City Council District VIII candidate Alyssa Cigarroa and District VII candidate Vanessa Perez — both refreshingly new to local politics — have won their respective seats. Police officer Ruben Gutierrez Jr. has won his bid, too, for the District V seat.
Cigarroa, whose campaign was hallmarked by an admirable and thorough hands-on, grass roots effort to define the needs of District VIII, trounced Council member Roberto Balli with 84.35 percent (2,565 votes) of the vote to the incumbent’s 15.65 percent (476 votes). Cigarroa made history in the Nov. 3 General Election, prevailing as a write-in candidate to make it to today’s runoff.
Perez, a retired school teacher, beat former Mayor Betty Flores with 69.96 percent (1,344 votes) of the vote to Flores’ 30.04 percent (577 votes).
Gutierrez Jr. took the District V race by 173 votes, unseating incumbent Nelly Vielma, an attorney. Gutierrez came in with 63.45 percent of the vote to Vielma’s 46.56 percent.
In the race for Laredo College Place 7, City of Laredo employee Karina Elizondo outdistanced LISD employee Ricardo Gonzalez with 65.52 percent (5,056 votes) to Gonzalez’s 34.48 percent (2,635 votes.)
Winners Cigarroa and Perez, who were not funded by the quid pro quo largesse of the Laredo Firefighters Union Political Action Committee, fared far better than their opponents who took PAC money to fund their campaigns.
Conversely, Gutierrez, who has received over $23,000 from the Fire PAC and $9,430 in LPOA contributions, was able to launch a campaign to unseat Vielma, the popular, progressive, and very effective representative of District V. Vielma was not a recipient of Fire Union PAC money.
Balli has received more than $41,000 from the Fire Union PAC from August 2016 to the present and over $11,000 in contributions from the Laredo Police Officers Association (LPOA).
Flores took more than $21,000 in Fire PAC contributions to her campaign, as well as an LPOA contribution.
