AS YZAGUIRRE'S CASE MOVES FORWARD, LOPEZ A WRITE-IN

By Juan Montoya
Even as the pre-trial stages of the trial of Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre moves forward, at least on county resident says he will be running for the position as a write-in candidate come November.
Leonel "Leo" Lopez, syas he has begun the process to place his name on the ballot as a write-in candidate against Yzaguirre.
Yzaguirre – despite facing four counts of bribery, a second-degree felony; engaging in organized criminal activity, a first-degree felony; and official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor, still drew 11,528 votes in the Democratic Party primary election held March 1.
Lopez said he has begun to ready his write-in campaign, a campaign he said, that will seek nto regain the confidence of the public in the tax-assessor collector's office.
"I want to bring back integrity to the office," he said recently. "We're putting together a team to give this a go."
The last time Lopez ran for office in May 2014 he narrowly lost to Pct. 2 commissioner Alex Dominguez in the race to replace commissioner Ernie Hernandez who was force to resign his office after a grand jury issued seven indictments alleging official misconduct and coercion of a public servant.
In that race, Dominguez barely beat out Lopez 2,430 to 2,359.
"That office is governed by statute and those statutes were by-passed," Lopez said. "Instead of going by the law, they were circumventing the process. I want to make sure that the public can be confident that their office is being run as it should. I'm confident that we can make history."
Lopez has an extensive puiblic service background in public health and has been involved with the Boys Scouts for the bettwe part of 40 years.