Crowded Democrat field down to 2 in sheriff’s race

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – The race for El Paso County’s new sheriff that began with five Democratic candidates has narrowed down to just two, who will face off in a runoff on May 28.

Early voting begins Monday, May 20 and lasts through Friday, May 24.

The winner of the Democratic runoff will face Republican candidate Minerva Torres Shelton in the November general election. Torres Shelton was unopposed in the Republican primary back in March.

Oscar Ugarte, who is currently serving as El Paso County constable for Precinct 1, will face off against Robert “Bobby” Flores, a retired assistant chief of the El Paso County Jail Annex.

They emerged from a five-candidate field but did not claim a majority of the vote.

Each candidate offered a different vision of what El Paso County’s sheriff should be.

“Besides being in law enforcement, being a police officer, when you’re an elected official, you have to be an administrator as well. For the last seven years, I’ve shown to the community that I’m accountable with their tax dollars. There have been no issues with my office and I’ve been elected twice,” Ugarte said. “You also need to understand politics, because you need to build those relationships with other elected officials in order to move your vision forward.”

“My extensive experience and my qualifications, nobody brings that to the table. More importantly, I can tell you that nobody cares more about the Sheriff’s Office than I do. I’ve dedicated 33 and a half years of my life here,” Flores said. “There’s several political offices in the city, in the county, where a politician could come in and get by, but the Sheriff’s Office is not one of them. You really do need a competent leader, you really do need a law enforcement officer there, and you need somebody who’s going to do the job to keep the community safe.”

Both candidates said they believe there needs to be more transparency from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. Both cited multiple murders at El Paso jails where the community was not immediately informed about the violent incidents.

They also said there is a need for community policing to establish closer communication with the public.

Each candidate was asked what issue they believe would be the most important to address if they took office:

“The county jails have been issued a certificate of noncompliance, and that’s detrimental to our community in that the Texas Commission on Jail Standards can now penalize our county and our jails and either limit our occupancy or, in a worst case scenario, shut it down,” Flores said.

Flores said getting El Paso’s county jails back into compliance will be one of the most pressing matters for the new sheriff.

Meanwhile, Ugarte said he would hope to address what he believes are the community’s biggest concerns.

“Knocking on doors and talking to the community, one of the biggest concerns they have right now is DWIs and shootings. There is a spike in DWIs. As you can see, mostly every weekend, there’s accidents involving DWIs,” Ugarte said.

Each candidate was also asked to address concerns regarding their candidacy.

Ugarte has 20 years of law enforcement experience where he’s served as a state jailer and an officer with the Socorro Police Department, and more recently as constable. He explained why he believes he is equipped to manage a much larger-scale department and its budget.

“The constables and the Sheriff’s (Office), we have the same resources. So as far as our budget department, we use the same budget team because both are county agencies. Our fleet manager is the same, county attorney’s is the same, county administration is the same. So for the past seven years, I’ve been working with these departments that actually help you have a good department. And when you’re the sheriff, it’s just not about me, it’s about the team that you build behind you,” Ugarte said.

Flores was asked to address a report from El Paso Matters where there were allegations of serious violations during his time in the Sheriff’s Office including issues surrounding deputies being allowed to work part-time security jobs while on duty.

“The incidents that they’re bringing up rings back from the 1990s. So we’re talking about a 33-year career span, and they brought up four letters of reprimand that I received in 33 years,” Flores said. “It was never anything serious, and those issues were accounted for and moved on from. So I grew from those; I learned from them. And I made sure that I never committed those infractions again.”

He was also asked what standards and procedures would be put in place to ensure keeping good overtime records.

“Back then everything was done manually,” Flores said. “What we have now is a strict policy on no overtime or no comp-time that is going to be issued, and it’s all tracked by computer now. So we log in our hours. We make sure that the first line supervisor confirms that those hours were worked and you don’t have this manual entry anymore. And more importantly, it’s in black and white. So I can’t have any of my command staff or I can’t give an order to any of my people instructing them not to pay overtime, because that’s a violation of the contract. You will pay the overtime budget crunch or not. We’re going to have to find the money.”

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