As we close out the year, we wanted to take a moment to review what we covered, uncovered and reported in 2023 that sets the tone for the three upcoming elections in 2024 that our readers found important to read. The first election in 2024 is on January 20. It is the runoff election between Josh Acevedo and Verónica Carbajal to take the District 2 seat at city council. The winner will have to run again in the November 5 election if they want to keep their seat. The second important election date is the March 5 Primaries where most of El Paso’s election contests will be settled. That election will be followed on November 5 where the next president will be elected. In addition to the presidential election, several city council seats will be open to candidates. They are Districts 2, 3, 4, 7 and the mayor’s seat.
Oscar Leeser, Cassandra Hernandez (3) and Henry Rivera (7) are termed out and cannot run for reelection. Joe Molinar (4) is in his first term and will need to defend his seat if he wants to keep it. Although the District 2 seat will be settled on January 20 with either Acevedo or Carbajal taking it, the winner will have to run again on November 5 to keep it.
Many of the issues we reported in 2023 are relevant to the busy elections in 2024. These are the articles that made an impact on our readers.
Alexsandra Annello
Alexsandra Annello, who is running for the State Representative District 77 seat, was accused of harassment against city employees in two Code of Conduct Violation complaints we reported on January 31. One complaint was filed by Laura Cruz Acosta and the second one was filed by Ellen Smyth, two city employees.
Tommy Gonzalez
On February 28, the city council fired its second city manager, Tommy Gonzalez on a tie vote with Oscar Leeser breaking the tie. Voting in favor of terminating Gonzalez were Alexsandra Annello, Art Fierro, Brian Kennedy and Joe Molinar. Voting against were Chris Canales, Cassandra Hernandez, Henry Rivera and Isabel Salcido.
Joe Molinar
Also, on the day that the city council was firing its second city manager, Joe Molinar who voted in favor of firing Gonzalez, was issued a letter of admonition by the city council for harassing a city employee. Molinar faces a reelection campaign on November 5. El Paso News broke the story that Molinar had been accused of harassment.
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Proposition K
The May 6 election included the controversial Proposition K climate measure. In April we reported how the so-called Climate Charter was being funded by out-of-town campaign contributions. It was overwhelmingly defeated by El Paso voters in May.
The Gasoline Card Controversy
On May 4 we reported in a breaking news item that the City’s Financial Oversight & Audit Committee (FOAC) recommended that an investigation by the city council be opened to investigate the misuse of city-issued gasoline cards. Joe Molinar accused Cassandra Hernandez of allowing her gasoline card to be misused on January 3.
On May 6, El Paso voters overwhelmingly rejected the Climate Charter. Over 82% of voted against Proposition K.
In another breaking news story, we reported that El Paso resident George Zavala filed an ethics complaint against Cassandra Hernandez for her use of her city-issued gasoline card.
On July 20, the City’s Ethics Review Commission found in favor of George Zavala and issued a Letter of Reprimand against Cassandra Hernandez for her use of her city-issued gasoline card.
County Commissioners Give Themselves A Raise
On August 28, county commissioners voted to give themselves a 16% salary increase. Iliana Holguin was the only county commissioner to vote against the salary increase.
The Henry Rivera Controversy
In September, the city council began to investigate Henry Rivera. As we reported in our breaking news story, Rivera and his wife, Dora Oaxaca are being investigated for harassment against a former city employee who was working in Rivera’s office.
We are expecting the city council to take a vote on the allegations against Henry Rivera in the coming weeks.
The District 2 City Council Seat
On November 20 we reported on a campaign violation by Josh Acevedo when he accepted a $2,000 campaign contribution that is illegal under state law. We were the only news outlet to do so.
On November 29 we reported on an Instagram post shared by Verónica Carbajal accusing Israel of genocide. We were the only news outlet to report on this controversy.
El Paso Children’s Hospital Continues To Make Headlines
We have been the only news outlet extensively reporting on several lawsuits filed against the El Paso Children’s Hospital alleging numerous allegations of malpractice with some cases ending in the death of the child. Since 2019 we have been covering the lawsuit filed by David Saucedo and his wife in the death of their three-year-old daughter. Since that article we have reported on numerous other allegations against the children’s hospital, including the September 5 death of eleven-year-old Jessie Limas.
In addition to our stories about allegations of malpractice at the children’s hospital, our reporting of a convicted sexual offender working at KTSM and Roxy Van Ruiten’s departure from the television station has kept our reader’s attention this month. We have been the only ones to report on the issues faced by KTSM in recent months.
Interesting Metrics
Our most popular story in 2023 was our October 2 article about the arrest of Texas Senator Charles Schwertner. The reason for the interest from our El Paso readers was that State Representative Claudia Ordaz was in the vehicle when Schwertner was arrested in Austin last February. The article has been viewed almost 700,000 times. The article also made October 2 the most read day of 2023 with over 430,000 readers taking a look on that day.
Unfortunately, the second most read article of 2023 was our September 28 report on the death of eleven-year-old Jessie Limas at the El Paso Children’s Hospital.
And a story from 2022 looking into how prostitution was used as an economic driver by El Paso leaders in the 1800’s and the battles between them and the then-progressive activists looking to bring moral virtues to El Paso. The city used tax revenues from the madams for city services. We can only speculate as to why the 23,000 readers finding the article in the search engines are reading it. We would have expected viewers clicking on the article in the search engines to be looking for something else to spend seconds on the article. Instead, readers seem to be reading the article as they spend minutes before clicking away.
Our most searched for article in 2023 was our article about the University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) Board of Managers voting to ask the County Commissioners for permission to vote on issuing $400 million in non-voter approved certificates of obligations (COs). It seems, by the inclusion of Verónica Carbajal in the search request that readers are interested in learning about her vote on the matter. We were the only news outlet to report her vote on the issuance of the COs, and to break the news that UMC was intending on issuing non-voter approved debt.
Recent interest in theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy have readers from across the globe taking an interest in our 2021 story about Richard Nagell who insisted he had prior knowledge of the assassination while in an El Paso jail.
In 2023 we published almost 177,000 words in 187 articles. Our most popular day was Friday at noon.
As we get ready for the upcoming elections in 2024, El Paso News will continue to lead in the reporting that informs El Paso’s voters as they make important decisions of the candidates they will vote for.