|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
SAN BENITO — After 12 years, the City Charter is up for review in the Nov. 5 election, with commissioners asking voters to revise at least two clauses surrounding hot issues.
In San Benito’s first special election aimed at revising the charter since 2012, voters are going to the polls to decide the fate of five measures including a proposal to scrap a clause requiring the city manager live in town while another calls on commissioners to live inside the city limits.
As part of an agreement, officials are contracting the Cameron County Elections Department to conduct the election at a cost of about $16,885, Elections Administrator Remi Garza said Tuesday, while predicting a strong voter turnout.
“Obviously, with the presidential election, there’s going to be a lot of participation,” he said.
Earlier this year, commissioners proposed five amendments to the City Charter as part of their first step to revising the document considered San Benito’s constitution.
“It’s long overdue,” Commissioner Tom Goodman said in an interview, adding commissioners are considering proposing more amendments to the charter.
“This is a first phase,” he said. “It’s not a comprehensive update by any means.”
For months, questions have been popping up surrounding City Manager Fred Sandoval’s residency in the city whose charter requires city managers to live inside the city limits.
Under the election’s Proposition D, commissioners are asking voters to consider changing the requirement, proposing “an amendment to the city of San Benito Charter to allow the city manager to reside outside the city limits,” according to the election ballot.
Since he was hired in October 2023, Sandoval has continued living in Pharr.
On Tuesday, he did not respond to a request for comment.
However, in an earlier interview, Sandoval said he told commissioners he planned to move to town at the time he was hired last year.
Meanwhile, he’s pointed to factors he says are keeping him from moving, including his son’s status as a high school junior in Pharr, while he’s serving as his 85-year-old mother’s “primary caregiver.”
Now, commissioners are asking voters to help settle the issue.
“The fact that he currently does not live within the city limits does not discount his experience, which we desperately need,” Goodman said. “We are fortunate to have Fred Sandoval as city manager. He understands Valley politics. He brings a lot of experience to the table.”
Meanwhile, commissioners are asking voters to consider Proposition B — “An amendment to the city of San Benito Charter requiring all members of the city commission to reside within the city limits during their term of office,” the ballot reads.
In March, commissioners voted to declare then-Commissioner Carol Lynn Sanchez’s position vacant because she was living outside the city limits.
In a heated meeting, commissioners unanimously voted to declare Sanchez’s office vacant while citing her as “unqualified to hold office in the city of San Benito” based on a charter clause requiring commissioners live within the city limits.
With just weeks before the close of her term, Sanchez claimed her removal was “illegal,” arguing she was denied her due process.
But interim City Attorney Javier Villalobos said she effectively resigned her position when she filed to run for Texas House District 37, while forfeiting her office when she moved outside the city limits.
Through the decades, the charter has required commissioners live within the city limits, Villalobos said.
Now, Proposition B’s passage would reaffirm the requirement, officials said.
“If we can clean up our charter so there’s no question about what happens, I think it makes sense,” Goodman said, pointing to Sanchez’s case, while adding, “it’s not a personal affront to anyone.”
Under Proposition C, commissioners are proposing “an amendment to the city of San Benito Charter authorizing the city commission to make appointments to the city commission in the case of a vacancy where there is less than 365 days remaining in the vacant term,” the ballot reads.
Meanwhile, Proposition E proposes “an amendment to the city of San Benito Charter to provide for process and reasons for removal of municipal judges.”
