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SAN BENITO — While some residents are requesting commissioners call an election to let voters decide if want to remove them from office, the group is also asking a judge to stop a Nov. 5 election aimed at deciding the fate of five proposed amendments to the City Charter.
At Cameron County’s 197th state District court, a judge was set to consider former city official Julian Rios’ request to prohibit commissioners from placing five propositions on the ballot during a 10 a.m. Oct. 28 hearing.
City officials are contracting the Cameron County Elections Department to conduct the election at a cost of about $16,885, Elections Administrator Remi Garza said.
At City Hall, residents presented officials with petitions carrying signatures requesting commissioners order a recall election asking voters if they want to remove Mayor Rick Guerra and the city’s five commissioners from office, officials said.
In at least decades, it’s the first time San Benito residents have requested a recall election.
On Tuesday, Rios, the San Benito Economic Development Corporations’ former president, and former City Commissioner Carol Lynn Sanchez did not respond to requests for comment.
“We have to bring the city together,” Commissioner Tom Goodman said in response to the recall drive. “We’ve become our own worst enemies trying to work to keep our city progressing. There are many good things happening in San Benito — residential development, commercial development. There are entertainment venues and more. I don’t understand what the purpose of all this is. There are no perfect politicians.”
On Sept. 16, Wayne Dolcefino, owner of Dolcefino Consulting in Houston, announced a group of residents was gathering signatures in a drive aimed at requesting a recall election.
The group included Sanchez.
In a news release, Dolcefino said “a group of citizens contacted me to help them restore sanity to their government and I gladly accepted.”
According to the City Charter, the group’s petition “must be signed by 25% of those eligible to vote at the last regular election, of which 50% must have actually voted.”
At City Hall, City Secretary Ruth McGinnis was reviewing the petitions.
“We’ve got to go through a process,” City Manager Fred Sandoval said. “We’ve got to go through and verify the signatures and folks that signed. There are statuary requirements everyone needs to follow — the petitioners and the city. We’re committed to transparency. We’re going to do what we’re supposed to do by law.”
At the Cameron County Elections Department, Garza said he was working with city officials.
“We have been providing them with rosters of people who participated in the last two elections,” he said. “They asked for copies of combination forms, where voters sign in. They’re going to use that to review their petitions.”
On Tuesday, interim City Attorney Javier Villalobos said it might be too late to stop the Nov. 5 election, pointing to Monday’s opening of the early voting period.
“You can’t halt this,” he said in an interview. “It’s already started.”
Under the special election’s Proposition D, commissioners are asking voters to consider scraping a City Charter clause requiring the city manager live in town, 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.
For months, some residents, including Sanchez, have raised questions surrounding Sandoval’s residency, since he’s continued living in Pharr after taking office last October.
At the time he was hired, he told commissioners he planned to move to town, Sandoval said in an earlier interview.
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.”
Commissioners are also 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 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 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.
For decades, the charter has required commissioners live within the city limits, Villalobos said.
Now, Proposition B’s passage would reaffirm the requirement, officials said.
