Charles Stapler

Charles Stapler

Education

High school

Anacostia High School

Associate

Excelsior College

Other

D.C. Teachers College

Military

Service / branch

U.S. Navy Reserve

Personal

Profession

Electronics technician

Contact

Personal website

Charles "Charlie" Stapler was a candidate for mayor of El Paso in Texas. He was defeated in the general election on May 6, 2017. Click here to read Stapler's response to Ballotpedia's 2017 municipal candidate survey.

Although mayoral elections in El Paso are officially nonpartisan, Stapler identified as a member of the Democratic Party at the time of his 2017 candidacy.

Biography

Email editor@ballotpedia.org to notify us of updates to this biography.

Stapler earned an A.S. from Excelsior College. He also attended Regents College and D.C. Teachers College.

At the time of his 2017 run for office, Stapler was retired from his position as an electronics technician for the U.S. Postal Service. He has also served in the U.S. Navy Reserve and as chair of the Public Policy Committee of the El Paso County Historical Commission, chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the El Paso Chief of Police, District 10 representative for the Texas Federation of National Active and Retired Federal Employees, and district governor and ambassador for the public speaking organization Toastmasters International.

Elections

2017

See also: Municipal elections in El Paso, Texas (2017)

The following candidates ran in the general election for mayor of El Paso.

Mayor of El Paso, General Election, 2017
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Donald Margo	45.31%	14,918
David Saucedo	23.95%	7,885
Emma Acosta	15.92%	5,240
Elisa Morales	5.60%	1,845
William Cager Jr.	4.22%	1,388
Jaime Perez	2.89%	952
Charles Stapler	1.25%	412
Jorge Artalejo	0.85%	281
Total Votes		32,921
Source: El Paso County Elections, "Official Final Election Results," accessed May 23, 2017

Campaign themes

2017

See also: Ballotpedia's municipal government candidate survey

Stapler participated in Ballotpedia's 2017 survey of municipal government candidates. The following sections display his responses to the survey questions. When asked what his top priority would be if elected, the candidate made the following statement:

“	Saving our heritage.	”
—Charles Stapler (April 27, 2017)

Ranking the issues

The candidate was asked to rank the following issues by importance in the city, with 1 being the most important and 12 being the least important: city services (trash, utilities, etc.), civil rights, crime reduction/prevention, environment, government transparency, homelessness, housing, K-12 education, public pensions/retirement funds, recreational opportunities, transportation, and unemployment. This table displays this candidate's rankings from most to least important.

Issue importance ranking
Candidate's ranking	Issue	Candidate's ranking	Issue
1	Housing	7	Public pensions/retirement funds
2	Recreational opportunities	8	City services (trash, utilities, etc.)
3	Homelessness	9	Government transparency
4	K-12 education	10	Environment
5	Civil rights	11	Transportation
6	Unemployment	12	Crime reduction/prevention

Local topics

Ballotpedia asked candidates specific questions regarding recent issues in the city. The questions are in the left column and the candidate's responses are in the right column.

Question	Response
Do you think more needs to be done to promote government transparency in El Paso? Does the city need to make changes to its existing ethical guidelines? If so, what do you think the city should do?	Allow the city council to be more transparent by statute or ordinance. Give the people a voice in their city government by going out to them.
In a forum hosted by KCOS and the League of Women Voters of El Paso, candidates listed the condition of city streets as a top concern for El Paso residents. What would you do to ensure that the issues with the city's streets were addressed? How do you think the city should fund work on streets and other infrastructure?	At the present time only one percent of the streets in El Paso are reconstructed each year. We need to increase this by many times.
What other challenges do you think El Paso faces? How do you think the city should address them?	Making sure that the top 2 percent in the city do not rule and allow the other 98 percent to have a voice in government.

Nationwide municipal issues

The candidate was asked to answer questions from Ballotpedia regarding issues facing cities across America. The questions are in the left column and the candidate's responses are in the right column. Some questions provided multiple choices, which are noted after those questions.

Question	Response
Is it important for the city’s budget to be balanced?Answer options: Not important; Not important, but required by state law; A little important; A little important, but required by state law; Important; Very important	Important
Which level of government do you feel should set a minimum wage?Answer options: None, Local, State, Federal	Federal
What do you think is the best way to improve a city’s public safety? Candidates could write their own answer or choose from the following options: Increased economic opportunities, Increased police presence/activity, Harsher penalties for offenders, Public outreach/education programs	Increased police presence/activity
How do you think your city should emphasize economic development? Candidates could write their own answer or choose from the following options: Changing zoning restrictions, Create a more competitive business climate, Focusing on small business development, Instituting a citywide minimum wage, Recruiting new businesses to your city, Regulatory and licensing reforms, and tax reform	Create a more competitive business climate
What is the one thing you’re most proud of about your city?	Its history. We go back over 400 years.
What is the one thing you’d most like to change about your city?	Have the city as a whole become aware and advocate for heritage tourism. The better we know the city the more proud we become.

Additional themes

Stapler's campaign website listed the following priorities:

“	The first thing I propose is to make the city council more transparent. I have seen too many times the council and the staff hold information back and then comes the surprise. Number two, but no less important, is to secure Castner Range as a National Monument. It would be a crime to turn this area into box stores or worse. This is a treasure which should be kept by the people of El Paso for the rest of time. In addition we should preserve, not destroy, all of our heritage treasures so that our children can enjoy our glorious past. The third plank in this platform is to give the taxpayer, namely the home owners, relief from increases and to give the big business in this town incentives only until they recoup the initial expense of acquiring or building new projects. We should also restrict the use of 'Certificates of Obligation' to items we need because of an emergency nature. Example: suppose a fire truck is speeding toward an emergency situation and is involved in an accident. We have ways of taking care of the fire personal, but the fire engine is destroyed and would have to be scrapped. We would need a new piece of expensive equipment. This is when a certificate of obligation should be used. Get the fire truck, place a line item into the next budget, and then pay off that certificate during the next budget cycle. Another thing we should consider is the use of bond projects. We should use these very sparingly and only for things we desperately need. Not someone's idea of finding ways to spend money foolishly. An example of this is the 'Arena' project which someone wants to put in the Plaza are of downtown El Paso. For practical reasons this does not make sense. There is little or no parking for the people to attend. It is possibility that you may park as far away as Cotton Street. If you go to a showing at the Arena, while there are shows at the Plaza Theater, a game at the Stadium, an exhibition at the Convention Center, as well as the Chavez Theater, you may have difficulty leaving town to get home. As you can see the people who dreamed up some of these projects did not think the whole thing through.	”
—Charles Stapler's campaign website, (2017)

CityBeat Magazine asked the 2017 mayoral candidates what their first priority would be if they were elected. Stapler said, "One of the things that really bugs me about City Hall is the fact that all the decisions on major issues have come before the council during the last year or two – have always been a done deal; and the next thing you know they are voting on it. And no one has a chance to reach out to them – and those that do reach out to them (the council) the council does not listen to them. One of the things I’d like to do is to have town hall meetings in different parts of town and different times of the year so that people know what's going on in their neighborhood. I'd like to bring the news to the people. (…) I love this town and I love it's history. You'll find that I am the chair of the public policy committee at the El Paso Historical Commission. I really understand there's a lot of money to be made in heritage tourism. We could do a lot better in this town, there are so many people out there that select their history – and you can't select history – it's the good, bad and the ugly."

See also

El Paso, Texas	Texas	Municipal government	Other local coverage

External links

Suggest a link

• City of El Paso
• Campaign website
• Social media
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