By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Alejandra “Alex” Hernandez is seeking election to the position of mayor on the Del Rio City Council.
Hernandez was born and raised in Del Rio. She graduated from Del Rio High School in 2000. Hernandez said her family migrated to Minnesota and worked in the fields, adding as a child she often saw her parents helping others.
Hernandez joined the military after graduating from high school, enlisting in the Texas National Guard.
After serving in the Texas National Guard, she became an active-duty member of the U.S. Army, where she worked as a military police officer. She was deployed to Iraq where she worked with military detainees.
Hernandez said she served in the National Guard and U.S. Army for about 11 years.
When she left military service, Hernandez said she was unsure of what to do next with her life, but said she knew she wanted to help people, a resolve strengthened after she went through a domestic violence situation.
When she returned to Del Rio, she began working as a property supervisor at the county detention center, then moved to Killeen, Texas, for a time.
Returning home, she worked for an armored truck company, then took a job as an administrative assistant for the Del Rio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Today, Hernandez said she “devotes myself to serving the community.”
“I help homeless veterans. I help them in whatever way I can . . . I look for organizations that can help me with these individuals. If I don’t have a way to help them, I send them to someone who can,” she said.
Hernandez said she became interested in running for public office when she began helping former Congressman Pete Gallego with his campaign.
“I started seeing that if you’re not political, you can’t help your veterans because if the congressman doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t know to change things,” Hernandez said.
She said she decided to run for public office to further the voice of veterans.
Hernandez said one of her proudest accomplishments is lobbying in Washington, D.C., to change language in the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). The bill was passed into law after Congress overrode a veto by former President Barack Obama. She also successfully lobbied in Austin for the Hazlewood Act to benefit veterans and their children.
Hernandez is also proud of an annual slate of community activities in which she participates, including serenading residents at local nursing homes at Christmas, visiting local schools and the Comstock ISD to provide free vision and hearing screenings to more than 5,000 children per year and doing highway cleanups with her children.
On her campaign Facebook page, Hernandez listed the following as “international, state, district and local boards I’ve had the honor to continuously serve and advocate: Lions Kerrville Heart of the Hills vice president, Lions Del Rio Host secretary, membership and director, District 2A2 Leo advisor, Sight and Research Foundation board of director, VFW Texas State student liaison, domestic violence advocate, veterans advocate, special needs advocate and honor guard.”
“You should vote for me because I’m going to prioritize the citizens. The priority is the citizens and the constituents. That’s the priority. Right now, there’s funding that needs to be allocated and priorities. Everyday, I go into the minutes and the recordings, and I educate myself, on everything, and I see who voted on what, what happened, where the funding came from, where it was allocated, what wasn’t done,” Hernandez said.
“When Robert Garza was in office, our roads started getting constructed. All of a sudden, it stopped. So that’s something that I’m looking into because there’s a lot of places where the roads are really bad. I know everybody says, ‘we’re going to fix the roads, we’re going to fix the roads;’ well, Robert Garza was the person that was fixing the roads. Yet it was stopped,” she added.
“Now, the sewer lines. Everything’s moving out to the north. The sewer lines are over capacitated. That’s why when there was snow and all that stuff, we couldn’t flush the toilets. Those pipes need to be replaced, and they need to get bigger. They need to be enlarged,” Hernandez said.
“I humbly ask for your support. I will do everything to represent your interests and achieve our goals and ideals. If you empower me with your confidence, I will bear true faith, be an accessible voice and always be in allegiance to the Constitution. I believe a good leader knows their constituents, but a great leader stands with them even if it means standing against strong foes. It’s time for action not division,” she added.
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Contact the author at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
