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DONNA — Officials here called off a municipal election that would have seen two council seats placed on the November ballot after questions over how long an elected official may serve in office.
However, the decision drew vociferous dissent from residents, who crowded into the small legislative chamber and spilled out into the hallway inside Donna City Hall on Monday.
“No offense to any candidate or anyone here at all, but when you have served your term, and if your actions speak for themselves because you’re doing such a wonderful job, then there’s no reason why you should not be able to be reelected again,” Donna resident Graciela Bustos said during a special meeting.
“That’s never happened before, so why should it now?” Bustos added.
At issue on Monday was a charter amendment approved by Donna voters during a November 2021 election.
Proposition A, which called for extending terms of office for the mayor and city council seats from three years to four, passed by a narrow majority of 51.33% in favor, and 48.67% against, with a total of 1,428 people casting a ballot.
At the same time, Donna voters also chose who they wanted to represent them at the Place 2 and Place 4 city council seats.
Place 2 Councilman Joey Garza, who ran unopposed, received 1,103 votes, while Oscar Gonzales defeated then-incumbent Eloy Avila Jr. by 315 votes for the Place 4 post.
Back at city hall, it was questions from those two councilmen that spurred Monday evening’s spirited discussions.
Officials wanted to know if that term length extension applied to the two councilmen, or if the city needed to call an election.
The meeting agenda included two items related to the discussion — one that could have caused an election order to be made, and another seeking an outside legal opinion on the matter from Gilberto Hinojosa, a Brownsville attorney known for his expertise in elections law.
But the proposal to seek Hinojosa’s opinion incensed some members of the public who crowded into the chamber, especially since the city’s own attorney, Robert Salinas, had already been asked for his legal input, as had the Texas Municipal League.
Both TML and Salinas had come to the same conclusion: the proposition’s ballot language did not specify that term length extensions would apply to the candidates then running concurrently in the 2021 election.
As such, the new four-year terms shouldn’t apply to the victors of those 2021 races.
“Those councilmembers would need to run for reelection at the end of the whole terms, which is a three-year term, not a four-year term,” said Donna resident Jesse I. Casiano as he read from a copy of the TML opinion during public comments.
Moments later, Donna Mayor David Moreno called for a motion on the order of election, pausing to ask Salinas, the city attorney for his opinion.
Salinas replied by saying this wasn’t the first time the question had come up.
Indeed, prior to the November 2023 election that saw Moreno beat incumbent Rick Morales for the mayoral seat, Morales had asked the city attorney the very same question.
In November 2020, Morales fended off a challenge from Ernesto Lugo to keep his mayoral seat by just 147 votes.
But that reelection win came one year before Prop A passed.
Nonetheless, as election season rolled around last fall, he, too, wondered if the new term lengths applied to him.
Salinas told Morales no then, and stood by that legal opinion on Monday.
“The opinion has not changed. I have seen no law and no facts that would make a change,” Salinas said, reading from a prepared statement.
“The extension of a term in office is not applicable to the officeholders in which the referendum calling for an extension of terms of office was adopted unless the referendum specifically made the extension applicable to the current officeholders,” Salinas added a moment later.
After some more explanation from Salinas, including a description of how Gilberto Hinojosa led an inquiry into a similar situation in the city of Combes, Mayor Moreno called for circumspection from the council.
“Having heard this, I truly urge the city council to make the right decision,” Moreno said.
“I’m not a fortune teller … but I can predict what’s gonna happen. … Somebody’s gonna appeal this,” he added a moment later.
The two councilmen whose fate rested on Monday’s decision didn’t say much during the meeting, save for Garza, who said the proposition ballot language was vague.
However, one councilman did speak up — Ernesto Lugo.
Lugo said the amendment’s lack of clarity is what prompted the discussion, not any attempt to “deny anybody the opportunity to vote.”
He said seeking a third opinion would give the council an opportunity to perform its due diligence.
But as Lugo made his comments, he was oftentimes shouted down by residents.
“Dictator!” one man shouted.
“Then you pay for it!” another woman said when Lugo spoke of hiring Hinojosa.
Lugo motioned for the city to not call a November election. Oscar Gonzales, one of the councilmen who would have been up for reelection, seconded Lugo’s motion.
All four councilmen voted to call off the election, while Mayor Moreno cast the sole “nay” vote.
With the election off the table, the council considered Hinojosa’s hiring a moot point.
Speaking after the meeting, Casiano, the resident who had read TML’s decision aloud, said the decision was “predetermined.”
“Our voice was silenced today by three councilmembers benefiting themselves. Two of them benefiting themselves directly, one in cahoots with them,” Casiano said.
