Bad Behavior in Socorro Leads to Increase Fees?

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, its important to make this point. All of Socorro leaders aren't out of control. All of their leaders aren't emotionally unstable. Most of their leaders and staff members in the City of Socorro are good people with the best of intentions and just want to do the right thing for the community.

But a couple of them have some real problems. Its clearly getting out of control.