Dora Part 2 - Its Worse & Policy Needs to be Addressed

When I wrote my post yesterday I got a flood of people contacting me about her. People really don't like her taking her husband's place when they want to hear from the person they elected.

Its also apparently NOT the only time she's gone and made a presentation in his place. When I wrote about it the first time I was talking about a neighborhood association at the Marquez library on Yarborough near Bel Air the other night.

I have now been told that it has been other places as well where she has filled in for Representative Rivera. Witnesses indicated that Oaxaca has indicated that she goes because her husband is working because he doesn't get paid very much as a city rep.

Which is weird because they both knew the amount of money the reps make before they ran for the position. So the representative not showing up to community meetings because he has to work another job is a bad visual for the newly elected Representative Rivera.

But here's the more important question.

Why isn't his staff doing the meetings instead of Dora Oaxaca?

I've worked for an elected official. I can tell you that pinch hitting for the boss at events or meetings is part of the job. Sometimes the boss can't be at two or three places at the same time and they send staff. Every elected official reading this knows that you send your staff, you never send your spouse. So when she worked for Willie Gandara, Chente Quintanilla, and Emma Acosta and she gave presentations, no problem. Its part of the job of a staffer.

But as a spouse, you have no official role and when you are speaking on behave of an elected official - you are acting in an official capacity.

You know who else should be concerned about this?

Forma Group.

Oaxaca is now recruiting candidates for Forma Group. I've now had 4 different candidates, mostly judicial, that have been freaked out by Oaxaca reaching out to them to try to get them to go with Forma Group. Her pushy and overly-aggressive style isn't going over well with the candidates, so Marquez might want to rethink how much they want to make Dora the face of Forma to candidates.

Rivera has to stand up to his spouse and tell her that he's the elected official and not her. He should be sending staff, not a spouse.

I'm surprised that this isn't already a policy for the city. When a City Rep visits a neighborhood association, or his/her staff, or city staff - the represent the City of El Paso. There are potential liabilities when they attend those events. If they do something that compromises the legal position of the City, there are ramifications and accountability.

What can the City do when its the spouse of an elected official?

City Rep Noe is gone a lot. Not sure how in the hell he ended up as the Mayor Pro Temp when he is always gone because of his work (other than the obvious reason), but he does send his wife to sit in on meetings for him - much less have her present on his behalf.

What happens when a constituent asks a question? Is it the City's response? The Representative's response? Or Dora's response?

Another fun little nugget. Apparently the field office for District 7 is near the corner of Montana and Hawkins. Sound familiar?

Yeah, it used to be the field office of where Oaxaca used to work for City Rep Emma Acosta. One problem, that was District 3. It defies logic that district 7 constituents would find a field office in another district useful. The purpose of having a district office is to make government more accessible to the district residents by keeping an office near them. There are now parts of district 7 that are closer to downtown than the former District 3 office that they are now using for district 7.

Seriously, this shit doesn't even happen in Socorro.

This is a bad situation and needs to be addressed. You wouldn't think these situations would even need a policy solution, but apparently they do.