Refuse the Juice

Norma Chavez - The Problem Leeser Can't Fix

I got a lot of off-line and online correspondence claiming that Leeser and Norma are not buddies and she has nothing to do with the campaign. Then I see where she's organizing block walks for him on Facebook and telling everyone in town that she's his "secret consultant" that engineered his win. 

So which is it?  Leeser is a good guy and I'm okay with him being mayor, but I'm not okay with one of two things

1.  He's brought in Norma to help.

or 

2. He has not worked up the guts to tell her to take a hike. 

If it's #1, he's bad at making decisions.  If it's number #2 he's not cut out to be mayor.  

I do know that some of his supporters are more than little miffed at the pictures with Norma and the existence of Norma working on his behalf.   Leeser could lose this thing very easily if she's involved and I know the Ortega camp is already teeing off on it. 

There's something to be said for holding your campaign above the "anybody but Steve" movement.  Is that how Oscar Leeser wants to be known?  Is Oscar Leeser the right man for the job, or is he just not Steve Ortega?  

Right now it's too late for a lot of folks - Leeser has lost them.  They voted for the guy who never spoke against progress and now he's aligned with Norma the wrecking ball. Why?  Does Leeser not know that every other successful business man in El Paso kicked her worthless ass to the curb years ago?  Does he not know winners from losers?  Does Oscar Leeser now have a judgement problem?  

How Can Ortega Win?

Many of you are saying to yourself - "He can't win!  Call it for Leeser now and let's crown our new powerless King and move on."  Settle down people - it's El Paso and almost anything is possible (and I don't mean that in a good way).  Ortega could win and here's how. 

Remember when Joe Wardy went to a runoff with Cook and it seemed like he had it in the bag?  Well, he didn't.  Granted, it was the world versus Wardy that time and it's the world versus Ortega this time.  Leeser will pick up all the votes for the other candidates.  Wardy didn't expect to get a single one and he didn't.  His voters were so comfortable with his general election results, literally thousands of them didn't show up to vote in the runoff and Wardy lost.  This could happen in some form to Leeser.

Leeser probably plans on laying low and playing the odds.  He won't say or do anything stupid and that's smart.  However, if his supporters are lulled to sleep by his silence and the safety of a major lead, they may not wake up to vote.   The concept of "I don't have to because someone else will" is the new American way and El Paso embodies that with all of its being.  It's a dangerous situation for Leeser.

Ortega has been pretty vanilla all along because you can't attack a guy whose mom is El Paso's de facto "mom."  Call Oscar Leeser an asshole and you are calling his dear mother one too. (She is not one by any stretch of the imagination, by the way.  A fine woman by every measure.)  However, things have changed now and Ortega has to take a chance.  If only Leeser had left himself open for an attack... if only... 

WAIT!  HE DID!

Have you visited www.epmaxpowers.com lately? Yes, that's Oscar Leeser with Norma Chavez.  And, as you know, Norma Chavez is a cyanide pill to the life of any campaign.   Ortega needs to hit voters with those pictures in direct mail, on TV and on the side of rolling billboards with the question "Who do you want running your city? Steve Ortega or Norma Chavez?"  Make the election about her and Ortega can win. He can win big. 

If you're Oscar Leeser, you have to get rid of the Norma problem and do it now.  People inside your inner circle have told me that she's nobody to you, but these pictures keep popping up.  And I'm appealing to you directly Oscar Leeser - keep her around and I'll personally make sure you don't last one year in office.  She's that toxic to your existence.  You will have a rough ride if you keep answering her calls.  She's about to get her ass whooped in a democratic primary for her old seat - are you sure you want to be the precursor to that loss?  

If you're Steve Ortega you stop talking about issues and start talking about Norma.  

What happened in the mayoral election?

As you all know, I called the race for mayor for Steve Ortega in November of last year.  I had to back away from that claim when Oscar Leeser entered the ring.  What follows is the rationale I used for backing away from original my prediction as it played out in real life.  

First of all, there were 45,827 votes cast this election and only 30, 604 in 2009 for the last mayoral.  An angry electorate votes and this was an angry electorate. Okay, maybe not all of the turnout wasn't angry voters - give the candidates some credit and assume some of these are new voters or folks who usually only vote in presidential years, but were inspired by one of the candidates.  The most important factor here is that this was not a referendum on the ballpark (we'll get to all the reasons why this is so later).  

The biggest factor here is that Oscar Leeser is a westsider and the westside turned out better than all the other parts of town - in some cases combined.  West El Paso chooses city-wide candidates - it's just a fact.  Granted Steve Ortega moved to Kern with his wife a while back, it wasn't enough.  

Being a Shapleigh Camper for once hurt a candidate instead of helping.  Ortega's attachment to Veronica Escobar had a negative affect when most everyone thought it would be a very positive connection to have.  I have now heard from lots of doctors and hospital officials - they are furious at the UMC clinic deal.  I would guess that not a single doctor or nurse not working at UMC voted for Steve Ortega due to his connection to the County Judge.  I think the Shapleigh Campers seriously underestimated just how terrible the timing was on that vote and just how angry people are about it. If I was forwarded one "Dear Colleague" email from physicians to other physicians asking them not to vote for Ortega, I was forwarded 500.  The medical community really did have an underground push in retaliation to the UMC clinic deal.

Ortega missed a very good opportunity to show he was a independent thinker and a defender of taxpayer dollars on the police and fire union issue.  Instead, he folded hoping to get the police union's money and votes.  Little did he know that they don't have enough votes or money to be a player in any race.  This was a chance for Ortega to prove he had a backbone and he squandered it.  

The biggest fact here is that Oscar Leeser isn't a nobody that came from nowhere.  He's very well known in the community and has been talking about running for Mayor since Joe Wardy lost.  Steve Ortega was everybody's guy when Leeser wasn't in the race.  Once Leeser got in, a lot of people had to go with the guy they had long been hoping would run.  I personally know people who gave money to Ortega early, but then voted for Leeser.  Ortega should have announced months before he did and raised enough money to keep everyone out.   Leeser looked at Ortega's supporter list and lack of money and had no qualms about jumping in.  And you can't beat a guy who has had a popular TV commercials for years and once wrote a check to make the Sun Bowl happen.  Bottom line - Leeser was just a perfect storm. 

What this was not was a referendum on the ballpark or city manager form of government.  Leeser is for the ballpark.  I have not seen where he stated that he'd stop what was going on or even tamper with it.  He made no promises that would make the anti-ballpark crowd happy or the pro-ballpark crowd mad.  Also, remember that it wasn't but a few months ago that 70 plus percent of the electorate affirmed the ballpark funding mechanism and other quality of life spending.  The fact that Carl Robinson is in a runoff at all, is proof that the anti-ballpark crowd is not strong.  The piece in today's paper claiming the ballpark may have been Ortega's downfall is idiotic and doesn't examine the November election.  The EP Times once again lets its readers down by not examining all the information they have available to them. 

And as for city manager form of government - Joe Wardy and Oscar Leeser are pretty close friends and we all saw Wardy's piece on how good city manager form of government is for El Paso.  She is going nowhere.  

The anti-ballpark crowd is going to take credit for Leeser's win and hope we all forget that their candidate was Hector Lopez.  The anti-ballpark crowd does have a friend still in the race with Larry Romero who lied his way into a playoff with Jim Tolbert.  However, they lost across the board and even on most of the charter amendments. 

One thing I can tell you is that Norma Chavez will ever have Leeser's ear and that's great news for El Paso.  Leeser will be a very dynamic mayor who will end the shenanigans taking place currently at council meetings.  He will not put with the games Acosta and Holguin play and if Robinson survives, he'll be told to shut up when he starts rambling about himself or attacking women in a public forum for the crime of being a woman.  Things are going to be just fine.

Word on the street...

I hear Joyce Wilson may be shopping lawyers to go after Four Names and KVIA for their frequent erroneous reports of her high crimes and misdemeanors.  It's not a common thing to go after the station that airs the news, but in this case there's a consistent pattern of KVIA knowingly and willingly letting people broadcast defamatory comments about the city manager on their station.

KVIA knows that nothing Four Names has said has been true.  In fact, all of it has been proven false by KVIA's own reporters.  Yet, she is given an audience to say these untrue things any time she wishes.  There is culpability there when it comes to how responsible the station needs to be in this situation.  If you put a known liar with an agenda on the air every night to defame someone you are partly responsible. 

I also hear that David Ochoa and this employee group are going to be reported to the Texas Ethics Commission and heavy fines will be levied.   There's also a rumor that local law enforcement may be forced to get involved.  All in all it looks like Norma's crew is losing as usual.

 

How about some fair reporting on the election?

How is that the El Paso Municipal Employees Association is running ads endorsing candidates and ballot items, but I see no political financial disclosure from them?

David Ochoa runs that group and he has been quick to point fingers at others for this (even though he was wrong).  Why doesn't KVIA ask him where his campaign filings are?  They are running ads in the paper, somewhere they must report this.  Where is it?

Don't listen to someone preaching about good government if they aren't following the rules themselves. 

Texas Ethics Commission - get ready, the complaints are a comin'!

Guess Who's Back! Four Names Fails Norma Style!

So THIS happened last night on El Paso TV.  KVIA dumped their credibility in order to cater to Four Names Allala's every command a while ago, so it was no surprise that she was given the mic once again to lie about everything and act like the female version of Donald Trump.  

My mother was originally asked to be on the show, but refused because she doesn't speak for the charter amendments, civil service commission or the City of El Paso.  Four Names wanted my mom on there for a reason I'll get to in a minute.   They settled for Mayor Cook and it worked out very well. 

First of all, let's just get to the crux of what's wrong with Four Names Allala... If there's anything the average brown person in El Paso hates, it's a rich white woman taking advantage of the Spanish last name of her ex-husband telling them what to do.  White men calling the shots = bad.  White women calling the shots = worse.  White women taking advantage of years of institutionalized racism for her own personal gain calling the shots = THE DEVIL. 

So, whenever Four Names opened her mouth it just killed her cause.  Granted, the amendments will fail because the population is much too stupid to read more than a few sentences and understand what they mean.  There is a reason El Pas is the poorest place on earth.  If you watched the show, you'd see that most of them were deemed pretty easy to understand after watching the city's cheaply produced video prompts.  Only one posed any confusion and it wasn't even semantics as much as it was understanding what "HUD" is and what a "median family income" is.  

Four Names Allala had one talking point - these charter amendments will make Joyce Wilson one step above God.  That's not true.  It does not matter, though.  She just had to say it over and over again because she does what this guy David Ochoa tells her to do.  Because Ochoa is running this show, Four Names was inclined to try and mention my mother.  

If you watch there's a part where Four Names claims that the civil service chair is best friend with Joyce Wilson and gets "millions" in city contracts.  She is inferring that somehow this civil service chair is corrupt because she gets "millions" in city contracts and is friends Joyce Wilson.  Obviously Four Names won't use this person's name because Four Names is aware of the law when it comes to defamation.  If any of what she was saying was true - if anything of what she was inferring was something she believed, she'd just say my mother's name.  She would say "Eileen Karlsruher breaks the law because she gets city contracts and is friends with Joyce Wilson and sits on civil service.  Now, because that's not true, Four Names will not say my mother's name in conjunction with it.  Four Names knows she would be sued and lose.   The truth is that everything my mother does in relation to city business either with construction and engineering or civil service is a matter of public record.  You can watch every meeting where my mother's involved in city business.  

The truth is that David Ochoa and friends were gunning for my mother and spent a lot of time and effort trying to use the city charter eleciton to have her removed from civil service.  He lost.  Good always prevails.  Shitheads lose.  David Ochoa is a shithead.  Four Names Allala is just Ochoa's little errand boy and she's too stupid to see it.  The self-professed "doctor" isn't smart enough to think for herself. 

My advice to the Four Names Allala klan is to just say whatever they think they can stand behind, or shut up.  My mother is a big girl, she can handle herself more than adequately among these assholes.  She did not get where she is today by suffering fools and cowering in a corner.  She terms out on civil service next year, if I were David Ochoa, I'd be lobbying Rep. Niland on her replacement.   Being an asshole every Tuesday probably won't help his case.

Back to the non-debate.

The Mayor was pretty damn good.  He had some real zingers and his dry humor overshadowed Allala'sbitchiness.  He failed to make the point that voting against something you don't understand is just as bad as voting for something you don't understand - not voting is the best option.  But again, he was funny and smart with his comments so he made her look foolish. 

As for the callers... the naysayer group can't for a second stop blowing up each others' egos and wasted time kissing Allala's ass instead of getting to their leading questions.  It's this disease that people who are wrong about political issues have - they just can not get away from the idea of self promotion before issue explanation.  Darren Hunt was masterful in getting rid of idiot setup calls.  He should have a radio show.  

The end game is simple - too little too late. Fear motivates El Pasoans and they will vote down the charter amendments. That's no big deal.  I agree with my mom who was on the charter review committee - council should have the balls to put their raise to the voters whenever they want one.  They all fail and nothing changes. 

Instant Stupid for District 2's Adam Gurrola

The El Paso Times was nice enough to give District 2 candidate, Adam Gurrola a runner-up mention behind Jim Tolbert in their endorsement piece.  Gurrola wasted no time in making them regret that decision. 

It seems that Gurrola is now Norma Chavez's candidate and his new strategy is to tell voters that Jim Tolbert is wishing all of his votes over to him because Tolbert doesn't feel he can win.   Obviously this isn't the truth and Gurrola is a liar.  The El Paso Times issued him some good press and he's crapping on that opportunity by being a piece of shit liar.  So much for the EP Times' hopes for this asshole. 

This isn't a new campaign tactic, but it is one that has never worked. No wonder loser extraordinaire, Norma Chavez, came up with it.  She cashed in this young man's credibility in order to get Larry Romero the liar elected.   I mean, if you're going to lie, at least make sure you are doing it to further your own prospects. 

It's not likely that voters in District 2 are buying Gurrola's lie.  In fact, it's killing any bit of credibility he had. 

 

El Paso Times Endorsements

The El Paso Times put their endorsements out there and they were at the least, interesting...  You can read them HERE.

I was very happy to see that they endorsed Jim Tolbert in District 2 and picked a runner up that isn't backed by the big money.  You have to give it to the EP Times for seeing through Larry Romero's bullshit.  

In District 4 the EP Times did the right thing and picked a guy more worried about the district than massaging his own ego.  After Robinson proved to be a hater of women and generally dumber than rock, even the  Times couldn't back him.  I fear the voters there won't care and reelect the Robinson - the unlovable fool.  

Tina Chozet in District 7?  They didn't have any other choice. Wait, they didn't just pick Chozet? They couldn't make their mind up?  No wonder El Paso has bad voter turnout - even the paper can't make an informed decision. 

And that's a perfect intro into their chickenshit no-call in the race for mayor. 

The El Paso Times loves Ortega because he's a Shapleigh Camper.  The El Paso Times loves Oscar Leeser because he's an advertiser.   They don't care to mention the other candidate because they are not worth mentioning.  

The paper could have just exposed their dilemma instead of putting some kind of weird "either one will work" answer on the table.  Be a man and just go with your advertiser.  They lose nothing not supporting Ortega.  I'm not saying it's wrong or right, I'm just saying I know who they like and who they have to like for monetary reasons.  

 

Sometimes I wonder how much *thinking* goes on at the EP Times

A few weeks ago a white umpire at a Gadsden high school baseball game demanded that the players stop speaking Spanish.  If you don't have any context or history with El Paso area baseball - this sounds terrible.  If you do have context and history playing baseball in El Paso - this was actually a pretty normal deal.   The EP Times has done the health of the local sport no good and in the process embarrassed themselves.  

The op-ed the Times ran can by read HERE.  They note that the umpire quit after the story blew up into something it should have never been.  It is likely that he spoke with a lawyer, and if you know lawyers, you know that he was advised to quit.  A lawyer's first response to your question; I'm being sued, what should I do? Is always - stop doing whatever you were doing to get sued.  

The El Paso Times thinks the guy should not have quit, but instead stuck around for an official public spanking that would be the trigger for no less than about three lawsuits - civil rights against the umpire, civil rights against the district that provided the umpire and another flat civil lawsuit against the umpire.  

The Times wrote: "We would have preferred a strong ruling from the activities association that would have set the ground rules for all official."

We are a litigious society and lawyers look for "official" admission of wrong doing as the smoking gun in civil cases.  The El Paso Times is either too dumb to realize this, or happy to have millions of dollars wasted on what was actually the right call by the umpire - which I'm going to get to. 

You can't run a story calling for a man's head and then get upset when he doesn't stick around for your unfair punishment.  Umpires, as usual, in El Paso are in short supply.  It hurts high school baseball more than it hurts this umpire to walk away.  Had the paper been about fairness, they would have run an op-ed today saying "we screwed up by making a mountain out of a molehill."

Here's why what the umpire did was in fact a molehill.   

I grew up playing baseball in El Paso.  I was on travel teams, high school teams and had a short stint with the Tejanos before heading off to Texas Tech to try my luck drinking beer in exchange for course credits.  I have played literally hundreds of baseball games in the area.  I know how El Paso baseball differs from baseball in the rest of the state.  It's not just the style of play and the fans, it's the language most El Paso ballplayers can fall back on to communicate clearly and openly without the other team knowing what they are saying.  That advantage has its upside and its downside.  

Not only have I heard umpires ask a coach to tell his players to speak English, I have had them ban either team from speaking at all in any language.  When high school boys start jawing back and forth, fights can break out and shutting everyone up is the best option other than stopping the game.  

When an umpire that doesn't speak Spanish is in  a situation where players are using the language to go around him and his authority, he has to do something about it.  I can tell you that I heard Spanish speaking players dressing down white umpires all the time with a smile on their face.  They think it's funny because the umpire has no idea what they are saying... in most cases, one umpire knew Spanish and ejected the kid calling him names in Spanish and explained to the principal and his parents on the spot what the kid was saying about his sexual orientation.  The worst part was that the coaches never got on their players for saying nasty things to white umpires in Spanish. In fact, one famous local coach would lament how some players could smile like an angel while calling an umpire every dirty name in the Spanish book.  The umpire would have no idea, but the crowd and other players knew.  

The umpire needs to know what's being said when the teams are communicating with him or the other team.  If Team A is inviting Team B out for a fight - he needs to know that before it happens.  The home plate ump may not be hearing what's going on.  The umpires are there not only to call balls and strikes, but to maintain order.  When players switch to a language they knothe umpire doesn't speak to incite a fight, or call him names, that umpire must do something about it.  

Now, it's not like this umpire started out the game saying "English only or you can go back to Mexico." Nope, something triggered it and from what I understand it was one or both of the situations I have described above.  The coach was in on it and decided to make a federal case of it because he's a whiny little baby looking to cash in.  Anybody who has played baseball in El Paso has had an umpire make requests like this.  In our modern victim society this was turned into something it wasn't - racism.  Again, this guy didn't make a statement about the overall use of Spanish in everyday life, he simply needed them to stop communicating to each other in a language he didn't understand because he thought they were using it to be rude.  We all know what cute little games teenagers play and this was one of those games.  

Being short an umpire sucks.  I play in an adult baseball league here in DC and not having umpires for a game ruins the experience.  In high school it could make a game not count.  Now, because a coach is siding with badly behaving players the area is minus one good umpire.  Let's hope Gadsden gets shorted an umpire before the season is out.  

And remember - umpiring high school baseball is short pay for dealing with a bunch asshole kids. 

Police and Fire Pension is Worse Than We Thought - Pulls Cheap Stunt at Council

Short-timer Even Mohl had the story again HERE on the pension's ethically questionable travel.  This time the members of the uniformed services on the board joined the executive director in the question.  It seems as if everyone but the city appointed members of the board have been using the pension fund as their vacation fund.  

Yep, if you read the article, you'll see a stark contrast in the amount travel the City Employees pension fund paid for and what the police and fire pension fund paid for.  Somebody is really right and somebody is really wrong.  When it comes to spending other people's money, I tend to think the higher dollar figure is usually the suspect one. 

If you're a cop or a fireman, I'd be ready to run these assholes out of town. They're screwing off on you hard earned dime and pissing away your retirement.  They intend to fix their mistakes by screwing your fellow taxpayers by taking a vote on the matter out of their hands using their five figure a month lobbyists to do so.  Right about now the beat cop and the rookie firefighter are taking it both barrels from these jerks.  If some guy was stealing $4,000 from me and claiming to be after my best interests... well, I'd be less than an enthused to call them "sir" or show them any other type of respect. 

This thing stinks and you all know it.  None of you will do a thing about it, though.  Fire and Police are untouchable.  The majority of the board is in on this scheme and they are protecting each other like a criminal network. It's sad that some of them count "catching criminals" as their job.  It's sad that the rest claim to "serve the public."

Needing a way to block off all their bad press, the police union ran up some family members of dead policeman at the open comment portion of today's council.  While my heart goes out to the families whose brave sons were killed in the line of duty, I think it's despicable that they were used as a shield when the pension got caught screwing around.  Go watch today's city council meeting and tell my why those two people were up there and why their arguments don't really actually make sense.  I do politics for a living - I know when someone has been put up for a PR gig.  Terrible - just terrible.  

Council deleted the agenda item pertaining to the bills in front of the legislature that would take taxpayer's ability to vote on their pension contribution away.  The police union knew exactly what it was doing.  Spineless council fell right in order. 

It's pretty bad when the cops in your town are acting this way.  I expect this from the education system, not law enforcement.