ISSUES

El Paso should not pursue data centers as part of our economic development strategy. Their enormous and rapidly growing electricity demands, environmental impacts, and infrastructure requirements make them a poor fit for our community, particularly as artificial intelligence drives the industry toward facilities of unprecedented scale.

I come to this issue with an educational and professional background in sustainability, climate, natural resources, and clean energy. I have spent much of my career thinking about how communities balance growth with energy and resource constraints, and I have made sustainability and climate action priorities throughout my time on the City Council. From that perspective, I find the direction of the data-center industry deeply concerning.

Electricity is at the center of the problem. Modern AI data centers can require extraordinary amounts of power, creating demand for new generation and other infrastructure on a scale that can reshape a region's energy system. In El Paso, we are already seeing that happen. The enormous electricity demand associated with Meta's data center has led El Paso Electric to pursue hundreds of megawatts of new natural-gas generation through its proposed McCloud facility.

That has significant environmental consequences. At a time when we should be reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and transitioning toward cleaner sources of energy, I don't think it makes sense to actively pursue an industry whose growth can instead drive demand for major new fossil-fuel generation. More broadly, resource-intensive development of this scale is simply ill-suited to our Chihuahuan Desert setting and inconsistent with the long-term sustainability and resilience goals I have advocated for.

There is also a basic question of who assumes the costs and risks associated with serving these enormous new electric loads. Existing El Paso ratepayers should not be left exposed to additional costs or infrastructure risks created by the extraordinary demands of a single private development. For those reasons, I voted for the City's intervention in the Public Utility Commission of Texas proceeding over the proposed McCloud generation facility, challenging its justification, costs, and potential risks to existing ratepayers.

I also took direct action in 2026 to change the City's approach to future projects. I proposed that El Paso stop recruiting, pursuing, or incentivizing future hyperscale data centers. My proposal specifically removed these projects from consideration for tax abatements, rebates, permit-fee waivers, public financing assistance, economic-development grants, and similar City incentives. The City Council adopted my proposal unanimously.

I also want to directly address my 2023 vote approving the City's original agreement with Meta. The project we are dealing with today is not the project we evaluated then.

The artificial-intelligence landscape changed extraordinarily quickly after that vote, and Meta dramatically expanded and transformed its El Paso project in response. The scale of the computing operation and its resulting electricity demand grew enormously. The energy reality changed as well. Meta had made prominent public commitments around renewable energy and sustainability; today, El Paso Electric is proposing hundreds of megawatts of new natural-gas generation specifically to meet the project's near-term electricity needs.

If the project that exists today had been presented to me in 2023, I would not have supported it, and I do not support it today.

We know much more now about what the AI-driven data-center boom actually means for electricity generation, infrastructure, emissions, and the communities asked to accommodate these enormous facilities. We should use that knowledge when deciding what kinds of development we want to pursue in the future.

El Paso needs economic growth, but growth is not automatically progress. I want us to pursue development that creates lasting opportunity while strengthening our sustainability and resilience rather than working against them. Data centers are simply not the right fit for the Borderland.

If money was no concern, then the basic idea behind the Downtown Deck Plaza would be appealing. Covering a portion of I-10 through Downtown with a park could reconnect parts of the urban core divided by the freeway, create approximately 6.5 acres of new public space, and help mitigate some of the damage an expanded interstate would do to Downtown.

But an idea like this still has to make financial sense, and today I do not believe the Deck Plaza does.

The estimated cost to design and construct the project is $200+ million with an additional $200+ million in amenities. From the beginning, I have drawn the line at asking El Paso taxpayers to assume that enormous financial obligation. I have been willing to pursue federal, state, regional, and private funding that could make the project possible. I have consistently opposed committing substantial local taxpayer dollars or City bond capacity to construct it.

My votes reflect that distinction. In 2024, I supported state transportation funding through the El Paso MPO to advance the project's design, but I was one of only two members of the City Council who voted against using local property-tax revenue for the City's design contribution when another non-property-tax funding source had been available. I later supported seeking federal funding for the project.

In 2026, I voted for a non-binding memorandum among the City, County, and Downtown Deck Plaza Foundation that preserved the possibility of building the Deck Plaza if the necessary money could actually be assembled from outside sources, primarily private philanthropy. I made my position very clear again at the time: I would support preserving the opportunity for private fundraising and outside grants to make the project possible, but I would not support using City taxpayer funds, including City bond funds, to pay for its construction.

As of today, that outside funding strategy has not materialized. So far, the private fundraising necessary to close a substantial part of the gap has fallen well short, and the Deck Plaza remains far from being a financially viable project.

El Paso has enormous needs competing for limited public resources: streets and other basic infrastructure, parks, public safety, transit, housing, maintenance of existing City facilities, and many other existing priorities. We shouldn’t strain the City's finances or take on tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in additional local debt to rescue a discretionary project because the funding strategy originally envisioned for it did not come together.

There is also a frustrating irony here. I have opposed the proposed $1.3+ billion expansion of I-10 through Downtown in the first place. I believe widening the freeway through the urban core would reinforce an enormous physical barrier between Downtown and the neighborhoods to its north and work against our efforts to create a more walkable and connected city. A Deck Plaza could mitigate some of those harms, but El Paso should not have to find hundreds of millions of additional dollars for a park simply to compensate for the effects of an enormous highway project I did not believe should have been our region's transportation priority to begin with.

We have to make decisions based on the world as it actually exists, not on a hypothetical funding package that hasn’t come good. Right now, the Deck Plaza is a shiny concept without a realistic path to paying for it, and I do not support making El Paso taxpayers responsible for filling that gap. At this point, I believe our attention and limited resources are better directed toward projects we can actually deliver and the basic infrastructure needs El Pasoans already expect us to address.

El Paso needs to be much more deliberate about the economy we're trying to build. Economic development shouldn't mean chasing whatever industry is offering the largest capital investment or asking for the biggest incentive. We should invest in our own competitive advantages, support entrepreneurs who are already here, and pursue industries that create good jobs while making sense for the place we actually live.

Making it easier to start and grow a small business has been one of my economic-development priorities. Small businesses account for an enormous share of El Paso's economic activity, employment, and entrepreneurship, but historically we've made entrepreneurs navigate a complicated collection of City departments, outside organizations, permitting requirements, financing programs, and other resources largely on their own. During my term, we've worked to change that. One of the most significant steps has been the creation of the Business One-Stop Shop, or BOSS, bringing together more than 45 partner organizations to help entrepreneurs with everything from developing a business plan and navigating permits to accessing capital, hiring, and expanding an existing business. I've also pushed for continuous improvement in permitting and other City processes because sometimes the best economic-development incentive we can offer is simply making government easier to navigate.

I have also worked throughout my term to move El Paso toward a much more ambitious sustainable economy. I have an educational and professional background in sustainable development, so I have always viewed sustainability as an economic opportunity as much as an environmental responsibility.

We're the Sun City, after all. El Paso has an extraordinary solar resource, and I believe we have a real opportunity to become a leader in solar energy and the industries that grow around it: renewable-energy generation, storage, energy efficiency, sustainable construction, water-efficient technologies, waste reduction and materials reuse, the circular economy, and manufacturing and technical services that support the broader clean-energy economy.

I want to continue using the City's facilities, purchasing power, policies, and economic-development tools to help create demand for the sustainable industries we say we want to attract. The goal shouldn't simply be for El Paso to use more clean technology. We should be creating the conditions for more of the businesses, investment, expertise, and jobs associated with that transition to be located here.

I have supported some aerospace and defense projects when I believed they made sense for El Paso, and Fort Bliss will obviously remain an enormously important part of our economy. But I don't believe our long-term economic strategy should depend on continually expanding our relationship with the military-industrial complex. Economic diversification should actually mean diversification. I want us developing industries that can create prosperity for El Paso for generations while contributing positively to the kind of community and world we want to build.

I've also consistently supported strengthening our binational economy. El Paso and Juárez aren't simply neighboring cities; economically, we are deeply interconnected parts of one enormous region. Juárez is one of North America's major manufacturing centers, and our shared workforce, supply chains, educational institutions, international ports, culture, and geography create an economic advantage almost no other American city can replicate. I have supported efforts to strengthen that cross-border relationship and believe our economic-development strategy should build deliberately on it rather than trying to imitate cities that are nothing like us.

In evaluating economic-development agreements, I have focused increasingly on what El Pasoans actually receive in return. A billion-dollar capital investment can make for an impressive press release, but the number by itself doesn't tell us whether a project is good economic development. How many permanent jobs does it create? What do those jobs pay? What benefits and career opportunities do they provide? How much public infrastructure does the project require? What resources does it consume? What are taxpayers being asked to give up, and would the investment happen without the incentive anyway?

Incentives aren't free money. When I vote to rebate taxes, waive fees, or provide other financial assistance to a private company, I am making a long-term investment on behalf of the public. I have supported those tools when I believe the return to El Paso justifies them, and I have opposed economic-development proposals when I don't believe it does. The size of a company's proposed investment should never, by itself, entitle it to public support.

I've also supported a broader definition of economic development than recruiting companies from somewhere else. Sometimes the best investment is helping an El Paso entrepreneur turn a 10-person company into a 100-person company. Sometimes it's putting a vacant storefront back into productive use or helping bring new investment into a neighborhood commercial corridor.

And sometimes it's using property we've already built around and finding a productive new use for it. I've supported infill and adaptive reuse as economic-development strategies, including the work now turning the long-vacant Popular Building into 120 homes and commercial space Downtown. Reusing existing buildings and developing in areas where streets, utilities, transit, and other infrastructure already exist can generate economic activity and new taxable value without requiring taxpayers to continually extend infrastructure outward.

Ultimately, I want to continue moving El Paso toward an economic-development strategy measured less by the size of the announcements we make and more by the economy we're actually creating: more locally owned businesses, better-paying jobs, a stronger solar and sustainable-industry sector, productive reuse of property and infrastructure we already have, and a binational economy that takes full advantage of what makes this region unique.

We should be thoughtful about what kind of growth we pursue and whether it makes El Paso stronger in the long run.

I support modernizing the Bridge of the Americas as a passenger and pedestrian port of entry, and I led the charge on permanently ending commercial cargo traffic there.

For decades, commercial trucks crossing at BOTA have imposed enormous costs on the neighborhoods surrounding the port. Diesel emissions, noise, congestion, and lines of idling trucks have become part of daily life for residents who happen to live alongside one of the country's busiest international trade corridors. The communities surrounding BOTA have long dealt with poor air quality and significant rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, while diesel exhaust and traffic-related particulate pollution are associated with asthma attacks, cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and premature death. Children, older adults, and people who already have respiratory conditions are particularly vulnerable. Local researchers have studied traffic-related particulate pollution at BOTA itself, and residents of Chamizal have spent years raising concerns about what constant exposure to vehicle and diesel emissions means for their families.

International commerce is essential to our regional economy, but we cannot treat the health of the people living closest to our ports as an acceptable cost of doing business. The burden has fallen disproportionately on neighborhoods that were there long before much of the infrastructure that now surrounds them. Moving commercial trucks away from BOTA gives us an opportunity to reduce one significant source of pollution in those communities while continuing to move freight through crossings better suited to handle it.

I first brought this fight directly to the City Council in January 2024, proposing that El Paso formally advocate for a regional strategy to move commercial truck traffic away from BOTA and toward other ports of entry better suited to handle it. I lost that first vote badly. The Council voted 6-2 to delete my proposal from the agenda without even considering it.

I kept making the case. I submitted my own comments to the federal government, continued working with residents and advocates in the surrounding neighborhoods, and I argued that a once-in-a-generation $600+ million modernization of BOTA was also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to correct the mistake of routing heavy commercial truck traffic through the middle of densely populated neighborhoods.

Later that year, the City Council finally came around, approving a formal City position supporting the removal of commercial truck traffic from BOTA. I continued advocating directly to the federal government and emphasizing what removing commercial trucks could mean for the health and quality of life of the people who live around the bridge. The federal government ultimately chose the plan we had advocated for, permanently eliminating commercial cargo operations as part of the modernization.

The bridge is aging and badly needs investment, but rebuilding it should mean more than replacing old infrastructure with newer versions of the same thing. I have supported transforming BOTA into a modern passenger-vehicle and pedestrian crossing that moves people between El Paso and Juárez more safely and efficiently while permanently removing commercial cargo operations.

That does not mean turning our backs on international trade. Quite the opposite. I believe we need to plan and invest in our ports of entry as a comprehensive regional network, with different crossings performing the functions for which they are best suited. That was an important focus of my work while representing the City on the Transportation Policy Board of the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization. I supported regional transportation planning and investments that improve connections to our ports and prepare the entire system for the movement of people and goods, rather than making decisions about each crossing in isolation.

The City of El Paso also owns the Ysleta-Zaragoza International Bridge, and we are making major investments there specifically to improve its ability to handle commercial traffic. I have supported those investments because moving trucks away from BOTA works best as a regional strategy if we also build the capacity and infrastructure necessary to move freight efficiently through crossings that are better suited for it. Ysleta-Zaragoza is already a major commercial port, and improving its facilities, technology, roadway connections, and commercial operations is an important part of preparing our border infrastructure for the future.

Santa Teresa-San Jerónimo and Tornillo-Guadalupe are important pieces of that network as well. The goal should be to distribute commercial traffic intelligently across the region, invest where additional capacity is needed, and improve the connections between our ports and the regional transportation network. We can move goods more efficiently across the border while moving heavy commercial traffic away from the densely populated neighborhoods surrounding BOTA. Those goals reinforce one another.

My work at the MPO strengthened my conviction that this is how border infrastructure needs to be planned. A port of entry does not function in isolation. Its performance depends on the highways, arterial streets, freight routes, rail infrastructure, other ports, and communities around it. Planning all of those pieces together gives us a much better opportunity to support international commerce while making smarter decisions about where that commerce should move.

This is particularly important to me as the representative for District 8. The people who live in Segundo Barrio, Chamizal, and the neighborhoods surrounding the three international ports in District 8 experience the consequences of decisions about our border infrastructure in a way that most of El Paso does not. A line on a transportation map can mean diesel exhaust outside someone's home, trucks traveling past a neighborhood school, additional noise and traffic, or another barrier separating a community from the rest of the city. Their quality of life deserves to carry real weight in decisions about how our international transportation system operates.

I've also worked with people representing communities on both sides of the border to defend this approach as the federal process has moved forward. When efforts emerged to reverse course and preserve commercial traffic at BOTA, I joined other local leaders in publicly making the case that El Paso should stand by the plan we had fought for and that the federal government ultimately selected.

The debate over BOTA has reinforced something I believe about infrastructure generally: we should judge major projects by how well they serve people and communities, not simply by how much traffic we can move through them. Our border is one of El Paso's greatest economic and cultural assets. We can make it function better while also improving the lives of the people who live closest to it.

That's what I have fought for at the Bridge of the Americas, and I intend to keep fighting for it as this historic modernization moves forward.

El Paso should not have a network of cameras continuously recording the movements of ordinary people as they travel around our city. I support giving law enforcement effective tools to investigate crimes, but there is an important difference between using technology to investigate a particular person or vehicle and building a permanent surveillance network that collects information about everyone.

That is why I oppose El Paso’s use of Flock Safety automated license plate readers.

Flock is a networked automated license plate reader system. Fixed cameras photograph vehicles as they pass, use software to identify license plates and other vehicle characteristics, and store that information in a searchable database. In El Paso, the Police Department deployed 150 fixed Flock cameras beginning in 2025 through a state grant of approximately $700,000.

These cameras do more than alert police when a stolen vehicle passes. Together, they can create a searchable record of where vehicles have traveled, including vehicles belonging to people suspected of absolutely nothing. And because Flock operates a much larger interconnected network, the concerns extend beyond what our own Police Department intends to do with the information.

My fundamental concern is mass surveillance. Once we build the infrastructure to collect information about people’s movements, we also create the possibility that the information will eventually be used for purposes very different from those originally offered to justify it.

We don’t have to imagine those possibilities. Around the country, Flock technology has generated serious controversies involving access by outside agencies and uses that extend well beyond recovering stolen vehicles. Cases that have particularly concerned me have involved license-plate information being sought in connection with immigration, abortion, and even misuse for stalking or harrassment. In a border community like ours, the possibility that locally collected surveillance information could ultimately be used for federal immigration enforcement deserves particular scrutiny.

I also have specific concerns about Flock as a company and the enormous interconnected surveillance network it has built. But my objection isn’t limited to one vendor. Replacing Flock with another company offering essentially the same fixed, networked surveillance technology would not solve the underlying problem.

How Flock came to El Paso also concerns me. The City Council approved an application for state grant funding, but after that approval the application was modified to include the Flock hardware and software contract. That modification may have been technically permissible within the grant process, but I it should have come back to the Council (and the public’s awareness) because creating a citywide, networked surveillance system is a significant policy decision, not a minor administrative adjustment. Instead, the cameras began appearing around town before residents and even elected officials like myself were even aware that El Paso was creating this system. I learned about El Paso’s use of Flock only after the first cameras were installed and I started getting questions from constituents.

I subsequently spent months discussing the program with Police Chief Peter Pacillas and City Manager Dionne Mack. Those conversations put some of my concerns about how EPPD itself was using the system at ease. I have not never accused our Police Department of abusing the technology, but I don’t need to do so to believe that the technology itself creates unacceptable risks.

When I learned that EPPD intended to continue the program (after they had previously said they would allow the grant to expire), I brought a proposal to the City Council in March 2026 to stop it. Importantly, my proposal went beyond simply ending the relationship with Flock. I proposed that the City refrain from renewing or entering into new agreements with Flock and stop using future grants or City funds for similar automated license plate reader technology. My proposal failed 6-2, so El Paso’s Flock system has continued operating. I still believe that was the wrong decision.

I am not opposed to giving the Police Department useful investigative tools. I am opposed to turning routine movement through a public street into information that is automatically captured and stored simply because technology makes it possible.

This kind of tech is developing much faster than the laws and policies that govern it as well as the public’s expectations and understanding of it. Something installed today to find stolen cars can become part of a much broader surveillance system tomorrow. As I have now said multiple times in City Council meetings, the question isn’t simply whether a technology can help solve crimes. We also have to ask what kind of powerful capabilities we are creating, who may eventually have access to it, and how it could be used under a different administration or for a different purpose.

There should be limits on how much government knows about the ordinary movements of people who have done nothing wrong. I will continue to oppose Flock in El Paso. We can support targeted law-enforcement tools that protect public safety without subjecting an entire community to continuous automated monitoring.

Utility bills are currently putting real pressure on El Paso households. We’re all feeling the pinch of increased summer energy costs right now. During my time in office, I have consistently used the City's regulatory authority to push back against excessive rate increases. At the same time, I think it's important to be clear about what the City Council can and cannot control, because it's important not to overpromise.

Under Texas state law, El Paso Electric and Texas Gas Service are regulated monopolies. For customers in El Paso, the City Council has a local regulatory role over both utilities, which means major rate cases actually come before us for consideration. But our decisions can be appealed to state regulators: the Public Utility Commission of Texas (or PUCT; appointed by the governor) for electricity and the Railroad Commission of Texas (or RRC; elected statewide) for natural gas. Ultimately, those state agencies can overrule us.

In El Paso Electric's most recent rate case, the company originally sought approximately $93 million in additional annual revenue from its Texas customers. I voted to deny EPE's proposed rate increase, and supported the City's continued fight against it before the PUCT after our decision was appealed.

That fight ultimately proved very fruitful. The final result was a ruling by the PUCT that provided EPE substantially less than what they originally requested. Among other reductions, regulators approved a 9.4% return on equity rather than the much higher return of 10.7% that EPE sought, reduced the overall base rate impact, rejected some other elements of the company's proposal, and shifted some costs away from Texas customers.

I know that may not feel like a win right now when we are all feeling the impact of how much we're paying for electricity this summer, but EPE received substantially less than it asked for, and the company itself was seemingly left quite unhappy with the result. That tells you something about how consequential the regulatory fight was this time.

I took the same approach when Texas Gas Service sought a major rate increase. TGS proposed changes that would have increased costs for El Paso customers by roughly 27%, and I voted to deny that proposal.

After that denial, the City negotiated a settlement that would have limited the potential increase to approximately 10%. I voted to accept that settlement. It still would have meant an increase, and I certainly wasn't happy about that, but rejecting it did not mean rates would stay where they were. It meant sending the case to the Railroad Commission of Texas, which is historically very favorable to gas utilities, where TGS could continue pursuing a much larger increase. I believed locking in the substantially lower amount was the better way to protect El Paso ratepayers from that risk. The settlement failed on a 4-4 Council vote, with the Mayor breaking the tie against it, so the case went to the Railroad Commission.

I also strongly fought TGS's effort to consolidate El Paso with its other Texas service areas. El Paso has historically benefited from being its own rate area because our local system is relatively efficient and inexpensive to operate. Consolidation means El Paso customers now share costs with higher-cost systems across Texas, effectively requiring us to help pay for infrastructure and expenses that don't serve our community in any way. I opposed that change and supported the City's fight against it before the RRC.

Ultimately, the Railroad Commission approved consolidation over our objections. We lost that fight, but it was absolutely worth fighting it as hard as we did. El Paso ratepayers deserved a strong defense against a change that leaves us paying more. And I think the lesson is clear: when state regulators make decisions like this despite the evidence and the obvious harm to our community, we simply need to elect better Railroad Commissioners.

My work on utility costs goes well beyond these two major rate cases. During my time in office, I have been a part of the City's participation in more than a dozen other proceedings before state regulators involving El Paso Electric and Texas Gas Service. Some involve smaller or interim changes to rates and charges. Others involve requests for approval to build major new power plants, transmission lines, or other infrastructure that customers may ultimately help pay for. These proceedings don't receive nearly as much public attention as a major rate case, but collectively they can have enormous consequences for what El Pasoans pay and for the long-term investments our utilities make.

My approach to utility regulation is straightforward: under Texas state law, these companies have a right to recover legitimate costs and earn a reasonable regulated return, but as regulated monopolies they don't get to simply decide what their customers have to pay. Every major request should be scrutinized, unsupported costs should be challenged, excessive returns should be fought, and El Paso ratepayers should have strong representation throughout the process.

I can't promise that utility rates will never increase, and no City Council has the legal authority to make that promise (so beware of anyone who tries to). What I can do is use every tool available to me to fight for the lowest reasonable rates and protect El Paso ratepayers, whether the issue is a headline-making rate increase or a much less visible regulatory proceeding that could affect our bills for decades to come.

I have always firmly believed that El Paso is a loving and welcoming city. My approach to immigration begins with one of the core principles by which I try to live my life: love your neighbor as yourself, without exception. That applies regardless of where someone was born, what language they speak, or what their immigration status may be.

I strongly oppose expansion of immigration detention and mass-deportation in our community. I believe the way ICE is operating today is causing real harm to families and creating fear throughout El Paso. I have been outspoken about that, including standing with Bishop Mark Seitz and other community leaders immediately after the federal administration's new immigration orders took effect and calling on El Pasoans not to ignore what was happening to our neighbors.

At the same time, I understand the limits of my office. Immigration policy and enforcement are principally federal responsibilities. A City Council cannot rewrite federal immigration law or simply order ICE to leave El Paso. My responsibility is to identify what authority we do have and use every lawful tool available to protect our residents, preserve access to City services, and keep our local government from unnecessarily facilitating actions that we oppose.

That approach is consistent with how I handled a very different immigration challenge earlier in my term. During the large migrant arrivals of 2023 and 2024, Downtown and South El Paso experienced many of the most immediate local impacts. People who had already been processed by federal authorities were arriving in our community, sometimes in numbers that overwhelmed existing nonprofit shelter capacity. Ignoring them and allowing families to sleep indefinitely on Downtown sidewalks would have been neither humane nor responsible.

I supported a coordinated humanitarian response and strongly supported organizations like Border Servant Corps, which helped provide migrants with temporary hospitality, basic necessities, and assistance continuing to their final destinations elsewhere in the country. We also successfully advocated for federal funding to support the response rather than relying on local taxpayer dollars. Border communities like ours should not be left financially responsible for managing the consequences of federal immigration policy.

One of the clearest examples of this approach was the creation of the Community Readiness Center emergency shelter at the former Morehead Middle School in District 8. I supported purchasing the property and establishing emergency shelter capacity there, and I pushed for an approach that treated migrants humanely, particularly families with children, while also being deliberately designed not to disrupt the surrounding neighborhood.

And it worked. The operation was so unobtrusive that several weeks after migrants had begun staying at Morehead, I was still hearing from nearby residents asking me when the migrants were supposed to arrive. They were already there. To me, that demonstrated something important: compassion and competent management are not competing objectives. We treated people with dignity while also being good neighbors to the people in the surrounding area.

The challenge confronting El Paso today is very different, and I have responded accordingly. As the federal government has dramatically expanded detention and deportation operations, I have pushed the City to examine every lawful way we can protect our community.

I helped initiate and strongly supported the effort to develop a City plan aimed at preventing additional ICE detention facilities from being established within El Paso city limits, using whatever lawful land-use, permitting, utility, and other tools may be available. I have also supported examining protections against immigration agents entering non-public areas of City facilities without an appropriate judicial warrant and reviewing the ways in which City government interacts with or assists federal immigration enforcement.

The massive Camp East Montana detention facility at Fort Bliss has made these concerns especially urgent. Following deaths at the facility, I supported calling for independent federal grand-jury investigations and pushed to move that action forward quickly rather than allowing it to wait for the City's broader immigration-policy review.

El Paso's identity as a welcoming community is worth defending. We are a border city shaped by generations of migration, binational families, and people moving back and forth across a border that is an ordinary part of our lives. I will continue to speak out against policies that treat our neighbors as threats simply because of where they came from, and I will continue doing the less visible but equally important work of determining what City government can actually do about it.

I believe government has a fundamental responsibility to respect the dignity of every person. That principle has guided some of the votes and proposals I am proudest of during my time on the City Council. When people's rights are threatened, local government should use the authority available to it to protect them, even when the source of that threat is a policy coming from Austin or Washington.

One of my first major actions after taking office was helping decriminalize abortion at the local level in January 2023. I co-sponsored the resolution directing that City resources would not be used to investigate people for abortion or other pregnancy outcomes, restricting the sharing of that information with other government agencies, and making abortion investigations the Police Department's lowest priority. The City Council ultimately passed the resolution 7-1. Texas had taken away a fundamental freedom, but that did not mean the City of El Paso had to volunteer its employees, police officers, technology, and taxpayer dollars to help the state intrude further into people's private medical decisions.

That same principle informs my support for diversion programs and alternatives to unnecessary arrest and incarceration. I believe public safety is strongest when our criminal justice system distinguishes between people who pose a genuine threat to others and people whose circumstances are better addressed through treatment, services, diversion, or another intervention. An arrest record or time in jail can destabilize someone's employment, housing, and family for years. We should reserve the most punitive tools of government for situations in which they are truly necessary.

I have also been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ El Pasoans and the protections they deserve under local law. Our nondiscrimination protections are vital, and I will always oppose efforts to weaken them. People should be able to work, obtain services, participate in public life, and live openly in their community without being treated differently because of who they are.

I turned that principle into a concrete employment policy in 2024 when I made a proposal to provide gender-affirming healthcare coverage to City employees. The City Council approved my proposal 7-1 and directed the City Manager to opt into coverage and develop a plan for implementation, which took effect later that year at minimal cost.

I also successfully proposed that the City provide free menstrual products in City facilities, treating them as a basic necessity rather than something people should have to go without when they need them. It was a practical, relatively small change, but one that reflects the broader principle that public facilities should be designed and operated with people's everyday dignity in mind.

Protecting civil rights isn’t solely about responding when government threatens someone’s rights. It’s also about belonging, representation, and whose experiences are recognized as part of El Paso’s story. For example, I have worked closely with Black El Paso Voice and the McCall Neighborhood Center, and I helped form and have continued to support the Eastside Central Coalition, including its new Black Business Living Museum in District 8 inside the former Estine’s Eastside Barbershop, a longtime community institution that served generations of Black El Pasoans. Black El Paso Voice has twice recognized me as a Champion of Diversity at its Black Business & Community Awards, an honor that means a great deal to me because it reflects relationships built through the work itself.

I have also worked to make sure that the histories of communities too often left out of El Paso's traditional historical narrative are preserved and shared. Through the El Paso Museum of History, I sponsored exhibits and programs highlighting the experiences of Black and East Asian El Pasoans, including a high school summer program that revived The Good Neighbor Interpreter, El Paso's historic Black newspaper, and an exhibition exploring El Paso's East Asian history. Understanding the full history of our city matters. The story of El Paso belongs to all of the communities that built it, and our public institutions should help tell those stories.

The sad reality is that Texas increasingly makes this work harder through state preemption, using state law to prevent cities from adopting policies that reflect the values and needs of their own residents. I have consistently pushed back against that encroachment on local authority. Sometimes state law leaves us only a narrow lane in which to act. My approach has been to find that lane and use it. We should understand and work within the legal limits on City authority without treating those limits as an excuse for inaction.

Civil rights are not abstract questions reserved for courts and legislatures. They show up in whether someone is afraid to seek medical care, whether an employee receives equal benefits, whether an immigrant family feels safe in their own community, and whether an encounter with the justice system unnecessarily derails the rest of a person's life.

There will be times when the City of El Paso simply does not have the legal power to stop something the state or federal government is doing. When we do have power, we should use it. When our authority is unclear or untested, we should explore the possibilities. And even when we truly cannot act directly, I El Paso's elected leaders have a responsibility to speak clearly about the dignity and fundamental freedoms of the people we represent.

That is the kind of local government I have worked to provide, and the kind I will continue fighting for.

Animals depend entirely on us to advocate for their welfare, and I have made animal welfare a significant focus of my first term. I have served as Chair of the City's Animal Shelter Advisory Committee for my entire term, and I’ve worked closely with Animal Services, veterinarians, rescue organizations, advocates, and residents to keep improving how El Paso cares for animals.

That commitment has also been reflected in the resources I have secured to put behind the work. Four years ago, Animal Services was operating from a budget that had been just $9 million in FY2022. Today, we are investing more than $17 million annually, nearly double that amount, alongside additional investments in facilities, fleet, spay/neuter capacity, enforcement, and other needs. I have consistently supported making animal welfare a real budget priority, because improving outcomes requires giving the people doing this work the resources to succeed.

A major focus of mine has been shifting more of our attention upstream. The best outcome for many animals is never having to enter the shelter in the first place. Our shelter cannot solve the community's animal-welfare challenges simply by becoming better at processing an endless stream of animals through its doors. We also have to reduce unwanted litters, help families keep the pets they already love, make basic resources more accessible, and address problems before they become shelter intakes.

That's why I have been a strong advocate for expanding access to spay and neuter services. Demand for affordable services significantly exceeds the resources available today, and expanding that capacity is one of the most important investments we can make. Most recently, I brought the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee's recommendation for additional public spay/neuter funding to the City Council and successfully secured $128,000 in additional funding in the FY2027 budget. That's progress, but I want us to keep building substantially more capacity.

Prevention work also includes Trap-Neuter-Return, or TNR, for community cats. Sterilizing and returning healthy community cats is an essential tool for humanely reducing the outdoor cat population over time while avoiding unnecessary shelter intake. I have supported strengthening that work alongside broader access to spay/neuter services.

I also co-founded the Pet Pantries program, a partnership between the City and the El Paso Community Foundation's Borderland Rescue Fund. The program provides free pet food and supplies directly to the public through Pet Pantries at all 14 El Paso Public Library branches, helping families experiencing financial hardship keep their pets fed and at home. It also operates Rescue Pantries that provide food and supplies directly to more than 30 local animal rescue organizations. Together, the public and rescue pantries distributed more than 340,000 pounds of pet food and supplies in the program's first year. Keeping pets fed and with the families that love them is both more humane and far less costly than allowing a temporary financial hardship to become a surrender to the shelter.

I have fought for stronger community veterinary resources, expanded spay/neuter access, foster networks, adoption and reunification programs, microchipping, responsible pet ownership, and stronger partnerships with the nonprofit rescue community. Part of that work has been building a stronger relationship with the El Paso Veterinary Medical Association, including personally meeting with and delivering updates to its membership. Veterinarians are indispensable partners in addressing overpopulation, access to care, and animal health, and I want them directly involved in shaping our approach.

We've also made a major investment in additional shelter and adoption capacity. I successfully pushed for the City's purchase of the former Morehead Middle School in District 8 and its conversion into the Westside Adoption Center, transforming part of a vacant school into a modern adoption facility with a 4,700-square-foot adoption area and space for 100 kennels. The facility gives animals another place to be housed and adopted while making adoption much more accessible to residents on the Westside.

I have also successfully pushed for substantially increased enforcement of our animal welfare laws. An ordinance is only as effective as our ability to quickly respond to complaints, investigate cases, follow through on violations, and prosecute cruelty cases. Prevention and education are important, but when animals are being abused or neglected, or when people are illegally breeding animals and contributing to the overpopulation that puts enormous pressure on our shelter system, we need strong and consistent enforcement. That means we must continue to support Animal Protection Officers and EPPD's Animal Cruelty Unit and make sure that both have the staffing, training, and resources necessary to do the work.

I have also supported strengthening the City's ordinances to give our Animal Protection Officers better tools to intervene when animals or people are at risk. In 2026, we established new local Aggressive Dog and Vicious Dog designations to fill important gaps in state law, allowing earlier intervention in threatening behavior and stronger action when dogs seriously injure or kill other animals.

This work is personal to me as well. My wife Nora and I share our home with our senior rescue dogs Wyck and Q, and frequently foster dogs from El Paso Animal Services. We also volunteer with Rescue Runners, an organization that recruits volunteers to get shelter dogs out of their kennels for walks and runs, where Nora serves on the board. Rescue Runners has also expanded that work through programs like Doggy Day Out, which provides opportunities for dogs to show their personalities outside the stressful shelter environment.

We also volunteer on animal transports and have built relationships with rescue organizations in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington that take adoptable dogs from El Paso and place them in communities with greater adoption capacity. Every few weeks, I am personally at the airport in the middle of the night helping load El Paso dogs onto a plane headed toward a new opportunity for adoption. It's not the glamorous side of public service, but it has given me a very direct understanding of how much work goes into saving individual animals and how important relationships beyond El Paso can be when our local system is overwhelmed.

I also think animal welfare belongs in the broader conversation about helping El Paso families. Pets are family members in households throughout our community. When someone loses a job, loses their housing, or simply cannot afford an unexpected expense, their animals experience that hardship too. Animals can't advocate for themselves, so we have a responsibility to make sure their needs aren't forgotten.

El Paso has made enormous progress from where our animal-welfare system was years ago, but the next stage requires us to keep moving beyond a shelter-centered model. The goal isn't simply to operate a better animal shelter, but to build a community in which fewer animals ever need one.

This is a hard topic to speak about, because I know that nobody wants to pay higher taxes in any given year. Not now; not ever. And trust me, I don’t want to raise them. Even selfishly, it’s clearly unpopular.

But I also don’t want El Paso to have the same tired budget conversation every August, year after year: costs have gone up, revenues haven’t kept pace, and once again we have to choose between raising taxes, dramatically cutting services, or putting off expenses that will catch up with us and be even more costly next year.

My goal has been to help put the City on a more sustainable financial path so that we can reduce that constant pressure over time. That requires controlling ongoing expenses, but it also requires recognizing that sometimes the financially responsible decision is to invest money wisely now to save money later.

Appropriately addressing deferred maintenance is a good example. We could save money in a given year’s budget by resurfacing fewer streets, postponing building repairs, or keeping aging equipment in service longer. But those needs don’t disappear. Streets deteriorate from needing regular resurfacing into much more expensive reconstruction projects. Buildings become more expensive to repair as they age even further. Old vehicles and equipment become increasingly costly to maintain and spend more time broken down. Saving a dollar today can easily create several dollars of costs tomorrow.

The same principle applies to the City’s own operations. Investments in energy efficiency and renewable generation at City facilities can reduce what taxpayers spend on electricity costs for decades. Modernizing technology and redesigning inefficient processes can reduce recurring costs and allow employees to provide better service without simply adding more staff every year. Strategic investments in our existing neighborhoods can generate new economic activity and taxable value using infrastructure taxpayers have already paid for instead of building it new at the outskirts of town.

I’ve also focused heavily on debt. The City recently went nearly two years without issuing new debt, while we have made early payments, refunded bonds when interest-rate savings were available, defeased outstanding obligations, and allowed other debt to mature. That has helped bring down both our outstanding obligations (by $300 million since 2022!) and the debt-service portion of the property tax rate. I want the City to continue moving away from using long-term borrowing to solve recurring problems, particularly for things like routine street resurfacing.

Of course, none of this means taxes will never have to increase. There is always economic uncertainty. Costs for wages, fuel, utilities, construction, insurance, public safety, and practically everything else the City purchases increase just like they do for families and businesses. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make those costs disappear. But continually cutting or deferring necessary investments in response can leave taxpayers with a much larger bill in the long run.

Like I said before, I understand that raising taxes isn’t popular. I don’t like asking people to pay more, particularly when household budgets are already stretched. When I vote for a tax increase, I think I owe taxpayers a much better explanation than simply saying that the City needs more money. The question should be what are we buying with it, why is it necessary, and does it put us in a better financial position in the years ahead?

That is how I approached the FY2027 budget. I supported making investments now where I believe they can address structural problems, protect the services residents expect, reduce deferred costs, and strengthen the City’s financial position rather than continuing to push difficult decisions into another budget year. And I presented the budget directly to my constituents; I didn’t hand the job of explaining it off to the City Manager or the CFO.

And of course, this investment has to be paired with discipline. We should continually examine programs and staffing, eliminate spending that isn’t producing enough value, manage vacancies responsibly, improve productivity, aggressively manage our debt, and grow the tax base so that the cost of City government isn’t continually falling more heavily on the same taxpayers.

The measure of success isn’t whether we can produce the lowest possible tax rate in any single year. A City Council can always make one year’s numbers look better by borrowing more, postponing maintenance, spending down reserves, or pushing expenses into the future. The real measure is whether we’re leaving the City in a stronger financial position than we found it.

That’s the direction I want us moving: away from managing our budget situation one crisis at a time and toward a City government that plans several years ahead, pays for recurring expenses with recurring revenue, maintains what taxpayers already own, reduces unnecessary debt, invests when an investment will lower future costs, and builds a stronger tax base.

The objective is a City that is financially strong enough that raising taxes doesn’t have to be the answer year after year, and we’ve done a heck of a lot to move in that direction over the past few years.

I believe the next chapter of Downtown revitalization should be less about searching for the next big project and more about implementing the vision we've already developed with the community.

During my first year on the City Council, I voted to adopt the Downtown, Uptown & Surrounding Neighborhoods Plan. It was developed with extensive input from residents, neighborhood associations, businesses, and other stakeholders, and it gives us a roadmap for a more livable urban core: substantially more housing, stronger neighborhood commercial areas, adaptive reuse of existing buildings, better sidewalks and public spaces, more trees and shade, improved connections between neighborhoods and transit, and new investment without displacement of existing residents.

Now the important part is continuing to implement it.

We've already invested enormously in Downtown and the surrounding urban core. During my term, La Nube and the Mexican American Cultural Center opened their doors, the Main Library returned to service after its major renovation, and we've continued investing in parks, streets, cultural amenities, and public spaces. The task now is connecting those investments and creating a place where substantially more people actually live, walk, work, shop, and spend time every day.

Housing is central to that. The Downtown plan identified demand for as many as 10,000 additional housing units by 2040, including a substantial need for affordable housing. We have vacant upper floors, underused commercial buildings, surface parking lots, and other redevelopment opportunities surrounded by streets, utilities, transit, parks, libraries, and other infrastructure taxpayers have already paid for. Turning those spaces into housing can bring new life and customers Downtown while accommodating growth without continually extending infrastructure farther into the desert.

One project I am particularly excited about is the redevelopment of the long-vacant Popular Building. I supported the City's agreement that helped make the project possible, which will bring 120 new homes and ground-floor commercial space into the heart of Downtown. But I see its significance as much larger than those 120 homes. Working through the financing, historic preservation, building-code, regulatory, and construction challenges on a project of this scale has created a blueprint for converting other vacant and underused Downtown buildings from commercial to residential use. The Popular can be a demonstration project that helps catalyze many more conversions across Downtown.

We've been pursuing that same philosophy elsewhere, including seeking adaptive reuse of City-owned properties in Union Plaza rather than assuming older buildings should simply be cleared away. We've also been working through zoning and parking reforms that can remove unnecessary obstacles to new housing. These aren't glamorous projects, but they're exactly the kind of implementation work required to turn a master plan into an actual neighborhood.

At the same time, revitalization cannot mean displacement. Downtown is surrounded by Segundo Barrio, Chihuahuita, Sunset Heights, Magoffin, and other neighborhoods with their own histories, identities, and residents. The plan itself recognizes that new investment has to be paired with preservation of affordability and strategies to prevent displacement. I successfully proposed the development of a broader Citywide anti-displacement framework to help put that principle into practice, because success cannot simply mean making neighborhoods more valuable and then forcing out the people who made them valuable in the first place.

And a successful Downtown depends just as much on the basics as it does on redevelopment. Clean sidewalks, dependable sanitation, well-maintained public spaces, shade and trees, good lighting, safe pedestrian connections, and reliable transit matter enormously. That's why, when the City's new agreement with the Downtown Management District came forward, I pushed back when I didn't believe Downtown sanitation was adequately funded and fought for the resources necessary to do the job properly. There is little point in spending millions creating great public spaces if we aren't willing to adequately fund the everyday work of taking care of them.

That vision for Downtown also informs my opposition to the proposed $1.3+ billion expansion of I-10 through the middle of the city. Downtown already has an enormous physical barrier running directly through it, separating Downtown from neighborhoods to the north. The proposed expansion would devote even more valuable land in the urban core to highway infrastructure, widen that divide, and work against years of effort to create a more walkable, connected Downtown. During my time on the Transportation Policy Board of the El Paso MPO, I opposed advancing this expansion and argued that our transportation investments in the core should focus instead on connecting neighborhoods, improving local mobility, and making it easier to move into and around Downtown without further enlarging the highway that divides it.

Downtown also needs activity throughout the week, not just during major events. That means continuing my focus on supporting small businesses and restaurants, filling vacant storefronts, strengthening arts and cultural organizations, programming our public spaces, and making our museums, libraries, cultural institutions, and other public investments reinforce one another. A successful Downtown should increasingly function as a neighborhood, not simply as a collection of destinations.

I represent Downtown and many of the neighborhoods surrounding it, so these questions aren't abstract to me. I hear directly from the people who live and run businesses here about sanitation, homelessness, parking, construction, vacant properties, safety, housing, events, and everything else that determines whether the core succeeds on an ordinary Tuesday rather than just during a major festival.

We've done much of the expensive work of building major public assets Downtown. We also now have a community-developed plan telling us where the urban core should go next. My focus is on continuing to work through its implementation: more housing and occupied buildings, adaptive reuse instead of vacancy, stronger small businesses, clean and inviting streets and public spaces, more trees and shade, historic buildings returned to productive use, and continued investment in neighborhoods in the core without displacing the people who already call them home.

That's how I think we continue turning years of individual Downtown investments into something greater than the sum of their parts.

One of the most important traits of a good elected official is to make government easier for the public to see, understand, and influence. During my term, I have put a lot of effort into opening up the work of City Hall: explaining complicated decisions in plain language, creating opportunities for people to participate before decisions are made, making myself directly accessible to constituents, and asking questions publicly even when doing so makes the process less comfortable.

That also means putting in the work necessary to provide meaningful oversight. In addition to my regular City Council responsibilities, I serve on the City's Financial Oversight and Audit Committee, as a trustee of the City of El Paso Employees Retirement Trust and member of its Investment Committee, as Chair of the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee, and as the City's representative on the El Paso Continuum of Care. I also spent three years on the Transportation Policy Board of the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization. I have chosen to take on that additional workload because Council members cannot provide serious oversight of complicated institutions without investing the time to understand how they actually work.

I have also made explaining decisions a routine part of the job. I regularly publish detailed information about issues coming before the Council, hold community meetings where residents can question me and City staff directly, meet with neighborhood and community organizations, and explain my votes afterward. On major issues, I have deliberately sought public engagement while there was still an opportunity for that input to affect the outcome.

That transparency matters most when an issue is difficult. I don't think elected officials should disappear when a decision becomes controversial or communicate only about the votes that are easy. And when a decision turns out differently than expected, accountability requires acknowledging that too. New information and changing circumstances sometimes require changing course. I would rather explain myself openly and act on what I've learned.

Accessibility is another essential part of accountability. My office has handled thousands of constituent contacts and service requests, but I have never wanted constituent service to exist only through an email inbox. I hold regular District 8 community meetings and Café con Chris open house events at local coffee shops, attend neighborhood association meetings, and provide other opportunities for people to talk to me directly. I communicate extensively online and make it easy to contact me through a wide variety of methods. You shouldn't have to hire a lobbyist, know somebody at City Hall, or make a campaign contribution to get your City Representative's attention.

Financial accountability has been a particular focus of mine. My work on the Financial Oversight and Audit Committee and the Employees Retirement Trust gives me an opportunity to examine City finances and long-term obligations in considerably greater detail. During my term, the City has continued receiving clean independent audits, while we've worked to reduce outstanding debt, refinance or retire obligations when financially advantageous, strengthen financial controls, and scrutinize how public dollars are being used. I take seriously the obligation to understand where taxpayer money is going rather than treating financial oversight as something that happens only during the annual budget vote.

Independence is also so important to me. I don't believe my job is to automatically support a recommendation because it comes from City staff, the Mayor, another elected official, a major employer, a developer, a utility, or any powerful interest. My responsibility is to evaluate the information, listen to the people affected, ask questions, and make the decision I believe is best for El Paso. Sometimes that puts me in the majority and sometimes it doesn't.

I've tried to apply that same principle to my campaign. Texas law places no limit on how much an individual can contribute to a City Council candidate, but I have voluntarily placed restrictions on the contributions I will accept both in my last election and in this one. I believe candidates should hold themselves to a higher standard when doing so strengthens public confidence in their independence, and I put that belief into practice.

Of course, none of this means I expect everyone to agree with me on everything. In fact, I know they won't. Accountability means making it easy for everyone to know what you believe, what you did, and why you did it. I’m totally fine with people judging my decisions on their merits and according to their own beliefs. My hope is that we agree more often than we disagree, and I always try to find that common ground.

The standard I've tried to maintain throughout my term is this: provide serious oversight, make myself accessible, seek public input, clearly explain my decisions, acknowledge when my decisions don’t work out as expected, and always exercise independent judgment that is also informed by what a majority of my constituents think. That's how I believe representative government should work, and that's the standard I intend to continue holding myself to.