SAN BENITO — Voters chose a new mayor Saturday when they elected Rick Guerra to the post ahead of former Mayor Celeste Sanchez.
In the runoff election carried over from the Nov. 3 general election, Guerra took the office with 1,063 votes, or a little more than 58 percent, against opponent Sanchez, who received 766 votes, or a little more than 41 percent.
“I feel great,” Guerra said. “I thank my supporters and all the people of San Benito that voted. I want to move the city forward.”
In the race for commissioner place 2, voters reelected incumbent Rene Villafranco with 957 votes, or a little more than 52 percent, against Deborah Morales, who received 856 votes, or a little more than 47 percent.
“We are so excited,” Villafranco said. “It was a long campaign. We started in January. My team never gave up. They worked until the day of the election and it paid off.”
From the unofficial results post by the Cameron County Department of Elections and Voter Registration, it appears both races were decided in early voting.
Guerra received 633 early voting votes as opposed to 384 early votes for Sanchez.
In the city commissioner race, Villafranco received 532 early voting votes against Morales’ 477, according to the unofficial results.
Mayor Ben Gomez picked up 1,563 votes in the Nov. 3 general election, leaving him out of the runoff.
About a year ago, Guerra, who had won election to the commission’s Place 3 seat two years earlier, resigned his post to run for the city’s highest elected office.
Villafranco is an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and first won election in 2009.
“Runoff elections always have reduced turnout compared to the general election and I think we saw the highest turnout in the general election,” county elections chief Remi Garza said, referring to the record-setting election fueled by the contentious presidential race.
“It’s been a while since the city of San Benito has had runoffs,” he said.
During the early voting period running from Dec. 15 to Tuesday, 1,021 residents cast early ballots, after a record number of voters turned out for the Nov. 3 general election, Remi Garza, Cameron County’s elections administrator, said Friday.
Last month’s election shifted power across much of the commission.
In the race for the commission’s Place 1 seat, Rene Garcia, a Social Security Administration employee who has served as vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation and vice chairman of the San Benito Housing Authority, won 2,720 votes to defeat Commissioner Tony Gonzales, a former post office clerk who fell short with 2,375 votes after serving in office since 2009.
In the race to fill a one-term left open after Guerra resigned the commission’s Place 3 seat, Pedro Galvan, a pharmacist, won 2,961 votes to defeat former Commissioner Steve Rodriguez, a trucking company owner who drew 1,305 votes and Joe Rodriguez, a retired computer analyst who picked up 772 votes.
