HOJAS SUELTAS FLYING ALL OVER SOUTHMOST IN PCT. 1 RACE

By Juan Montoya
It is a time-worn tradition in barrio politics.
You find a chink in your opponent's armor, and if you can't get them indicted, you resort to passing hundreds, if not thousands, of hojas sueltas besmirching their character or what you perceive as stains on their record.
Cameron County Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides is the target of one such hoja suelta. The flier is appearing all over Southmost, with motorists emerging from stores to see the flier placed under their windshield wipers.
THey are, of course, unsigned and do not identify themselves with a political disclaimer that is supposed to be included in any political advertisement.
The hoja suelta covers two such issues. One is the jury verdict against the county that awarded the Tompkins heirs $21 million over a lawsuit filed against the county for allowing the construction of a hotel on land that had been donated expressly for park and road easements.
That much is true. However, when it came back to the trial court, visiting judge Federico Hinojosa reduced it to about $4 million. Previously, the heirs had settled with the heirs for an undisclosed sum.
That is the beauty of the hoja suelta. It contains a germ of truth and then glosses over any mitigating facts that would reduce its impact.
The other is the allegation that Benavides want to give Annova LNG $25 million in tax abatements so they can set up shop on the Brownsville Ship Channel. Whether you're for or against the LNG terminals coming to the port, the fact of the matter is that the port gave them an option to lease and the county commissioners had nothing to do with that vote.
Benavides did write a letter of support for the coming of  the plants linking their establishment with jobs that would result from their construction.
The commissioners considered the measure but tabled it without taking any action because they said that they hadn't been given enough information on the impact their votes would have on future commissioners court budgets.
The subject is still up in the air, but it still makes for a juicy issue sure to stir resentment in your average county resident who must pay their own taxes while the billionaire companies get a break. We doubt that the commissioners will give them all they want. Usually, these things result in a compromise. We'll see.
We reached out to Benavides opponents and they denied either printing these fliers or having anything to do with their distribution. In fact, the fliers seem to be a poor copy of other fliers because Benavides' name is misspelled in the top issue's headline (Click on graphic to enlarge).
They appear to have been made by some third party supporters of her opponents in the election. Benavides faces three other challengers in this race. They are martial arts businessmen and Air Force veteran Joseph Cantu, Port of Brownsville Industrial Development administrator Bea Rosenbaum, and Fausto "El Pato" Martinez.
Knowing that barrio politics is a tit-for-tat affair, it probably won;t be long before Sofia's supporters start running off hojas sueltas in her support.