On March 7, Former Mayor Pat Ahumada went before the city commission and accused them of keeping him off of the May 6 Mayoral Ballot all while the The City Commission are denying the accusations.
During the March 7 City Commission meeting’s public comment section, Ahumada aired his grievances against the City Commission of Brownsville. He spoke for three minutes over what he perceived to be an injustice done against him by enacting term limit charter amendments.
He claims that the City Commission purposefully kept him from being on the ballot for Mayor during the May 6 election and implored the citizen’s of Brownsville to protest the election and write him in as a candidate for mayor.
“On May 1, 2021 Term Limit Charter Amendment was held with 40,254 votes for term limits out of 99,607 registered voters in a population of 187,231. I’m sure the majority did not fully understand how this would allow the city to go back 32 years to bar me from running for mayor,” Ahumada said.
Ahumada, who served as mayor of Brownsville from 1991 to 1994 and 2007 to 2011, outlined the chain of events that kept him from being elected from his point of view as well as his own accomplishments as mayor. These events ranged from city Commission being unresponsive to him, to him writing letters to claiming he would be eligible to never respond once this was done to saying that due to time, he would not be on the ballot. He implored the people of Brownsville to not vote for proposition due to his situation and not elect the commissioners related to special interests, citing district 2 specifically.
“…You can protest the May 6 2023 mayoral election by writing in Pat Ahumada for mayor, or writing in Mickey Mouse or whoever you want,” Ahumada said. “I do urge voters to vote against all propositions, because we’ve seen how the city uses term limit propositions to disqualify legitimate candidacy, mine. Do vote for commissioners district 2 and at large, by voting for candidates not connected to special interest”.
City Commissioner of District 3 Roy De Los Santos, who filed a complaint against Ahumada to the Brownsville Ethics Board, spoke on his issues with the former mayor and his incredulity at the event. He spoke about the futility of Ahumada’s attempts to be mayor and how even if he did get the write in, he would be ineligible to be mayor again due to the term limits enacted which means that Ahumada former mayorship would prohibit him from doing so.
“Everyone else, this law applies to, it applies to everyone evenly. If I serve a second term, i’ll be termed out after my second term as well but it seems like Pat Ahumada wants to be above the law,” De Los Santos said.
He would also say that Ahumada failed to file the proper paperwork to be a write-in candidate and that he would be ineligible, irregardless of term limit laws as well as the fact that he is campaigning despite having not appointed a treasurer, which is illegal in Texas.
Mayoral Candidate Jessica Tetraeu is the current commissioner of District 2 and previously defeated Pat Ahumada in an election for the position. Tetraeu also won her position as city commissioner by being a write-in candidate and was against the enacting of term limits. She speaks on the implications of him running and how it would affect the people of Brownsville.
“All of the judges struck it down. He was trying to impede and stop the election and it was struck down by the judges,” Tetreau said. “It’s unfair to the voters to believe that they are electing a mayor on a full term, without disclosing that if he does win, now that we know write-in candidates are possible, that if he does win, there would have to be an election for a new mayor,” Tetreau said.
She would also speak on his statements against her.
“I read somewhere that my name spilled out with other names and that we were trying to stop him from running because we were afraid of him. He ran against me last time and I won without a run off. That absolutely is not the situation, I think it’s very unfair and almost slanderous to say things like that,” Tetreau said.
Vaquero Radio reached out to Pat Ahumada for comment but have not heard back.
Despite Ahumada being unable to be legally on the ballot, the May 6 Mayoral Election is still coming up. Early voting opens up on April 24 and will continue until May 2. For more information on candidates, visit the Brownsville City Website.
