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Commerce Official Ballot Count Confirms Tina Baca Del Rio and Lelia Leon Out

Lilia Leon (top) and Tina Baca Del Rio.

By Brian Hews

After years of corruption and lack of any discernible progress in Commerce, newcomers Leonard Mendoza and John Soria, and incumbent Ivan Altamirano have officially won the June 6, 2017 Commerce City Council election.

Final counts were Mendoza 522, Soria 508, and Altamirano 475.

Long-time official Tina Baca Del Rio, who was fined over $104,000 by the Fair Political Practice Commission after a series of exclusive articles published by Hews Media Group-Community News, came in fourth at 450 votes.

Lelia Leon, a long-time ally of Baca Del Rio, who played musical chairs with Baca Del Rio, with the two nominating each other as Mayor and Mayor pro tem of Commerce every year, placed ninth out of eleven candidates tallying 390 votes.

Other candidate’s counts were: Jaime Valencia 440, Denise M. Robles 423, Johncito “John” Peraza 406,  Leon 390, Sylvia Munoz 365, Randy “Sax” Romero 321, and Charlie Calderon 208.

One resident who did not want to be identified commented, “ding-dong the witches are dead,” referring to the Wizard of Oz musical, “we have finally rid ourselves of Baca Del Rio and Leon, now maybe this City can move on.”

 

 

 

 

The election took on its usual corruption with rumors that Jason Stinette and Angel Gonsalez were running certain candidate’s campaigns.

Also, allegations of voter fraud were prevalent during the past two months; HMG-CN exclusively reported  on those alleged violations but the City Clerk did nothing.

 

Commerce Resident Claims Election Fraud by Phony Election Officials

 

Election Violations, Invalid Ballots Taint Commerce City Council Race

And residents want something done about that.

Instead of investigating allegations of voter fraud, City Clerk Lena Shumway slammed a robo call sent out by other candidates warning residents of phony election officials.

The officials were telling residents they could take their ballot to city hall for them, or even place a stamp on the ballots and mail for them. It was fraud because the workers were saying they were from the city.

A video showed the workers, but Shumway never investigated the allegations.