(If this story sounds familiar, it is a re-write of a story posted Nov. 2, 2018)
In the upcoming December 13 runoff race for mayor, Laredoans will vote once more for whom they believe will best move the future of this City forward with the careful balance of sustainable growth and quality of life.
The race between incumbent Pete Saenz and challenger Roque Vela Jr., a former member of the Laredo City Council, at its essence poses these questions:
Whose ethics are unimpeachable? Who was not the object of a 1996 DPS sting for possession of 22 pounds of marijuana? Who does not have an arrest record for using his fists to settle differences (1997) or for choking his sister with his hands at the family bowling enterprise (2002)?
The idea that Velas’s rap sheet/resumé represents a viable candidate with the temperament, character, judgement, and values to lead the City of Laredo for the next four years flies in the face of reason, and it invites scrutiny for the contrasts between the two men.
Saenz was elected Mayor in a resounding victory in 2014.
Vela served one term as the City Council member for District V from 2012 to 2016. His political fortune was reversed by challenger, now-Council woman Nelly Vielma, a candidate he deemed “inferior.”
Vela has publicly referred to former City Manager Carlos Villarreal, who ruled City Hall with iron-fisted patronismo, as a “father figure.”
Mayor Saenz is a father figure. He and his wife Meva, married 45 years, are the parents of three and grandparents of six.
WHO’S BEEN ARRESTED?
Vela’s first arrest was in 1996 in a Texas Department of Public Safety drug sting in San Antonio for possession of 22 pounds of marijuana that he had shipped to himself from Laredo by UPS. Another was for a 1997 fistfight in Abilene, and a third for a 2002 domestic violence incident in which he choked his sister with his hands at the Jett Bowl.
Saenz has never been arrested.
EDUCATION
Ballotpedia informs that three-time arrestee Vela, earned an undergraduate degree in criminal justice at Hardin-Simmons University.
Saenz earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master’s in animal science and range management from Texas A&I University and a doctorate of jurisprudence from St. Mary’s University School of Law.
PLATFORM
Articulate and well-informed, Mayor Saenz, now retired from a distinguished career in the law, has stayed his campaign’s course with issues that include:
- Continue to change the culture of corruption at city hall, and improve business-friendly, fair and ethical city practices;
- Create more disposable income by reducing the City property tax rate, and not increasing resident user fees.
- Continue to dedicate capital and invest in infrastructure, (new and inner city).
- Introduce City Charter amendments so the ethics commission is not directly appointed by City Council, but rather by an independent body, possibly by federal judges or magistrates.
Vela has said he will work to:
- Freeze rising appraisals.
- Freeze rising water rates.
- Pick up trash twice a week.
- Establish a no-kill City animal shelter.
While Vela might find success for twice-weekly trash pick up and working toward a no-kill City animal shelter, freezing property appraisals is an empty promise and not within his power, nor is the promise to freeze increases in water rates.
According to real estate broker Zoraida Jackson, secretary of the Webb County Appraisal Review Board, “Appraisal values are determined by market value and regulated by the Texas Tax Code (Sect. 23.01). No local elected officials can change that.”
Annual increases in City water rates are bound by bond covenant until 2037, tied to the specifics of a $400 million debt for a capital improvement plan (CIP) for water/wastewater projects across town.
Freezing them, too, may be beyond Vela’s reach.
Among those CIP projects are the $100 million price tag for El Pico Water Plant; water and sewer lines to service new developments; water storage tanks on Bartlett, Shiloh, and in Cuatro Vientos; the South Laredo waste water treatment plant; and replacing aged 24-inch and 36-inch cast iron water lines.
The annual two percent increase in water rates was written into ordinance in 2007 by former Mayor Raul Salinas and then-City Council members Mike Garza, Juan Narvaez, Michael Landek, Johnny Amaya, Johnny Rendon, Hector García, Juan Ramirez, and Gene Belmares.
SIDEBAR
Laredo doesn’t need — nor does it deserve — an uninformed hot head at the helm of City government, a man who did not of his own volition admit to his first arrest for marijuana possession of a stash-for-sale the size of half a bale of hay. Nor did he admit to two subsequent arrests.
Being glib and wily does not make Roque Vela Jr. the most informed or forward-thinking man in the race.
In the taxpayer-funded enterprise of running our City efficiently, there is no place for an uninformed bully.
(Early voting dates for the runoff races for Mayor; Districts II, III, and VI; and Municipal Court Judge are December 3 to 8; the runoff election date is December 13.)
Well stated thank you MEG
Good work, MEG, but my religion forbids me to vote for Saenz.
Dear MEG, I hope readers realize that my comment concerning religious proscription was written “tongue in cheek”. I actually have no adherence to any religion or otherworldliness. I of course would not assent to illicit possession of controlled leafy green substances. Neither would I ever even think of laying an aggressive handhold on one of my beautiful siblings, much less settle disputes with fisticuffs. Notwithstanding that Pete’s political opponent committed the above-mentioned transgressions, the main reason that I will NOT vote for Pete is more unforgiveable: He voted for Donald Trump using the lame excuse that doing so would protect his “religious liberties”. No one is assaulting his delusional beliefs. But just look what weak-minded voters have wrought upon our nation’s Administrative Branch … an arrogant, inept, ignorant buffoon. And that’s not a put down, just obvious observation. I will not hold in any esteem a person who supports such thuggery, like the cadre of local retired Mexican-American former federal and state law enforcement officers who loudly proclaim adulation towards the likes of Trump and his harlot Ted Cruz. They are part of a large cult who follow Trump’s ascendancy like lemmings, mostly lacking humane dignity and acting like the uneducated, uninformed masses who allowed dangerous people into power. These people are more apt to pick up on slogans and name calling instead of focusing on substance, looking for others to blame for their perceived lots in life. It’s not a pretty picture how these people readily believe in the stupidity of unsubstantiated ideas like Benghazi, birtherism, uranium trading, wiretapping, or three million “illegal” voters. Instead they prefer to pursue continued uncivil division of our country, listen to Rush Limbaugh and other such radio nuts who convince their fools to fault the EPA, overregulation and illegal vegetable pickers working twelve hour days. These blind Trump and Cruz followers are people who would blindly follow David Koresh and Jim Jones. They choose to believe lies with a willful blindness to truth. “It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” ~ Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda.