Before You Pick the Leeser of Two Evils...

Saturday is Election Day for the municipal election run-off. The only thing on the ballot is the mayoral election, City Rep elections in the Northeast and Central, and the municipal judge races. Oscar Leeser is going to be elected mayor again. 

I'm not voting for Margo, and I didn't vote for him last time. But before you vote for the Leeser of two evils, there are some things to think about. 

No one is going to vote in the run-off election because of the municipal court races, most folks don't even know they are elected positions and most people don't know who is running for them. 

Until now. Lilian Blancas is on the ballot and as many of you know by now, she has passed from the coronavirus. I've known about her struggles with the virus since late October but out of respect for her family I didn't comment on it publicly. There's a very good chance that despite not having campaigned at all during the entire run-off election because she was fighting the virus, she could win. 

That leads the question as to what happens if she does. The answer is it would go back to city council to appoint someone to fill the term. What complicates the matter further is that the incumbent judge Lauren Farris, herself an appointee, was running for reelection, and didn't make the run-off. 

If the voters have already spoken on the incumbent, City Council can't possibly reappoint Ferris. They'd be usurping the will of the voters. 

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"Transparency" & Mayoral Candidates

I hadn't checked my mail for several days until my daughter saw mailers in my box and brought them to me. We sifted through them and a mailer from Leeser caught my eye. 

Quite frankly, there won't be much difference at the city regardless of who wins the mayor's seat because they are basically the same guy - two wealthy westside white guys that were both mayor of El Paso. 

One is mismanaging the virus and the other has no plan for the virus. 

But before you select the Leeser of two evils, I want to talk about part of Leeser's mailer than caught my eye - all the talk of "Transparency". 

That is a word that gets thrown around a lot in an effort to sound like you're one of the good guys - and almost no one actually does anything to make an entity more transparent. 

Both Mayoral candidates have major vulnerability on this issue. 

Local news stories have indicated that Margo was allegedly using a personal email address to side-step open records' requests. Clearly that is the opposite of transparency. 

But Leeser's record on transparency is probably even worse. I have spoken with multiple current and former journalists and news management professionals - from both print and television media outlets - that indicated Leeser has allegedly used his advertising dollars as leverage for coverage and questions from the media.  

That should alarm every El Pasoan to their core. 

And that is certainly not the spirit of "transparency". 

Dee Margo in the opinion of many is a bully. Someone was once arrested during public comment under Margo's reign. He constantly berates Mayor Pro Tem Peter Svarzbein during council meetings from being condescending and confrontational, to saying downright racially charged statements. So its not like he has shown the ability to get along with people of diverging opinions. 

But then again, neither has Oscar Leeser. Only his ability to get along with people is even worse! Leeser got into a fight with an octogenarian who was the spouse of another member of council - in public. 

Like I said, there's basically no difference between the two. 

We need to prepare. We need to have a good pool of candidates that look like El Paso ready to run for mayor. Old rich white guys from the westside don't reflect El Pasoans and is a pretty good reason why so many El Pasoans are unhappy with their leadership. 

So we are left with the Leeser of two evils. But Leeser is not more. 

Time to get to work El Paso.