Democratic candidates for Hidalgo County judge joined a forum Monday evening hosted by the advocacy group Futuro RGV, and addressed a wide range of issues and visions for the region.
The forum was held at The Monitor and a broadcast of the event is available on Futuro RGV’s Facebook page.
Participating hopefuls included incumbent Richard F. Cortez, McAllen District 4 Commissioner Tania Ramirez and former Democratic Party Chairwoman Norma Ramirez, who fielded questions on topics that ranged from infrastructure to drainage to new voting laws to taxes and more.
The forum was moderated by former Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas, who began the hour-long forum by asking the candidates what they believe Hidalgo County’s biggest asset is and to identify the community’s single greatest asset.
Norma believes the county’s international bridges are its greatest asset.
“This is the only place in the world where we have agriculture on both sides of the border and transportation that can easily flow within a few hours from one country to the other,” she said.
However, she says to fully utilize this asset Hidalgo County’s perception in the rest of the country needs to change.
If elected, Norma said she would advocate to keep the bridges open 24 hours to increase the flow of truck traffic.
Her biggest concern is taxes, which she believes are too high and unrealistic for a county with such high levels of poverty.
Cortez said he believes the county’s educational institutions like the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, South Texas College and Texas A&M are the biggest assets because those institutions are the route to help people escape poverty.
“To me, solving poverty is very important,” he said, adding that the last two years have been challenging because of the pandemics’ impacts.
Tania said she believes being a border community is the county’s biggest asset and touted the region’s fast growing economies, which she said needs to be taken advantage of to fight poverty and reduce the lack of jobs.
The biggest concern from Tania’s perspective is her belief that the Rio Grande Valley and Hidalgo County do not work together.
“We need to start acting like a region,” Tania said.
Cortez also talked about utilizing a region-wide perspective and mentioned that he believes the four-county region is working together, citing the recent combination of the Valley’s metropolitan planning organizations.
Salinas also asked the candidates about Texas’ new voting laws, specifically a new law that requires mail-in ballots to include a driver’s license and social security number and the election administrator’s responsibility to cure problems with these ballots, of which 50% have issues.
The moderator asked the candidates, who, if elected, would sit on the county election commission, what steps they would take to make sure the election department contacted voters who have problems with these absentee ballots.
Tania said she agrees with some of the changes in the law and believes the county needs to be much more careful with its voting procedures while trying to increase voter turnout.
“So we need to become a better government when it comes to encouraging people to go out and vote and making them feel safe,” she said.
Norma said there a lot of steps in place and the county needs to adhere to what it already has and would make sure the election administrator is doing the job to determine that mail-in ballots are true ballots.
Cortez said the problem is already identified.
“We already defined the problem and the solution is to put manpower behind it so we can empower the elections officer to have all the necessary resources,” he said.
Salinas also brought up Texas Proposition 2, which passed in November and allows the county to issue tax increment financing bonds to develop or redevelop transportation projects or underdeveloped or blighted areas, which previously only were availably to city governments.
He asked the candidates whether they had any transportation or other projects in mind to utilize this newly available source of funding.
Norma said those bonds should be taken advantage of and could be used to improve roads in colonias.
“If infrastructure is what we lack, then we should take every single opportunity that we can,” she said.
Cortez said the Rio Grande Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization has identified projects that will need financing while the funds could be used to work on the flooding problem between Mercedes and Weslaco.
The incumbent also mentioned developing and east-west corridor for going to South Padre Island and to SpaceX.
“I always welcome another tool,” he said.
Tania, however, said the county should utilize other resources first, such as working with state Rep. Terry Canales, who is the chairman of the Transportation Committee, or utilizing funds that may be available in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill.
“First go get as much money as we can before we start thinking about raising taxes,” she said, adding that any bond proposals should be put to the voters.
Salinas also asked which infrastructure the candidates are most concerned about and how they would improve it, to which all believed drainage is the county’s most prevalent problem.
Cortez mentioned the $190 million bond in 2018 which financed 37 projects. He said the funds obtained through the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, are being allocated to drainage.
Tania said those are good first steps but the county needs more strict oversight and a more aggressive approach to these projects, which she believes are taking too long to be completed.
Norma agreed that the drainage problem is tremendous and also said it is slow to be addressed, but she also said the county needs to push the international bridges to increase the flow of imports and exports.
Salinas also asked the candidates whether they believe that Hidalgo County needs a veterans hospital, to which both Tania and Norma said they believe its a dire need while Cortez said the expert opinions he’s heard on the matter indicate there are not enough veterans who need hospitalization for a dedicated hospital.
However, Cortez said a better idea is to dedicate a section inside an existing hospital for veterans.
The moderator also asked them what they believe the most important qualifications for the position are and whether they would be a full-time judge.
Norma touted her management of a multi-million-dollar produce company while Cortez said his professional training as a banker and his experience as the incumbent are the correct qualifications, and Tania said her ability as a team player and good listener and experience as an attorney are all qualities she would bring to the table.
All of the candidates said they would be full-time judges.
Salinas also asked them what their top three priorities would be should they win election in November. Cortez said becoming a healthier community, attracting outside investment and continuing with drainage projects.
Tania said her first priority would be to bring all the mayors and commissioners in Hidalgo to the table and listen to each other. She also said more oversight on county spending and job creation would be her priorities.
Norma also said she would bring elected officials to the table and would create a drainage committee and immediately look at the tax situation while putting a freeze on promotions, hiring and firing for 30 days to conduct a “human audit.”
All three candidates were also asked about using ARPA funds to bridge the digital divide and whether they thought that should be a government-led initiative or a public-private partnership.
Both Cortez and Norma believed in the public-private partnership approach while Tania believed the initiative should be government-led.
They were also asked about the county judge’s role in the immigration debate and all three noted that it’s a federal issue and mentioned the county judge’s role should be focused in community safety and health issues, which include the coronavirus.
The Republican candidates, who include Esmeralda Flores and Jane Cross, held their forum immediately following their Democratic counterparts Monday evening, and will be featured in The Monitor in the next edition.
The primary is scheduled for March 1.
