La Joya school board OKs Peñitas polling site despite concern

The city of Peñitas may soon have its own election polling location once again, although that prospective location is generating criticism.

That controversy should come as a surprise for no one. Where to vote in Peñitas has long been a point of contention.

The city hasn’t had a polling place for over a year.

Last week, the La Joya Independent School District Board of Trustees voted 4-3 to approve John F. Kennedy Elementary as a polling place for the 2024 election cycle.

The district says it did so at the request of the Hidalgo County Elections Department.

“We are working in concert with the county elections office, with their request for us to provide more polling sites,” Superintendent Heriberto “Beto” Gonzalez told trustees. “I also want to state to this board and to our school community that it is a common benefit, it is a common service, that school districts offer their cafeterias or some of their meeting centers as polling sites around the whole state of Texas and across the country.”

All three trustees who voted against making the school a polling site said they did so based on safety concerns.

“I am for providing other sites, but not the campuses, so I vote a nay,” Trustee Alda T. Benavides said during the meeting.

Gyms and ample parking tend to make schools attractive options for polling sites, especially in rural communities. In 2022, a little less than half of Hidalgo County’s election day polling sites were at schools.

Safety concerns — heightened after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde — have prompted some Texas school districts to rethink their role in elections.

Last year, Weslaco ISD trustees voted to cancel school on election day because of polling places at some of its campuses.

In a strongly worded letter addressed to Gonzalez Wednesday, Peñitas Mayor Ramiro Loya formally echoed safety concerns about voting at the campus.

“Our police department was not consulted before the district agreed to set up a polling location at the campus, so we have concerns as to what safety measures or what is your security plan for the campus and our city streets around the campus,” he wrote. “We are concerned that your police department and school staff is not adequately prepared for any emergency due to electioneering and election canvassing individuals which have historically clashed with each other based on their party or candidate affiliation.”

The letter says the city intends to conduct additional fire inspections at the campus given the polling site proposal and plans on implementing stricter traffic control measures, but it doesn’t mince words over who the city feels is responsible for the polling place.

“This letter will serve as notice to you, your employees and the district that this polling location poses a serious safety and security threat to our community and all adverse consequences will fall squarely and solely on you and the school district for this ill-advised and not well thought out safety hazard,” it says.

Gonzalez addressed safety and the possibility of disruptions at the school board meeting.

“As taxpayers, our taxpayers have the right to request for the use of such facilities, but in doing that we look at the safety of our school community. Making sure that there is no inherence (sic) to our educational services,” he said. “And so, if we would say have a polling site at one of our campuses or any appropriate campuses, we would make sure it’s not in an area that’s going to perturb our educational instruction services at any given time.”

Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Hilda Salinas told the Progress Times Wednesday that she’s not aware of any safety issues with the campus. Gonzalez told his board that there’s protocols in place to enhance safety around elections.

“Moreover, with safety, the county offers and supplements,” he said. “They send sheriffs and constables, and our police department is in this case working with the Peñitas police department to provide a cross agency safety plan for any election day that would take place in our campuses.”

Gonzalez suggested law enforcement would be able to handle traffic and noted that the district has recently enhanced its own security systems.

“We’re about 95% complete in this district with having better control of our servers and of our cameras as we’re being watchful,” he said. “The saying is the price of our freedom is eternal vigilance, and that’s another layer of safety that we’ve added to this endeavor.”

The controversy over where to vote in Peñitas goes a little deeper than safety.

In his letter, Loya offered the city’s library as an alternate polling place. It used to be one.

Last year, the city sued over the removal of the library as a place to vote.

That library has also, however, been criticized over safety concerns.

Both the library and the school have been criticized on political grounds.

Plainly speaking, rival sides in local politics have both claimed that one site or the other gives the opposition an edge in elections.