EL PASO, Texas — Five names are on the ballot for the El Paso City Council District 8 seat, and the incumbent, city Rep. Chris Canales, is the only one who has run for office before.
Canales won the seat in 2022 and took office in January 2023 after his former boss, city Rep. Cissy Lizarraga, retired. He is asking voters for a second and final term. All four challengers are making their first run for public office: a restaurant owner who helped open a restaurant that has since shut down, the executive director of a local foundation, a retiree and a former city employee. Two of the newcomers, the restaurant owner and the foundation director, have raised and spent far more money than the rest of the field.
District 8 takes in Downtown and the south-central part of the city, running past McKelligon Canyon to the Chamizal National Monument and north along Paisano Drive into Lakehurst, Falcon Hills and Lambka Park.
The winner will inherit a long list. Neighbors of the busy land port of entry inside the district have lived for years with truck noise and dirty air while plans to modernize it move forward. Property taxes and crumbling streets are top complaints, and the candidates split over whether city money should help pay for the Downtown deck plaza, a park that would cap Interstate 10. That project carries an estimated price of $207 million, with more than $74.5 million committed so far.
Some in the race have also criticized the city’s data center agreement with Meta, which handed the company a tax break of 80% on its property for 25 years.
Council members serve four-year terms and now earn $72,800 a year after a 15% raise took effect Sept. 1. Early voting runs through Oct. 30, and Election Day is Nov. 3.
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