid to replace Congressman O'Rourke. Why? Well when an opponent raises that kind of feria so early, its gonna mean that Escobar is going to have to hit the ground running. She was never going to wait until the filing deadline anyway, but now I'd expect her to resign her seat as County Judge to start campaigning in full force for congress. It also puts a lot of pressure on Escobar to make a decision about PAC money. Beto doesn't take it, but I don't know that Escobar has the ability to raise that kind of scratch to keep up with Fenenbock. So in that sense, its a big deal. There are some other interesting things, some of which are going to be problematic for Fenenbock, that are in her report. Fi...

Up for Reelection in November Soco is still loco. Ivy Avalos won the mayoral campaign last night and will be the new mayor of Socorro. She was pushed really hard by City Rep Yvonne Colon-Villalobos, Maria Garcia, and former Socorro City Manager looking for her job back, Lorenza Frairie. Here is what is interesting about that. Avalos is actually a subordinate to Yvonne Colon-Villalobos in their regular workplace. Yes you read that correctly. Mayor Avalos is a subordinate of Yvonne Colon-Villa lobos at work. So now you have this strange situation in Socorro where the mayor is literally beholden to her boss, who actually sits on council. Let's see how many conflicts of interest this little "Only in Socorro" scenario makes. Imagine if a few years ago Oscar Leeser ran for city council instead of mayor and won a seat. Now imagine one of his employees ran for mayor and won. You don't think there would be some major problems with that? Avalos was pushed by Lorenza Fraire, Mar...

Remember that big press conference that County Judge Veronica Escobar had for the transgender woman who was arrested by ICE in the courthouse while she was trying to get an order of protection? Well she's still being incarcerated. She's a victim of that bad policy that Judge Escobar and Sheriff Wiles support. She's being held on an ICE detainer. No press conferences for her anymore though. But here's where things get really, really, really sad. When I tell you what I'm about to tell you, you're gonna say, "hey, that sounds familiar. I've heard that story somewhere before." Well you probably have. Especially if you watch Orange is the New Black because it sounds exactly like a story line from a couple seasons ago. Here's the dirty little secret: Sources indicate that the transgender woman is being held in segregation in the county jail. And my source also indicates that she's not being given her medication (the hormones she needs and everyth...

Saturday was a big come-from-behind win for City Rep-Elect Cissy Lizarraga in the District 8 race. Robert Cormell was poised to win coming out of the general election and heading into the run-off. The win is a win for the gay community as much as it is for Lizarraga - not because she ever really positioned herself as an advocate or anything - but because of what Robert Cormell promised he'd try to do, repeal domestic partner benefits. Cormell was anti-gay and holds some extremist positions. He thinks its a mental illness. He thinks you can cure the gay. He thinks it undermines marriage. Which is why the win is so notable and it mobilized the gay community and allies. But there's one more thing that made the win notable. The best thing Cissy Lizarraga could've done is fire her previous field team and upgrade to Mike Apodaca. Apodaca devised and implemented an effective field program and GOTV op.  Why is that a big deal? Because Michael Apodaca is gay. There's a healthy d...

Well we are rounding our way toward the next election season and you will certainly notice a big trend - the year of women candidates. Two prominent El Paso lawyers have already made their campaign intentions known. Judge Monique Velarde and Patsy Lopez are starting early and going after seats currently held by male judges. Word around the water cooler in the courthouse is that Judge Spiezney is going to retire and that is the seat that Patsy Lopez is pursuing. There are rumors that Gonzalo Garcia is also considering retirement but I'd bet money he isn't. "GG", as he is known around the courthouse has no shortage of critics in the legal field, primarily based on how he runs his court, his demeanor on the bench, and some pretty light sentences on repeat DUI offenders and Jesse Gandara. Personally I think Esparza's office is just as guilty for Gandara getting a light sentence as anyone else, but that's another story. To be clear, Lopez is not taking on an incumb...

I love high stakes elections because every appears to completely lose their shit during campaigns. So here is what you are going to see people say over the next few months: 1. Despite the fact that I have been the only person critical of Escobar on a policy matter (which I am about to get even more critical of her about because I am almost done with my "deep dive" on the issue) - everyone else is just critical of her for stupid personal shit - I will still be told that I'm favoring Escobar in the congressional race. 2. At some point, someone is going to say I'm critical of Fenenbock because she's Jewish. They will have nothing to actually base this on of course, but trust me, at some point someone is going to say that. The reality is I'm critical of her because I don't think she is qualified for the position, I think she has a lot of questions to answer, I think she's not really a Democrat, and I resent the fact that she's trying to buy herself a s...

*Stunt Double, not actually Fenenbock Kelly Ann Karlsruher has his work cut out for him...So lets see how big of a stinky pile this one ends up being.... Dori Fenenbock, candidate for Congress who inexplicably doesn't want to be called a candidate, recently launched her campaign website. And its chock full of fun, including some awesome low-key racist remarks! And lets be honest, who doesn't love low-key racist humor against Latinos in El Paso by rich westside white folk, amirite? I detailed her voting history in a previous post and it was basically exclusively Republican until the last primary in which she suddenly became a Democrat. Well as I read her website it looks like she's still having a hard time figuring out what our side of the aisle advocates on some issues - including my latest topic - comprehensive immigration reform. There's a genuine lack of authenticity to the tone of the website. Its very saccharine and has a turn-key fill-in-the-blanks kind of feel to...

You need the vision of Stevie Wonder to see that David Karlsruher is once again willing to shill for a candidate that he is close to. This cycle, its Dori Fenenbock. DK is going to try to make a woman who's claim to fame is being a school board trustee embroiled in controversy as some sort of proven leader. So far, the only thing she's proven is that she doesn't seem to care too much how often the EPISD super isn't at work or what it costs the tax payers for him to not be in the office. Anywho, he posted a bunch of shit the other day that turned out to be more wrong than a Klansman with dreads. (Saw it on Facebook, hilarious shit). The first one you know is bullshit is the complete lie he made up about me being Escobar's district director. No one has said that. Ever. Not even joking around. David K lies, its what he does. It was never a plan or a conversation and will never be a plan or a conversation. But like he clearly writes in his post, he's a sell-out, not...

Elia Garcia - Mayoral Candidate & Former Municipal Judge I don't know how many times I'm going to write the words "only in Socorro" before you get tired of reading about it or before the people of Socorro get sick of it happening, but here we go again. Mayoral candidate Elia Garcia, who was previously the municipal judge of Socorro until she asked for an amount of money that was more than double her salary, along with close political ally Ralph Duran, appear to have some questionable campaign activity. At issue is the placement of construction zone signs and barriers in the Socorro area that advertise their campaigns. At the very least, these signs don't have the legally-required disclaimer. But more importantly it gives the impression that its a sign related to a construction project on a public road. Any reasonable person would assume that its a public project, especially given that its on a major road - so clearly the intent is for high visibility. Anyone d...

This one apparently slipped through the cracks, but it is a really important conversation for this community to have locally about Sheriff Wiles. County Judge Veronica Escobar has indicated that the reason that the County of El Paso DID NOT include a constitutional challenge to ICE detainers as part of its lawsuit against SB4 is because Sheriff Wiles would not have been a plaintiff had they done so. Thats a major news story that had gone previously unmentioned. Especially for a sheriff in a border community. The County Judge made the admission in an online debate we had on the issue of the hypocrisy of the County being against SB4 because it would turn local law enforcement into defacto border patrol agents, but apparently having no problem at all with that same local law enforcement having a contract with the federal government to house those immigrants. Sheriff Wiles has long been seen as an ally to the immigrant community and has been awarded - rightfully so - for his leadership on ...

Robert Cormell has some seriously flawed views on homosexuality and its a real issue. He's implied you can cure the gay out of someone. He's said that marriage between same sex couples undermines marriage as one of the pillars of our society. I guess all the divorces people have and all the two week celebrity marriages don't undermine marriage, but two people expressing their love and commitment to one another somehow does? And he's also said that homosexuality was viewed as a mental illness at some point, which is accurate, but a level of dumbfuckery that is beneath a city council representative. And here's the scary thing. He's probably going to win unless something serious changes. During his previous bid for mayor he promised to repeal domestic partner benefits. He's very close to getting into office and there are no indications that he has changed his mind since he ran a few years ago. So this is a real issue. Its not something to brush off. He is going...