It was not a good night for incumbents of the board of trustees of the Brownsville Independent School District.
Three of the incumbents – Jose Chirinos, Caty Presas-Garcia and Otis Powers – went down in defeat. Not even the expected surge in voter turnout expected for election day could save them.
The winners were Position 3, Philip Cowen, Position 5, Laura Perez-Reyes, Position 6, Minerva Peña, the only surviving incumbent, and Position 7, Dr. Sylvia Perez-Atkinson.
The closest race was between Position 3 incumbent Powers and Cowen. Unofficial results indicate that Cowen garnered 9.323 votes to Powers' 9,175, a 148-vote difference. A surprising Jorge Valdez racked up 7,956, Argelia Miller got 4,008 and Josette A. Cruz got 2,847.
Almost 67 percent of the vote in that race – as in the other races – was cast during the early voting period not including the mail-in ballots. In every case, the winner of the early vote went on to win the election.
Powers actually won the election-day voting 2,724 to Cowen's 2,327 (by 397 votes), but couldn't make up the early vote advantage Cowen had accumulated that had him beating Powers 6,632 to 6,189 (by 443 votes). The difference in the totals is explained by the 364 mail-in votes for Cowen and 262 for Powers.
In the case of Position 5 incumbent Caty Presas-Garcia, she was the victim of the perfect storm. Faced by support for her opponent and eventual winner Perez-Reyes by an unholy alliance made up of BISD general counsel Baltazar Salazar, vendor Jaime Escobedo, and insurance mogul Joe Salazar, she was unable to counteract three mass mailouts and newspaper ads denouncing her for costing the district millions through lawsuits. That actually stuck, apparently, and she went down to third place in the four-candidate totals.
The surprise candidate in this race was that of Head Cheez Erasmo Castro, who tallied 10,901 to Perez-Reyes' 11,861. Perez-Reyes, who had been a protege of politiquera Tomasita Chavez, was second among all candidates with 406 mail-in votes. Only Dr. Atkinson polled more mail-in votes with 419 in her race.
Minerva Peña, in Position 6, continues to surprise, easily out-polling her challengers with 12,051. Her closest rival was retired BISD administrator Kent Whittemore, with 8,236. Even perennial candidate Robert Uresti came in with 6,708 votes. Peña has continually pandered to the comadre vote and has benefited from her network of church ladies and neighborhood acquaintances. All politics, as the saying goes, is local.
In the Position 7 race, Dr. Perez-Atkinson had won the race at the end of early voting with 8,717 of her 13,217 total coming in during that period. Not one of her four opponents – firefighter Rigo Bocanegra (7,446), incumbent Chirinos (7,635), unknown Norberto Rangel (1,842) and Orlando Treviño (3,224), in their total vote, got more than Atkinson's 8,717 early-vote total.
Come the next board meeting, the roster for the BISD school board will be Joe Rodriguez, Cesar Lopez, Carlos Elizondo, Philip Cowen, Minerva Peña, Laura Perez-Reyes, and Atkinson.
It takes a special something to declare and run for the BISD board, the lowest rung of the public ladder. To all those who gave us a choice, our gratitude.
As far as the BISD goes, let the games begin!
12 comments:
Juan, Who's is going to pay you to sling mud now?
LOCAL politics are nothing but KK. I can't believe someone like Yzaguirre won. THE BIGGEST RAT. Someone like Minerva won, someone like Atkinson who just wants to fire who fired her. The seudo "coach" who is really who controls the board.
Nothing surprises me anymore. Hey, Trump won!.
Not a good night for incumbents and bloggers in BISD race. Se acabo la chichita. No more pay for mud slinging.
Hey, is it true that Judge Elia Cornhole Lopez and her hubby Leo are separated?????
I can't believe "The People's Whore" or maybe we should change it to "The Lawyers' Whore"Laura Reyes won. Good luck BISD.
Given the choices for place 5, Laura Reyes is the best choice.
$100 says Laura is screwing Escobedo and another $100 says she will pull a Monica Lewinsky on Balthazar. One word of advice for Laura Changa Reyes, BE CAREFUL EVERYONE GETS CAUGHT SOONER OR LATER.Stop while you're ahead. Keep your nose clean and legs CROSSED!!!
Don't let Frank "Shooting Blanks" Mar hear ya. He's Laura's new toy and mouthpiece.
Erasmo will win next time. He doesn't represent any vendors or special interest groups.
Erasmo and Rigo were the best hope for the children's education sans politics. Like they say, Brownsville voters demand corruption. Ethical candidates rarely win.
Erasmo and Rigo are the most unethical people on the planet, what are you talking about? YOU'RE demanding corruption, pendej@. Those two idiots have zero qualifications and have zero business representing taxpayers. Erasmo actually told me he hopes he can keep running and losing so he can keep getting campaign contributions. Does that sound ethical to you? He is a thief who deserves to be in jail for many things, inAscluding molesting a child. Question one thing he does and he blocks you from his page. Ask him where the money went from the sale of pink breast cancer ribbon cheezmeh shirts went to? He'll tell you that if you don't trust him you shouldn't be his friend and then he'll block you. He has thinner skin than Trump and has no business making decisions on any board. Go back to Austin and don't come back you fat fuck. Pendejo, giving advice on kids' nutrition. Do you own a mirror? Saying vendors are crooked. What about you and your family stealing from churchgoers? You brainwashed them like your cheezmeh cult and then you screwed them over. What about those car titles you changed to your name from innocent clients from your family's notary? What about the illegal immigration documentation you and they prepared?
Ethical is the last word that should be associated with these fools.
El que se enoja pierde. As far as shooting blanks, got another baby on the way. ;)
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