El Paso Politics

Mayor Araujo, San Elizario San Elizario Mayor and challenger Isela Reyes withdrew from a scheduled debate at San Elizario High School.  The debate was being organized by the students at San Elizario High School and the two candidates withdrew from the debate without explanation, leaving only one candidate. Since it was only going to be one candidate in attendance, the decision was made to cancel the debate.  That was the only debate scheduled for San Elizario voters to hear from the candidates.  Again no reason was given as to why they didn't want to participate in the debate but both of the candidates that withdrew had some unflattering information come to light recently and likely don't want to address the issues publicly. I've done some more homework and there is even more information about the Mayor and Reyes that will likely be of interest to the voters.  The municipal elections in San Elizario are important to the community because they recently incorporated af...

I've been super busy so I haven't had a chance to keep up with blogging - but also its been pretty quiet but I'll get to a few things like what to watch out for on Charter Amendments, why the hell Shane Haggerty can have the audacity to take money as a sitting board member at YISD - for the second year in a row, and some rule changes the Democratic Party needs to make (which should've been made a long time ago). Oh, and I've gotta lil something to say about the Queen of Tacky herself, Irene "La Mentirosa" Armendariz - Ms Jackson in you're nasty. In due time y'all, in due time.  But let me get on my soapbox for a minute about local elections. Its a super boring election cycle because pretty much all the run-off elections are for judicial seats and there are no cartel candidates or Tik Tok twits in the run-offs. When the most interesting thing happening in a run-off is tracking the over-under of how many times Monica "Lupita" Perez is going...

It looks like there is a genuine effort to resurrect a terrible political practice that thankfully went away after the practice was exposed - the political pachanga.  Pachangas for those of you bilingually impaired, are in my opinion the epitome of everything that is wrong in Latino politics. Its akin to poverty pimping and its a cultural insult that it has been so widely adopted in the past.  Pachangas are an effort to give people - typically from humble backgrounds - free food, get them liquored up - and give away something they value - in a thinly-veiled effort to buy their vote.  If you recall, a lot of valley politicians partook of the political ploy like Chente Quintanilla, the Gandara clan, and Norma Chavez. Although in fairness to Chavez, I don't think she ever did giveaways - just food and booze.  Well it looks like the practice is rearing its ugly head down in Sal Elizario. It appears one of the mayoral candidates Isela Reyes - who has some pretty colorful...

El Paso County Commissioner's are paying Justice of the Peace John-John Chatman about 9% less than all of this colleagues.  Chatman has fought the fact that he gets paid $88,916.47 (not counting what he makes doing weddings when he keeps as personal income and does not disclose to tax payers) instead of $101, 247.38 like the rest of his colleagues. The decision was made by El Paso County Commissioners and is as a result of the Court's determination " that the judge engaged in poor employment management practices that unreasonably exposed the County to potential liability" according to a statement read by El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego at a Grievance Meeting - which is a public meeting. Click on this link to watch the hearing.  Long story short - the Commissioners determined (for the second year in a row) that they needed to hold the Judge accountable under county policy for putting county tax payers in a position to possibly face litigation for poor management...