Samaniego holds on to win County Judge runoff

After a tightly contested race, businessman Ricardo Samaniego has won the El Paso County Judge runoff.

Samaniego defeated former El Paso mayor John Cook to claim the county seat.

After all precincts reported, Samaniego tallied 11,340 Votes to Cook’s 11,096.

The two democratic candidates came in with very different backgrounds.

Samaniego has a vast amount of experience in the public and private sectors, according to his website. Samaniego has served as interim Director for the El Paso County Housing Authority and interim Human Resources Director for the Rio Grande Workforce Solutions, where he was tasked with conducting an “extensive organizational assessment and implement changes.

Samaniego has said his experience would help him in dealing with many of the challenges the county faces. One of those challenges is uncontrolled growth.

“You talk about people moving out into areas that are undeveloped, well if we have a good plan we could get in and get the sewage, infrastructure and bridges ahead of it,” Samaniego said.

When it comes to government debt, Cook said it takes skill and experience to know when it’s necessary to issue a bond. Samaniego said he would try to increase revenue in other forms before issuing bonds.

Other big issues in the county judge race were flooding and the downtown arena, even though that is a city of El Paso project.

Cook supports the city’s decision to locate the downtown arena in a Union Plaza neighborhood.

Samaniego disagrees with the way city officials made their decision and has expressed the importance of historic preservation and heritage tourism.

Samaniego grew up near the Jefferson area with nine siblings.

“I had the opportunity to grow up with a lot of brothers and a lot of friendship and I think this is going to be really important. Inclusiveness is going to be one of the most important things we’ll see going forward in El Paso,” Samaniego said.

Cook served two, four-year terms as El Paso mayor, and served as a city representative. Cook was first elected as a city representative for Northeast El Paso in 1999. He later served as mayor of El Paso from 2005 to 2013. In 2014, Cook ran for Texas Land Commissioner but lost against Republican George P. Bush.