Spanning the El Paso political globe
As campaign season continues to build we will see more and more rumors and posturing by candidates and incumbents. Last week was no different, so let’s do some wrap-up on last week.
The week started with an event honoring State Representative Marissa Marquez. She was invited to attend an event hosted by Bob Hoy of Hoy-Fox car sales fame. He’s also a pretty regular political contributor. Apparently there were several business and Republican big shots at the fundraiser.
Guess who else was there? Almost perennial Republican candidate Dee Margo. He’s the guy that ran against Eliot Shapleigh and lost, took on now-State Rep Joe Moody and lost, is rumored to be gearing up for another run at Moody, and who can forget the fact that his son came to the conclusion that El Paso doesn’t deserve his dad after his most recent loss.
Thinking it was odd for a Democrat like State Rep Maquez to attend a predominantly-Republican event like this was pretty strange, I called her up to find out why. Turns out, it’s really not all that interesting. She went to talk to some of the people about getting their support on some major issues facing El Paso and said she had no idea that she’d see Dee Margo there.
Despite the fact that she was virtually the only Democrat in attendance, Marquez said that the discussion was centered about the areas in which there was common ground, like the Medical Center.
The event was not organized as a campaign fundraiser, but Representative Marquez said she did receive some unexpected contributions at the event.
Anchondo Won’t Take on Judge Salas-Mendoza
There has been quite a lot of talk about El Paso County Democratic County Chair Danny Anchondo making a possible political run of his own. The talk has been centered on a possible stab at a judicial seat, which in and of itself, isn’t all that surprising. Especially when you consider that Anchondo is a long-time attorney with a successful law practice.
But there was a rumor floating around that would’ve been pretty controversial. The rumor was that Anchondo was considering taking on another Democrat already on the bench, Judge Maria Salas-Mendoza. The talk about this possible match-up has been going on for a few weeks and there’s been a buzz around it at most political events I’ve attended in that time period.
Apparently the rumor made its way to both Anchondo and Salas-Mendoza. I spoke with Judge Salas-Mendoza and she revealed to me that Chairman Anchondo gave her a call last early last week and addressed the rumor. Salas-Mendoza says that Anchondo told her that he was not going to challenge her for her seat.
Anchondo’s a smart guy and isn’t likely to pull a Jose Alejandro Lozano and go back on his word to Salas-Mendoza the way Lozano did with City Rep Emma Acosta. All the same, Judge Salas-Mendoza says she’s going to campaign hard no matter who the challenger will eventually be.
Speaking of City Rep Acosta…
The other political buzz floating around is a possible recall attempt of City Representative Emma Acosta. I know what you’re thinking; didn’t she just stomp all over Lozano earlier this year?
The answer is yes, and a recall effort cannot be attempted until December at the earliest, but that hasn’t stopped the folks involved. I reached out to the group to find out why they wanted to attempt to recall Acosta.
I started by contacting Mark Benitez, President of the Cielo Vista Neighborhood Association. Interestingly, that’s the area of town that Acosta lives in. I’d heard from a few residents and political sources that Benitez had some involvement with the potential recall effort and was present at a meeting regarding the effort.
When I spoke to Benitez, he said that he was not involved with any recall effort nor did he attend any meeting relating to a possible recall. As President of a Neighborhood Association, I’m pretty sure he’d have to give up his position if he wanted to be involved. Benitez then told me was aware of the effort but that it wasn’t “anything that is ready to be discussed in the media.” Interestingly though, he said he was out of town but knew who was involved. Benitez wouldn’t give me names but said he’d contact them and have someone contact me.
A few minutes later, I received a call from a woman identifying herself has a member of the Cielo Vista Neighborhood Association. She would not give me her name and said that she couldn’t say much, which made me question the point of the conversation in the first place. The woman said that it wasn’t something that was ready for the media to write about. I explained to her that that’s not how politics works; the media breaks a story on its own timeline.
So I explained to the mystery lady that I was going to write about the effort and that I wanted to give them the opportunity to lay out their reason for a recall of Acosta. Mystery Lady declined and said that they guy in charge was out of town right now and she really couldn’t say much. I remembered that Benitez told me he was out of town at the moment and I asked Mystery Lady if Benitez was involved.
She paused and stuttered a bit and then said, “No”.
I continued to talk with Mystery Lady and repeatedly tried to get her name, but she wouldn’t tell me. But she did tell me at least some of the reasons the group is going after a recall attempt. She said that City Rep Acosta “…doesn’t listen to the people. She only cares about businesses.” So I asked her if she was referring to the Three-Legged Monkey and she attempted to change the subject.
Mystery Lady went on to say that “Cielo Vista Neighborhood Association got her elected. If you look at the vote, you can see we are the ones that put her there. She needs to realize that and needs to know that now we are against her. She can’t just pay attention to businesses…”
I thought that was interesting point because it’s a common complaint in some communities that after they give their support to a candidate, they are ignored. I checked out the numbers Mystery Lady mentioned and I found something pretty interesting. Any neighborhood association in her district can make the claim that they put her in office. Acosta won the vote by more than 70% and won every single precinct in the district, including Lozano’s own precinct.
From what I can gather in tight-lipped conversations with area residents, it appears that the beef is with the neighborhood association’s on-going war with an area nightspot, the Three Legged Monkey. Area residents are understandably upset at the condition of the neighborhood after patrons of the establishment have been through. I’ve personally seen some of problems the neighborhood has seen as a result of the patrons.
But Acosta has tried to referee the feud between the residents and the business. To be fair to the business ownership, they have made themselves available to the residents for discussion and have made several efforts to alleviate the situation. The problems arose because the popularity of the business was more than the available parking spots, which led to patrons parking in the neighborhoods and urinating, leaving trash, damaging property, and causing a late-night disturbance.
Ownership leased parking lots of adjoining businesses to provide more parking for patrons along with other concessions to the neighborhood. But the bottom line is, the residents probably won’t be happy unless the business completely shuts down, which isn’t going to happen.
So since they can’t get to the ownership, Acosta is the next best thing.
Mystery Lady did reveal that the group would eventually make their concerns public, but at a later date and would only reveal the information to Newpapertree’s own, David Crowder. After reading Crowder’s series on Acosta’s departure from the city, the group seems to dig Crowder.
But recalling Acosta is going to be an uphill battle for several reasons. First, they have to make the beef they have with the Three-Legged Monkey an issue that will matter to the rest of the district. That’s tough to do because the area is one of the nicer, if not the nicest, parts of the district. Hearing those folks complain will probably make the rest of the district feel the same way I do when skinny people call themselves fat.
Then there’s the actually requirements of a recall. They have to be able to capture a given number of voters that actually voted in the last Mayoral Election, which is tough because those voters tend to be regular voters. That means they probably have a stronger command of issues than the more casual voters so it will be harder to get them to vote against Acosta so soon after winning by such a large margin.
That means Mystery Lady and the recall people have to target the 30 percent that didn’t vote for Acosta. Hate to break it to them, but that math isn’t there and it’s not enough to force a recall.
Even if they were able to get enough signatures for a recall, Acosta is no push-over. She packs a lot of tough in that tiny frame. Lozano went so dirty in the last election it would probably make Karl Rove blush. Acosta would campaign very hard if there was actually a run-off.
But that’s a really big “if”.
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Abeytia writes the Lionstar blog and is a political animal who spends way too much time traveling the wilds of El Paso politics. Reach him at lionstar@thelionstarblog.com.
