The mayoral election is headed to a runoff.
Renard Johnson faces Brian Kennedy.
Mr. Johnson has offered a laundry list of promises. Here’s what the Renard Johnson Campaign promised me via text message on the day of the election:
Lower property taxes.
Better jobs for our youth.
A real plan to fix our roads.
More Recreation, Entertainment, and Quality of Life.
Improved Public Safety
And so much more!
It looks like a five-year-old’s Christmas wish list. I bet if you asked him he’d promise to throw in a pony.
His campaign website even promises to make El Paso the Safest City in the Nation, because number five isn’t good enough.
Really? Being the fifth safest city in the country isn’t good enough? Do you know anyone in El Paso who worries about Public Safety? Anyone who’s afraid to walk in their neighborhood at night, or sleeps with a claw hammer under their pillow?
(Public Safety consumes 58% of the City’s General Fund expenditures, yet a lot of the candidates like to talk about Public Safety as a sop to the police and fireman’s unions. The unions vote. En masse.)
How will Mr. Johnson fulfill all his promises and lower property taxes? He’ll tell you that he will attract industry, and those new industries will contribute to our tax base, shifting the burden from residential to commercial properties.
That’s the same rationale that previous politicians used to sell us all those money pit boondoggles that have driven up our property taxes.
What he won’t tell you is that the only way to attract industry to El Paso is by offering them tax incentives, because no business wants to move into one of the most heavily taxed communities in the country, even if that community has Triple A baseball and water parks.
El Chuqueño doesn’t endorse candidates because I’ve had my heart broken enough. But I can recognize a bullshitter when I see one, and Renard Johnson is a bullshitter.
But he’s not very good at it.
Remember when Dee Margo was campaigning on the promise to “Hold the Line” on taxes, when what he ended up doing was holding our heads underwater?
Mr. Margo supports Mr. Johnson. What more do you need to know?
“More Recreation, Entertainment and Quality of Life,” caught my eye. How can a Mayor make such a promise? You are right, this looks like a Bullshitter’s List of shiny objects to attract votes. Well articulated Rich. Keep up the good work that you do.
And, just now, to make it even more clear to me, I see that Joyce Wilson has written an opinion piece for El Paso Matters that endorses Mr. Johnson. IMHO, that is akin to the kiss of death. I couldn’t vote for him now if he was running unopposed.