By Edgar Garcia
In 12 days, early voting will open up for the Brownsville Mayoral Election. With sitting Mayor Trey Mendez not running for reelection, the city of Brownsville is guaranteed a new mayor. Four Candidates are campaigning for the position, each with their own ideas of what changes Brownsville needs.
The four candidates are Erasmo Castro, Jennifer Stanton, Jessica Tetreau and John Cowen. Former Mayor Pat Ahumada is also running but is ineligible for election. All of them are vying for the seat for Mayor of Brownsville and have their own goals for the city, whether it be clearing out corruption, removing current sitting officials from power or improving the cities economy and investments.
Erasmo Castro is running for Mayor. His campaign, in his own words, focuses mainly on removing entrenched members from their positions on various boards across Brownsville and cleaning up corruption. He spoke about his motivation to run for mayor and the direction Brownsville is moving in.
“I’m running because I feel like the direction that our city has been going in the past so many years has not been a road that benefits the citizens of Brownsville as a whole. I fear that slowly, they’ve been chipping away at the resources that should go to everyone and they’ve been funneling the resources to a selective few,” Castro said.
Incidents such as the Tenaska project, is in his words, are indicative of the corruption of Brownsville. He hopes to remove from power the PUB board, BISD boards and others for their alleged involvement in the Tenaska incident.
Jennifer Stanton is also running for Mayor of Brownsville. One of the few candidates running without previous political experience, she has a good deal of business experience, running, owning and working for multiple businesses. She used to own Monroe Vapor before it closed its doors and is currently running Karma’s Pride Cleaning Services.
She is running in due to seeing the corruption within the politics of Brownsville and hopes that with other people running, that this can be stopped. She spoke about her reasoning and how new politicians may be necessary to stop the corruption within Brownsville.
“I’m running because of the fact that I see all the corruption and politicians here. And it’s the same people that have been there for years. And I know if somebody new and new commissioners don’t step in, we’re going to have the same corrupt politics and nothing is going to get fixed in our city,” Stanton said.
Should she be elected, she hopes to fix the light system, synchronizing them for easier and faster travel as well as improving maintenance for the roads. Her overarching goal is to balance Brownsville’s budget and root out corruption.
John Cowen is the current Brownsville City Commissioner at large and has been so for the last 4 years. He spoke about what being a commissioner has meant to him and how being Mayor is the next step for him.
“It’s been the greatest honor of my life to serve as commissioner and, you know, and I think since the current mayor is not running, I saw it as an opportunity to serve the city at the highest level,” Cowen said.
He hopes to move the city forward if elected, create a more professional city and have an open door policy with the citizens of Brownsville. He also hopes that he can continue to bring investment into the city, something that he says he’s done a great deal over his past time as Commisioner.
Jessica Tetreau was unable to be reached for an interview.
Early voting starts April 24 and runs until May 2. The general election will be held on May 6. For more information, visit the Brownsville government website.
