Jacinto City incumbents return to Council
A close race for Mayor in Galena Park was the highlight of this year’s city elections, in both Galena Park and Jacinto City. As shown in the box to the right, Esmeralda Moya led a field of four candidates with 260 votes, but that was not enough to avoid a run-off for the position with Joseph Thibodeaux. The city will decide at their council meeting on May 20th when the run-off will be held, and where voting will take place.
In other races, incumbent Councilman Danny Simms was returned to office, and newcomers Lois Killough, and Mericela Serna won seats at the GP council table. Position #4 had 3 candidates, none of which had a majority, so that will result in a run-off between the top two candidates, Juan Flores, Jr. and Martha Flores. It was notable that Killough garnered the most votes of any candidate by far, with 394 cast in her favor.
A total of 746 votes were cast, and Early Voting in person accounted for 339 ballots, Early Voting by mail accounted for 64 ballots, and on Election Day 136 voted at Baggett Center and 207 voted at City Hall. The run-off will not only be for the Mayor’s position, but also for Council seat #4, between Martha Flores, and Juan Flores, Jr. Martha Flores received 262 votes, and Juan Flores Jr. got 287 votes. A third candidate for this seat, Mark Groba received 151 but will not be in the run-off.
Jacinto City Results
In Jacinto City, all the incumbent councilmen received the majority of the votes, and therefore were returned to office. Voting was as follows:
Council Position #1, Jimmy Rivas 327 vs. Diego Lopez, 66 votes;
Council Position #2, Greg Robinson 235 votes vs. LaGloria Sephus, 179 votes; Council Position #3, Allen Lee 210 votes vs. Ray Morlock, 207 votes.
The total vote count for each position is interesting to note, because Lee only won by 3 votes. In fact, 417 votes were cast for Position #3, 414 votes cast for Position #2, and 393 votes cast for Position #1. In other words, if the 3 people who didn’t vote for Position #2 also had not voted for Position #3, it might have resulted in a tie or some other result.