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HARLINGEN — The race is on for three city commission seats in Nov. 5 elections calling on voters to consider one of the city’s most sweeping revisions of its City Charter.
Earlier this week, commissioners called the elections, contracting with Cameron County to conduct the commission’s election along with a special election whose ballot includes 19 proposed charter amendments.
During a meeting, Elections Administrator Remi Garza, who hadn’t finalized the county’s charge, told commissioners the city’s cost will likely fall below those of previous elections.
In the first of the city’s new November elections, Commissioners Michael Mezmar, Frank Morales and Rene Perez will likely face challengers while voters will decide the fate of propositions including a proposal to give the mayor a vote on the commission.
“We’re modernizing our City Charter,” Perez, the city’s mayor pro tem, said Thursday. “This is just giving the people the opportunity to decide.”
In District 3, Mezmar, a financial analyst, is running for his fifth term for the seat he’s held since 2013.
In District 4, Morales, who’s semi-retired after working as a salesman, is running for a second term to the post he won in 2021.
Meanwhile, Perez, a schoolteacher, is running for his second term in District 5.
In the special election, voters will decide the fate of 19 charter amendments which commissioners approved last month following a six-member Charter Review Committee’s recommendations.
On the ballot, voters will decide whether the mayor gets a vote on the commission for the first time in the city’s history.
Proponents argue many cities give mayors a vote.
On the ballot, Proposition 5 will ask voters if “the mayor of the city may vote and both make and second motions as can every other member of the commission.”
After months of debate, the Charter Review Committee, whose members commissioners appointed, recommended the amendment because the mayor, in the city made up of five single-member voting districts, “is the only elected representative who represents the city at-large,” Delia Avila, a committee member, told commissioners during a meeting last month.
Meanwhile, giving the mayor a vote would offer residents insight into the mayor’s stance on issues, she said.
“The mayor’s vote can become part of the voting record and therefore be held more accountable for their voting record, thereby giving more transparency,” Avila told commissioners.
Among the proposed charter amendments, Proposition 2 would increase the city’s early voting hours, aligning them with Cameron County’s extended hours, helping to boost voter turnout, Perez said in an interview.
“The election hours for early voting shall, at a minimum, be consistent with Cameron County election hours for the same day,” the proposition’s language reads.
Meanwhile, Proposition 3 would require candidates running for the city’s elected offices be current on property tax payments at the time they file to run for election.
The proposition prohibits “any elected or appointed official, employee of the city of Harlingen or candidate for elected office of the city of Harlingen at the time of the filing deadline for running for elected office from being delinquent in any indebtedness to the city.”
“The mayor and city commissioners, other appointed officers and employees shall not be delinquent in any indebtedness to the city,” the proposed charter amendment reads. “In no event shall any candidate for the city commission be delinquent in any indebtedness to the city, including the payment of ad valorem taxes, at the time of the filing deadline for running for city office.”
Now, the charter states “the mayor, city commissioners and other officers and employees shall not be indebted to the city, except for ad valorem taxes and other indebtedness incurred in the ordinary course of city government, with such ad valorem taxes and other indebtedness to be paid but in no event later than the deadline for filing for office (otherwise constituting a disqualifying indebtedness hereunder).”
Proposition 4 requires city commission candidates live within the districts for which they’re running for at least a year before elections.
The proposed charter amendment would “require candidates for city commission from single-member districts to have resided in the district for at least one year prior to the election.”
Now, the charter requires candidates live in districts for at least six months prior to elections.
The city’s charter revision marked the first since 2006.
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