Hidalgo County Commissioner candidates Oscar Garza and Joseph Palacios are pictured at a Valley Interfaith accountability session in McAllen on Sunday.

McALLEN, Feb. 8 - The two candidates for Hidalgo County Commissioner Precinct Four enthusiastically signed on as supporters of Valley Interfaith’s “Investing in our Families” agenda at an accountability session on Sunday.

Incumbent Commissioner Oscar Garza and his rival Joseph Palacios said “yes” to improvements for colonia infrastructure such as street lighting and drainage, finding more money for Project VIDA, a highly successful workforce training program, and making sure those whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Dolly get financial assistance.

“Not a problem,” Garza said, in response to a reporter’s question after the accountability session about his support of Valley Interfaith’s agenda. “The requests that they made today were realistic and within reach. It is a good organization and I am delighted they are enticing people to go out and vote.”

Palacios, appearing at his first accountability session, was equally enthusiastic.

“I loved it. I have a history of working with Valley Interfaith for a couple of years now. I have had monthly meetings with them at a precinct level and I love their purpose of trying to be a voice of the people,” Palacios said. “I am very aware of what their agenda is. I embrace it and I am committed on a daily basis, full time, to carrying it out.”

The “Investing in our Families” agenda was fashioned following a series of house meetings by Valley Interfaith members. More than 500 Valley Interfaith supporters attended an accountability session at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in McAllen on Sunday to see whether candidates running for county and state legislative positions would embrace the document.

At a county level, Valley Interfaith wants Hidalgo County Commissioners Court to continue to fund Project VIDA, a successful workforce development strategy that aims to move Valley residents from low wage-low skill jobs to high-wage-high skill jobs, through education, counseling and other critical support services. The county committed $250,000 and Valley Interfaith wants the amount increased to $500,000. A number of workers spoke in glowing terms about how Project VIDA had helped change their lives by helping to fund the training necessary for them to get better paid jobs.

Both Garza and Palacios said “yes” to Project VIDA. In an interview afterwards, Garza said he voted enthusiastically to fund the project two years ago.

“We voted to commit $250,000 two years ago. Last year was our first year to implement it. As a result, we are already helping hundreds of students. We help them with child care. We help them with transportation and in some cases part of the tuition,” Garza said.

“It is the best program the Valley has to help people get out of poverty. We heard from a young man today that Project VIDA has helped. Well, I know of another story, of a young lady who worked at a bank who was in that program. The beauty of it is that it helps the people that really need help and who want to help themselves.”

Palacios told the audience that he would find savings in other areas of the county budget, perhaps where there is wasteful spending, in order to help pump more money into Project VIDA.

“I am a major supporter. I believe we do have a fiscal responsibility and I believe that through effective efficiency we can create those pools of money needed to start supplying some of these funds to some of these organizations. These are good services that are really making progress in our community. I am committed to making sure I find every dollar possible to help programs like VIDA,” Palacios said.

Palacios told the Guardian after the event that increased funding for colonias was a key issue for his campaign. He said he has great experience working with leaders in colonias because Precinct 1 has more colonias than any other part of the Rio Grande Valley. Palacios has served as chief of staff to the County Commissioner for Precinct 1, Sylvia Handy.

“I am committed, not just to using tax dollars but to finding a way to stretch the tax dollars in order to do more in the colonias. I want to work with state and federal legislators to say, hey, there is a need, there is a demand, we are the fastest growing region and we need funds. We need to convince them there is a dire need and they need to partner up with the county to embrace that need by supplying funding through grants and address infrastructure issues in colonias,” Palacios said.

Palacios pointed out that the funding available to help colonia residents under Proposition 2 has almost run out. Proposition 2, passed by Texas voters in 2001, allowed for the issuance of up to $175 million in state general obligation bonds to build roads in colonias.

“With Proposition 2 we were only able to tackle less than ten percent of the needs that are out there. There are still 300 more colonias that need help (in Precinct 1) and I am certain it is the same message for all the other precincts so in essence we have to keep working on this,” Palacios said. “It is not ‘do we?’ it is ‘we must’ work with our state and federal legislators to create more funding. Whether it is street paving, drainage, or colonia lighting, like we have been able to do with the energy efficiency grant to provide solar lighting for these areas, we need to find more funding.”

On the issue of financial assistance for those whose homes were badly damaged by Hurricane Dolly, Garza said progress was being made. He pointed out that he recently set up a workshop to hear about the concerns of homeowners and Valley Interfaith.

“Eight of the 12 obstacles that were in front of us are out of the way. Now, we need to work on the last four. And we are going to have another workshop next week. Hopefully, within the next 30 days we will have it nailed, so that it is easier for people to qualify (for financial assistance),” Garza said.

Palacios said the county should have moved more quickly to help the victims of Hurricane Dolly, which hit the Valley on July 23, 2008.

“We need to become more proactive than reactive. Dolly hit us a couple of years ago. The damage has been done and people have been living with these damages,” Palacios said. “I think when the problems hit we need to move fast, we need to be quick and we need to resolve these problems as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Eddie Anaya, a Valley Interfaith executive committee co-chair, urged those in the audience to make sure they vote and get their family members and neighbors to vote. He said if every member of the audience was able to persuade ten other people to vote, Valley Interfaith would be responsible for delivering 5,000 votes. “We can make a difference in this election,” Anaya said.

Write Steve Taylor

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