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City rep enters mayoral race, vows to regain community’s trust [1]
['Ramon Bracamontes', 'More Ramon Bracamontes', 'El Paso Matters']
Date: 2024-02-09
City Rep. Cassandra Hernandez is undaunted and confident – confident that she can regain the community’s trust.
That is why she is running for mayor months after she was reprimanded by the city’s Ethics Review Commission for misusing a city gas card, criticized for voting to extend the former city manager’s contract and questioned for voting to increase property taxes.
At the same time, she also worked to include a street maintenance fund in the city budget, spearheaded added tax breaks for senior homeowners and helped get some Eastside neighborhoods off a floodplain designation which enabled them to pay lower home insurance rates.
“You know, there’s gonna be some actors out in El Paso that don’t believe in you, but that does not dissuade me,” she said. “All these bad actors in the community are doing is giving me more name recognition. And I welcome that.”
Hernandez, 36, who was first elected as a city representative in 2017, announced on Jan. 31 that she is running for mayor. She does not have to resign her current seat because her term has less than a year left as it ends in January.
She is the second person to announce their candidacy for mayor, who serve four-year terms and are paid $89,250 a year. Businessman Renard Johnson announced on Jan. 30. Mayor Oscar Leeser is termed out and cannot seek reelection. City elections are nonpartisan, and candidates have until August to file for a place on the ballot.
Even though the city election will be in November, the District 3 city representative said she had to announce this early so that she could start fundraising, talking about her platform and answering all the questions that she knows are coming.
“I just have to be honest and genuine about my intentions,” she said. “I know I have to rebuild that trust with the voters and I will. I’m going to earn it.”
The first, and most important step, in rebuilding that trust will start with her mayoral campaign website, which will go online soon. On it, she said she will put all documents related to the gas card audit, to her arrests as a teenager, her campaign finance reports and anything else that voters want for the sake of transparency.
“I think I can justify the use of the gas card, and that’s why I met with the (Ethics) committee for 12 hours,” she said. “If anyone wants to have a conversation about that, or anything else, I have reasonable explanations for every vote I’ve taken.”
Hernandez, who has five children, said her family often has to use two vehicles because they don’t fit as a family in one.
“When I go out to the community, to senior centers, to hand out turkeys, for example, I take my family and we don’t fit in one car,” she said, explaining why the city gas card was used on two vehicles.
Cassandra Hernandez, City Council representative for District 3, consults with her attorney, Felix Valenzuela, prior to the start of an Ethics Commission hearing related to her alleged misuse of a gas card on July 19. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
After a two-day hearing in July on the use of her city-issued gas card, the ethics commission issued Hernandez a letter of reprimand. The issue was not forwarded to City Council for any other action.
Hernandez repaid the city $6,700, the amount a city audit said she used on gas. The city-issued gas cards for all of the City Council members have since been taken away and now receive a gas allowance with stricter policies for use
Public service background
As a child, Hernandez said she never lived in a house. She grew up in public housing, which is why she was determined to go to college.
“It’s no secret that I had a very challenging upbringing.” she said. “My mother did her best to get me back on track. But I was arrested twice before I even went to college. Like I already had a criminal record, you know, infractions, if you will, before I turned 18.”
Those charges were for theft and fighting at school as a teenager. Both were dismissed, the theft charge after she went through a misdemeanor diversion program.
After high school she went to the University of Texas at San Antonio to be an architect. She switched to UTEP to pursue degrees in public administration to shape policies that will help others.
“I think, now more than ever, is when you need a voice that’s going to champion causes, and have those tough conversations and make bold decisions to move this city forward,” she said. “I take the criticism as an opportunity to do more investigative research to determine the right policy.”
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2024/02/09/el-paso-city-elections-mayor-candidate-cassandra-hernandez/
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