Mission residents are faced with a crowded field of candidates running to be the next mayor as three individuals are challenging current Mayor Armando O’Caña in the May elections.
Those hoping to unseat O’Caña include former Mayor Norberto “Beto” Salinas, current Place 3 Councilmember Norie Gonzalez Garza, and Victor Anzaldua, a political science student at South Texas College.
BETO SALINAS
Salinas, 75, served as mayor for 20 years before being unseated in 2018 by O’Caña and his decision to run again, he said, was because he didn’t believe the city had done well over the last four years.
“I decided that I needed to get involved in this race simply because we could not have four more years of the same mayor doing what he was doing,” Salinas said.
Among his major criticisms is the federal investigation into a kickback scheme that involved an employee from an energy savings company, Performance Services Inc., with whom the city had contracted with for the installation of smart water meters.
The ongoing investigation led to several elected officials from western Hidalgo County to plead guilty to bribery with one — former La Joya school district board member Armin Garza — confessing to accepting bribes from the PSI employee.
In exchange, Garza voted in favor of having the school district grant a contract to PSI and used his influence on the board to convince other elected officials from the area to also grant contracts to the company.
By a three to two vote, the Mission city council approved a contract with PSI. O’Caña, and Councilmembers Jessica Ortega, and Alberto “Beto” Vela voted for the contract while Councilmembers Gonzalez Garza and Ruben Plata voted against the contract.
No one on the Mission city council has been charged with any crime and the council has since moved to terminate the contract with PSI.
Of the cloud surrounding the city’s contract with PSI, O’Caña said “I have not been contacted by the FBI. Period. That’s all I’m going to comment.”
Salinas is also against the city’s plans to have their own fire-based emergency medical services, an effort that is already underway with the fire department having received their first ambulance in January.
“I am completely against (it) because we will not have money to do that,” Salinas said. “If it would be a good idea, McAllen would have its own EMS system.”
“We have had, for the last 20 years, we’ve had the private sector take care of our ambulance needs,” Salinas continued, “and I am going to be on top of it because I will make sure that everybody that is working for the private sector is an educated person and is going to be an EMT or a paramedic.”
The former mayor also criticized the current city council for raising property taxes after he lowered them during his time in office.
“I had done so much work and the tax rate came down to .48 cents, from .65 cents to .48 cents,” Salinas said.
However, O’Caña and Gonzalez Garza both pointed out that the revenue from taxes allowed the city to provide services to their residents.
“I haven’t heard many people complain about the tax rate,” O’Caña said, “and the reason why is because it’s matched with fine, excellent services and response from police, fire, EMS and emergency operations, our sanitation, our public works — our water and sewer are working fine and the brush pickups are being done in a timely manner — so I haven’t heard that there are citizens that have a serious concern.”
O’Caña added, “When you reduce taxes, you have to reduce expenditures also and by reducing expenditures, the only thing that we can reduce is services and that’s not going to happen under my watch.”
Gonzalez Garza argued that lowering taxes during Salinas’ tenure actually hurt the city because it prevented them from upgrading their fleet of vehicles for first responders.
“Within the last four years, we’ve taken a different direction in having a lease program which we’ve been able to upgrade vehicles for both of our departments which I feel that’s been a very, very big improvement,” Gonzalez Garza said.
“Lowering tax rates is good, kind of, but on the backside of that, you have to be sure that you’re not lowering the services to the city which, unfortunately, I feel that’s what happened with the lowering of tax rate the way we did so quickly,” she said.
NORIE GONZALEZ GARZA
Gonzalez Garza, 62, is serving her fourth term as a city councilmember and is this term was nearing its end, she was faced with a choice of whether to run for reelection, not run at all, or aim higher and run for mayor.
She ultimately decided on running for mayor because she believed the city needs a new perspective and to be taken in a different direction.
“I feel that we’re not doing enough for our residents,” Gonzalez Garza said. “I think that there’s a lot of room for improvement in, basically, your quality of life situations.”
She particular singled out improvements to city parks and to their drainage as needs, noting that while the city has already addressed areas of concern when it comes to flooding and drainage needs, there’s still more drainage work that needs to be done that hasn’t yet.
“And the reason for that is because of funding,” Gonzalez Garza said. “And I think that we should’ve already procured funding for the drainage projects that have already been identified.”
Ultimately, she said voters should choose her because she’s honest and trustworthy.
“I think I’m accountable and I’m ethical and I’m transparent,” she said, “and I just feel like I’m the better qualified candidate.”
Prior to her time on the city council, she served on the board for the Mission Consolidated Independent School District for nine years and also served on the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission for 10 years.
She added that she hopes voters will do their research and study the qualifications of all the candidates.
“I’m not saying that Dr. O’Caña didn’t do good things or that Mayor Salinas didn’t do good things; they did,” she said. “But now, it’s time for a different direction and I believe that I can lead the city to prosperous times in the next four years.”
ARMANDO O’CAÑA
O’Caña, 68, said he was motivated to seek reelection because of the city’s ongoing projects the would like to see to completion.
“I have started over 50 projects in the past four years and they’re not completed,” he said. “We’re having continuous progress and I want to continue the progress through the next four years so I’ll be able to finish the projects, as many as I can.”
For the next four years, he has three priorities — public safety, drainage, and economic development.
“I started with a Mission drainage committee that we had not had before I came in as mayor and, from there, we spun off also to develop a new Hidalgo County municipal drainage committee,” O’Caña said, describing those committees as supplemental to the Hidalgo County Drainage District.
He noted the city also conducted a drainage assessment that identified several projects to be done in order to reduce flooding.
“We already completed 12 and … the preliminary engineering plans are at 90%, right now, completed and we should be going out for construction for an estimated cost of $20 million by June or July at the latest,” O’Caña said.
As for their police and fire department, O’Caña said he aims for them to be the highest paid police officers and firefighters in the Rio Grande Valley.
“The police are the third-best paid in the Rio Grande Valley and I want to move them, for the next budget year, I want to move them to number two and in two years, move them to number one,” he said. “Fire, the second-best paid in the Rio Grande Valley and this budget year, I want to move them to number one and then maintain them number one the next three years.”
O’Caña said his four-year report card speaks for itself on why people of Mission should give him another four years in office.
“I’m running on the progress that we had made, the excellent sales taxes that we’re experiencing like in January — 68% increase; last month — 27% increase; overall — 34% increase of sales taxes,” O’Caña said. “You look around the city of Mission, just drive around the city Mission, we’re booming.”
VICTOR ANZALDUA
Anzaldua, 22, said his father worked for the city of Mission for 26 years. The pay, however, wasn’t enough and eventually retired to mow yards instead, a job Anzaldua would often help his dad with after school.
Over the years, speaking with his dad and other residents, he said he became aware of problems throughout the city and wondered why they weren’t getting addressed.
“I wanted to help people,” Anzaldua said. “I want to help out the residents and, as well, help out the employees of Mission because it’s hard and I understand it because I found a first point of view from my father.”
Anzaldua has an associate’s degree from South Texas College in political science and is now working on obtaining his bachelor’s degree in the same field.
He is also involved with the Young Republicans at STC, a group that encouraged him to run for office.
If elected, he said he wants to bring the future to the city.
Like other candidates, he also listed improvements to city parks as one of his top priorities. He also wants to implement the use of solar panels.
“Mission needs a young generation’s point of view in order to expand,” Anzaldua said. “I don’t have 15, 40, 50 years of experience in politics but I’m showing them that I want to learn.”
“I want to learn and change things,” he said.
Mission voters will be able to cast a ballot for one of the four candidates when early voting begins on Monday. Election day is on May 7.
