Mayoral candidate Renard Johnson, whose brother and former business partner was federally indicted in a $3 million Ponzi scheme, has repeatedly promised he will lower our property tax even though he plans to increase spending by at least $1 billion.
Renard has many powerful supporters who have an interest in seeing him elected, including Veronica Escobar, Beto O’Rourke, Ricardo Samaniego, Dee Margo, Joyce Wilson, nearly all the big developers and their bankers and attorneys and, of course, Cassandra Hernandez.
HERNANDEZ ENDORSES RENARD
Hernandez has the worst fiscal record in the history of City Council, having voted for six property tax increases, nearly $400 million in certificates of obligation, and every insolvent project that crossed her desk, including the Arena, Great Wolf Lodge, TIRZ 13, and the Community Progress Bond.
You name it. She voted for it.
She has always favored higher taxation, famously declaring in a City Council meeting: “It would be in our best interests, including every taxing entity, to ensure that all of the homes are being appraised at a higher level so that we can see more valuations and more tax revenue.”
If that were not enough, Hernandez stole thousands of dollars of gasoline from the taxpayers of El Paso, resulting in a Letter of Reprimand from the Ethics Review Commission. She spent $6,691 on her gas card in 2022 alone, repeatedly lent it to her husband, and lied about it to the media. The Letter affirms she used her position “to secure unwarranted privileges for [herself], relatives or others” and that the misuse of her gas card was “intentional.”
It is no surprise that she won only 10.35% of the vote in her recent bid for Mayor even though she served on City Council for well over seven years. But her plan was never to win…
Her true purpose, assigned to her by the Oligarchs, was to attack Brian Kennedy in order to support Renard Johnson, whom she never once criticized during the entire course of her political campaign.
Immediately after her defeat, not only did Hernandez enthusiastically endorse Renard, but Renard proudly publicized the endorsement, going so far as to brag about it in a recent mailer.
That is because Renard is cut from the same fabric as Gassandra.
He is a tax-and-spend progressive with the same nefarious agenda and no compunction for the suffering of the taxpayers. That Renard would seek her endorsement speaks volumes about what we should expect if he were to prevail in December.
BOB MOORE AND TEAM RENARD
Bob Moore, the founder and CEO of El Paso Matters, is the only newsperson among our local media who would permit Hernandez to publish a ranting, libelous screed only 10 days before early voting for the Runoff Election, and that is precisely what he did.
Hernandez, that paragon of virtue, takes aim at Kennedy without a shred of honesty, alleging that he “faced multiple allegations of cultivating an environment conducive to sexual harassment, gender discrimination and consistently seemed to prioritize personal gain over public good.”
Though arrested for shoplifting and reprimanded for stealing City gasoline, she has the hubris to accuse Kennedy of ethical lapses!
Her parade of lies is easy to debunk, but Moore and his opinion editor are apparently uninterested in presenting their readers with factual information. This is obvious to anyone possessing even a modest capacity for critical analysis.
Only three days after the Hernandez screed, Moore published the umpteenth tirade from Joyce Wilson targeting Kennedy. As before, there is no fact-checking of her assertions, such as that Renard “employs hundreds of people” or that Kennedy “milked the county for nearly $3 million of taxpayers’ money.” She is permitted to bloviate ad nauseum and slander Renard’s political opponents.
We are talking about the City Manager who blew up City Hall and the Insights Museum, built an insolvent ballpark without voter authorization, botched the rollout of the Quality of Life Bond, and left the City with only nine days of reserve operating funds when she left office.
But what about Renard? Did El Paso Matters probe his record at METI and question him about his federally indicted brother and business partner? Of course not.
You see, ever since his tenure at the El Paso Times, Moore has stood morbidly close to Escobar, Beto, Ortega and their clique of supporters. He would never take aim at Renard, the sacred cow of the progressive elites and their RINO allies.
Rather, “El Paso Matters Staff” (aka Bob Moore) published a report aiming to establish that whatever Renard might have done wrong, such as firing a Hispanic employee who complained about racial discrimination, Kennedy was just as bad, or worse.
Let’s not forget that since its incorporation in 2019, El Paso Matters has received large contributions from our local billionaires, Hunt and Foster, as well as from WestStar Bank, with smaller donations from Ortega, Houghton, Beto, Escudero, Shapleigh, and Yellen.
What we find truly reprehensible, beyond that El Paso Matters drips with political bias, is the fact that other local news outlets regularly run their material instead of deploying their own journalists to cover local politics.
The good news is that whatever happens in the upcoming Runoff Election–whether Kennedy wins or our City is delivered to rapacious vultures–the scourge of Gassandra will come to an end January 7, 2025, in precisely 42 days, after which Wilson or one of her friends will place her in a well-paying job.