Incumbents say they want to complete projects

Marfa

Four new challengers are hoping to grab at least one of the three seats up for this year’s City Council election on May 2 .

Marfa’s elections are run by plurality, meaning the all seats are at-large and the top three vote-getters are elected to three seats. All seats carry two-year terms. Early voting runs Monday, April 20, through Friday April 24, and Monday and Tuesday, April 27 and 28. All early voting is from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Casner Room, City Hall, 113 S Highland Ave in Marfa.

Incumbents up for election are Mark Cash, Mark Morrison and Eddie Pallarez. Challengers are Christopher Johnson, Emily Kolb, Katy Kowal and Sal Tornabene. Johnson is a microbiologist; Kolb runs Mutual Friends Marfa, a coffee/bakery shop; Kowal is a baker with Dirty Water Bagels and Mutual Friends Marfa; and Tornabene runs Raba Marfa, a vintage and designer-item store.

For Johnson, the mere fact that last year’s elections were canceled was a key reason he stepped up to run. “I think the best governments are those where citizens are involved,” he said. “And there hadn’t been an election for City Council in a while because no one ran against the incumbents. And so I think at the very least, I wanted there to be an election.”

Johnson, who has lived in Marfa since 2021 and works remotely for the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Colorado, said he feels new leadership would offer a more open and inclusive process for decision-making. 

Kowal, who has lived in Marfa since last June, said she recently met with Johnson and Tornabene to go over the city budget with a focus on trying to better understand how decisions were made on a $5 million loan the city took out for street construction and smart water meter installations.

“I want to understand [the loan] better,” Johnson said.

Kowal said she would like future councils to do a better job outlining to the public the major financial decisions that have been made, particularly when it took a 72% tax increase to address street repairs and water meters. “With the tax increase approved … there should be somewhere written down a breakdown of how that was supposed to work and what the costs were,” she said.

Kowal said she agreed with Johnson about the importance of having new people run for city office because it signals someone is paying attention. “It’s important that people are looking at the budget,” she said. “It’s important that people are looking at what’s going on and caring. And I think that when decision-makers know that someone’s looking, they act differently.”

Johnson said he would like the city to also “modernize” and get up to speed to improve the information available to the public, such as an updated, functioning website and a calendar that can synchronize properly with people’s personal calendars. 

He also took issue with the level of police enforcement. “The police department has taken Stonegarden and Operation Lone Star funding, and I think in a lot of ways that’s a very good thing and appropriate,” Jonson said. “But it also feels like there’s been a little bit of a creep toward increased enforcement that I’m not entirely comfortable with. And that I don’t think that is necessarily appropriate for the size of the town that we’re in.”

Johnson also recently questioned the need for the new police K-9 unit. “The dog was another thing that honestly, I was disappointed,” he said. “I came to that meeting. And that was a City Council meeting where they were also discussing the substation. And so, there were other things that were more pressing. But there were three of us that spoke out saying, ‘I don’t think we need a K-9 unit.’ And with the City Council, there wasn’t even any discussion. They just voted for it.” He added that there were also concerns over a recently purchased license plate reader. “I don’t think those things are making people feel safer living here,” he said. “If anything, I feel like they could be eroding the sense of safety and peace of mind that people have living here.”

The incumbents all agreed on one thing—they wanted to continue on the council to finish crucial projects already in the works. 

“There’s a few things that we’ve, well actually there’s probably a lot of things that we’ve done, like some of the street projects that we have started and some other stuff that I’d like to see through,” said Cash, a Marfa native vying for a third term after an initial one-year stint on the council. “I’d like to see them get completed and I’m sure they will get completed with or without me, but since I was there when it started, I’d like to see them through.”

“There are a few things that are not done yet that I have some institutional knowledge that I think will be helpful, and one is helping along the El Cosmico utilities extension project,” said Morrison, now in his third year on the council. “Because I’m the one that’s been working with their staff, their engineers, and our engineers,” he said. El Cosmico, a mixture of funky trailers and glamping that has been a mainstay of Marfa tourism since 2009, closed its original location on Highway 67 last summer to launch a new location, complete with 3-D printed “Sunday Houses” and guest accommodations northeast of Marfa. The city is required to supply water to the development—in the initial phases of construction—but the resort has agreed to pay for the extensions of water lines needed.

“I have good historical knowledge about that,” Morrison said. “I would like to see that through to make it as efficient as possible for the city to get that done. There’s also the development on the west side of town that I’m involved in that I would like to continue and see it through as efficiently as possible with the utilities extension on Quatro [White’s] property … Because we don’t have a city administrator, I am doing more of that than a normal council member would, but luckily, I have the time to do that.”

Morrison said he wouldn’t be hurt if someone won his seat, but that he would only feel comfortable with a loss if his replacement was ready to do serious work outside of just attending meetings and “raising their hand” for a vote.

“There are so many projects that we haven’t completed yet,” said Pallarez, who is running for a third term.  “We’re still in the middle of negotiations with El Cosmico for the utilities.  There’s still a lot of things that need to be completed,” he said. “There are certain guidelines they have to meet. We have to do a cost analysis to see if they want to pursue this thing because basically, they cover 100% of the cost to provide service to them.”

“And of course, we have the [smart water] meter project that I wanna see completed,” Pallarez added.

Cash said that the criticism about not getting more information to the public can be traced to the city being without a city secretary and city administrator for months. (The city recently hired a new secretary.)  “You, you don’t have the resources that we used to have when the city [administrator] was there,” he said. 

AEP substation spurs challenges

Johnson and Kowal acknowledge that the proposed AEP electrical substation—and their opposition to it—played a factor in their decision to run. Kolb and Tornabene did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Pallarez has come out in total support for the substation, noting that it was crucial for Marfa’s future electric demand. He added that he also did not want it in an area outside the city limits because it would generate about $38,825 in tax revenue for the city and $171,332 to all local taxing entities.

Critics of the substation have called for Pallarez to recuse himself from voting on the substation since he is a former AEP employee with a company pension. He has refused and is adamant that he is working for the best interest of Marfa residents.

Cash said he doesn’t put much weight into substation critics who say AEP hasn’t made a real effort to find alternative sites. “What I heard a lot was people saying, ‘Why aren’t you looking at other places?’” he said. “I mean, it’s kind of like when you go look at a home, why would you go look elsewhere if you’ve already found one you like and you got a price for it. So why would you go shop? I’m sure it costs some money every time [AEP has to] go research other properties.”

Morrison noted that the additional detail AEP provided and its discussions with P&Z made the plans better with a more favorable number and alignment of transmission poles. He also said that he kept count of the comments from everyone he has talked to about the issue, with 54 people in favor of the location and 28 opposed.

With three of the five council members leaning toward approval of the substation (the mayor, an AEP employee has recused himself from the process), it’s clear that for at least two of the challengers, the issue was an impetus to run—even if the decision was made before they ever took office if elected.

“You set a precedent when you rezone a property like that,” Johnson said, adding that it brings up all kinds of issues around visual aesthetics, property values and future development lost, development that could have been more beneficial to the community. He also said that AEP should have taken alternative sites more seriously, and that they stated they could not do so without having their application for the current property denied first. “And so the process, in my opinion, the next step then is to deny it and see what next property AEP would like to evaluate?”

Kowal agreed with the need to deny the permit application to spur another review on location. “That’s [AEP’s] policy. It’s not like a legal policy,” she said. “You know that they could certainly change that. I would never make a decision as a business owner without knowing all of the information. What would be the best environment? When companies make hasty decisions based on cost, they’re choosing to overlook an area that could be a better place for this.”