A businessman forced a city council member into a runoff according to this propaganda piece from the El Paso Times. Calling it a news article strains my ability to be civil.
The facts are that the businessman had well over 50% of the early voting. That was enough to get him elected. The city council member improved his standing with the election day vote. He forced the businessman into a runoff.
That is unless you take the view that the city council member was supposed to win and the upstart businessman disrupted the Times ordained result. The word writer is more appropriate than reporter in this case.
She wrote of the council member “(he) has argued that voters supported the ballpark and its location through the November 2012 vote that designated the ballpark as a venue and authorized the use of hotel occupancy tax dollars to finance it.”
Yes he has argued that, just like a lawyer is paid to make an argument that he knows not to be true.
This October 27. 2012 Times article by the same writer had the title:
El Paso Mayor John Cook: ‘No’ vote on stadium bond means El Pasoans will pay, not visitors
The writer dutifully quoted our mayor as saying “We are asking voters to approve a way to pay for the ballpark and not whether the city should build it.”
The writer knew the argument was a false one, she herself documented the proof. Yet she did what she could to further the lie.
This link to the definition of integrity might help her.
Muckraker
elpasospeak 
The El Paso Times pro-Ortega bias continues to be obvious in today’s article by David Burge. Despite the fact that Ortega came up way short of Leeser’s vote count in the initial election, Burge still had to lead with Ortega when he wrote:
“Two-term city Rep. Steve Ortega will face businessman Oscar Leeser in the mayoral runoff.”
Burge didn’t even take the easy way out, which would have been to put their names in alphabetical order. Instead, he consciously put their boy Stevie’s name out front, despite the fact that Ortega received less than half the number of votes received by Leeser.
Burge couldn’t restrain himself and showed that he and the Times continue to hold out hope for an Ortega win by quoting a UTEP professor, who said:
“In the mayoral runoff, Ortega, however, may not be as vulnerable as he seems based on Saturday’s results, she (Kathleen Staudt) added.”
It’s not so bad that he included the quote, but he didn’t even ask Staudt to provide a rationale for her thinking. He just ran with it because it gave him what he wanted and needed. I concluded that because Staudt’s opinion is especially interesting when you consider that in order to win the run off, Ortega must in theory retain all of his previous share of votes and pick up about 94% of the voters who previously voted for someone other than Leeser. Burge doesn’t find the math challenging for Ortega?
Let’s hope the Times continues its blatant promotion of Ortega. Their bias, which extends beyond the editorial page is obvious in their news reporting, might be fueling some of the disenchantment with the current administration and its perceived influence over the Times. That helps Leeser, who probably already has his advertising agency working on how to reallocate the advertising dollars he is currently spending with the Times.
LikeLike
The El Paso Times should be embarrassed by their blatant support of Stevie, but when one is desperate, shame is no longer in their vocabulary. Yes, FedUp, the mathematical likelihood of Mr. Ortega winning is virtually negligible, but they are really trying to paint a different story for their “dumbed down” readers. Unfortunately for the Times, its readers have figured out the scam that this council, Joyce Wilson, and Mayor Cook have inflicted upon El Paso taxpayers. The next step in this scenario is all of us calling Mr. Leeser by “Mayor Leeser,” and the El Paso Times as the newspaper who just went out of business. The Times is a joke in every sense of the word. Congratulations, Oscar! You have beaten the El Paso Times and emasculated their power!
LikeLike