EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 With early voting in its final week in Texas, the El Paso County Elections Department reported more than 95,000 ballots cast after the first week.<\/p>\n
One of the races on the ballot is for the District 1 seat on El Paso City Council, which includes West El Paso and the Upper Valley. <\/p>\n
Candidates running for the seat are incumbent Rep. Alejandra Chavez, Daniela Garcia, Sam Armijo and Matthew Kozik.<\/p>\n
Chavez said her top priorities include infrastructure, quality of life and economic development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first is infrastructure, making sure that we are taking care of our streets. The second is quality of life, all of our public spaces. I want them to be well maintained for people to enjoy. The third is economic development, making sure we are creating opportunities for our youth to stay and work and grow here, and we are also building community,\u201d Chavez said.<\/p>\n
Garcia said she wants to focus on reinvesting in the community, including public transportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of my priorities are just reinvesting back into the community. So expanding that public transportation, we could easily be doing programs that self-sustain themselves, that would not cost additional money in the budget,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
Armijo pointed to property taxes and income levels in El Paso.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the highest property taxes of any medium-sized or large city in the state of Texas. And we don’t have the high income level,\u201d Armijo said.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWe gotta change that. We gotta make El Paso the desirable place to live, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kozik said residents have sent a message to city leaders and outlined his priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe residents have given El Paso candidates and El Paso’s city council a mandate,\u201d Kozik said.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cOur duty is to take care of them, lower utility rates, lower taxes, and also make sure that developers pay their way when it comes to roads.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early voting runs through Friday. Election Day is Nov. 3.<\/p>\n
For all the information you need to know ahead of the election, visit this Election Guide.<\/a><\/p>\n