Today, city representative Brian Kennedy announced that he is running for office in a press release today. As of this writing, five candidates for the mayoral seat have officially announced they are running for mayor. They are Jacob Chavira, Marco Contreras, city representative Cassandra Hernandez, Roberto Ryan Houle, Steven Winters and Renard Johnson.
There has been speculation for months that Kennedy would be throwing his hat into the mayor’s race. Of the candidates seeking the office, only three candidates, Hernandez, Johnson and Kennedy are considered viable in the coming election by longtime political observers. Renard Johnson has been struggling to gain traction among the voters since his announcement. The arrest of Johnson’s brother on federal charges for an alleged Ponzi scheme in April seems to have affected his campaign.
The other candidate, Cassandra Hernandez, has also been struggling as voters question her about the Letter of Reprimand issued to her by the El Paso Ethics Commission in July 2023 for misuse of her city-issued gasoline card. Hernandez, like Johnson has been struggling to get voters to support her candidacy.
With Kennedy now in the mix for the mayoral seat, the November 5 election will likely result in a runoff between the top three contenders, Hernandez, Johnson or Kennedy. Political consultants who spoke to El Paso News on the condition that we do not use their name because of their political work told us that the likely scenario will be Johnson versus Kennedy in a runoff.
Kennedy ran for the city council District 1 seat in the November 2022 ballot. He was forced into a runoff election against Analisa Cordova Silverstein. On December 17, 2022. Kennedy won the runoff with 69.5% of the vote. Although Kennedy’s term at city council does not end until December 2026, his seeking the mayoral seat will not necessitate a costly election to fill his unexpired seat because there is not enough time for the City to call for an election before the scheduled election in November.
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Although Kennedy’s run for the mayoral seat falls under the Texas’ election requirement to resign to run for office, Kennedy’s resignation will not be effective until someone else is elected to fill his seat. As any replacement will also be on the November ballot, there is not an additional cost to the taxpayers.
In a press release today, Kennedy said that “after much consideration, I have decided to add my name to the Mayor’s race.” Kennedy added in the press release that he decided to run because he “hasn’t seen the strength of leadership from the current roster of contenders” to “provide a stable environment for 3000 City of El Paso employees, and hundreds of thousands of El Pasoans who just want to know the job is being done right.”
The filing date to run for mayor and city council seats two, three, four and seven, plus one, now that Kennedy is running for mayor opens on July 20 and closes on August 19.
Announced candidates for the open city council seats include Josh Acevedo to keep his District 2 seat. For the District 3 seat, Fabiola Arellano, Kenneth Bell, Jesus “Jessie” Romero and Deanne Maldonado-Rocha have announced.
For the District 4 seat, Dorothy “Sissy” Byrd, Wesley Lawrence, incumbent Joe Molinar and Cynthia Trejo have announced they are running for the seat. In District 7 seat, Fabiola Campos-Lopez, Lily Limón and Alan Serna are seeking that seat.
I thought Brian was pretty good as a City Rep. Too bad he’s vacating the Dist #1 seat because the Usual Suspects will pour money into a debt/spend/tax replacement friendly to their agenda for the same and probably get it, too. The mayor has little power to drive an agenda, IMHO, since we went to a city manager form of government. Brian will face a divided City Council that could be hostile to his fiscal responsibility message. The ghost of Joyce Wilson still haunts City Hall!