Edinburg mayoral candidates talk economic growth and infrastructure

EDINBURG, Texas (ValleyCentral) — In Edinburg, some of the city's mayoral candidates are focusing on economic development and infrastructure. ValleyCentral spoke with three of the four candidates to discuss their insights.

For the November 4 Edinburg mayoral election, the candidates are:

• Richard Molina
• Johnny Garcia
• Omar Ochoa
• Jonathan Salinas

Richard Molina, who served as mayor from 2017 to 2021, says he knows what the city needs when it comes to more economic growth. Molina's main goal is to bring more development to different parts of the city.

"Development on the north side is ready to boom," said Molina. "I think we have the players in place to put a hotel and conference center to bring in retail and the restaurants in the north of Edinburg. I believe that is going to be hot for the next couple of years."

Former city council member Johnny Garcia, who served as council member for place three after being elected in 2020, said grants to help revamp the city are the key to a successful economic strategy. Garcia said reinforcing the city's current facade and lot improvement program, which helps businesses improve their properties, goes hand in hand with that.

"It is about investing back in our community," said Garcia. "We have grants where we give 10 thousand dollars to our small businesses here in our area. It's about 40 businesses given per phase. It is about investing back into our city first. I feel that if we upgrade and beautify our area, we will have outside investors want to invest into our city."

Omar Ochoa is also running for the mayoral seat. Ochoa spent five years serving Edinburg as their city attorney. Ochoa believes assessing and addressing economic growth with master plans is the way to go.

"The city is not a small city anymore, and we need to plan and act like we are the large city we want to be," said Ochoa. "Having a master growth plan for the city in general, having a master parks plan, a master drainage plan, and a master roadway plan will allow the city to identify all the investment opportunities the city needs to make. This is one big way to get us where we want to be."

Additionally, infrastructure is also at the top of these candidates' priority list.

"I can say our infrastructure is not up to par, and I can tell you that we were working on a lot of things when we were working from 2017 to 2021," said Molina.

"I feel as a city we have other ways that we can improve our infrastructure, as far as our drainage goes, as far as our streets, I am two blocks just north of the university, I feel like we could use these as minor arteries," said Garcia.

"If the city can identify major thoroughfares that need to be repaved, that need to be widened, we can start identifying what some of those spaces are," said Ochoa.

ValleyCentral reached out to the fourth candidate, Jonathan Salinas, but has not yet received a response.

Molina, Garcia, and Ochoa are set to meet for a business forum on Thursday morning at the Edinburg Conference Center.