Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Diana Murillo Trujillo Wins Mayor's Race in Anthony

Arnulfo Castañeda was ousted as mayor in Anthony, by voters who selected Diana M. Trujillo instead.  In a telephone conversation with her this morning she told me she thought she won "because I talked to a lot of people, door to door, and they know my passion to help the youth, and also my commitment to an open door policy."  By 7:30 this morning she had already received a phone call from the mayor of Anthony Texas, inviting her to work together, and she has plans to attend El Paso MPO meetings again.

The race for mayor was difficult to analyze before the election, since turnout in municipal elections tends to be low, and in a five-person race I calculated a candidate could win the election by as few as a hundred votes in a close matchup.  As it turned out Murillo received 187 votes for the win.  Juan Acevedo came in second, with 150 votes; Peggy Scott 147; Castañeda 93, and Aguirre 22.  This adds up to 599 votes, a relatively high turnout for a mayor's election, indicating there was more interest in the race than usual.

Fernando Herrera and Gloria Gameros won election for trustee positions.

This was a hard-fought election, and each of the candidates had considerable personal strengths, as I tried to point out in my interviews with them.  Evidently, from the vote count, Mayor Castañeda had lost much support from the citizens, not just from the trustees, as I had reported earlier.

¡Felicitaciones a los ganadores, y much suerte en el futuro!

Incidentally, if I may permit myself a personal note of pride, Ms. Trujillo was a student of mine in a class at NMSU some years ago.

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