Jud Burgess
Jud Burgess was a candidate for District 2 representative on the El Paso City Council in Texas. He was defeated in the general election on May 6, 2017.
Biography
Burgess attended Texas State Technical College for advertising and design. At the time of his 2017 run for office, he owned his own design studio, Substance, and wrote a column for the El Paso Times.[1][2]
Burgess led opposition to a proposed $669 million bond for the El Paso Independent School District in 2016. The bond was approved by voters in November 2016.[3][4]
Elections
2017
The following candidates ran in the general election for the District 2 seat on the El Paso City Council.[5]
| El Paso City Council, District 2 General Election, 2017 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Alexsandra Annello |
34.93% | 1,135 |
| James Tolbert Incumbent |
31.95% | 1,038 |
| Jud Burgess | 13.73% | 446 |
| Dolores Garcia Baca | 13.57% | 441 |
| Raul Valdez | 3.42% | 111 |
| Alexander Burnside | 2.40% | 78 |
| Total Votes | 3,249 | |
| Source: El Paso County Elections, "Official Final Election Results," accessed May 23, 2017 | ||
Campaign themes
2017
Burgess' campaign website highlighted the following issues:
| “ | RELIEF FOR OVERTAXED EL PASOANS • Committing to spend within our means
Our current City Council (along with previous generations) have continued an abusive pattern of willful self-serving, decision-making at our expense. The myopic and costly focus on trying to build a downtown on the backs of El Paso's already over-burdened taxpayers is a prime example of why we are among the highest taxed citizens of America in respect to our average yearly earnings. (Property taxes and otherwise). Add to that EPISD's recently passed $670,000,000 bond; rising electric, gas and water rates; gasoline prices and rising interest rates and we have a recipe for financial pressure that continues to keep residents scraping by. THIS MUST STOP! El Pasoans on average earn $20,150 per year, with District 2 residents earning $3,500-5,000 LESS than the average El Pasoan. The average El Pasoan earns 33% less than the average Texan who makes $30,000 per year according to census data. This means that District 2 wage earners are earning HALF of the average Texan. As your elected D2 representative, it is my immediate goal to rein in this flippant and neglectful attitude our City Representatives have had when it comes to paying for things. The arena disaster that has been unfolding over the last several months shows us that they are more interested in saddling us with a money-losing idea that we and our children will be paying for over the next several decades, rather than admitting it is a bad concept and putting it up for a city revote. We can legally put it up for a vote again, but they don't want to break the promises they've made to the investors and power brokers that fund their campaigns. This is about backroom deals designed to enrich the already rich while the over-taxed (the rest of us) take all the risks on their behalf. City Reps Michiel Noe and Claudia Ordaz are more than willing to add an additional $44,000,000 of debt load WITHOUT our participation and consent by using an abusive form of funding projects — the issuance of Certificates of Obligation. CO's are a way to issue debt without it going to a public vote. I sat in on a City Council Meeting for 7 hours just so I could have 3 minutes to reject this attempt by them to begin the process required to eventually issue the CO debt. Thank God that fiscal sanity prevailed with Mayor Leeser vetoing their attempt and the Council voting 4-2 to not allow Noe and Ordaz to overrule the mayor's veto. THE UNIQUE ISSUES OF BEING A BORDER CITY Many of El Paso's greatest issues stem from the challenges of being a border city. Issues regarding health, education, literacy, citizenship status, poverty. Our population is around 82% Hispanic. 26% of El Pasoans are immigrants from another country, in particular Mexico. There are said to be over 60,000 undocumented immigrants living among us. We are inextricably bound to Juarez, with the majority of us having family and friends living right across the Rio Grande. How do these facts impact life for the average District 2 resident and El Pasoan? Just because we are not an official Sanctuary City, does that mean we aren't sanctuary for thousands of immigrants who live, work and go to school within El Paso? I want to help continue building a city that is home to a diverse group of people with differing needs. OUR ROCK BOTTOM NATIONAL LITERACY RANKING Did you know El Paso is consistently ranked among the bottom five cities for Literacy? Rank is based on the following factors: size of library systems, presence of bookstores, educational attainment, digital readership, and circulation of local newspapers and other publications. We have the least amount of bookstores per 10,000 residents in America, to include independent, used, rare and retail bookstores. We are ranked third from the bottom in terms of publication circulation and among the bottom in terms of newspaper circulation. It was just a few weeks ago that the El Paso Times was ready to cut back all sections of our local newspaper. This has a lot to do with El Paso being a border city that struggles with some of the lowest incomes in America. Although this is in large part an educational issue, I want to be directly involved in finding ways to address this issue that impacts everything else about our city. El Paso needs to reach out into the community and involve our youth in opportunities to embrace reading and education. EPISD leadership has failed our children and is struggling to keep students within the district. A basement ranking like this should be cause for alarm. I will make it a priority goal to raise the level of literacy in El Paso. This is a longterm project that will impact the quality of education our students receive, the quality of jobs they are able to apply for and get, and to ultimately raise the intellectual bar in El Paso.[6] |
” |
| —Jud Burgess' campaign website, (2017)[7] | ||
Burgess filed an ethics complaint against Mayor Oscar Leeser and Councilmembers Lily Limon, Cortney Niland, Peter Svarzbein, and Jim Tolbert in December 2016. The complaint charged the officials with violating the state Open Meetings Act by conducting closed door meetings about the location of a proposed arena in the city. Burgess said in his complaint, "I believe the Mayor and four City Council members named in this complaint intentionally conspired to avoid quorum by gaming The Texas Open Meetings Act and participating in a rolling quorum, which allowed them to conduct closed-door meetings without public notice."[8][9]
See also
| El Paso, Texas | Texas | Municipal government | Other local coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
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External links
- City of El Paso
- Campaign website
- Social media
Footnotes
- ↑ Jud Burgess for City Council District 2, "Two Generations of My Family Raised in District 2," accessed April 24, 2017
- ↑ Jud Burgess for City Council District 2, "My 33 Years of Career Experience Creatively Solving Problems," accessed April 24, 2017
- ↑ Jud Burgess for City Council District 2, "You May Have Already Heard of Me," accessed April 24, 2017
- ↑ El Paso Times, "EPISD Bond Becomes Largest in County's History," November 8, 2016
- ↑ City of El Paso Municipal Clerk, "May 6, 2017 General Election," accessed February 18, 2017
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Jud Burgess for City Council District 2, "Addressing the Issues," accessed April 24, 2017
- ↑ KVIA, "Ethics Complaint Accuses Four City Council Members, Mayor of Violating Open Meetings Act," December 19, 2016
- ↑ El Paso Times, "Mayor, City Representatives Face Ethics Complaint," December 19, 2016
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