Just as the mayoral race remains undecided, the individuals who will serve as the next councilmen for Places 1 and 2 is still to be determined as none of the candidates received a majority of the votes in their respective races.
The two candidates who received the most votes in each race will be moving on to a runoff election next month.
In the race for Place 1 councilmember, Dan Diaz and Ismael “Smiley” Martinez will face off in the runoff. Diaz received 2,326 votes, or about 30.5% of the votes while Martinez received 2,236 votes, or about 29%.
Candidates Gerardo “Gerry” Lozano and Fern McClaugherty, who received 2,223 and 827 votes, respectively, will not be moving on to the runoff.
Ruben “Bubba” Palacios and Jason De Leon will be in a runoff for the position of Place 2 councilmember. Palacios received 3,108 votes, or about 41% of the votes, while De Leon received 2,376 votes, or 31%.
Also running for Place 2 was Moises Segovia who came in third with 2,165 votes.
Edinburg citizens overwhelmingly voted for a city charter amendment that will allow an elected official to be suspended if they are indicted on a felony charge.
Under the approved amendment, an indicted elected official could only be suspended by a majority vote of the city council. The official in question would have the ability to testify on their behalf with reasonable notice that the council would be voting on the issue.
However, Gilbert Enriquez, the former Place 2 councilman who lost his mayoral bid Tuesday, doesn’t think it will be very effective.
When he was on the council, Enriquez initially proposed the amendment so that it would immediately suspend an elected official upon felony indictment, without requiring a vote by the council.
It also would have been retroactive so that it would have applied to current Mayor Richard Molina who was indicted on charges of illegal voting and voter fraud in 2019. Those charges are currently pending.
“When I put it on the agenda and it was approved, it was giving the voters the authority to remove an indicted felon until their legal process was done,” Enriquez said. “When I left the council, they amended it to not only change who has the authority, but they also removed Molina from being removed after it passed.”
“It’s not going to make a difference,” Enriquez added of the approved amendment. “The voters didn’t have a say in it. Who is going to have a say in it is the council and that’s not what that amendment was supposed to entail.”
