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HARLINGEN — Residents will get a chance to look into city commission candidates’ platforms during a forum set amid one of Harlingen’s most hotly contested elections in decades.
The Northern Cameron County Democrats are holding the forum from 5:45 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at La Sierra Event Center at 3742 U.S. 77 Frontage Road in Harlingen.
“We think it will give Harlingen residents an opportunity to hear from all the candidates before the election,” Joyce Hamilton, an organizer, said.
Organizers are setting up the forum in three segments, each focusing on one of the Nov. 5 election’s three races.
From 6 to 6:45 p.m., candidates running in the race for District 3 are set to outline their platforms.
In the race, incumbent Commissioner Michael Mezmar, a financial advisor who first won office in 2012, is facing Steve Ritter, a pilot; Jennifer Vasquez Colten, who works as Texas State Technical College Foundation’s executive director of advancement operations; and Frank Lozano, an attorney.
From 6:45 to 7:30 p.m., the forum shifts its focus to candidates running in the District 4 race, where incumbent Commissioner Frank Morales, a semi-retired salesman bidding for a second term, is facing Dagoberto Pena, an investigator with the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office; Basilio “Chino” Sanchez, a retired newspaper production technician who served as a commissioner from 2012 to 2015; and B.T. Vargas, a business owner.
From 7:30 to 8 p.m., the spotlight turns to candidates running in the District 5 race, where incumbent Commissioner Rene Perez, a schoolteacher who serves as the city’s mayor pro tem, is bidding for a second term in the race in which he’s facing former Commissioner Ruben De La Rosa, a Texas Southmost College instructor who served as a commissioner from 2015 to 2021; and Nikki Alvarez Daniell, a reserve deputy constable with Cameron County’s Precinct 5 constable’s office.
The city’s first regular November election is expected to boost voter turnout.
In a 2022 election, Harlingen voters passed a proposition pushing the city’s May elections to November as part of the past commission’s plan to draw more voters to the polls.
The election’s early voting period will run from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1.
