El Paso City Hall insiders aim to make leap to council representative in District 8 race
While District 8 runoff candidates Bettina Olivares and Chris Canales are working hard to ensure voters recognize their differences ahead of the Dec. 17 runoff election, the two have at least one thing in common — both have spent the last few years managing a city representative's office.
Olivares has spent the last four years serving as chief of staff to East Central city Rep. Cassandra Hernandez, while Canales has been overseeing operations in outgoing South West city Rep. Cissy Lizarraga's office. Both contend that the front row view of managing a city government office has provided them with a unique perspective optimal for making the leap from staffer to city representative.
Neither Hernandez nor Lizarraga responded to requests for comment regarding their chiefs of staff.
Voters in City Council Districts 1, 6 and 8 will decide their representatives in the runoff election. Polls are open for 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday. Early voting ended on Dec. 13.
Olivares' path to the ballot
For Olivares, working in government and politics was always the goal. Before stepping into Hernandez's office, Olivares spent time working in a congressional office in Austin and a state representative's office in Houston.
"I had always wanted to be involved in government and I had always wanted to run for office," Olivares said.
She added her experience has prepared her to run for public office.
"I really wish more young folks, especially women and minorities, would choose jobs in government," Olivares said in a text. "Politics can be a very white, affluent, male-dominated world. There are so many different aspects and departments that can be contributed to. You can make a career out of making a difference in your community."
Upon returning to El Paso, that's what Olivares tried to do — she began attending community meetings where Hernandez was present and the two began talking. Pretty soon, Hernandez invited Olivares to join her team.
"It's definitely not an easy job and it's not for everyone," Olivares said. "As I've started in my career, even though I've kind of gone to different levels of government, my duties have grown."
Olivares referred to herself as Hernandez's "right hand," helping to write and prepare policies and, most importantly, overseeing constituent services for the council woman.
"One of the big things that has always been important to me is overseeing our constituent services," Olivares said. "As much as it is about being there for the representative, it's also about how things are constantly changing. You can be focused on one thing, but something can come up in the community and you have to be able to change at the drop of a hat."
A time when that was especially true, Olivares said, was during the pandemic.
"That was just a huge challenge for the city as a whole," Olivares said, noting that the council was still dealing with day-to-day issues while the pandemic raged. "Not only were we doing that, we became almost a public health service. That was definitely a huge challenge, but I think we ended up doing pretty well getting the community to those resources."
On top of that, Olivares was overseeing two offices at the time — along with serving as Hernandez's chief of staff, she was assisting with West Central city Rep. Alexsandra Annello's office. But what was supposed to be a short-term position ended up lasting much longer because of the pandemic.
"They were definitely stressful times, but I think I did the best that I could have," Olivares said. "It's a difficult job to staff an elected official. Sometimes it's 24-7, sometimes it's a lot more than you can handle, and your No. 1 priority is making sure the representative is being effective and coming out on top. Even though I've been around elected officials for a long time, the whole reason I thought now was a good time (to run for office) is because I've seen those levels of government and it's kind of fortified my confidence."
But while she recognizes the vast difference between managing a representative's office and being a representative, Olivares remains enthused.
"It is definitely something else when you're actually the person," Olivares said. "As a staff member, you do all you can, but you're beholden to the representative. Being in the forefront, now you realize just how much pressure —everything coming in different directions — falls on the elected official. This is something I've always wanted to do and I've worked incrementally towards it."
Canales: A different view for District 8
In Canales' case, working for Lizarraga came with its own benefit early in the race when the councilwoman announced her endorsement of Canales as her replacement, as well as her decision not to seek another term.
"He cares deeply about El Paso's future, and he is truly passionate about helping the people who we serve," Lizarraga said in the announcement. "He has many times during his tenure in my office turned down opportunities to leave and make much more money because he believes so strongly in the mission of improving El Paso through good governance."
More valuable than the endorsement, however, was the experience, Canales said.
"It's a job that over the past 5+ years has given me a real insight into areas as diverse as road maintenance, municipal budgets, traffic engineering, the economics of international trade, federal tax credits for low-income housing, park irrigation, police and fire department procedures, (and more) — something that I think will benefit me greatly as a city representative," Canales said in an email.
Canales was living and working in New York in 2017 when Lizarraga launched her campaign to fill a vacated seat on the city council and saw an opportunity to return to the borderland and serve his hometown community.
"I had always said that I wanted to return to El Paso to invest in and give back to my hometown, and at the time my girlfriend (now my wife) Nora and I were looking for a change of scenery (New York is fun, but it is a difficult and expensive place to live)," Canales said. "When Rep. Lizarraga won her runoff election, I told her about my desire to return to El Paso and had a conversation with her about her plans for hiring staff for her office, and the rest is history. We packed up and moved to El Paso in August of that year, and I have been working in the District 8 office ever since."
Like Olivares, a big part of Canales' work in Lizarraga's office has been related to constituent services, but he said his real job was much more complicated than that.
"My main responsibility, however, is to be the ‘sponge of knowledge’, so to speak, to ‘soak up’ and stay in the know about what is happening and being worked on in every single city department so that I can advise Rep. Lizarraga on the many important decisions that the City Council has to make," Canales said. "I read every City Council meeting agenda and all of the backup documentation pretty much in its entirety (usually several hundred pages) before every council meeting. I get briefings from city staff about projects, initiatives, plans, problems, etc. so that I am always in the loop. I help to craft policy proposals that make their way onto the council meeting agendas for them to consider. I meet with and work alongside neighborhood associations and community organizations to gather input, plan events and projects, and help them however we can."
But seeing the legislative process in action is often messy, Canales said, especially when a project has been worked on for months and is then squashed by a vote from the council. Unlike Olivares, however, a career in politics was never Canales' main goal.
"The decisions that political leaders make affect our lives every day, so for someone to not be involved in politics is a luxury that I’ve never felt I could afford, and since I was a teenager, I have always gotten myself involved in one way or another by volunteering on campaigns, working as a poll worker, writing to my elected officials, etc," Canales said. "That said, I’m not a lifelong political staffer. I’ve worked in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in a variety of fields, and I think that diversity of experience has been very good for me in terms of broadening my understanding of what challenges are faced by businesses, nonprofits, employers, employees, etc. and how the government can help them address those challenges."
And although Canales credits Lizarraga with providing him a wealth of opportunity and experience, he noted that his vision for the city and District 8 diverges slightly from his predecessor.
"I’m deeply grateful to Rep. Lizarraga for hiring me in her office and all the experience I’ve gained working with her to serve El Pasoans, but like any two people, she and I have very different views on some issues, and I want to bring about changes to the way that the city operates and what the organization prioritizes," Canales said. "We disagree, for example, on the arena issue and on the proposed expansion of I-10 through downtown, and as the next city representative I want to go down a different path on these issues."
"I have always talked about the importance of being flexible, of constantly evaluating new situations and basing my decisions on the most up to date information," he continued. "The arena situation has given El Paso curveball after curveball over the years, and even just since the start of my run for office a few months ago, the situation has changed again with the emergence of a competing project."
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: City Hall insiders aim to make leap to council rep in District 8 race
