Here's how I'm thinking about them mayoral candidates in Las Cruces
Tuesday, Nov. 7 Las Crucens will elect a mayor, using ranked-choice voting.
I hope we’ll elect someone with relevant knowledge and an open mind, someone tolerant and progressive, with whom I agree on at least some issues.
Kassandra Gandara is by far the best choice. She’s a social worker with extensive experience in our city government, and a committed progressive. We disagree strongly on certain issues. (She has an unduly rosy view of the police and our water future.) But she studies issues carefully and with a relatively open mind. She’s a dedicated, caring, and innovative public servant. She’s been a moving force in some key reforms, such as LITE.
No other candidate measures up.
Her toughest competition is probably former Fire Chief (and assistant city manager) Eric Enriquez. Note that the Firefighter’s Union has endorsed Gandara. Enriquez’s has experience; but a city councilor makes policy. I probably should list him second after Gandara.
But I’ll put Alexander Paige Baca Fresquez second. He lacks experience and hasn’t a chance; but he’s a serious, thoughtful young man who studies the issues and has some sensible views.
At the other extreme, several candidates are wholly unqualified and/or highly conservative. One, former County Commissioner Isabella Solis, might be downright dangerous. That’s in her “PRAYER CALL FOR NEW MEXICO,” Solis says, “The Lord is a warrior . . . I declare a beachhead is established this day . . . from which an attack can be launched. . . . Father, it's time for the Church to get Spiritually violent! [and] reverse the evil in our state. I decree that God has anointed us.”
That’s inconsistent with our constitutional church/state separation. It’s also bizarre. What if your mayor says God told her to do A, but God told other councilors to do Z, and some councilors aren’t much into God, or worship a different one? Since she thinks her ideas are God’s, how does one argue? Compromise might seem sinful to her. Compromise matters in local government. Her prayer adds, “ We no longer tolerate a governor that supports abortion and is ok with a satanic temple.”
Gina Ortega, Mariah Hernandez, and Mike Tellez should be listed above Solis, if you get that far, because they’re probably at least sane.
But Tellez, disappointed in his 11.5% vote percentage in the 2019 mayoral election, had the NM Republican Party file suit, claiming unfair vote-counting. Two courts dismissed it. The Court of Appeal has rejected the appeal. Does Tellez think he lost the election through fraud? Does he contend that voter fraud cost Donald Trump the Presidency? Has he apologized to County Clerk Amanda Lopez Askins?
Ortega told the Sun-News that, if elected, she’d refuse to resign as County Assessor. The City Charter mandates that no mayor may serve in another elective post. I see no reasonable legal argument supporting her. Refusing to resign would mean she couldn’t take office. However, I think she admitted to us on radio that if forced to choose, she’ll choose the mayoralty. I don’t think she should be mayor; she’s too pro-business; but she loves Las Cruces and believes she’s right, and seems a better choice than Solis, Tellez, and likely Mariah Hernandez, who may be running mainly because she’s angry at the City. For its stupid handling of the Hernandezes’ effort to open a strip club.
So: Gandara, Fresquez, Enriquez, Ortega . . . But whatever your views, please vote!
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Here's how I'm thinking about them mayoral candidates in Las Cruces
