{"id":85103,"date":"2025-12-12T05:07:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/85103\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T05:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:07:15","slug":"yisd-appoints-henry-rivera-as-district-7-trustee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/85103\/","title":{"rendered":"YISD Appoints Henry Rivera As District 7 Trustee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/eph_4-1-980x551.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A picture of Henry Rivera\" decoding=\"async\"  \/>  <\/p>\n<p>This article was updated at 4:00pm, December 11, 2025 to add the response Trustee Chris Hernandez sent  us after the article was published.<\/p>\n<p>EL PASO, Tx., December 11, 2025: Last night the Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees appointed Henry Rivera, the former city representative for District 7 as their new trustee. After two hours of discussions in executive session, the board of trustees emerged, announcing that they had appointed Rivera to the seat vacated by Kathryn Lucero in September. Lucero resigned to move to Maine for an undisclosed new job.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/el-paso-news-llc.fundjournalism.org\/ephp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"970\" height=\"250\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fund_jurnlist_lgad_1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-687\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Carlos Bustillos made the motion to appoint Rivera, and Cruz Ochoa seconded the motion. Trustees Bustillos, Mike Dwyer, Ochoa and Connie Woodruff voted to approve the appointment. Shane Haggerty was not present for the vote. Chris Hernandez voted against the appointment.<\/p>\n<p>We attempted to contact Hernandez for comment this morning, but he did not respond before we published our story. Should Hernandez respond later, we will update this story to add his comments.<\/p>\n<p>Update: YISD Trustee Chris Hernandez sent us the following comment at around 4:00 this afternoon: \u201cmy vote reflected my belief that another candidate would have best represented the Del Valle community.\u201d He added, \u201cthat said, I respect the Board\u2019s decision and look forward to collaborating with Mr. Rivera as we continue the work before us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because much of the interviews and discussions happened behind closed doors there is not much information about what led to the decision to appoint Rivera.<\/p>\n<p>Rivera is a controversial appointment because the El Paso City Council censured him with a <a href=\"https:\/\/elpasonews.org\/2024\/02\/26\/breaking-news-city-council-issues-letter-of-reprimand-against-against-henry-rivera\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letter of reprimand<\/a> on February 26, 2024, for allowing \u201ca non-city employee to supervise and direct day-to-day duties of a city employee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter of reprimand was the culmination of almost six months of controversy involving Rivera\u2019s wife, Dora Oaxaca, who is <a href=\"https:\/\/elpasoheraldpost.com\/el-paso-elections-resource-page\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">running<\/a> for the Justice of the Peace Pct. 5 seat currently held by Lucilla Najera.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/elpasonews.org\/2023\/09\/21\/exclusive-el-paso-city-council-to-hear-brutal-report-about-henry-rivera-and-dora-oaxaca\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">controversy<\/a> that led to the reprimand allegedly involved Oaxaca accessing <a href=\"https:\/\/elpasonews.org\/2023\/12\/02\/exclusive-city-council-to-receive-report-about-henry-rivera-and-an-alleged-suicide-attempt-on-monday\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">confidential<\/a> city computer files and an allegation that a city employee in Rivera\u2019s office may have attempted to commit suicide due to the working conditions at Rivera\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>Rivera is expected to take the seat on February 18, 2026. His term Will expire in May 2029.<\/p>\n<p>Like Us and Follow Us On Our Social Media!<\/p>\n<p>Visited 197 times, 197 visit(s) today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was updated at 4:00pm, December 11, 2025 to add the response Trustee Chris Hernandez sent us&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[40827,19054,40828,40829,36894,138,5872,140,139,39633,40830,36905,40831,40832,29439],"class_list":["post-85103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-carlos-bustillos","tag-chris-hernandez","tag-connie-woodruff","tag-cruz-ochoa","tag-dora-oaxaca-rivera","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-city-council","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-henry-rivera","tag-kathryn-lucero","tag-lucilla-lucy-najera","tag-mike-dwyer","tag-shane-haggerty","tag-ysleta-independent-school-district-yisd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}