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Democratic Party Forum
Published February 21, 2010
Democratic Party candidates for the positions of 63rd/83rd District Clerk, Val Verde County Judge, Val Verde County Commissioner Precinct 2 and Val Verde County Commissioner Precinct 4 were among the 19 Democratic Party candidates who attended Friday night's candidate forum.
Candidates were asked two questions and given three minutes to answer each question.
In an interview given shortly after the candidate forum was announced, Val Verde County Democratic Party Chair Diana Salgado told the Del Rio News-Herald each candidate attending the forum would be given three minutes to make a statement to the audience.
But on Friday night, each candidate was instead given a total of six minutes to speak.
Because candidates during an earlier Republican Party candidate forum were given a total of only three minutes, the News-Herald, in the interest of fairness to all candidates running for office, will only publish the transcriptions of the Democratic Party candidates' three-minute answers to the first of the two questions they were asked.
That question, posed by forum mediator Robert Garza, read as follows: “Please describe your background and qualifications, including your education, work experience and any special training or qualifications for the position that you are seeking and the reasons for seeking this office.”
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63rd/83rd District Clerk
Luz Clara “Clarita” Balderas
“Hello everyone. As I was just introduced, I am Luz Clara Balderas, district clerk. It is a pleasure to be here tonight and first of all, I'd like to thank Ms. Diana Salgado for having this forum.
I'll begin my response to the first question by saying that I have deep roots here in Del Rio. Like so many of you here tonight, Del Rio's been my home most of my life. My parents, Gonzalo and Emma De Luna, came here from Mexico in 1954. My youngest sister, brother and I all graduated from Del Rio High School. When I graduated in 1972, I immediately joined the workforce. I worked in various jobs, as I kept focusing on better opportunities. From a sales clerk to department head, receptionist to secretarial duties, I also worked as the head of the cash office at Walmart.
On January the sixth, 1993, I was hired as an assistant civil deputy in the district clerk's office. This was the beginning of a very rewarding and fulfilling career. Within the first year of my employment, I was promoted to civil deputy, then chief deputy. I held this position for 13 years under my predecessor, Ms. Martha Mitchell.
I ran unopposed for district clerk upon her retirement. My first term began in January 2007. My qualifications are these past 17 years of dedication and commitment to this office. I have and will continue to serve Val Verde County with honesty, dignity and great respect.
I run my office strictly according to policies set forth by Val Verde County and the State of Texas and take the letter of the law seriously.
On a personal note, I have been married to Eduardo Balderas for the past 49 years. We raised two beautiful daughters, Kathy and Mary, and a son, Eddie. I must add; he is quite handsome. I dedicated all of my extra time participating in all of their extracurricular activities, as they were growing up, both academically and athletically. They are my pride and joy. All three of them graduated from Del Rio High School and they have earned their respective degrees. Kathy is an R.N., Mary is a teacher and Eddie is working up the ladder for Enterprise in San Antonio.
I also have two gorgeous granddaughters, Lauren and Eva, ages seven and four, Kathy's daughters. Now they will occupy my time.”
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Val Verde County Commissioner, Precinct 4
Jesus “Cheo” Ortiz
“Good evening. I am Commissioner Jesse “Cheo” Ortiz, Precinct 4, Val Verde County. I was born and raised in my precinct 63 years ago. I attended Del Rio schools, and graduated from San Felipe High School in 1965. I was drafted by the U.S. Army, and I volunteered instead, and put my time in Vietnam. I started my career in the field of appraising under the guidance and schooling of Andy Cappas Appraisal Company out of Dallas. I worked for the city of Del Rio as an appraiser and then went to work for the school district for 29 years and retired.
I have the highest state certifications in the field of appraising and am a life member of the Texas Association of Assessing Officers. For almost 30 years, as tax assessor collector,
I was physically responsible for $11 million a year in taxes and worked alongside my finance director on $53 million school budget.
At the county, I have been part of great progress and it continuously goes on under the current administration.
I feel qualified and very proud to be a commissioner of Precinct 4. . .(garbled) my projects completed are done and qualifications are, look at the projects that I've made.
I'd like to continue being your commissioner for Precinct 4.”
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Gustavo “Gus” Flores, who is challenging Ortiz for the County Commissioner Precinct 4 position, did not attend the forum and did not send a representative.
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Val Verde County Commissioner, Precinct 2
Rogelio “Roy” Musquiz
“Thank you, Mr. Garza, and I'd like to thank each and every one of you for being here tonight. It says a lot for this community. There is interest, maybe concerns, and you're here to listen to what the candidates have to offer.
My name is Rogelio Musquiz. I'm a native Del Rioan. I graduated from the San Felipe High School in 1964. I attended, under a scholarship from the Southern Baptist Association for the Hispanics in Texas, the Howard Penn University. I got my master's from Sul Ross State University. My continuing education is an ongoing thing.
People have mentioned that there's a mandate for all elected officials to continue on their education and I have been faithful on that. I'm lacking six hours to complete the course.
It has taken a long time, but thanks to the position that I have, I'm able to attend those classes.
I have going on 50 years of marriage. I am a certified counselor. Y'all need any counseling on marriages, I'll be more than glad to share that with you. It's very easy, guys, all you have to do is say yes.
I have two children, Roy Musquiz Jr., who has a master's degree from Sul Ross in business. I got Julissa Gonzalez. She's got a bachelor's from Sul Ross in business. She's an auditor for one of the schools in San Antonio.
I worked for the school district. After consolidation, I retired after 33 years of service, as a teacher, as a counselor, as an administrator. I've probably had many of your kids in our schools. Finished as a principal for 17 years.
I am here to control your taxpayers' money. As you heard, we have surplus money. Not too many people can say that nowadays. We are very conservative as to where we spend our money. We can't give you everything you want, because sometimes we have to be holding onto some money in order to continue running the county. But as your commissioner, you can put your faith in me.
I have 11 years of service. You know what I have done, and you know what I can produce for you.”
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Lewis G. Owens Jr.
“Good evening.
My name is Lewis Owens Jr. My parents are. ..
Jennie Gonzalez Owens and Lewis G. Owens Sr. I've been married for 24 years to Sylvia B. Owens. We have two children, Mercedes Owens and Lewis G. Owens III, known as Trey. Everybody has been talking about their kids. My daughter goes to San Angelo. This is her second year. My son is actually ranked number one as a junior in school right now.
My education: We went to Sacred Heart, graduated at eighth grade, went to San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District, graduated in 1980, went to St. Mary's from '80 to '82, came back in d'82 to help my dad in his construction company.
In 1986, I formed my own construction company. We've developed five subdivisions. I've been in the process of developing five different subdivisions, over 50 homes and several warehouses. Our county budget is about $480,000 for Precinct 2.
If you're asking me if I'm qualified to run this, over the last 14 years, most of my gross sales have averaged over that, a couple of times, four to five times that, so we are capable of doing that.
The development aspect, I think that is a great service that I will bring to the county. It's something that we can build off of. I know how to figure roads. We know that. . .your materials. Everything that we do in the county is in the precinct. I know how to figure asphalt, anything having to do with that. Utilities, we're capable of doing that too.
The county commissioner, I believe, is a full-time job - right, Mr. Musquiz? - and at this time, I'm willing to treat it as such.
The reasons I would like to serve as county commissioner of Precinct 2: I believe that we need to develop in our county a controlled growth. As a developer, I think I can help with the knowledge in order to continue that way.
The other thing is we need to listen to our greatest assets, our people. Our county staff and the constituents that we represent, they have issues. We need to look at them. We need to investigate it, we need to do research and then we need to move now.”
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Val Verde County Judge
Mike L. Fernandez
“First of all, please allow me to extend a vote of gratitude and thanks to the chairperson for the Democratic Party, Ms. Diana Salgado; our moderator, Mr. Robert Garza; and all the people that were involved in setting up this Democratic forum. I'm pleased to be here.
I'm Manuel “Mike” L. Fernandez. The “L” stands for Lara. I'm married to the former Yolanda Bejarano. We have six children, Isabella, Michael, Michelle, Yvonne, Mark and Denise, and I'm proud to say they're all college graduates.
I was born and raised in Del Rio, the state of Texas, the county of Val Verde. I have lived here all of my life. I attended the Del Rio schools, Del Rio High School, and I'm not boasting or bragging: I graduated as an honor student, straight “A”s all through high school. Upon graduation, I was offered quite a few scholarships to attend college or university, Southwest Texas State, San Marcos, St. Mary's University, Texas A&M - would you believe that? Texas A&M - Sul Ross. I signed up with Sul Ross because they offered me a four-year scholarship. I received those scholarship offers both in academics and athletics.
The one at Sul Ross was to play with the Sul Ross Lobos in Alpine. I signed up. I attended only one semester at Sul Ross, because at that time the Korean conflict was going. I felt the urge of serving my country. I dropped out of Sul Ross, enrolled in the United States Marine Corps, served my time. As soon as I finished my boot camp, I was deployed to Korea.
Upon coming back from Korea, I decided I would continue my educational courses and follow up what I had started at Sul Ross. I enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin in 1956 and I graduated in 1959 with a bachelor of arts in government, minors in history and economics. I went back and got my master's degree in administration, mid-management, superintendent's certification, and I was doing all this under the GI Bill. I had a little money left under the GI Bill, so I went back and enrolled at The University of St. Mary's Law School. Once the GI Bill ran out, I was in trouble.
I was married by then, and we had two kids already. My wife told me, 'There's no way you can do it, you better drop out and help me out with the family.' I came back to Del Rio and was fortunate to be hired by the former San Felipe Independent School District as a school teacher and as a coach and I believe, (Jesus 'Cheo') Ortiz, Al Padilla and Eloy over there, they were some of my students and some of my players.
I stayed at San Felipe High School for a few years, about four years. I transferred back to my alma mater, Del Rio High School, and also started teaching at the high school and as a basketball coach.
While I was there I got the urge to throw my name into the political ring and I did that in 1966 fro the position of superintendent of public instruction for the county of Val Verde. I was fortunate enough to defeat my former teacher, who had been there about 12 or 16 years, my geometry, trigonometry teacher, and I was successful the second term and the third term. I served 12 years as county school superintendent, at the same building, the same courthouse that we have, I was on the third floor then.
I served for 12 years as county school superintendent and the state decided they would not fund that position anymore, so I put in an applied for the San Felipe, by then was the Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District for a position. I was hired as an administrator.
I served at what was the eighth grade campus, it was the seventh and eighth grade campus combined, about 1,500 students I had to handle. Then they broke it up into eighth and seventh. I stayed at the eighth grade campus for a few years, then they transferred me to the seventh grade campus principal. From there I went on to the ninth grade campus as principal, and later on, before I retired from the school district, I went the best campus I had ever had, at that time was Travis, now it's Cardwell.
In 1998 I retired from the teaching profession after serving 38 years and I decided to throw my name back into the political ring for the position of county judge. I started serving in 1999. I was re-elected for the second term, and re-elected for the third term, and I'm going to be re-elected for the fourth term.
So those are my credentials. My experience, as Commissioner Musquiz mentioned, we've been there 11 years. We came in together, Commissioner Musquiz, Commissioner Ortiz, we've been there 11 years. We've been there for 12 years and we'd like to continue serving there.
Monday: Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 and Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 candidates.
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