La Joya school board election ruled void

EDINBURG — The La Joya school board’s May elections were “anything but free and fair” and voters deserve a do-over, a judge ruled Friday.

District Court Judge Fred Hinojosa said illegal votes were counted in the race and misconduct by election workers at a Palmview polling station made the true results of the district-wide election impossible to determine.

His ruling is believed to be the first of its kind in Hidalgo County. Hinojosa set a Feb. 16 date for a new contest between Team USA slate-mates Esperanza “Espie” Ochoa and Arturo Gonzalez and their opponents, Elma Garza and Domingo “Mingo” Villarreal, friends of La Joya Mayor Bill Leo.

Attorneys for Gonzalez and Ochoa, who were declared winners in May and have served on the board for the last five months, promised to appeal the decision.

Hinojosa issued a stay on his verdict, leaving Ochoa and Gonzalez officially in office, until the appeals court issues a ruling.

If the higher court upholds the ruling, Hinojosa and County Elections Administrator Teresa Navarro will supervise the new election. Navarro said she would use her own employees as poll workers, rather than the politically connected poll judges who have overseen past contests.

Hinojosa, similarly, was intent to maintain order in his packed court Friday, prefacing his ruling by imposing strict silence and warning that the extra deputies stationed throughout the room would take disruptive spectators into custody.

Navarro said after the proceedings that she was “very proud of the judge.”

“He sent a message,” she said. “He was a little bit angry … about elections everywhere in the county.”

Celebration and sour grapes

The icy relationship between members of the two factions was on full display outside the courtroom Friday and in separate group meetings afterward.

Supporters of Garza and Villarreal celebrated the outcome of the two-week trial and cheered former county judge Ramon Garcia, who argued their case.

“The people over there need to know what’s going on,” said Alicia Requeñez, a former school board member. “The people need to know the election was run illegally.”

Members of Team USA, which has held a 5-2 majority on the board since May, said they weren’t surprised by Hinojosa’s ruling.

“I knew it was a political web,” Ochoa said.

“We knew this would be the outcome,” echoed Adam Poncio, the attorney for Ochoa and Gonzalez. “I didn’t think we could win here, politically.”

While they brooded over the outcome, La Joya’s Mayor Leo expressed jubilation.

He broke several years ago with state Rep. Kino Flores, D-Palmview, and has been fighting to maintain his power in western Hidalgo County.

“I tell you, it’s going to turn things around,” Leo said of the ruling. “Those people who lied on the stand should go to jail.”

Passing by, school board president Rita Garza-Uresti told him, “They should do that to your wife.”

Filomena Leo was superintendent of the La Joya school district but resigned in exchange for a monetary settlement last year after the school board approved a legal investigation into her job performance.

Also in the courtroom Friday were embattled former Hidalgo County district clerk Omar Guerrero and his wife, Karina. The couple was there support of Garza and Villarreal, as was Sandra Rodriguez, who kicked off her election campaign for state representative against Kino Flores on Thursday night.

Nursing bad blood

Old wounds are still raw for politicos on both sides of the court case.

Lucretio Flores, the onetime-manager of La Joya Water Supply Corp., said he blames Kino Flores for the loss of his job and the reformulation of the beleaguered utility corporation.

“I’m going to work like hell to get him out,” Lucretio Flores said.

The case was also partly personal for Garcia, the former county judge.

“One of the reasons I accepted this case were the results when I ran in that particular box,” he said, referring to his unsuccessful campaign to keep his seat as county judge in 2006.

The Palmview voting numbers “just didn’t add up,” he said. “More votes were coming out of Peñitas and E.B. Reyna (Elementary School in Palmview) than out of the bigger cities.”

Kino Flores’s wife, Debra, said she and her husband supported candidates to challenge Mayor Leo for control of the school board because he was overlooking children.

“He’s lost his power,” she said. “Now he wants to disenfranchise people.”

Kino and Debra Flores adamantly defended Palmview City Secretary Aida Rivas, the election judge in Palmview whose actions during the school board election were the subject of much of the testimony in the case.

“Aida did nothing wrong,” Kino Flores said.

School board president Garza-Uresti said she was angry the election had been overturned.

“If it’s going to be that easy from now on, wow. Why even bother having an election?”

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Sara Perkins covers Mission, western Hidalgo County, Starr County and general assignments for The Monitor.