By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Carmen Gutierrez has won the runoff election for the Councilperson At-Large, Place A, seat on the Del Rio City Council.
Gutierrez, a retired state transportation department administrator and small business owner, decisively bested her opponent Elsa Reyes, a former city administrator, by 208 votes.
Unofficial results of the city council runoff election were announced outside the historic Val Verde County Courthouse Saturday, less than an hour after the polls had closed.
County Clerk Teresa Esther Chapoy, who conducted the election for the city, stood outside the courthouse doors with City Secretary Mari Acosta, who read the results.
A total of 1,017 ballots were cast in the runoff. Gutierrez had an unofficial total of 608 votes, with Reyes posting an unofficial total of 400 votes. There were nine blank ballots cast.
Reyes congratulated Gutierrez after the results were read, and the two women embraced and shared a brief conversation.
After receiving congratulations from family members and friends, Gutierrez said, “There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of emotions, going through my mind right now. Yes, I ran because I wanted it. I was in it to win it. But with that comes a responsibility, and I take all my responsibilities very seriously. I definitely want to do the best job I can to represent everyone.
“On a recent radio show, I stated that the most important quality a councilperson can bring to the council is to listen. We need to listen to our citizens. A lot of them have more answers than we do, and they can help us, and I believe that working together with our citizens, all the city council, and our other local government entities, we can move this city forward,” Gutierrez said.
Earlier in the evening, as the two candidates waited for the announcement of the election results, Gutierrez spoke about her campaign.
“First of all, what I can say is praise to God that we made it this far. My campaign was a machine – is a machine – and a group of very passionate people that care about me. As I’ve said before, as many people know, I’m from Laredo, so I really don’t have any kinfolk here. My husband has a lot, but we have a lot of friends that to us are family, and these are mostly older people.
“So I was very concerned about the heat and the medications a lot of them are taking, so that’s why I was very disappointed that we didn’t take the first election. We worked so hard on that. I didn’t want to go into a runoff because I knew June heat would kill us, and it almost did. We actually had two (campaign staffers) who ended up going to the hospital. They’re fine.
“I couldn’t have done this without all the fabulous people that worked on my campaign,” Gutierrez added.
“I have to thank the voters also. It’s hard to come out for – what is this? – the fourth election so far this year. It’s hard, especially when you have an opponent that has very good skills. So it was hard, and I’m also very thankful that the Elsa Reyes campaign has been so good. She and I have friends through several organizations that we are both involved in, and I could never say anything negative about her because we’ve worked together successfully, and I look forward to continuing to work with her on future projects to promote the city,” Gutierrez said.
Reyes, too, spoke about her campaign.
“It was good, a real learning experience. I promised myself when I ran that I wouldn’t do what I see some candidates here doing. I don’t like the ugliness, and Carmen thanked me earlier for keeping the campaign clean. Even when people would say things to me, I wouldn’t give in to the conversation because that isn’t what this was about. We are both just wanting to help our community, and it’s like she said, we each have our own reasons for wanting to do this, and I think that because I worked there (at the city) so long, there are a lot of missed opportunities, things as a council member I could put in the city manager’s ear to work on to make our community a little better,” Reyes said.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
