The Civic Engagement Alliance held a Mayoral Forum at 5:30 p.m. last Tuesday with candidates Ramiro Garza and Gilbert Enriquez at the Student Union, theatre and online through zoom to allow the running politicians to address concerns of the UTRGV Community.
The event was moderated by Vice President of Education for the Civic Engagement Alliance Samuel Valdez. The event began with introductions from both candidates.
Mayoral candidate Ramiro Garza introduced himself first. After thanking the Civic Engagement Alliance, he mentioned his origins in Brownsville where he graduated from what is now UTRGV in Brownsville with a bachelor’s and master’s in business administration at 23.
Garza also mentioned some of his experiences
“Since arriving in Edinburg in the year 2000, I was hired as Executive Director of the Edinburg Economic Development Cooperation. In that role, I was responsible for helping bring in businesses to the community…I was also appointed to serve in the State Association: Texas Economic Development Council which I’m very proud of cause I was 28 years old…I was one of the youngest to get appointed to that.”
According to Garza, he was also City Manager for Edinburg from 2009-2015 where he worked with both the Mayor and City Council to manage the day-to-day operations.
Mayoral Candidate Gilbert Enriquez then was given the chance to introduce himself in the forum.
Enriquez started his introduction by thanking the Civic Engagement Alliance. He then proceeded to inform the audience that he has an accounting degree from UTRGV legacy campus UT Pan-American in 1995.
Once Enriquez obtained his degree, he began working at his family’s construction company. He then began to describe his previous public service.
“In 2000, I ran for the Edinburg School Board. I was 26 years old and I was elected. I was the youngest ever to be elected…I was on the planning and zoning commission, I was on the Board of Adjustment commission for the city of Edinburg, I was on the VAMOS board, I currently sit on the Make-A-Wish Board…”
Once introductions were done, Valdez began the question and response portion of the forum. The first question asked was what steps would the candidates take to ensure that future opportunities that are given to Brownsville students are also available to the students in Edinburg?
Enriquez responded first.
“ One of the things that I would say is that of course, collaboration is important… it’s important that all the elected officials get together and come up with ideas, come up with the resources, so we can provide to the students of UTRGV.”
Garza also got the chance to respond to the question and started by going over his previous work as the founder of Rio South Texas Economic Council.
“Those experience[s], I am gonna use to help as your mayor to come up with an MOU…come up with a memorandum of understanding between the city of Edinburg and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and all the cities in the region so that we ensure that we make available resources…”
Valdez asked the candidates about the systematic challenges and infrastructure issues that both the Edinburg and UTRGV communities face today.
Garza had this to say.
“[I] don’t think we have too many people engaged in our community, in our process and I believe we as government are at fault for that… I think by having the citizen engagement process will help address that and become a part of our planning for the future.”
Enriquez believes that growing the city through industry can help infrastructure.
“A few of your challenges is, of course, your high-paying jobs. We need to create higher paying jobs for our residents, for our students who are graduating and for our existing residents.”
After a question and answer portion of the event where the candidates answered questions from the community, Valdez gave each candidate a chance to give their closing remarks starting with Enriquez
“I’m very passionate about my public service…this isn’t something I am doing to move up the political ladder, I don’t have any political ambitions other than serving the people of Edinburg as Mayor.”
Garza then followed up.
“I think our common goal should be to help our community get back on track… but if we’re going to compete and make these opportunities available, we can’t let the same old politics hold us back.”
Early voting for the Mayoral election starts Oct. 18th.
To watch the forum in its entirety, visit the UTRGV Student Life Facebook Page.
This is Rodolfo Alvarado for Vaquero Radio, the valley’s student station.
