Mayor Salinas wins another 4 years as leader of Mission

Mayor Norberto “Beto” Salinas had tough words for his opponent after winning the runoff election Saturday with 57 percent of the vote.

Salinas, who has been in office since 1998, received 2,668 of 4,661 votes, according to unofficial totals released by Hidalgo County on Saturday. Challenger, local businessman Jaime Gutierrez, received 1,993.

“Today they lost by a lot of votes,” Salinas said. “Everybody knows that the only votes they got was because they were spending a lot of money; they were giving a lot of money away. That’s one problem they have tonight … we have the job.”

In May, Salinas just missed avoiding the runoff with 49 percent of the votes. Collectively, Gutierrez and third candidate John Guerra received 2,698 votes to Salinas’ 2,590. Gutierrez had 31 percent, or 1,640 of the votes.

Salinas said Saturday in front of hundreds of supporters he plans to increase public safety, improve public works and bring more state and federal money to the area.

“I’m just a volunteer like everyone else,” Salinas said, thanking the group who helped get him reelected. “I am just one of your volunteers that has a four-year term.”