I think it is unethical for elected officials to take campaign contributions from somebody like an architect or an engineer. She said: “I think it is unethical for an elected official to have dinner with a vendor. The election takes place on April 4 with early voting starting on March 18.Ĭandidates were given three minutes to make opening remarks and Crane Aliseda was the only candidate to touch on ethics. The District 1 commissioner died while competing in the McAllen Marathon. The vacancy on the McAllen city commission was caused through the death of Crane Aliseda’s brother, Scott Crane. Crane Aliseda is a mother of five, a business owner and serves of the McAllen ISD school board. Villalobos is an attorney and former chairman of Hidalgo County Republican Party. It is the first time he has run for elected office. Hinojosa has a bachelor’s degree in business management, is manager of a local high speed internet service provider and helps out with little league baseball. The candidates come from a variety of walks of life. They wrote the questions on a piece of paper and the questions were read out by board member Willard Moon. All the questions were posed by members of the McAllen Citizens League.
The forum was held at the Salvation Army headquarters in McAllen Thursday lunchtime. The fourth candidate running for McAllen city commissioner for District 1, former Mayor Richard Cortez could not attend the forum due to a bereavement in his family. “We definitely should cut down the (early voting) days,” he said. Put a little bit of teeth in some of the laws.”Įduardo Hinojosa agreed. “Make it a little stricter for the politiqueras. It’s more the different areas of McAllen,” Villalobos said, pointing out that cutting the number of days people can vote would save money. We really don’t have that problem in District 1. Somebody goes to your house and tells you, hey I am going to take you to vote, what are you going to tell them?” The audience laughed. What La Joya, Donna, Edcouch-Elsa, all the other areas have, fortunately in District 1(we do not). Fortunately, in District 1, we do not have too many of the problems and I think I know what you all are talking about – politiqueras. They (early voting days) should be minimized. He said: “I probably agree a little bit about cutting the days but it is very difficult and you have statutory rules to follow. Javier Villalobos was the next candidate to answer the question. The solution – cut down the days of early voting.”
I was so naive and probably some of you are naive too. I could not believe, every time I saw a van come in and I saw five people get out and they had a little (piece of) paper and they walked over. I sat at early voting for ten days last time I was running for school board and my jaw just dropped. If one person is doing it (using politiqueras) we all have to do it. She said: “The easy solution is cut early voting down to two days like other counties around the state do. The McAllen Citizens League held a candidate forum for the District 1 special election on Thursday and one of the questions posed by a member of the group was: How realistic a concern is it that the corruption seen in other Valley cities will come to McAllen?ĭebbie Crane Aliseda was the first candidate to answer the question. The thinking is that fewer early voting days would lessen the influence of politiqueras and the political machine-driven vote. McALLEN, RGV – Cutting the early voting period will go long way towards eliminating corruption in the electoral process, say McAllen city commission candidates.