Campaign Updates Week 9
Winning first candidate debate; Speaking to University classroom; Good coverage in The Monitor; Against ICE raids of workers in the RGV.
Greetings comrades friends supporters, and new subscribers, from the campaign trail! What a week this was.
Starting it with our first candidate forum of the election was quite the thrill. Before the evening, I spoke to a university composition and rhetoric class of about 20, at the invitation of their professor. They were having a class project in which they heard from and questioned all the candidates on different days. I was the last candidate to appear before them, their professor saying in her introduction that I’m a “different” candidate from the rest. Just like city workers later said of me after the forum in the evening, as I reported earlier this week.
The class was great. They listened with attentiveness and deep interest. Their questions were searching and inquisitive. It was a blast and I’m grateful for the opportunity.
As also mentioned in my article earlier this week, my message has been resonating with working-people. During the debate, I refocused the questions asked on class. When Mr. Ochoa bragged that the city of Edinburg pays police officers and fire fighters what their unions demand, for example, I sarcastically replied “it’s nice that the police have unions and that the fire fighters have unions, but every worker in this city and in the RGV should also have a union.”
I also paid tribute to my late musical-soulmate, Ernesto Vergara, who performed in that auditorium for the performance of his musical collaboration with Brisa Munoz, Dispierta. I talked about how city council members lobbied for references of Edinburg to be injected into the musical, which he didn’t want. I said that we would liberate the arts by keeping politicians and police out of influencing the shape cultural events take. I went a little over my allotted time for this response, and the moderators cut me off, but I finished saying what I needed to say.
Positive Coverage of Our Campaign
The Monitor’s Francisco Jimenez covered the event. I spoke with him afterwards. As he quoted me in his story saying:
“I think it was great,” Salinas said after the forum. “I’m glad that I got to talk about the ideas that I have and the ideas that I want to convey. I think that people will be informed by it and will understand where I stand on things.”
Salinas has experience working as a journalist. He also has experience working for organizations such as La Union Del Pueblo Entero, and referred to his background in activism.
Throughout the forum, Salinas discussed the need for representation for Edinburg’s working class citizens in city government. He said that he chose to run because he wanted to provide an alternative campaign with an emphasis on the needs of working class individuals, a demographic that he says is not properly represented in any level of government.
He referred to Ochoa’s closing statement in which he said that the election is not about class warfare.
“I think the main point that I wanted to drive is that although Mr. Ochoa had said that this election isn’t about class warfare, I think that him addressing that really underlines how it is for me,” Salinas said. “I think for him and the other candidates, they really wouldn’t like it to be about a class question. So by him responding to it, I think I really drove that point home, which was the main purpose for me tonight.”
The only place I would take issue with Jimenez’ write up is in his saying I want to represent working-class “citizens,” as I made clear in the forum that fighting for amnesty for undocumented workers in Edinburg and the RGV is an important question for me and my campaign. Other positive feedback from people who attended came in as well, from folks whom I didn’t even know had attended.
Given Mr. Ochoa’s concerted but fruitless attempts to ‘come at me’ bumped me up a notch or two in terms of ‘the polls’ in this election, especially with the opportune absence of former Mayor Molina, I think I was the clear winner in the eyes of working people who are my social base.
The Sham Prosecution of Richard Molina
Ochoa at times suggested, without mentioning Molina, that he was criticizing his absence. He referenced candidates avoiding public scrutiny “at all costs,” and his own desire to be rid of “baggage” from “the past.”
Molina, as we’ll remember, was charged with state felony election voter fraud charges in 2019 of which he and his spouse were found ‘Not Guilty’ on all counts in 2022. The trial played a significant role in his 2021 reelection bid, as the “damning indictments” and bad-faith reporting in the local press was used as excuse to discredit him.
Complaints against his campaign were brought by a member of the prominent Palacios family, after losing a contract with the city. The local District Attorney’s office, headed by the infamous Toribio Palacios, brought the charges. Although Palacios “recused” himself from the case, it was still brought by an office he controls. The initial criminal complaints came by D.A. Toribio Palacios’ sister, Mary Alice Palacios, who is a former Justice of the Peace.
The sham prosecution of Richard Molina lined up perfectly with the tactics used in the sham prosecutions against Donald Trump during those years, as a means to punish the people who voted for him. I vividly remember during the trial that people presumed Mr. Molina to be guilty. Many expressed disregard for one of our most basic constitutional protections. I however was absolutely certain he would be found not guilty, because of the concerted effort by people in places of power and influence to prejudge the case.
Like the Trump prosecutions, the mere prosecution of Molina itself led to the City Council (voted on in the affirmative by Mr. Garcia) to amend the city charter, so that members merely “indicted” of felonies should be suspended from the council until the completion of such case. This in turn allows the council to appoint their own ‘Mayor Pro Tempore’. The measure was adopted in a general election, with minor amendments.
The witch-hunt against Molina which came out of the local district attorney’s office (D.A., Terry Palacios, who has endorsed Omar Ochoa), was a blow to democratic rights, due process, and the presumption of innocence of which Ochoa took advantage during his opening and closing statements. As a former city prosecutor, it is not surprising Mr. Ochoa is not too interested in protecting or safeguarding Constitutional freedoms and civil liberties.
I myself was quite disappointed to see former Mayor Molina not attend the forum Tuesday. As I’ve said to him personally, he has nothing to be ashamed of, regarding that sham prosecution. Had he been on stage, I would’ve thrown my hat in to defend him against Ochoa’s cheap attacks, which no doubt would’ve arisen.
Richard told me recently he was not attending the Citrus Live debate under any circumstances, and I’m not either, as a Palacios family member is involved with the host-organization’s executive leadership. The Edinburg Chamber of Commerce I gather is also putting one together, but I’ve nothing to say to them.
Because I thought Richard would be at Futuro’s event, I decided that this forum would be the only one I attend, because it was the only one where all candidates would be together at once. It’s too unfortunate Richard missed Tuesday because now I won’t get to be on stage with him during this election cycle, as I will not be doing any more candidate forums or debates for the rest of the campaign, although I do plan on speaking to a group of veterans later this month.
“Ropa Usada-Gate”: ICE Raids in McAllen
Earlier this week, local news stations reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids took place in South McAllen. A list of the businesses were not available, but Channel 5 reports that they were at one of the locations, a whole-sale used clothing factory on South 23rd Street. They report most people were let go because they showed valid identification. One employee caught-up in the roundups told the news that arresting agents mostly detained customers.
News that a McAllen City Councilor and his spouse were arrested, as they faced federal bribery charges in connection with the raid at the used clothing store, broke a day later. The couple, according to federal charge documents, are accused of systematically avoiding Shipper’s Export Declarations that carry at least $2,500 in filing fees. The business-owners filed these fees since 2009, but stopped in 2021.
To avoid these fees, it is alleged, the couple bribed Mexican police officials to assure safe transportation of their used-clothing merchandise into Mexico. They are also accused of employing undocumented immigrants at their warehouse.
Circumventing such fees to save money by bribing foreign cops, instead, while employing undocumented workers—if the allegations are indeed true—is the perfect encapsulation of capitalist ethics and reality.
The U.S. government maintains a reserve army of workers with second- and third-class pariah status in order to drive down wages and increase competition between workers, as well as to discourage union activity. This is why amnesty for all undocumented workers living in the RGV and the U.S. is a central question to the future and success of the broader labor movement. We as working-people must transcend divisions imposed on us by managers and the bosses. This will be a decisive question in coming struggles and class-battles.
A vote for my campaign is a vote for joining and building a movement of workers in the Rio Grande Valley that can link up with the broader national fight for amnesty for all immigrant workers, to unite and strengthen the labor movement and the working-class, as a whole. That’s what this campaign is all about.