Sunland Park Municipal Elections:  The Salinas Faction is Back!  Hold Onto Your Wallets and Follow the Money!

International Boundary and Water Commission trucks dropped load after load of dirt on city property next to the Rio Grande all day long on Thursday, part of a city-led effort worth about $4 million obtained for free, after some negotiations, from the IBWC, to protect Municipal Buildings against flooding from the river banks.  There is a new warehouse on the campus, fiber optics and new computers have been installed, offices have been remodeled, the roofing on city buildings has been repaired, and there is a handsome coat of paint on the entire city complex.  Loads of trash and rubble have been picked up in residential areas for the first time in years.  The city complex is now running solely on solar energy.  New firetrucks and police vehicles costing over $1.5 million can be seen in the parking lot.  The list goes on and on. Sunland Park in the last couple of years has very much been on the move, for once in the right direction--all of it done on a shoestring budget of $6 million.

This turnaround began two years ago when citizens of Sunland Park, still reeling from the 2012 scandal of corruption, fraud, and extortion that plagued the city and made it a standing joke throughout the state, elected a remarkably capable and serious set of officials to run the city  (covered in La Politica New Mexico here on February 6, 2016):  Ken Giove, Olga Arguelles, Donald McBride, and Carolina Renteria--all elected to the city council in 2016.  Audits of the city's finances have been clean for three years, and the city is now the second safest municipality in New Mexico.

Now this remarkable turnaround appears to be in some jeopardy.  Municipal elections will close on Tuesday, and the betting is that a faction, apparently supported by Daniel Salinas, running a slate of four candidates, partly through the systematic use of absentee ballots, will win.

 Daniel Salinas pleaded guilty in 2015 to 2 counts of extortion.  Thirty one other counts, including conspiracy to commit fraud over $20,000,soliciting kickbacks, tampering with evidence, signing false public vouchers, were dropped.  Salinas, you may recall, in 2012 tried to blackmail his opponent running for mayor by video-taping a lap-dancer hired by his campaign to sit with him.  Even more audacious, his campaign tried to use city funds to pay for the video-taping!.  Mr. Salinas won the mayor's race but was not allowed by authorities to serve.  Instead, facing 30 years if convicted of all charges, he was given a three-year deferred sentence. in exchange for a plea.

What some citizens are calling the Salinas slate consists of (a) Jessica Avila, candidate for city council, who was elected with Daniel Salinas as a city councilor in 2008 and who consistently voted with him on city business; (b) Lizette Salinas, sister to Daniel Salinas, running for re-election as City Judge; (c) Berta Salmon, running for city council.  She is a waitress at Ruth Chris steakhouse in El Paso; and (d) Daisy Lira, sister to former city council member Christian Lira, who owns day care centers in Sunland Park, and was at one time on the payroll of the city's sports complex.

Daniel Salinas has been visible at meetings of the so-called Salinas slate, but its candidates have not come to public forums designed to acquaint voters with the candidates.  The slate appears to be well financed, including scores of locations with separate yard signs of each candidate clumped together.  Pickups with large signs on behalf of these candidates are also visible.  Two hundred seventeen absentee ballots had been cast by Thursday afternoon, apparently the result of a well organized campaign on behalf of the slate.  The use of absentee ballots in Sunland Park elections is often associated with accusations of voter fraud.  In 2012 (click here) city councilor Angelica Marquez, city employee Priscilla Morales, were arrested on voter fraud.charges.  El Paso Inc. (click here) lists 22 persons indicted on charges stemming from the mischief of the elections that year.  A series of articles on financial mismanagement and voter fraud, leading to the state taking over the functions of the city can be found here on energycorrespondent.com

On the other hand, the candidates running against the slate--Ken Giove (incumbent) for District 1; Francisco J. Jayme (incumbent) and Norexy Diaz Frankel in District 2; Jesus Soto for District 3; and Maria Irene Chacon, for District 4, is largely invisible.  During a quick tour of the city I saw only one sign, for Jesus Soto in contrast to well over a dozen locations containing the signs of the co-called Salinas slate.  When asked about his campaign for re-election, Ken Giove stated many of his signs have disappeared and he and the others had agreed not to accept campaign contributions so as to avoid conflicts of interest.

Given the high-profile notoriety of Sunland Park elections, going back for decades, Giove said, in spite of warnings he has issued to state, local, and federal officials, no agency has responded to his pleas to monitor the elections for signs of the kinds of abuse that led to so many indictments in 2012.