An Election Lost By Deception – With Victories Following!

By Ron West - May 17, 2004 – Updated 3/23/05

This past election was one of the most interesting periods of my life so far. While the title of this article indicates we lost, in reality we really won. When we started out, we were up against entrenched incumbents who didn’t even consider us a threat. When it was over, we had elected two new members to the council in one of the toughest elections for the incumbents ever. We are proud of our campaign that was based on real issues with factual information. We booted two of the big spenders out!

Two of the incumbents that are still in office are in reality the ones that actually “lost” the election. While they are still in office, they sacrificed their honor, decency, and integrity to win. Two weeks before the election, JoAnn Johnson sent out a malicious and slanderous letter filled with misinformation and outright lies to apparently several thousand NRH voters. She pointed them to a web site and we were able to put rebuttal information fairly quickly on the site but unfortunately for myself and especially for Suzette Christopher, many, many of the recipients of the letter were older voters without any means to verify the truth or lies of the mailing. These folks went to the polls thinking that they had to keep a bunch of nuts from taking over the city. While I believe it cost Suzette and I the election, these same voters who were duped by JoAnn and Oscar, are valued citizens of our city and we appreciate the fact that they voted. They voted the way they thought best based on the slime put out by JoAnn. Essentially, their vote was stolen by Johnson & Trevino.

Trevino was approached by Patricia Christopher the afternoon of election day to tell him she had met his brother in law, and how pleasant he was. Oscar screamed at her and showed just how little and rude he could be.

As the title indicates, the citizens of NRH have elected officials, Trevino & Johnson, in office as a result of deception, effectively an election won by deception of the voters.

You can check their tactics out at: http://www.taig.org

After the election, the noxious RV ordinances were repealed because of your vote for the two new council members and the closeness of the race for the Mayor and other council seat.

Later, we got the Senior Tax Freeze on a ballot and passed the initiative by more than a 2 to one margin over strenuous opposition from the old council members.

We now face the May 2005 elections and can expect more slime from city hall – but now we know to expect it and are hopefully prepared. Truth and justice will ultimately triumph in NRH!