Improving traffic flow on the far Eastside and holding the reins on property taxes are the focus for candidates in the El Paso County Commissioners Court Precinct 1 race.
Incumbent Carlos Leon is retiring and will not be seeking reelection, leaving open the seat that represents much of Far East El Paso and Montana Vista.
Candidates on the Nov. 5 ballot include Leon’s senior policy advisor, Jackie Arroyo Butler, a Democrat; former El Paso city Rep. Claudia Rodriguez, a Republican; and Army veteran Ryan Woodcraft, a Libertarian.
The El Paso County Commissioners Court comprises four commissioners and the county judge. Commissioners serve four-year, staggered terms and are paid more than $133,000 annually.
Aside from adopting a budget and tax rate each year, Commissioners Court oversees roads, bridges, parks and other quality of life resources for the county. The court also provides oversight of the budget for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and the University Medical Center of El Paso.
Here’s what the candidates told El Paso Matters about their priorities should they win office.
Jackie Butler
Butler, 37, said her priority would be addressing the congestion and transportation infrastructure in El Paso County, particularly east of Joe Battle Boulevard. She said more relief routes are needed to address the current and future growth of the county.
“TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) is really active with the Montana expansion and the Joe Battle expansion, which I think are going to help. But it’s not enough,” Butler said. “I think what we’re doing right now is just to accommodate the people that are here now. It doesn’t take into account the future growth which is coming.”
She said the county is not collaborating with the city and state enough to bring enough funding for future transportation needs, particularly knowing where new subdivisions are going to be built.
Butler also said she wants to address water access issues in unincorporated areas.
“The No. 1 call that we get at the commissioner’s office is about people wanting to connect to a waterline,” she said. “To connect a waterline a couple hundred feet can cost up to $20,000 to $30,000. So, it’s super cost prohibitive for people living in those areas.”
She said she’d look for funding at the state and federal level as well as through philanthropic organizations.
Butler also wants to advocate for increased access to preventative care and cancer treatment, which she said hit close to her home with her since her mother died of colon cancer.
“I support UMC and Texas Tech in bringing cancer care here, because they’re the ones that provide coverage and support to our uninsured populations and our underinsured populations,” she said.
The Commissioners Court in August approved allowing University Medical Center of El Paso to take a bond to voters in November that includes $30 million for the cancer center fund.
Butler said she aims to attract high-impact, high-wage jobs by recruiting jobs in future technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, computer science and data analytics.
“I think that our economic development strategy as a region should focus on setting that expectation at that living wage, which is $17.54,” she said. “When I talk about high impact jobs, I’m talking about jobs where there’s growth potential and that are focused on the future.”
Claudia Rodriguez
Rodriguez, 39, who served on City Council from February 2020 to January 2023, highlighted her push for the work on Saul Kleinfeld Street and said more work needed to be done to ensure that both Saul Kleinfeld and Pellicano Drive are completed.
“When I was elected, I finally was able to budget for it, and we did it in two parts,” Rodriguez said. “We first did the southern part south of Montwood and then the northern part and that just got completed a few months after I left office. It was something that I fought for and I have the results to prove that I can get it done.”
Rodriguez said while on council, she received a lot of phone calls to fix Pellicano Drive, a part of which is a county road and not under the city’s authority. The reconstruction and widening project, which will expand Pellicano from Loop 375 to Darrington Road to a six-lane street, was supposed to be completed in July 2022 but came to a halt after the construction company filed for bankruptcy.
“They need to finish,” Rodriguez said. “All it’s causing headaches for the people that live there, for the businesses that live there, there’s a lot of trucking companies that are there.”
She also wants to continue to work with the city to implement the East Side masterplan, specifically working on the Montwood Drive extension.
“While I was on City Council it was a project that I pursued because I was greatly affected by it, and it was on a bond election. It was approved,” she said. “But as a county commissioner, I want to continue to push for and make sure that the money is being spent responsibly, since it was a voter approved project, and that it does happen sooner rather than later.”
City officials last week said the $16.7 million Montwood project is expected to begin in “early” fiscal year 2026, which begins in September 2025. The project is still in the design phase.
Beautification of ponding areas is another area she wants to continue to tackle. Rodriguez mentioned that she had built a relationship with El Paso Water Utilities in working to beautify those ponding areas, and wants to continue that if elected.
She also said she was committed to low taxes and criticized the raise that county commissioners gave themselves last year.
“I wouldn’t give myself a pay raise,” Rodriguez said. “I believe that we’re public servants and that we should not be relying on these jobs for the money. I believe that people should have a secondary job or a primary job.”
Rodriguez was reprimanded by the city’s ethics commission for misusing the city’s fuel card in 2022. She left office in January 2023 and didn’t attend the Ethics Review Commission hearing in May 2023, stating that she didn’t trust the process.
Ryan Woodcraft
Woodcraft, 41, an Army retiree, said he wants to focus on fiscal responsibility and advocating for a no-new-revenue tax rate, while also reviewing the county’s programs to create efficiencies. The no-new-revenue rate is what’s needed to collect the same tax revenue on the same properties as the previous year.
“There is potential for overlap from our different taxing entities,” he said. “What if we could get the county, the city, our school districts, UMC, EPCC to sit down to help impact their dollars? I think being able to find areas where our taxing entities can complement each other and not create redundant expenses is more of a focus for me.”
Woodcraft is critical of the county commissioners’ past decisions to increase property taxes and their issuance of certificates of obligation – bond debt that doesn’t require voter approval – to complete projects.
“Last year the county was at the voter approved rate, which meant if they (county commissioners) wanted to go any higher it had to go to the voters,” Woodcraft said.
“This year, to their credit, the county approved a no-new-revenue tax rate. The no-new-revenue tax rate is the highest tax rate I would approve in the next four years. What we have to get back to is a culture of fiscal responsibility. I believe in the fewest taxes possible to provide the services we should focus on.”
Woodcraft proposes improving Eastside traffic flow through the use of technology innovations and teaming up with the City Council to address the infrastructure needed to support the growth in the area.
“The Far East, fastest growing part of the city right now, and it does not have the infrastructure to support that growth,” Woodcraft said. “We don’t have the necessary roads for the inlets and outlets to support that growth. We don’t have the necessary water supply and sewage supply lines to support that growth. That’s going to be a massive conversation between the city, the county and the state.”
Woodcraft suggested that commissioners should look into using artificial intelligence to conduct traffic pattern analysis and utilize traffic light patterns to alleviate the congestion.
He said he wants to create veteran retention initiatives, citing Department of Defense and Department of the Army life-skills programs that could be tapped into . He also stressed the importance of community policing and alternatives to incarceration, focusing on mental health and after-school programs.
“I would love to see a way that we can open that up bigger from a community based perspective, within El Paso. What is stopping Fort Bliss and the county of El Paso from saying, ‘Hey, you’re an IT professional in the 1st Armored Division, and you’re getting out.’ What if we could offer them an internship with the county administrators or the city administration in an IT role and start getting them plugged into some place.”
Early voting runs Oct. 21 to Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 5.
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