{"id":30102,"date":"2011-06-20T09:15:07","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T15:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=30102"},"modified":"2011-10-08T21:40:52","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T03:40:52","slug":"huerta-enters-las-cruces-mayoral-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/06\/huerta-enters-las-cruces-mayoral-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Huerta enters Las Cruces mayoral race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Michael Ray Huerta<\/p><\/div>\n

As expected, 25-year-old Michael Ray Huerta has formally entered the race for Las Cruces mayor.<\/p>\n

Huerta unveiled his campaign website<\/a> Sunday evening and announced his candidacy on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net analyzed Huerta\u2019s impact<\/a> on what is now a three-person race last week, reporting that he will portray himself as an outsider running against two politicians \u2013 incumbent Mayor\u00a0Ken Miyagishima<\/a> and District 2 City Councilor\u00a0Dolores Connor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Las Cruces Sun-News recently reported<\/a>, former Mayor Bill Mattiace \u201chasn\u2019t completely ruled out a run,\u201d and East Mesa activist J.D. Rodriguez is \u201ctentatively considering\u201d running.<\/p>\n

On Huerta\u2019s website, he talks about fiscal accountability, education (though the mayor and city government don\u2019t directly oversee area public schools), and being a full-time mayor.<\/p>\n

Update, 9:25 a.m.<\/h3>\n

Huerta just sent a news release announcing his campaign. In it, he proposed reversing a pay increase for the city\u2019s elected leaders that was implemented in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past four years, the city budget has decreased by nearly 30%,\u201d Huerta said. \u201cMiddle class incomes have gone down, and one out of every five Las Crucens now live in poverty, including 35% of our children. Revenues are down, and services to Las Crucens have been drastically cut. Yet in that same time, city politicians \u2013 some of whom now want to be Mayor \u2013 voted to increase their own salaries by 10-15%. That isn\u2019t right, it isn\u2019t fair, and it isn\u2019t fiscally accountable to Las Cruces tax payers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t expect this initiative to be popular with some of the politicians at city hall,\u201d added Huerta. \u201cFor years, they\u2019ve failed to act on this important issue. It\u2019s about time they put the fiscal interests of Las Crucens ahead of their own personal agendas. They need to cut back the salary increase they gave themselves because in this economy, we can\u2019t afford to keep a 15% raise for elected politicians.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: As expected, 25-year-old Michael Ray Huerta has formally entered the race for Las Cruces mayor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[145,214],"class_list":["post-30102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-las-cruces","tag-las-cruces-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}