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SAN BENITO — Election season’s cranking up in this politically charged town.
Earlier this week, city commissioners called a May 4 election in which voters will decide two of five seats on the commission.
During Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners also contracted with Cameron County to run the election.
On Wednesday, Remi Garza, the county’s elections administrator, said the department’s charging the city $23,480.
At City Hall, Wednesday marked the first day in which residents can file to run as candidates in the election, David Favila, the city’s spokesman, said.
Feb. 16 marks filing deadline.
The election comes a year after voters swept in a new commission, ousting the board’s previous majority.
After more than three years on the board, Commissioner Pete Galvan said he’s running for a second full term in Place 3.
In November 2020, Galvan, a pharmacist who serves as the commission’s mayor pro tem, won an unexpired term which former Commissioner Rick Guerra had left open after he resigned to run for the mayor’s seat.
Then in May 2021, Galvan won his first three-year term.
In Place 4, Carol Lynn Sanchez, an attorney who first won election in 2017, is vacating her seat to run for the state District 37 House seat held by first-term Republican Janie Lopez.
”I will finish the term I committed to finishing to my constituents,” Sanchez stated. “I owe it to the voters who believed in me. I am not leaving my community. I’m just using the knowledge I gained as a commissioner to now help it at a higher and more effective level.”
