Voters will elect two people to the El Paso County Commissioners Court in 2024 – one in March and one in November.

In Precinct 1, County Commissioner Carlos Leon, who represents Far East El Paso and the Montana Vista area, is not seeking reelection. One of Leon’s senior policy advisors, Jackie Arroyo Butler, is running in the Democratic primary against Pete Faraone, a former detention officer from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

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The March 5 primary winner in Precinct 1 will face two opponents in the Nov. 5 general election: Republican candidate Claudia Rodriguez, a former El Paso City Council member, and Libertarian candidate Ryan Woodcraft, a former U.S Army chief warrant officer, who are running uncontested in March.

In Precinct 3, County Commissioner Iliana Holguin is seeking reelection. The precinct covers a portion of the East Side, Horizon City and the Lower Valley eastward to Socorro, San Elizario, Clint, Fabens and Tornillo. Holguin is running in the Democratic primary against Virginia Rodriguez, who listed her mailing address in Socorro in campaign filings. The winner will take the seat as there is no Republican or other party challenger.

The court is made up of four commissioners and a county judge, who serve four-year staggered terms. After giving themselves a raise last year, commissioners make more than $133,000 a year, while the county judge is paid $152,000 a year.

The court is responsible for setting the budget and tax rate for the county, overseeing a county budget of nearly $602 million this fiscal year, and prioritizing which county projects get funding. Commissioners Court also provides oversight of the budget for the Sheriff’s Office and University Medical Center of El Paso, and is tasked with overseeing roads, bridges, parks and other quality of life services within the county.

Last year, commissioners approved $59 million in certificates of obligation for “essential public infrastructure projects” and $41 million in tax anticipation notes, a short-term debt tool, for “critical public safety projects.” Certificates of obligation is debt repaid with property taxes but doesn’t require voter approval. The bonds did not require a tax rate increase, but residents are still paying more in property taxes than the previous year because of the increase in property valuations.

The court is also looking to put up to $350 million in bond debt on the ballot in November, letting voters decide whether to finance a range of new projects.

You can find your precinct on the El Paso County Elections Department’s website. The voter registration deadline for the primary election is Feb. 5. Early voting begins Feb. 20. The elected candidates would take office in January 2025.

Candidates in the contested Democratic races spoke with El Paso Matters about their positions ahead of the primary election:

PRECINCT 1

Jackie Arroyo Butler

Butler, 37, lives in Montana Vista. Prior to working as the senior policy advisor for Commissioner Leon, Butler worked at El Paso Chamber of Commerce from about 2010 to 2017 on various committees, including transportation, development and infrastructure and Armed Forces. Afterward, she worked at the Medical Center of Americas Foundation as the senior director of operations, where she supported the medical devices industry in the borderplex.

Butler said she wanted to serve as a county commissioner because her previous jobs focused more on business interests in West and Central El Paso, Fort Bliss, the medical campus and manufacturing sector in Ciudad Juárez. She rarely had the opportunity to work on programs that affected the eastern part of the county – “the community I know intimately well,” she said.

Water infrastructure in Montana Vista, one of El Paso’s largest clusters of colonias, is a top priority for her. Some residents live within a short distance of a water line, but can’t afford to connect it, she said. The county should “make sure every single stone is turned” when exploring funds for water projects, from state and federal grants to private foundations to the development of long-term loan programs for homeowners, Butler said.

“We still have residents living without access to running water,” Butler said. “To me, that is a travesty.”

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Butler also wants to focus on addressing congestion problems and road conditions as soon as new subdivisions are approved, ahead of when they’re built.

A long-term goal would be to set up a regional transit system in partnership with the city, but Butler admitted there are obstacles. Precinct 1 does not have a higher-education site and commercial areas are concentrated in more established neighborhoods. People on the Far East Side have to commute long distances to go to work and college.

But most people won’t want to ride the bus if there’s not a reliable network, if there’s not amenities like wifi, Butler said. Investing in high-impact jobs to the Far East Side, while improving both public transit and roadways, could give Precinct 1 residents the opportunity to work closer to home while reducing both traffic and pollution from vehicle emissions. Butler described high-impact jobs as ones in manufacturing, technology and health care, which also come with higher wages.

Should El Paso voters approve bond debt come November, she would like to see basic infrastructure at the top of the projects list – connection to wastewater services, as well as transportation and road projects for people who live in high-traffic areas, such as east of Joe Battle Boulevard.

Butler said she’s also excited about the new animal shelter, with preference for a location near the county jail to create the opportunity for animal therapy and work training for inmates.

“Animal welfare is an undeniable need for all the county and the city shelter is at capacity,” Butler said. “I haven’t spoken to one person in Precinct 1 who doesn’t think the county needs an animal shelter.”

Butler said if she sat on the court last year, she would have voted in favor of both the certificates of obligation and tax anticipation notes. Some facilities, like the juvenile detention center that houses adolescents, are monitored by the state so the county is required to make sure conditions meet regulation, Butler added.

She said she would not approve of raising salaries for commissioners outside of an adjustment to cost-of-living increases.

To save costs, the county should be aggressive in pursuing grants and fight unfunded mandates, such as SB 4, Butler said. In December, El Paso County joined the ACLU lawsuit challenging the legality of new state law SB 4 that would make it a state crime to illegally cross the border from Mexico. Butler noted that the law does not include state funding for detaining migrants, which would lead to the county footing the bill.

Pete Faraone

Faraone, 44, said he also supported the county in challenging SB 4. He described immigration law enforcement as a federal issue, not state, and said SB 4 would strain local resources.

“I know if they were going to start making arrests for that, our jails are already overcrowded as hell,” Faraone said. “They’re pretty much at capacity with state inmates. It would be a real mess right now if that was happening.”

Faraone worked for more than 20 years in law enforcement for the county, most of that time as a detention officer before leaving the position in 2018 to become union president of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Association, representing more than 800 members. He also served on the executive board for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, or CLEAT.

Faraone stepped down as union president and is now focusing on his campaign, running on a platform of lower taxes and commitment to public safety. His leadership positions, as well as overseeing an $11 million budget for CLEAT, make him qualified to represent Precinct 1, he said.

Faraone said he was proud the union was able to prioritize expenditures within the budget, while still fighting for health care and retirement benefits for workers.

Faraone said he would have voted in favor of the tax anticipation notes but against the certificates of obligation the county approved last year because he thinks the latter should have gone to voters.

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He supports a county November bond election, where voters can decide whether to finance projects. Faraone said community meetings are critical because the residents should have a bigger say in which projects get priority for funding.

“If citizens want to increase their own taxes, they have the right to do so,” Faraone said. “We have to ask the community.”

He would like to see road infrastructure in the fast-growing Far East Side get some of the bond funding. Congestion is the result of rapid growth without planning and the county should seek additional federal and state funding for infrastructure improvements, Faraone said. He would also be open to working with the city government to invest in public transit in that part of the county.

Along with rapid growth comes concerns with crime and Precinct 1 residents are worried if there’s an adequate number of officers on patrol, he said. While he believes the Sheriff’s Office has functioned well with current resources, the county could do more to hire more officers, Faraone said. He did not elaborate further on how he would accomplish this.

Faraone said he would not vote in favor of raising commissioner salaries, even for cost-of-living adjustments, because commissioners “already make too much.”

Faraone has raised more than $22,000 in political contributions, his Jan. 15 campaign finance report shows. His biggest donation was $5,000 from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Association.

Butler has raised nearly $27,000 in political contributions, according to her Jan. 15 campaign report. Several of her donations came from El Paso developers, including $3,000 each from Carlos and James Bombach of Saratoga Homes.

Updated campaign finance reports are due this week.

PRECINCT 3

Iliana Holguin

Holguin, 47, has raised about $15,000 for her reelection campaign. Holguin, a licensed immigration attorney, took office in 2021 and is now running against Virginia Rodriguez in the Democratic primary.

During her time as commissioner, Holguin facilitated community meetings and consulted with the county’s Public Work Department about connecting residents to running water. In 2022, a $3 million project connected more than 300 residents in the Lower Valley’s Lourdes and El Conquistador communities to wastewater services for the first time. A partnership between El Paso County, Lower Valley Water District and the Texas Department of Agriculture funded the project.

Precinct 3 encompasses numerous colonias along the Rio Grande – rural communities that lack clean drinking water, sewer services and paved roads. Public health and safety concerns in the area include stormwater flooding and failing septic tanks that families can’t afford to replace, Holguin said. Like with the 2022 Lower Valley project, El Paso County should dig deeper for outside funding and grants to improve stormwater infrastructure and connect neighborhoods to basic services, she added.

Last year, Holguin was the only commissioner’s court member to vote against issuing certificates of obligation because she believed some projects, such as upgrades to Ascarate Park, were not emergencies and should have been left to voters to decide. Holguin said she voted in favor of tax notes because the debt is shorter term and funds more critical needs, such as repairs to the jail.

Holguin was also the only commissioner’s court member who voted against raising salaries for the court, although she still gets paid the increased salary.

Virginia Rodriguez

Rodriguez has not responded to El Paso Matters’ repeated attempts at contact. Her Jan. 15 campaign finance report shows she didn’t receive any donations for the reporting period ending in December. However, she did report a $7,500 loan to herself.

Her campaign treasurer is Rene Rodriguez, a former Socorro City Council member who ran and lost against Mary González in the 2022 Democratic primary for Texas House District 75. He told El Paso Matters that Virginia is his wife, but did not say why she was unavailable.

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