El Paso Politics

When there is flooding in the Mission Valley and farmers and families are losing their homes and livelihoods, where is your state rep? The answer all too often is State Rep Mary Gonzalez is out partying while you nervously wait out the storms.  But that isn’t the issue that is the central focus on the HD 75 race. I’ll get back to that in a minute, walk with me… Forma has been gunning for Gonzalez since she took office. Most of the time they don’t have a decent candidate. Last time they had to dust-off Chente Quintanilla to run against Gonzalez.  Thats not really giving the voters much of a choice. I watched that whole campaign and waited to hear some compelling reason why they should send Chente back to Austin.  Not because I don’t think he’d be any better or worse, I mean lets be real…what the hell has Gonzalez actually done in Austin? I can’t think of a meaningful accomplishment for her district. I mean there’s some identity stuff, but with a district that has as much n...

There was a hearing today for a case that sounds a lot like a plot to a movie. Picture this: A poor Latino community that is in the throws of an identity crisis trying to feel its way in the world and torn between being known as a city or rural community, takes a powerful, all-Anglo, utility district to court. Sounds like a movie, but it isn't. The City of Socorro and Horizon are locked in a battle over, of all things, waste water. Not for who gets it, but essentially who gets stuck with it. According to the arguments made in court, here's how things transpired. In 2006 the Horizon Municipal Utility District (MUD), an elected board, planned for a $2.2 million expansion of their waste water project. In 2009 MUD applied for and obtained a permit to do so from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The project was to pipe waste water from Horizon through some county areas and the city of Socorro in to an area in Socorro and eventually in to the Rio Grande. That's pre...