Vaqueros Forward slate is only serious ticket on ballot
Their victory would mark a historic break from rampant and systemic SGA censorship and corruption, inaugurate new era of transparency
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Student government elections at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, as the entity approaches its tenth year since merging two local legacy institutions, are in season. The Rider newspaper says a “record-breaking” 52 candidates are on the ballot for elected positions which includes the student senate and the executive (President and Vice Presidential) tickets. The UTRGV student senate holds 48 legislative seats, of which half are currently vacant, according to their website. Although the legislative races often go uncontested, each candidate winning by default, the ticket that’s always contested is the top positions of President, Internal Vice President and External Vice President.1 Three slates, another first for UTRGV, are competing for the highest office.
At the top of the ticket is current Senator-At-Large, Andrea Gaytan, for President, alongside fellow S.A.L., Skyler Howell, for Internal Vice President, and biology and anthropology major, Isabella Zapata, for External Vice President.2 Gaytan started out as a First Year Intern (a program SGA sponsors) and was nominated to the role of Senator for her college in October 2023. She ran for senator-at-large in 2024, receiving the most votes of any candidate, including the executive ticket, falling only 7 votes short of 1000.3 Gaytan co-sponsored and co-wrote legislation with Howell to add student government transparency, like the Legislative Efficiency Act, which mandated that legislation be placed on the floor for a vote if after 14 business days no action was taken by the relevant standing committee, and the Vaquero Radio Resolution, among others. Gaytan also supported the SGA Legislative Tracker, which Howell co-authored and passed.
Howell and Gaytan hosted the Vaquero Insider on the UTRGV student radio this past school year, discussing what they were working on in SGA. Both were part of the Vaquero Movement caucus last year, which ran on a platform of transparency, one that was delivered on this SGA term by Howell and Gaytan despite those at the top of ticket (Noah Trstenjak and Alexis Uscanga) falling short.4 Uscanga, however, is running as a Senator-At-Large. Howell also posted SGA meeting insights and summaries on his Instagram page, after every meeting, and made sure (along with Gaytan) that the aforementioned ‘SGA Transparency Act’ (co-written with Trstenjak and Uscanga), was implemented.5 As a former student government senator myself, who was often clashing with administrative lackeys inside the association that preferred to keep all things under wrap and as someone who’s kept up with the goings-on of the association journalistically ever since, no other SGA senators have done more to make student government more transparent than Howell, Gaytan, Trstenjak and Uscanga.
Gaytan, Howell, and Zapata’s Vaqueros Forward ticket are running on a 7-point platform. One regards parking and transportation, calling for more on-campus transit, a freeze on parking permit prices and “a student-led parking committee.”6 Two is about advocating for the long-neglected Brownsville campus, calling for bringing commencement ceremonies back as Brownsville commencements were done away with in the fall, and for a heightened SGA presence at the Brownsville campus. Three, regarding ‘Student Life’, calls for making ‘Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL)’ optional, expanding menstrual products and food access,7 and expanding study spaces. Four regards ‘Career Readiness’, calling for the creation of a student workforce committee for post-graduate support. Five regards student engagement and organizations. Six concerns SGA transparency, underlining what Howell and Gaytan have been working on. And seven calls for reinvesting unused SGA funds back towards student organizations.
Running under the “VICTORIAM” ticket is Physics Major, Juan Espinoza for President, business and accounting major Clarissa Rendon for Vice President, and ‘Criminal Justice’ major Ian Alfaro. The last of these candidates, Alfaro, has a Bible verse on an Instagram post profiling him individually. Alfaro is part of the university’s mock trial team and boasts his 4.0 GPA in ‘Criminal Justice’. Rendon highlights her holding a job as an accountant for an energy company. Espinoza, at the top of this ticket, also touts a 4.0 GPA and his experience as a Resident Assistant on campus. Unlike the Vaqueros Forward ticket, none have experience in student government, nor does the ‘VICTORIAM’ ticket propose any solid or concrete ways they will fight for students or transparency.
[After publishing this report, I was informed by a past SGA member that VICTORIAM Presidential Candidate, Juan Espinoza, resigned from a Senator position in July 2023, two months after assuming office in May 2023. This experience is not listed on their slate’s official social media page. In any event, I stand corrected when I say “none have SGA experience,” as Espinoza has two months of ‘experience.’]
The third ticket is led by Orlando Alvarado for President, biomedical science major and current Senator-At-Large, Hannah Martinez, for External VP and information systems major and senator, Otweduampong-Ba Nketiah, for Internal VP. Alvarado, running for President for this ticket, notoriously filed an anonymous article of impeachment against Alexis Uscanga (who ran as VP under the Vaqueros Movement ticket last year) while Uscanga was a senator, from 2023-2024, for using the student government logo as a watermark in a public statement he made condemning antisemitism on campus.8 Alvarado asked to remain anonymous when he filed the article of impeachment in December 2023.9 He was current SGA President, Odalys Saenz’s, First Year Internship director until I discovered and published a May 2024 article exposing the fact that he was the “anonymous” author of the impeachment, as his name appeared in a ‘Vaqueros Report It’ file he made against Uscanga.10
Alvarado became one of three homecoming royals after filing his sham impeachment but before Uscanga was ultimately tried and absolved by his peers, who found him not guilty. I posed the question of whether Alvarado was promised support by President Saenz for his homecoming bid, in exchange for filing the article of impeachment, as a conduit for the reputation-conscious Saenz who really had it in for Uscanga. No campus outlet, to this day, has reported on the fact that a homecoming ‘royal’ and cheerleader, and at the time a paid employee of the university (being the first year intern director), filed an anonymous article of impeachment against a student in a direct attack on his freedom of speech. Every year, UTRGV administration has a ‘favorite’ candidate during elections whom they know will continue utilizing SGA as a mouthpiece for them. They give them bumps, to boost their preferred candidates, like giving them the first spot ‘executive ticket 1’ on the ballot and withholding shameful documents subject to the public information act until elections are complete.11 Alvarado is administration’s ‘favorite’ this year, being a former lackey of Saenz.
Alvarado’s ticket, the Together We Achieve slate, is running on a platform focusing on ‘student experience initiatives.’ Their first plank of ‘student voices in decision-making’ hopes to “ensure student representation in shaping policies and traditions” by reinstating the ‘pride and traditions committee and university recreation advisory committee’, as well as holding executive town halls.12 Next is “transparency in student fees”, calling for information sessions on how fees are utilized by departments. (I published two viral articles in February that exposed, for the first time in school history, the actual breakdowns and figures for Parking and Transportation at UTRGV.13) They also call for library improvements and study spaces, parking and transportation student surveys, recognition for those who make the Dean’s List, support graduate students, and supporting pre-nurse students preparing for their certification exams. The TWA platform, which was posted after VF’s, is a copy-cat of the Vaqueros Forward program (and my reporting) in its format, but quite vague and nothing but ‘school spirit-y’ in content, compared to VF’s specificity, relevance, fighting spirit, and concreteness.
I received student government documents, as part of a public information request I filed with UTRGV, in March. The documents, all emails, showed how current student government President Odalys Saenz dodged interviews with the campus newspaper (while Howell and Gaytan granted several interviews and even hosted a radio program). One email, dated 7 October 2024, was sent from a Rider reporter to Odalys Saenz requesting an interview about commencement ceremonies now only being in Edinburg. The reporter, Pete Mendoza, gave 9 October 2024 as his deadline. This query went ignored, as Mendoza tried reaching Saenz again October 15 with a deadline of October 16. Mendoza then sent a follow-up email 21 October requesting an interview with Saenz. She wrote back October 22 at 8 a.m., after Mendoza’s third try, saying: “Thank you for reaching out. I have decided not to participate in an interview at this time.” Mendoza responded an hour later saying, “Thank you for your response. Would another time work better for you? Or are you declining an interview overall on this topic?” No response was given.
Many stories published by the Rider including some in their current issue state that, after several attempts, President Saenz could not be reached for comment. One article featuring Howell and Gaytan’s role in instituting the Legislative Tracker Act, published last semester 4 November 2024 under the title, “SGA: Response to transparency concerns”, stated at the bottom that “The Rider tried to obtain an interview with SGA President Odalys Saenz and Vice President for External Affairs Juana Elena Jimenez for this article. Neither Saenz nor Jimenez were available for an interview as of press time.”
Other documents I received through the public information act show Saenz’s propensity to use campus police and the department for Student Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), which is an accessory to campus police, to attack her political opponents and people she dislikes. In a 3 May 2024 email to SRR director, Melba Latu, current SGA President Odalys Saenz wrote:
“Thank you for meeting with me today. I just wanted to formally state that I would like to proceed with a no contact order for both [redacted]. Now that I am aware that a no contact order can be placed on [redacted]. I will be going to PD to ask for more information regarding a restraining order.”
The signature at the bottom of this email, shown up ahead and signed by “Odalys S.”, was left unredacted and included her student ID number.
Gloria Garcia who works with SRR, under Latu, on the day student government elections ended last semester (April 4), wrote to the university’s public information officer. She said:
“I am writing to request any reports associated with [redacted] related to [redacted]. The student ID for [redacted]. During our interview with the student, [redacted] mentioned [redacted] had reported the following individual multiple times to University Police. Below is the date on the IR but the other reports could have different dates. The Student doesn’t remember the specific dates when [redacted] made the multiple reports on these individuals.”
The public info guy, Bennet Bartlett, wrote back to her and said she didn’t need to go through him for the relevant information and that she could just contact PD. (Maybe she’s been keeping up with all my disclosure bombshells and followed my lead? Poor Melba.) Saenz followed up with Latu, May 29, regarding the no contact orders, saying:
“Good afternoon Ms. Melba, I wanted to follow up is there was any update on the no contact orders. Thank you!”
The no contact orders, filed against three students whose identities I am not allowed to disclose but whom I have confirmed received the orders, are Saenz political opponents. While Saenz (who says she would like to be a defense attorney someday to help those who can’t defend themselves) made plenty of time to snitch on students, and try to get them into legal trouble, she made little-to-no time at all to speak with UTRGV’s student newspaper. She spent much more time talking to police than she did addressing the student body, as she taught her former First Year Intern Director, Orlando Alvarado, to do as well.
Both Saenz administrations, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, have consisted of attacks on student free expression and civil rights, as well as one of stifling those trying to advance transparency on campus. Alvarado’s ticket, Together We Achieve, would be a continuation of the nothingness and tyranny that characterized SGA the last two years. Tossing aside the inexperienced and vague Victor-I-Am ticket, whose only role will be (suspiciously) to split the vote, Howell and Gaytan’s Vaqueros Forward platform is not just the only serious ticket on the ballot this semester. Their victory would be a historic break from the rampant and systemic SGA censorship and corruption that has characterized it and inaugurate a new era of transparency never experienced before at UTRGV.
As a member of UTRGV’s founding SGA Constitutional Convention, the original executive roles outlined were President, Vice President for Edinburg and Vice President for Brownsville. This was done to assure that the Brownsville campus did not feel left out, as many raised this concern at the time. At some point unknown by me, student government dropped the campus-specific Vice Presidential designations.
See @Vaqueros.forward on Instagram
See my 1 May 2024 article titled, ‘UT-RGV student body demonstrates more confidence in SGA legislative branch than executive’.
See ‘Vaqueros Movement candidates hold SGA president accountable, make case for change, transparency’, 31 March 2024, ‘Noah Trstenjak's message to UTRGV student body’, 2 April 2024, and ‘Profiles in Revolutionary Excellence: Alexis Uscanga, SGA VP candidate’ 2 April 2024.
See @Senator_Skyler on Instagram.
Although the ‘parking freeze’ is a non-issue, given that prices have not increased since 2018 and university officials have expressed a desire not to raise it, their idea of a student-led parking committee is a great one, with a lot of potential. For university administrative attitudes towards parking, see ‘UTRGV parking and transportation made $2.5 million from permits and citations in 2024’, ‘University parking director responds to questions’, and ‘UTRGV Parking and Transportation salaries, accounting revealed’.
The so-called Young Democratic Socialists of America have been running a campaign to get tampons into men’s bathrooms to play along with the ‘trans’ scam. It’s unclear if VF means expanding menstrual products for women or if they’re bending to the trans agenda.
See ‘The unconstitutional impeachment of a UTRGV student senator that failed’, 27 March 2024.
See ‘“Anonymous” article of impeachment released’, 10 April 2024.
See ‘UTRGV Homecoming King behind impeachment of Alexis Uscanga’, 8 May 2024.
During elections last year, university officials withheld the ‘anonymous’ article of impeachment’s release, which would have made current Pres. Saenz (administration’s preferred candidate) look bad.
SGA members are already supposed to hold town halls.
See footnote number 6.