Voters in Donna and Edcouch have spoken, despite two separate elections lawsuits that sought to take away their voice by claiming some candidates were ineligible to run for office.
In Donna, it was the challenger who filed the eligibility lawsuit against his incumbent opponent who was victorious Tuesday night.
In Edcouch, it was the trio who were already in office when city staff attempted to oust two of their challengers from the ballot who ultimately retained control after waging a contentious political battle in court and on social media.
DONNA
Oscar Gonzales, the former Donna city councilman who filed a lawsuit against Place 4 incumbent Eloy Avila Jr., claiming the latter doesn’t reside in the city, accomplished an election upset Tuesday night.
Early voting tallies showed Gonzales up by 320 votes as of approximately 7:45 p.m. Tuesday. When Election Day tallies rolled in a short while later, they added just 20 more total votes to that number, with eight of those people casting their ballots for Gonzales on Tuesday.
Ultimately, Gonzales won nearly 63% of the electorate, with 770 votes to Avila’s 454.
“It feels great because the people have spoken. They really came out and put their vote out and supported the correct candidate, the only candidate that lives in the city,” Gonzales said when reached by phone.
Gonzales was referring to the lawsuit he filed against his opponent, the city and City Secretary Norma Yanez claiming that Avila should be disqualified from the ballot because he does not reside within Donna.
Despite a request to expedite the suit, a judge declined to make a declaratory judgment — to decide if Gonzales’ allegation held legal merit — until after the election, saying he didn’t see the urgency of the matter because the law provides for the removal of an officeholder who is later found to be ineligible for office, but it does not provide a legal remedy if the judge were to disqualify an otherwise eligible candidate.
When asked what would become of the pending litigation, Gonzales said he was unsure.
“I will need to consult my attorney and see what the next step would be because, first of all, the people need to know the fact that he doesn’t live inside the city,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales’ win over his former councilman represents a bit of vindication after he and Arturo “Art” Castillo lost their reelection bids last November.
The pair had clashed with Donna Mayor Rick Morales, Avila and Councilman Joey Garza Jr. over the city’s budget and other issues.
But this summer, Gonzales announced his intention to run again — this time against Avila, the man who took over as mayor pro-tem after Gonzales lost.
Despite being on the council minority the last time he was in office, Gonzales said he was looking forward to working with the new councilmen, David and Richard “Richie” Moreno.
“The people will see the difference and we will earn their trust,” Gonzales said. “Because we’re gonna do what’s right for the city.”
Messages left with Avila went unreturned as of press time.
Donna voters also approved two charter amendments Tuesday that extend the term lengths for both the city council and the municipal judge.
Effective immediately, the terms will go from three years to four, the maximum term length allowed under state law.
“When you work on projects, especially long term projects like we’ve been working on, they’re long term and so you need to have the continuity going forward and three years just wasn’t enough time to get these projects complete,” Mayor Rick Morales said of the term extension.
“So now we have four years and I believe that that’s gonna really help the city moving forward,” he said.
EDCOUCH
Meanwhile, in Edcouch, another election-related lawsuit wound up giving the incumbents no problems as they secured their reelection victories with just under 55% of the vote each.
Mayor Virginio “Virgil” Gonzalez Jr., and Councilmen John Chapa and Robert Gutierrez, who together formed the “United for the Community” slate, secured their wins over challengers Rina Castillo, Rudy Rodriguez and Rosie Schmalzried, of the Hecho en Edcouch slate.
Gonzalez won just over 55% of the vote with 661 to Castillo’s 545. Chapa won just over half of the vote, with 656 to Rodriguez’s 549, and Gutierrez won nearly 52% of the vote, with 648 to Schmalzried’s 557, according to the county elections website.
All results remain unofficial until canvassed by their respective municipalities.
Two of the Hecho candidates — Rodriguez and Schmalzried — sued the city of Edcouch after officials attempted to disqualify them from the November ballot by claiming that they were indebted to the city via delinquent property taxes and traffic citations.
The pair were successful in getting a restraining order that enjoined Edcouch from keeping them off the ballot.
They were forced to take their argument to court a second time before voting got underway after learning from the Hidalgo County Elections Department, which administers most municipal elections in the county, that Edcouch had not supplied their names to add to the ballot, despite the court order requiring the city to do so.
As with the Donna elections lawsuit, the judge had ruled that keeping the Hecho candidates on the ballot was the most prudent course of action since he could remove them from office if they won their respective races, but were later found to be ineligible after all.
However, if the court ultimately found them eligible to run, but the election had passed them by without their being able to participate, then there would be no way to rectify the situation. There would be no do-overs, essentially.
Javier Peña, the attorney representing the Hecho candidates in their lawsuit, urged the judge to let the voters decide the election.
And that they did.
“They made a statement. They want order,” the mayor said of the voters’ decision shortly after the Election Day tallies came in.
“There’s certain rules that have to be followed, that’s all we were trying to do,” he said.
Gonzalez’s running mate, Joe Chapa, echoed the sentiment.
“It just shows that the community sees what happens, they see the progress,” Chapa said.
“At the end of the day, before all this started, I always had faith in the city of Edcouch,” he said.
“It’s a blessing for the majority of the community to come out and vote,” Councilman Gutierrez said.
“I’m sure they also would have done a good job as well,” Gutierrez said of the Hecho candidates, “(but) we deserve to be here because we’ve proven it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Castillo, who ran against Gonzalez for mayor, declined to speak on the phone, but did provide a statement via text message.
“I would like to thank all of our supporters, our friends, family and my fellow candidates who ran with me,” the statement read.
“I feel like we ran a strong campaign but the attempts by the incumbents to sabotage our campaign may have had a negative impact on the race,” she said.
