Socorro City Rep Causes Major Problem for City

As of 5pm yesterday, the City of Socorro has no municipal judge. They probably now have to go into some complicated agreement with another entity for administration of justice until they fix this.

Guess what? That shit ain't free.

Socorro City Rep Ralph Duran has caused yet ANOTHER problem for the citizens of the city of Socorro. This guy, and frankly the Mayor as well, are everything that is wrong with Valley politics.

So after the Socorro municipal judge kicked a case out of her court to another court because it involved the Mayor of Socorro representing a resident of Socorro against the police department of Socorro, there was an agenda item at the last Socorro city council meeting to extend the contract of the current judge.

The one that kicked out the mayor's case.

Well, there was a weird movida where the agenda item ended up being changed from extending the judge's contact and a motion was made to take action to go out for a new judge.

That should have been a different item for a different meeting, but thats another story for another day.

Guess who was the deciding vote on the judge's contract?

Come on, its Socorro...you know the answer....

Mayor Elia Garcia.

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Lets take a step back real quick and refresh your collective memory.

Just before he got on council, Ralph Duran was a major advocate for the then-municipal judge to get a big time raise.

How big?

The judge at the time wanted to TRIPLE her salary and Duran was the biggest proponent of such a raise. He was pushing for her salary to be well into 6 figures.

Who was the judge just a couple of years ago when he was advocating for the raise to be in the 6 figures?

None other than the current mayor of Socorro, Elia Garcia.

Garcia wasn't awarded the contract because she wanted too much money. So the council went out to hire a new municipal judge. Garcia was PISSED that she'd lost her cush job and that sprang her desire to run for Mayor of Socorro.

Socorro ended up upgrading their judge. Remember this is a town that used to have a municipal judge who hadn't even graduated from high school. Then they had one that was friends with the Gandaras that had at least been to law school but hadn't passed the bar. Then they had Garcia who had at least been to law school, passed the bar, but didn't have much legal experience.

After Garcia they ended up with a judge with more than 12 years of experience trying cases at every court in the county from municipal, to JP, to county, to state courts.

And they got her for the same amount that was Garcia's original contract before she and Duran started asking for six figures.

But in the most Socorro thing ever, neither Garcia nor Duran ever forgot losing that battle. They were determined to get another judge and sources in city government allege that there was a plan in place to open up the judicial position so that one of Mayor Garcia's friends could get the municipal judge position.

Three guesses who is allegedly behind the movida to cherry pick the new judge.

A city who has a major problem with confidence from the community shouldn't be doing anything at all that looks like a movida to get the Mayor's homies into a judicial position.

This all went down at the last city council meeting in Socorro and there was a whole new level of hypocrisy coming from Duran.

Remember, Duran was the one pushing to TRIPLE the Garcia's salary when she was judge.

In the meeting Duran, taking advantage of the fact that one council member was gone because she was attending a funeral, changed the agenda item that was originally mean to extend the current judge's contract to taking action to open up the position to someone else.

His reason?

He wanted to find someone better and cheaper.

The position pays about $40k per year. That is significantly less than a rookie attorney makes. Hell, most teachers make more than $40k.

So the SAME GUY that tried to triple Mayor Garcia's salary when she was the judge is now changing the tune to find someone cheaper?

It gets better.

He also said he wanted to find someone "better".

Better than their current judge means that the current judge's qualifications are now the baseline of what they are looking for.

That means their applicant needs to be someone with over 12 years of experience as an attorney who has spent all that time representing cases in every state, municipal, and justice of the peace in the County of El Paso. Also, they need someone who was willing to work 1-2 days extra a month, unpaid, so that the municipal court would be able to meet it's legal obligations. 

And that means the applicant has to have at least two years experience as a municipal judge. 

Good luck finding anyone that fits that bill. And good luck finding anyone that will do it for that amount. 

So technically, when Duran made that vote happen it ended the current judge's contract effective the first of September. 

After 5pm today, there will be no judge in the City of Socorro. Think about the amount of problems Duran and Garcia just caused for the City of Socorro. A major inconvenience to the community, lost revenue to the city, and a whole host of other problems. 

Seriously Duran and Mayor Garcia have caused so much trouble for the City of Socorro that they should name the next two hurricanes after them.