EPISD Election Results

Sorry people, I had some unexpected travel over the last few days and I've been busy.

Lets cut to the quick - Carlos Sierra's ticket of candidates took a major beating. I don't know the last time I can remember a contested race in El Paso County in which one candidate flirted with 80% of the vote.

I mean you almost have to try to suck that badly.

Mickey Loweree was an incumbent and spent a boatload of money on a school board race, including television ads, only to get wiped out.

Trustee-Elect Daniel Call fell just short of 80% of the vote, and against an incumbent no less. It is still a mystery where all the campaign money came from, but it is no secret where it ended up...in Carlos Sierra's pocket.

His other candidate, Tom Hicks didn't do so well either. He's in a run-off election, but at this point, especially seeing how Sierra handled Mickey Loweree's campaign, I'm gonna bet that Hicks does his best to distance himself from Sierra.

Now this is the part where Sierra goes slithering off to go into hiding.

But before we all collectively say "Bye Felicia" to Sierra, aren't we awaiting the proof of Loweree's education and experience? This is the perfect reason why media should never believe a word that comes out of Sierra's mouth. The guy changed his story so many times about Loweree's degree that he sounded like a teenaged kid who got caught in a lie. He just kept throwing out lines until he found something that he thought sounded the least stupid.

Although it wasn't.

It was all just so stupid.

Leave it to that guy to find a way to make even a school board race a complete and total joke. And that is why Tom Hicks is likely to distance himself from Carlos Sierra as quickly as he possibly can. But make no mistake about it, he's Carlos' boy.

Carlos came out talking about how these races were personal for him.

Well Carlos got a personal ass-whooping in this race by Call and his team. It really crystallizes the career of Carlos Sierra. Sierra pretty much looks like he's been living off a reputation he built that was pretty much taking credit for other people's work. When the public found out about his association with a candidate, the candidate always distanced themselves from Sierra as fast as they could.

He'd take credit for minor roles he had on campaigns that won and act like he was the reason the campaign won. But the reality is that there was only one candidate that didn't try to distance themselves from Sierra and that was Mickey Loweree.

Carlos and Mickey's campaign is really the only El Paso race that Carlos has actually played a central roll in. And what was the result when Sierra had no one else's work to take credit for?

He got his ass handed to him. To use Sierra's lame ass campaign message as an analogy, Daniel Call's team found Carlos Sierra in the cafeteria, knocked his tray out of his hand, gave him an atomic wedgie, made his cry, gave him a swirly, and took his lunch money for good measure.

How's that for bullying?

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EPISD District 6 (Franklin)

The run-off now comes down to binary choice between Freddy Klayel-Avalos and Tom Hicks. If you've been to any of the debates one thing was always clear - Freddy and Berglund where the two that actually sparred on policy. Hicks did a lot of "I'll have to look into that".

He doesn't really have any knowledge of stuff like district of innovation designation stuff, etc. Or maybe he knows and just doesn't want to actually take a position on the issue.

But bottom line is that at least with Berglund and Freddy, they were both pretty clear that they were gonna hold the Superintendent accountable. Hicks gave the distinct impression that he'd be much like Loweree, a yes vote for Super.

And lets kick it real for a minute...isn't this what the run-off is really about? Change or more of the same?

Hicks is screwed. Carlos Sierra is going to be a boat anchor around his neck. Being tied to that guy is going to kill him. Hicks literally has his arms around Sierra at the campaign fundraiser for Loweree. That alignment with Mickey Loweree and Carlos Sierra is going to be the death of his campaign.

Sierra said publicly that this cycle was personal for him. Loweree took an epic beatdown. Hicks is literally all that Sierra has left. Sierra is going to do all he can to try to recover any little shred of dignity he may be able to recover after getting his ass whooped at a Journey concert...

I mean after his candidate got waxed by the largest margin I can remember.

What's worse for Hicks?

Freddy's consultants are Sun Circle. Eddie Holguin has made a sport out of beating people from the Hick's family...Tom should just ask his brother Troy about that...

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District 3

This race is going to boil down to the same conversation. Who is more or less likely to bring change at EPISD?

René Vargas is facing Josh Acevedo in the run-off.

Non-profit experience versus an attorney.

A student versus a hell-raiser.

Honestly, this is going to be the closest race and its going to be a dog fight.

Run-off elections are all about turn-out.

This race more than any other is going to be shaped by media coverage. The teacher unions want someone who is going to ask the super the hard questions. They want the person that is going to stand up to the super.

I think the thing to look for in this one, especially when it comes to groups like the hunger strike folks and all the other activists in the area, is if they go to work for someone in hopes of finding an advocate.