 Welcome everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Jamisa Jarman. I am the program chair for this event for the San Antonio Black Lords. First a few housekeeping matters. We've set up in the Fellowship Hall some refreshments and so there are pastries and there's water so if anyone needs any water please feel free to leave the sanctuary and go and get that. Also, if you have to use the restroom, there are four in this area. There are two doors in the back of me, one to the right, one right behind me, and then there are two in the halls in the back. So if you go out of the back doors, go straight, go to the right, each side will left on this side, then you will go down the hall and you will find the restrooms. And so feel free if you need to do that also. On behalf of the San Antonio Black Lawyers Association, I want to thank you all for coming along with our partners and I'll talk a little bit about our partners because we've been very blessed this year to have some great partners. The San Antonio Black Lawyers have in the past, at least since 2012, put on some sort of candidates form in order to inform the constituents in Bear County of the judicial races or the male races because it's important to have information. So when you go into the polls and you vote, you know who you're voting for and you have knowledge and information about them. Our goal is to provide you with the knowledge. This is a nonpartisan event and we just invited the masses to come and hear from the candidates. Again, as I said, as the years have gone by, we've been very fortunate to partner with some great people and this year is just no exception. And so I want to introduce our partners this year and our first partner I'm going to talk about is the Community of Churches for Social Action. TTSA has partnered with us in the past and it's been a great relationship. The second organization who's partnering with us this year is the NAACP. The organization we're partnering with this year is the League of Women Voters Incorporated. Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, Delta Ro Lambda Chapter. This organization is close to my heart. It's Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated, Alpha Phi Zeta Chapter. The blue should have given it away. We would be remiss if we didn't thank Pastor Jerry Daly because the Macedonia Baptist Church staff, they have just been their generosity and their hospitality and Pastor Daly up to give a few words. Thank you, Jameesa. We want to extend words of welcome to each of you that have gathered here. We thank God for the partnership that is taking place and because of that partnership, we believe that we can do more together than any one of us can do alone. Macedonia is a church with an exciting ministry where love is intentional and discipleship is our goal. And so we believe that it is important, significant and imperative that we take advantage of moments like these. late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that voting is the foundation stone of our political action. And so we have to take advantage. Nehemiah's countrymen tried to get him to come down from the wall and he said, I'm doing a great work and I can't come down. That's why we're here. We're doing a great work together and we can do a greater work and we can't allow anyone to make us come down. We got to pray. Starts with prayer, doesn't it? We can do nothing until we pray. But let me tell you, we can do so much more after we have prayed. We get up and go. And that's what we're going to do. We welcome you to Macedonia Baptist Church, not only today, the way Jamisa was giving directions to the restrooms. She'll be a good usher at Macedonia. He knows where to tell him to go. Thank you for the partnership. Thank you, candidates for coming because it is imperative that we do these things together. If you don't know the name of the person sitting next to you, shake their hand and give them your name. Amen. And God bless you is our prayer. Thank you, Jamisa. And next, I'd like to introduce presiding elder of the San Antonio District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, senior pastor Raymond Bryan to give a prayer. Let us pray. God of grace, God of mercy, grant us wisdom for the facing of this hour. Give us the wisdom, the insight needed and necessary to make the right choices as we go forth in the political process. We pray for your presence in this room. Open our eyes and help us to see. Unstop our ears and allow us to hear. Guide us in the direction that we need to go to make San Antonio everything that it needs to be. And we thank you for it. In Jesus name. Amen. It cannot be stressed enough how important this upcoming election is. And it is really important that you have information. And I hope that the attendees today were able to get a sample ballot from the front or a specific ballot for you that's really just for you so that you can follow along and you can mark the candidate of your choice. You can take that ballot into the voting booth with you. So if you don't have one, please let one of the ladies in the back, either a lady in blue or Jocelyn in the back, with the gray t-shirt with sob and no, so that they can print out the ballot for you so you can use it during this presentation. Also if by some chance you don't have a ballot or you lose the ballot, there was a piece of paper out front which gives you the information online that you can go to and you can find your specific ballot either through the election department or through the League of Women Voters. Also there's a voter's guide outside and that will list the candidates and not just the judicial candidates because if you saw the sample ballot or you saw your specific ballot you know that there are a lot of other positions on that ballot. And we couldn't cover everybody so if you go to the League of Women Voters or just do some research but their guide is really good because they've asked questions of the candidates and you can compare the answers. So there's some outside if you need them or also you can go online and there's a piece of paper out there which has that information. Early voting starts October 22nd which is Monday and lasts through November 2nd. So there's really no excuse for people not to vote because during early voting you can vote anywhere you want to. And there's a list outside of that also so if you need it please grab a piece of grab that piece of paper. And lastly I'm going to talk about this real quickly before we get started. VIA is going to be allowing people to ride for free on November 6th so on Election Day if you show your voter registration card. And it's also our understanding that Uber and Lyft will be providing either free or discounted rides on Election Day but it's going to be contingent upon a promotional code. And I tried to get that code to distribute but they haven't released them yet. So if you're an Uber or Lyft person please check on their website because they're partnering with organizations who are going to provide those codes for you. Again no reason not to get to the polls. And one final housekeeping matter that I forgot to mention now cast essays taping this and if you want to get a copy of the video or replay it I guess replay it you can go to www.NowNOWCASTSA.com and I think there's some of these cards in the back so feel free to pick up the cards and there's a lady in the pews who has some cards for you. Now before we get started I want to go over a couple of housekeeping rules for this forum. Each candidate will be given two minutes and they'll be given a 30-second warning by Glinda Wohlen. And Glinda would you stand up so that they can see you? Glinda will be there. And Glinda is representing legal good and murder. No candidate will be allowed, I'm sorry, will be allowed to speak for longer than the two minutes. The candidates have not been given any limitations on what they can talk about so they can talk about anything they want to for those two minutes. Because of the number of candidates a representative is not allowed to appear for the candidate. The candidate has to be here to speak. However we're making concessions for candidates who have other things going on and if you're running late you will still be able, the candidate will still be able to speak if their time has passed as long as as soon as everyone else is finished. They'll just come in at the end. So if a candidate shows up late that candidate will still be allowed to speak. Candidates when they arrived they had some had campaign material that's on a table in the back. Please feel free to pick up that information also. And lastly the we're going to call we're going to start out of order a little bit because one of the candidates has a pressing engagement and so we're about to proceed now and the first court we're going to call is the probate court number one. And they're calling the first candidate's going to be called with the permission of Judge Cross is Oscar Cazan the Democrat in this race. And the last thing there are microphones all over for the candidates so any of the microphones supposedly are hot so you can pick up the microphone behind you you can come down it's completely up to you whatever you feel comfortable with. And at this time I give you Oscar Cazan the Democrat for probate court number one. I look across some of the congregation I see many familiar faces I want to thank you for having me here. You know normally and this is kind of poetic justice everyone here will nod their heads the probate courts are the last two courts you can possibly vote for on the ballot. I am actually almost the last Democrat standing on the ballot and so every time we have one of these forums I'm always sitting there for two hours before I get to talk. So I think this time though I'll forgive me because they've had to sit behind them every single time. You know it's hard to get to know somebody in two minutes but I think I can share with you the three most important parts of my life the first one obviously is when I married my beautiful wife Melissa but I've been with her 27 years she is my best friend but the two most significant things that prepared me for this are my service in the United States Marine Corps and my acceptance to the Thurgood Marshall School Law of Texas you see the Marines taught me how to fight but Thurgood Marshall taught me what to fight for and I know that when you ask me to be your judge because I have been your judge for 15 years and when I was I was one of the very first ones to set up a court that took people who were addicted to drugs out of jail and into treatment that was my court and when I was I was one of the very first people that set up a court that took people out of incarceration and hospitalization and put them in treatment when they were mentally ill because I know after my tour my tour forgive me as a Marine what to fight for and in my education as a lawyer what's important and these issues of justice these issues of fairness are echoes of what God demands of all of us I think Thurgood Marshall said that I'm hopeful that you will consider me on the ballot this year it's pretty easy to find me on the yellow one just go to the very end and if you stay awake long enough this November 6th then write a computer just keep pressing that button until you get the case thank you and now I'd like to call Judge Kelly Cross the Republican on behalf I'd like to thank everyone for having all of the candidates here this afternoon and the sun is out my name is Kelly Cross I am your probate judge for probate court number one and I want to very much ask for your vote starting on Monday I've accomplished over 50,000 case dispositions I've made this court very very efficient I am taking care of probate and mental health and what Judge Cason said is true mental health is very very important what I want you to know is that I believe racism still exists it exists in the delivery of services but it also exists down to the very smallest level inside of the homes all of our homes and until we can get rid of the shame of mental illness it's not going to go right until we take county wide responsibility for housing for education and for civil people who are law abiding who have mental health issues I don't know if we can make it much better than it is now I appreciate all the work that Judge Cason did when he was an associate judge in this office but we are moving forward we are educating our faith communities with pathways to hope for probate and for mental health and I ask for you to remember that this is a civil court it is not a criminal court we do not deal with people who are breaking the law but eventually they will come into the civil system hopefully they will be in our civil system and never get into the criminal system at all those that are mentally ill deserve our prayer they deserve our resources and they deserve a qualified judge my name is kelly cross I am your judge for bear county probate court number one and I thank you for allowing all of us to have a moment of your time thank you in case you're confused that wasn't exactly how it was on the ballot but the candidates agreed to go in that order so from now on we're going to follow the ballot exactly so are there the fourth court of appeals district place two are there any candidates from that fourth fourth court of appeals district place three jason pulliam is the republican on that ballot on that ticket and would you come down please or find a microphone good afternoon my name is jason pulliam thank you to revan daly and the organizations who put on this event this afternoon i want to send greetings from my pastor revan ray d brown from resurrection baptist church i'm running for the fourth court of appeals place three i'm originally from brooklyn new york and i have a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in political science and then i attended and graduated from the third good marshal school of law in houston texas after graduating from law school i joined the united states marine corps as a jag lawyer and i served four years at campus union north carolina in 2002 i was the top rated criminal defense lawyer and was the recipient of the defense council of the year of war after my tour of duty concluded i returned to texas where i represented texas in both civil and criminal cases in 2010 i was elected judge of county court at law number five and i served in that capacity for a little over four years when greg uh excuse me rick perry former governor appointed me to the fourth court of appeals and i served on that court for two years 2015 and 2016 i've been in civil litigation since that time and i'm running to get back on the fourth court of appeals i'm also um sir i served on the public safety commission i was appointed by governor greg abed in 2017 and i serve as one of five gubernatorially appointed commissioners over the 10 000 member public safety commission i'm running for this seat because i believe i'm qualified in both civil and criminal law i've been endorsed by the san antonio express news for this seat this seat's important because it serves 32 counties and this is ultimately in most cases the last court you will see for both criminal and civil cases because the texas supreme court and the court of criminal appeals here only a small number of cases dr king said that we should respect the dignity and worth of all human personality and the way judges can do that is by the proper interpretation and equal application of law to all citizens regardless of race gender or socioeconomic status my name is jason bulliam i look forward to earning your vote thank you very much we have justice patricia o'connell alvarez thank you for having us uh thank you um pastor dagney my name is patricia o'connell alvarez and i am your justice in the fourth court of appeals place three i went to utsa i went to the university of texas school of law i graduated in 1987 uh after that i practiced trial work i was in the trenches i represented uh everyone and everything in every case imaginable in the trial courts then i went to the court of appeals and um i was elected in 2013 and i served there with you let me tell you what a judge in the court of appeal should be a judge of the court of appeals should be a straight shooter no politics involved should look at justice justice is very important and it's very important because if we have any problems as judges we should recuse ourselves from the cases if we have any type of problem with impropriety with feelings or so forth we should recuse ourselves and i have done that i also follow the law and i protect your constitutional rights i have i was a single parent for many years i brought up my son he's an attorney married to an attorney i have five beautiful grandchildren i'm a member of holy redeemer catholic church and i asked for your vote my name is patricia o'connell alwadis and thank you very much for having us here the next seat is the fourth court of appeals district place four is there anyone here for that seat the next is the fourth court of appeals district place five i'd like to call justice rebecca simons please good afternoon it is a delight and pleasure to be here we always love the opportunity to come before the public before you and i'm here to actually earn your vote or at least i hope i can by doing so i want to tell you a little bit about my background a little bit about my experience my vision for the court if i can fit this in two minutes it'll be a miracle i grew up in a small town in texas my father my grandfather were lawyers i spent a lot of time after school making copies and typing back when typewriters had ribbons from there i was inspired to go to law school and i did and i was very interested in litigation and trial work i thought that was very exciting and i moved to san antonio where i'm married and had my family but i also started my practice with the law firm where i did a broad range of litigation and trial work and i've been a lawyer for over 25 years now during the course of that st mary's law school asked me to come and do a course and i've been doing that for 24 years and to teach young students at the law school about how to do a trial and so i get a lot of a lot of excitement and energy from that group but what you should know also is my judicial experience i actually was on the trial bench in san antonio trying cases of all kinds from family law to contracts car accidents i then was on the appellate court and i've been on the was on the appellate court for eight years and i continued doing my service as a visiting judge around the state as both a trial judge and an appellate judge what i would suggest for you is that the court needs experience and it needs experience in a broad range of cases of both criminal i've done a thousand opinions that i've written 500 of them or more have been on criminal side and on the um civil side but most of all i'm here to tell you most important thing for a judge is to respect justice respect the people before you and to be unbiased in your opinions thank you very much rebecca Simmons for the fourth court of appeals next we have the fourth court of appeals district place seven is there anyone here for that bench and now we're going to start with the district courts the first one is the district 45th district judicial district court stephanie wash judge stephanie wash i'm stephanie wash your judge of the 45th district court i thank you very much to all your organizations that put this together and i thank you for coming out and learning about us there is only one door to the courthouse it is not a door for d or r there is one door and everyone walks through the same door same thing with my courtroom when you walk in i don't ask what party you are and you don't ask me what party i am why because it doesn't matter we assess the facts of the case that come before us every judge is here does the same thing in that regard we follow the law we apply the law to the facts when you're looking at choice you need to choose the most experienced you need to remember that experience matters it's on my name it's on my sign and you'll hear from the other candidates why is that important because you want the most experienced candidate judge hearing your issues that affect your family and your lives i have been serving this community for 40 years first is a nurse and the registered nurse in the emergency room at the robert v green anyone here remember the robert v green then i put myself through law school i've been a lawyer licensed for 33 years i have been your judge for three years i am board certified in the area of family law the importance of that is the state of texas recognizes only 853 attorneys in the entire state of texas that are board certified and family law is having unique experience in the area of law in minus family i am i believe the most qualified candidate i believe i've earned your vote and i ask for it thank you next we have mary lou aureus hello everyone thank you for having us here thank you for having me and my children here they're actually getting a cookie thanks to miss kassandra so um i'm a single mom so most of my campaign events i bring my matty who's six and my hobby who's four to to to them so they can meet people you can get to know me because i think my children are extension of who i am and they have made me a better woman from when they were born and they are also my inspiration and my motivation for running i am from san antonio this is my community and my goal and my expectation is that we together will make our community better i do have experience to seek this bench i have been licensed for 15 years i've been in the courtroom since before i went i graduated from law school i i worked for a federal judge in newark new jersey i worked for the u.s attorney's office in newark new jersey and then upon graduation i had the the distinct privilege of serving as a federal law clerk for a judge in bowmont texas a federal judge in bowmont texas the majority of my legal career has been at texas real grand legal aid representing uh the poor representing the indigent representing victims of domestic violence in divorce custody and protective border litigation i'm in private practice now for those of you who are parents you know the children are not conducive to a legal aid salary so but even now as a private practitioner i dedicate half my docket to continuing to serve the community as an attorney at lidem for the children's uh the children's court cps litigation and also as a contract attorney for texas real grand legal aid i have my undergrad from stanford university and went coast to coast and brought all of those diverse perspectives to sin Antonio to my home i'm asking for your support because i want to make sure that we bring justice without exception back to the court people need to be listened to compassion needs to be part of what we do when we're resolving disputes between each other between brothers and sisters mothers and fathers and we need that now more than ever so i'm asking you to vote for me please i'll be here my kids will be here you can ask them whether or not i'm a good mom depending on whether or not i would tell the cookie don't ask them please vote for me mary lou alvarez for the 45th district court thank you anyone here from the 144th district court then the next bench is the 150th district court rene yanta how are y'all doing thank you so much i am so glad to be here rushing to get here but so glad to be here i am the judge of the 150th the 150th he's a civil court i go from handling a truck accident case all the way to handling very severe child protective services cases i've been a lawyer for 25 years i've been i've had the honor of being your judge for almost seven the most important case that we handle at the 150th are cases that involve children that involve protecting children and if at all possible helping the mother and the father to heal themselves and then heal their family while doing that work i found that girls that are in the foster care system teen girls 14 to 18 are not served well by the system so i created a special court on my own that we do at night and on weekends we do that as a community-based effort we have mentors we have over 35 mentors from all over san antonio so every year i have 20 girls who are assigned to my court and together with those 35 women we provide therapeutic care we provide very strong loving mentoring and we provide life skill training so these girls will be prepared to be adults when they come to me these girls are on a path to having probably one in four graduate from high school one in four they're on a path to almost every about 75 percent becoming pregnant before they turn 18 we are very excited to tell you that after three years we have had zero pregnancies and we have a 90 percent high school graduation rate amen is exactly the first court i am judge rene yonte and i would be honored to have your vote thank you and next we have lene hi everyone thank you so much for having us how are you doing today are you enjoying this so far i really appreciate you taking the time to come learn about us the candidates we are here to serve you my name is monique Diaz i was born and raised here in san antonio but i'm the proud daughter of my Puerto rican mother and Dominican father and they came here over 30 years ago because they like many of us believe in the american story right the story that regardless of where we came from the color of our skin who we worship who we love in this nation if we work hard we're supposed to be able to succeed right but i was raised a woman of faith and my parents taught me at a young age every night to say my prayers and at the end of those prayers i would thank god for my many blessings and pray for the less fortunate and i took that with me my whole life but i did more than just pray right i have been an avid volunteer in our community i have served on local boards and commissions i'm proud to sit on the mayor's commission for the status of women i sit on the maestro entrepreneur center board which helps minority and small and veteran-owned businesses succeed in our community but i am most proud of the work i've done in my law firm i have owned my own firm here for the last eight years and i do everything i do family criminal business contracts wills i've even been a city attorney and city prosecutor for eight cities trying hundreds of cases in charge of all of their civil litigation drafting their codes of ethics investigating complaints into elected officials violating the codes of ethics but in all of that work i am not a rich lawyer because i dedicate so much of my time to pro bono work like mary lou has as well helping the underprivileged folks in our community the underserved with free or reduced rate services so i want to be your next judge of the 150th district court to make sure every person that comes through that courtroom is treated with the same amount of dignity and respect that they deserve regardless of where they came from thank you so much for your time i'd love to visit with you more monique dias for the 150th district court thank you the next bench is the 186th judicial district but i think the judge is in here and he's running unopposed the next one is the 187th district court and i call stefanie arboyd i'm going to step down because i feel like i'm distance from everybody thank you my name is stefanie boyd i'm running for the 187th district court i have over 21 years experience in criminal law i have a bachelor's degree in political science a master's degree in business and my jd is from st mary's university school of law my experience has been in the criminal courts my experience has been with felony drug court it's been with esperanza court all of these are treatment courts to help our citizens get up off their feet to get up and to be better citizens as i think about what's going on in the country today i think about what my mom always told me my mom said when she was in elementary school believe it or not they had to memorize a passage and that passage started with these are the times that try men's souls what does that mean it means try we are on the edge of a knife in this country we are in a place where diversity is frowned upon where civility is a thing of the past that's important in a criminal court the reason why it's important is because you need to be similar to people you need to treat everybody who comes before you with respect i can promise you that i will do that because that's the way i was raised that's the way i was brought up that's the way i am when i'm in the community i've always worked with children i worked with children as a defense attorney i represented them when they were abused i am working to make san antonio and bear county better now as a prosecutor i handle cases where children have been abused and neglected and raped what we need to realize is that here in bear county politicians come out to you and tell you they love children they love them during campaign season but after campaign season you do not hear from them and the reason why you do not hear from them is because children don't vote so you must be the voice of the children in bear county we need to stand up now what i see in this crowd right now i see 10,000 people and the reason why i've seen 2,000 people because i know each one of you is going to get out there pull your relatives pull your friends and take them to go vote and i ask for your support and i ask you to take and go vote for Stephanie Boyd for judge of the 187th district court the next bench would be the 224th judicial district but that judge judge kathy striker is running unopposed the next bench is the 225th judicial district uh judge peter sockeye that's an unimposed bench also so next we get to district court 226th and Todd and i'll call Todd mccray good afternoon you hear me good afternoon brothers and sisters my name is Todd mccray and i'm running for the 226th criminal district court criminal district court means that the cases that this court presides over come from the grand jury so they are the most serious cases in our community many of the individuals in that court are facing life and death sentences many of the individuals in that court are repeat individual offenders this race has to do with the next generation of public service in our community judge harle has retired he's been on the bench for 30 years and before that we had a judge that had been on the bench for 10 this bench has been continuously occupied for 40 years it is now empty and it will be up to you in a few weeks who is the next judge to preside over this court i think courts and public offices should be about public service i have 28 years of experience practicing exclusively criminal law i started in the district attorney's office in the early 90s i stayed there a short time and got a significant amount of experience i moved into private practice got significant experience very very early in my career i've been continuously board certified since 1997 in the practice of criminal law i have practiced exclusively over 20 years mainly representing indigent individuals in our community as a court appointed attorney not as a super lawyer as we see in the magazine so i know about what indigency means i know about the the underprivileged in our community i would ask for your vote humbly ask for your consideration that experience matters i would also ask that you consider values my mom said to tell you that i'm a fifth generation member of the church of christ you will get that in a judge if i take and mention you elect me in november my dad said to say you'll get a four-generation texan and my scout master said to let you know that you'll get an evil scout when you elect me in November todd mccray for the 226 criminal district court thank you for your vote mr mccray's opponent is valia messa i don't think she's here the next bench is an unopposed bench the 227 and so we get to the 285th judicial district is there anyone here from that for that bench and then the next one is the 288th judicial district is clint losen here synthia marie chapa thank you for being here thank you for listening and taking the time to get to know us two minutes is not enough time to know what we stand for what we've done but i'm going to try to give you a little bit and then hopefully you'll do your research and you'll go to my website and you go to my website you're going to hear people that are actually speaking about what i've done who i am and what i believe in in this court you need somebody that's going to have the right of temperament you need someone that's going to have compassion you need somebody that's going to follow the law i have served this community for 20 years i'm originally from corpus christi i moved here in 1998 to tethering university where i got a degree in political science that i attend the samaritan law school i served in city capitol district 3 i served as a district director for state representatives for 14 years where i was able to draft and pass legislation to help grandparents to give them funding we have grandparents in this community that are raising anywhere from one to eight children on fixed income if they're in foster care they get funding and they get services if you're a bishop if you're a relative you don't it's essential to make sure that these individuals are getting the services and funding that they need i have also had the opportunity to have my own law practice for 11 years it's a general practice it's family law it's uh doing wills it is criminal law it's and i've served from the valley all the way to doubt i want you to know i was raised in faith i was raised to respect one another i was raised to listen i grew up with my dad who told me that i could be anything i wanted to be but he also told me and showed me the injustices that we have justice is not easy and it doesn't come without having somebody that's going to listen and follow the law please go to my website www.chop-up-2288 go to my facebook if you are willing to support me please share the information it's so important to come out before our time is up if anyone needs a ride to the polls you can call and get a ride if you have individuals that will take you up do not let transportation be the reason that you don't come out of the boat thank you for your time and i humbly ask for your support next we have the 289th judicial district court and we have judge pravati daphne pravati austin good evening well good afternoon hello everyone hello candidates i am so pleased to be here thank you very much and i want to apologize for walking in a few minutes late i was modeling at that fancy hat luncheon at second baptist earlier today and so i met a lot of voters over there we had a good time but i'm happy to be with you now and i just want to tell you that i know that i work for the people of bear county and i want to humbly ask for your vote to be reelected i preside over a juvenile district court which is for children that are 10 to 16 at the time that they commit their offense when they get in trouble they get to come see me the next morning and i like to try and get them back on track and get them where they need to be to be good citizens in this community so to that end i worked on a couple of new initiatives this term i've just completed my first term and we started a boys mental health court docket which is the only one in the entire country and other jurisdictions are looking to us to create similar models in their jurisdictions as well i was on the board of the almo youth center which was to create a place for the teen victims of human trafficking that are so prevalent in our community to try to get them an opportunity to get their lives back on track we were able to do that with the creation of centros to grow on the near west side after only one year of working together with the governor's office and the kakoski foundation so those are things i'm very proud of again this is two minutes is very short time if you'd like to know more about me you may visit my facebook page instagram twitter my website is www.electdathy.com and again i respectfully ask for your vote from carlos casada hello everyone i'm also a candidate for the 289th juvenile district court i've been an attorney for the past 10 years um i graduated well i went to i've born and raised in the same south side i went to harland oh high school graduated i now serve on their board after i went to palo Alto college thank god i got a scholarship to st. mary's university but for that scholarship i would not have been able to afford uh college and then i went on to the Thurgood Marshall school of law where i gained my law degree after my law degree i was recruited to join the district attorney's office in the web county which is laredo texas anybody knows about laredo texas that's down the border it's a tough area of town and um there i did four years there i prosecuted and tried everything from possession of marihuana's all the way to murders after my service here i came back to my community came back to the south side where i still live and i'm serving mark me serving you all as a defense attorney i do court appointing cases i get appointed for emptying from um possession of marihuana's all the way up to felony two domestic violent cases and i work in the trenches every day with with attorneys here like darrell back there um darrell um and so we go toe to toe every day but we respect each other and we're doing it for the good of community real quick for the 289 juvenile district court but i think what we really really need is a little bit of tough love i don't want to put some stains on their records i'm not trying to lock them up for life but we do need some tough love because i don't want them to graduate to these systems over here i don't want them to get to the district courts i don't want them to get to the county court level we need some tough love the juvenile level um please look me up carloscasadafordjudge.com god bless you all oh i was a uh ultra boy at st james uh for a long long time so god bless you guys thank you if you have any questions i'll be here next we'll hear from judge melisa skinner of the 290th uh district court good afternoon everybody i'm melisa skinner i am your judge of the 290th judicial district court i have been for eight years uh if i'm a little out of breath uh that's because i was modeling hats where judge daphne brevity Austin was with the beautiful lovely people at the second baptist and so thank you for having us here and accepting us running in just a little bit late i've been on this bench as i stated eight years prior to that i was an assistant criminal district attorney for 15 i was actually the lead attorney in this court trying everything from high-end deaths all the way to death penalty cases and i have massive amounts of experience trying every type of violent crime as well as nonviolent crimes in your district courts here from the air county i also did a couple of years as a criminal defense attorney so i know a little bit about those sides let me just say that my philosophy on this court on this bench has been that i need to look at people and decide is this someone that i can help and i can turn around or is this someone who is harmful to our community and i have the experience based on all of the cases that i've either tried or i've handled which by the way i've handled thousands upon thousands of criminal cases i have the experience to do that to take a step back and look at someone and say is this somebody that we can help or is this someone who is a danger to our community and that's what someone does on a district court bench and it's essential that the person who takes these benches has the experience to know that and to do that so that we have a safer community but also a better community very quickly about me born and raised in san antonio texas i went to providence high school and university of texas at austin st mary's law school i have three beautiful children who are almost now grown so i would say adults and i'm very lucky to have grown up here in this community and who too have served in this community and i hope to do it again for the next four years that would be my third term please vote for me i would love to have your vote again and your support melissa skinner the judge of the 298 district court thank you and now we'll hear from jennifer pinion for the 298 district court a little bit about myself as i'm from a small town i was the first one in my family to go to college and on to law school unfortunately a lot of my cousins and siblings didn't follow but i'm hoping to break that cycle with my children to get them into college now i started my career as a prosecutor down in the valley and then came here to bear county i practiced and i tried all cases from tickets to capital murder in 2009 i realized that as a prosecutor i really wasn't making much of a difference putting a band aid on society's ills so i wanted to do something different i became a defense attorney i got licensed in federal court i tried to figure out what more can i do for my community to make a difference i've been a criminal defense attorney since then i'm in criminal courts i'm in juvenile courts i'm in cps courts i'm in federal courts what i've learned and i know i learned this a long time ago but but what i'm now vocalizing is that our criminal justice system is is broke it has been for a very long time we have judges that need to be the beginning of a change we need judges to be the beginning of a change and that change is not using incarceration as the only answer we need to focus more on rehabilitation we need more specialty courts and if we don't have the funds for specialty courts judges need to act on their own and become and think like a judge of a specialty court and that means giving people opportunities when you're dealing with nonviolent offenders you're dealing with people who have substance abuse problems who are homeless who have mental health issues the answer is not sending them to prison and getting them off your dockets the answer is working with them keeping them on your docket helping them even if that means giving them one two three four five chances if they are nonviolent offenders especially if they're young don't send them to prison don't convict them don't let them be a convicted felon at the age of 22 my name is jennifer pinia i'm out of time go vote my dad doesn't even vote but don't give up on them get them out there vote the next two benches the 436 and the 437 the judges are unopposed so now we'll be going to the criminal district attorney race and we'll hear from tilden chaffer i'm so glad to be here and i'm so glad you were here as a daily thank you for opening your doors here and the wonderful prayer and this office is a critical office in this county and why is that it's because the voice of the da is the voice of law and order it is is an office that requires integrity and ethics it's an office that requires experience and it's an office that requires wisdom i've been a practicing attorney in this county for 28 years i spent the first nine years as a district attorney i rose to the level of first chair felony prosecutor that's the highest level you can get below supervisors and i tried 150 jury trials many of them you know very dangerous and and deadly felonies including two capital murders i then left that office and i open my own practice where i serve the community and i serve the entire community because that's part of what you do as a lawyer you you have to make sure everybody is properly represented whether they were a court appointed case for me or whether they were attained a case or whether it was a pro bono case or whatever it was i took an oath to zealously defend the law and my client every lawyer in the state of texas does that and i took that to heart if elected i will take that same oath to defend this community to protect this community and ensure that everybody is treated safely and what the communities around this county want is inclusion they want to be listened to and they want fairness they want fairness and that is something that i will take to heart i've done that my entire career as a prosecutor and as an attorney i'm tilden schaefer i'm running as a republican candidate for district attorney i love this community i raised my family here with my wife this vote matters i i'm asking for your trust thank you very much next we're here from joe gonzalez the democratic candidate for district attorney before i begin i want to i want to acknowledge certain people and thank them for putting this together first as past daily this is about the third or fourth time i come to these beautiful churches here and and so thank you very much for inviting here i would also like to thank and acknowledge the organizations that put this together particularly alpha fi alpha there's a couple of members here that i want to recognize daryl harris weighing the back and and uh former councilman uh Keith tony uh mr mr tony is is a supporter of mine he is endorsing my candidacy but more importantly uh the reason these gentlemen are question to me is earlier i was honored with the opportunity to serve as the keynote speaker to their uh scholarship gala this early this year for that i am honored and i appreciate the invitation but what's important is is not so much that you hear about our experience because folks everybody up here was experienced but what's more important is for you to learn about us and learn why we're the better candidate and i'm here to tell you that i think the difference between myself and my opponent is the vision that i bring to the office i enjoy endorsements of several people in this community that i know that you that you that you recognize one has been your former councilman but in addition to that uh representative barbara berlin talkings i saw her walk in here she's also supportive of mine as as its councilman william shaw but what's important is that those people including the express news recognize how i differ uh from my opponent and that is for example the express news said we recommend joe bontiles for district attorney because the promise of bontiles's candidacy is that not only will he be a focused and effective prosecutor but he will stand out as a criminal uh a voice for criminal justice reform what that means focus folks is i'm going to focus on programs like site and release that have already gone on public is being supportive i'm going to focus on restorative justice which means giving people the second chance that jennifer pennant talked about and and those opportunities to give people a chance to avoid being straddled with the conviction and because of that i ask for your support and i ask for your vote and thank you very much for listening to us mr gonzala stole my thunder because i was going to recognize representative barbara and hawkins next from the 120th district would you like to say a few words good afternoon everyone i'm going to be mean and take a little point of privilege y'all first of all i'll tell you each one of these individuals have worked very hard and as a judge it's a county wide deal i have the the pleasure of working in district but they're working county wide and they're working hard our judges are important in the sense that they determine who keep their children who don't if you get two years or you get 20 so this forum is very very important so thank you every daily for the for the inside and working with with your folks to make this happen but what i want to say about this race that is so important we do need to see change i think all of us know this and knowing your candidates is important but not only just knowing the candidates work with specific candidates we can no longer just wait and hope the early numbers have come in there is 5600 million ballots that has been received so far last year this time there was 8 000 so we're running short okay and i do have the breakdown but i'm not going to reveal all my secrets publicly okay what i will ask is this you don't have to live in my district to work my district because i know you know somebody in my district so i'm asking for each and every one of you to help me win this election i do have an opponent people say oh barbie you a shoe in nope i need your help and reverend daily elder brian this needs to be a new day and a new hour in terms of our faith-based community strategically going out and making sure folks get out if you heard the news this morning there's a lot of voter suppression going on okay and quietly in bear county there's a voter suppression going on so we have got to get involved so volunteer if you can you know even if it's just an hour to a day the phone banking the block walking to picking up the phone and call grandma joe and any name and uncle big john or whatever and tell them to mail their mail in balancing go over there and help them if you need to so we need your help i need your help german hawkins i have a bachelor's a master's and a phd okay i've got a business background i've got an educational background and i think nobody nobody can doubt my commitment to the community nobody because i've walked the walk and i've talked to talk and to me that is what an elected official is all about because we are truly public servants and then finally what i want to do is invite you out tuesday morning bethore war is coming to vote with me at claud black center from eight to eight thirty to be able to have a lot of folks there to be able to greet greet him and also to be part of the voting populace on that day of voting so if you don't uh if you even if you vote on monday still come on tuesday and and meet bethore but between eight and eight thirty at claud black because i've reached out to him and i've said we need your help in our community it's not that we don't have registered voters of a hundred and seventy five thousand people in my district i have a hundred and one thousand registered voters can you imagine a hundred and one thousand voters if we work that district we can win whatever we want to and so what i'm asking of the brian our wonderful reverend daily thanks for the support i need a little bit more we need mobilization okay we need folks so i'ma give y'all a strategy that i just did i needed to get a thousand yard signs out i was able to get a thousand yard signs placed in three days and this is how i did it i identified 38 friends and i said come on and so councilman keith tonic came got those people picked up anywhere from 12 to 50 signs in three day and i wanted the address is too so i go check make sure they did okay they placed a thousand signs for me okay that's what we can do strategically the elections are one just i'm hoping people come to the polls y'all it comes it happens when you strategically work and that's what we have to do so i'm happy to see each and every one of you here and i need everybody in this room working and let's work together for a better community so that we are for our children and our children's children we prepare a better place and we honor our forefathers and mothers for the lives that they gave to give us an opportunity to vote so again i'm barba graven hawkins running for state representative district 120 and i don't have it on lock i need everybody's help thank you thanks for going to turn to the county courts and i'd call judge helen petrie stove good afternoon everyone i am judge helen petrie stoe i have a microphone and i'm in church and i think it's time to sing victory in jesus yeah all right i grew up in the baptist church my grandmother took me to church every sunday she is 91 years old now and i take her to church every sunday and i think that's the way that it's supposed to be i have become this judge very recently only two weeks ago i was appointed and not elected but i am also the nominee the democratic nominee on your ballot and i'm asking for your vote today because in order for me to keep this job in the new year i need your vote and i need to get elected now this league of women voters guide is actually incorrect because it says that my opponent is withdrawn and he's not running he is running he did resign and he did step down and that's why i got this appointment however he remains on the ballot and unless i get elected he could come back in the new year all sorts of other things could be the outcome of that so i'm humbly asking for your vote today please do now let me tell you a little bit about my background my professional background is i'm a former school teacher i actually taught eighth grade english on the east side at davis middle school before i went back to school and became an attorney i went to st mary's law school and then i went to work at the da's office where i've been for the past 10 years until about two weeks ago all right so i have lots of experience trial experience i have a pellet experience i know the law i know it takes to be a good judge in this court this is also a criminal misdemeanor court which is in line with my background as a criminal prosecutor but it's really not my professional experience that i come and ask you for this vote for it's actually my life experience because i have a unique life experience and it is a great benefit to the people who are going to come before me this is a court where i am going to see a lot of first time offenders a lot of young people a lot of people who have taken the wrong road and i myself at 16 had a daughter i have a 24 year old now she graduated from college two years ago very proud of her very proud of me but i actually dropped out of high school i was i am a sitting judge and a high school dropout so i might be the only person in texas who can say that um i got a g ed i went and got my g ed because i decided i needed to get to school right away i needed to take care of her and take care of me and high school is no longer a place for me so i went uh got my degree became a school teacher decided that you know i wanted to pursue law went back again uh when she was 10 years old and uh graduated from law school she was 13 so i tell you that because i understand what it is to be in a place in life where people make you think that you don't have something to offer the world and i want you to know that i think the people who come into my court have something to offer the world and i want to help them to do that all right so thank you so much i would love your vote judge helen peter stow um help help me keep this bench in the new year thank you so much next we have county court at law number two judge jason wolf good afternoon everybody thank you for having me it's it's a pleasure to be here um my name is jason wolf i'm the judge of county court at law number two i've been on the bench almost eight years now i'm from san antonio i graduated from utsa i graduated summa cum laude and uh then i have a family i've been married to lin my wife for 22 years i have three kids and three grandkids i went on to ut law while raising a family i graduated uh with honors from ut law and that was commuting almost four hours a day um i went from ut law into the district attorney's office i tried everything from misdemeanor cases uh dwis all the way up to murder cases and at one point let me tell you why i ran for county court number two the reason i ran is at one time i was a prosecutor in that court in the average age of a case in county court at law number two was four years old in fact there was one young man who was charged with reckless driving he had been waiting for his case for his trial for almost nine years as a prosecutor i would announce ready for trial but it was dependent upon the judge bringing a jury you can't try your case if the judge doesn't bring in a jury so that's why i ran it was the biggest backlog county court by far within the first year i had 40 jury jury trials i reduced the docket that had 3,500 cases on it 1,600 of those were set for trial if you didn't get your trial with a previous judge you'd say come back next year so within that first year i reduced the docket by over 70 percent i currently and i reduced the jury trial settings from 1,600 cases to presently there's about a hundred cases on my jury trial docket if you want a trial in county court too you can get it as early as 30 days so that's why i ran uh there was a recent poll among 400 plus attorneys in the attorneys who appeared before you could answer these questions they would answer how does this judge rate for punctuality for temperament for impartiality for working hard and overall judge overall performance out of the 13 county court of law that handle criminal cases i rated number one in every category and i've been endorsed by the san antonio express news i've been a blessed man i want to continue to be your judge and if i'm not i know god will put me where he wants me but thank you judge jason wolf county court too and next we have grace jason wolf good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and thank you all for being here and thank you for your attention in the next two minutes while i explain to you who grace who's on by is and the experience you've heard everybody talk about experience one of the things that you need to realize and i did what i thought about coming to becoming an attorney is i was told that life experience is very valuable when you are going to represent people and life experience is very valuable when you are going to sit as a judge my life experience has included 20 years of military service to this community to this country my life experience includes working three years as starting up the center for terrorism law at saint nary's university school of law again serving this country my life experience includes 10 years as a defense attorney at you are here in bear county in those over 10 years of experience i have worked as a defense attorney for problem solving courts problem solving courts deal with people who have addictions whether it's alcohol or it is drugs low-level crimes are committed by people who have a drug problem addiction problem and one of the things that we need to realize is that we need to treat and not incarcerate one of the things i look forward to is restorative justice and that is where the legal system the criminal legal system is leaning towards that's the trend ladies and gentlemen i hope that you appreciate the profile that you see here i want you to look at the landscape of the people who are the candidates who are running and i ask for your vote for county court at law number two my name is grace and you remember that you need grace but if you can't remember my last name please remember this it starts with you and i need to be serving you as the next judge of county court at law number two thank you next we have county court at law number three ashley foster good afternoon ladies and gentlemen i am ashley foster i want to thank you all for being here but i think first i need to express my condolences as well to frankly all of us in the room i can only imagine that none of us won the lottery last night is that true i mean don't get me wrong it's not that i would not have still come to meet you i just thought maybe we could all do it from my yacht and the mediterranean that might have been a little bit more fun but in all sincerity ladies and gentlemen i am running for county court number three and that's a civil bitch it handles smaller matters than the district court a little bit about my background and i went to the university of texas for my undergraduate degree i graduated from the university of north texas with a master's degree and then went on to you know st mary's university school of law for my law degree i then went into the district attorney's office where i fought for victims rights for the next 12 years i was primarily assigned to either violent crimes handling everything from assaults all the way up to murders and i just a substantial period of time in white collar crime so i'm that means that i know how to go after corrupt officials but again this is a civil court so what you're looking at beyond my criminal trial experience is also my civil experience once i got out of the district attorney's office i started my own pardon me my own civil trial litigation firm and then once i got married to my husband who i've been married to he's also an attorney i've been married to him for five years he and i started foster and foster we now have the joy of our lives a little three-year-old boy but all of that aside as as joe deegan's all said we all all have a significant amount of experience here as we sit on this stage so what is different about me and about my campaign that you're going to want to know about well when i sat down with my husband we talked about running for judge we prayed about it and what came to us is the following when i have pledged to not take any money whatsoever from attorneys to fund any portion of my campaign and why is that important because every individual who walks into a courtroom should not be worried that someone else is has a step above because of any campaign contribution everyone should come in on the same and equal footing my name is ashley foster i'm committed to having integrity and i'm committed to justice and i asked for your vote for county court number three thank you so much next you'll hear from judge david rudriguez good afternoon i did win the lottery i'm still here so i think it's that important to be here jokingly of course my name is david rudriguez i'm the judge of county court number three i've been on the bench for 16 years this is my fifth election on the democratic ticket and i'm asking for your vote again uh last evening a number of us were at a mosque and they were talking to us about the concept of justice in islam and i think the concept of justice as in all religions is very important but it's also very important in the law as we all know the lawyers among us know that the kids are out here every morning say the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag they ended with liberty and justice for all right the founding fathers talk about the preamble we the people in order to form a war perfect union established justice insured domestic tranquility that's a very very important concept in our founding fathers was a t-shirt has a mark with the king's quote back here i just saw injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere right that's very important so how do we dispense justice how do we dispense justice you need to have experience to dispense the justice okay now justice is not just the concept of equality and equity it's nuance it's discretion it's experience you got to have that experience all within the parameters of the law but you got to have that experience i'm a much better judge now 16 years later than i was when i first started you learn to be a judge you learn how to do that i've tried over almost 300 jury trials you learn how to do those things in those last 16 years there have been a whole bunch of judicial polls that were taken and in the and i've always rated very well i've been very fortunate in the last judicial poll that was taken in 2017 uh that judge wolf was mentioning he talked about the 13 criminal county courts well they're 15 county courts and all two civil courts and of all 15 courts i rated number one out of all 15 courts in all those areas that he just survived described in about the judicial temperament in uh knowledge of the law in areas like work ethic impartiality that's what you wanted to judge that's what you needed to judge so i'm endorsed by the express news i'm endorsed by the sanctonics police department the fire department the trial lawyers the defense council afl cio anybody who gives endorsements with the exception maybe the republican party i'm endorsed so i enjoyed the endorsement and i hope i get your endorsement in your vote thank you so much next we'll hear from judge jason garahan for county court at law number four hi ladies and gentlemen sorry about that hi i'm glad to be here thank you for having us today i'm judge of category number four i've been the judge for the almost coming up on four years now and i just want to briefly tell you about myself uh i grew up in this community my whole life uh i worked for my parents for several years also they own the hungry farmer steakhouse here in town they've had several locations throughout the years but there's still one remaining hungry farmer on the south side southwest military in 35 and i've worked there for throughout my life and you know being in the restaurant business and anybody's ever worked in the restaurant business he teaches you humidity teaches you work ethic how you know i've learned a lot of things from the restaurant business i've met a lot of people through the restaurant business now by grace and and fortune uh that i uh i ran my own location and i ran that for 12 years i ended up at one point saying well restaurant business is not for me i want to be a lawyer and i went to law school here in st mary's i was lucky enough to be admitted into st mary's law and i graduated and i ended up getting hired by the da's office here in town i prosecuted for 10 years i tried anything from speeding tickets all the way up to capital murders now that's a little bit about my experience throughout my life as a uh well up to this point i've been the judge and i've worked the docket i go to work on time i leave on time i also have worked down the docket from 1600 down to 900 active caseload per month i've tried over 150 jury trials that's more experience than most people have as an attorney i will tell you this judge sit hall that's a city judge for 30 years now the presiding judge of the fourth region said to me and others judge garahand does the right thing on the right cases and he's the region judge he has been appointed by the governor and i'm sorry the senators so keep that in mind the judge sit her all is telling you that i am ethical and i have the right temperament to be on that bench i'm judge jason garahand count according to number four and i ask for your vote and i thank you very much for being here today next we'll hear from alfredo Jimenez good morning everybody i guess it's still morning time i want to thank everyone for being here no it's not it's afternoon um there's footballs on it i i'm i'm hurrying i'm hurrying i'm gonna give you the short version of my qualifications good like joe said everyone appears qualified we're all lawyers um we've all you know paid our dues and and worked hard and by the grace of god we're here um i myself uh you know have um i married into my lovely wife of eight years uh kassandra who is today is her birthday and she's waiting for me in pappados so i have hurry so i need to get over there but anyway uh thank y'all for having us it uh this election is not about us it's about you our country's at a crossroads it's a time for change because things of the way they are right now are simply just not working and they're getting worse and worse and worse and it's up to you guys because without you all there is no us so i could sit up here on blue in the face and tell you how great i am and how i deserve this and i deserve that you all deserve that not me you all deserve it you deserve someone up here who's gonna know what it's like to live in your neighborhood know what it's like to have that brother and sister cousin mom dad who comes before criminal courts this is a criminal court i've been a licensed lawyer for going on 16 years i graduated from st mary's university i got my law degree the next day i was at the bear county courthouse hustle in cases to make a living i've defended everything i'm licensed in two united states federal district courts and anyone who's been in the united states district court knows that's not that's no joke i bring humility to this to this job i will bring humility to this job i will know what it's like i know where you've been i know where you're coming from and i know what it takes my endorsements i've been endorsed by the san antonio express news bear county adult probation officers afl cio but that means nothing without your without your support and like i said this is your election not mine we've been we've been running campaigns now for 116 years on 16 months almost it seemed like 16 16 months some of us two years and but without you guys we're nothing i ask for your vote for judge of county court of law number four thank you you have a blessing next we have county court at law number five julie bray paterson good afternoon you all my name is julie bray paterson i'm running for county court at law number five i am running to make a difference and i am running to make positive change there's three things i want to accomplish if elected judge one is i want to increase the day-to-day efficiencies of this court two i want this place to be known as a place where all are treated fairly and three be a place where all are treated with dignity and respect i'm from san antonio i went to macarthur high school went on to university texas school of law i currently practice criminal law i do some juvenile work as well as adult criminal work majority of cases i take are appointed my goal in that and is the mission field in that is to make sure all are have a fair shot all have a fair shot at justice all have a fair shot at being heard i have worked on the other side of prosecuting the dallas county district attorney's office i do want to tell you about three other outside organizations that have come to me to ask me to serve one is morningside ministries i'm on their board they're not profit dealing in eldercare two is the city of almas park has asked me to be their alternate prosecutor and three the family enrichment court it's a specialty court and one of the juvenile courts they deal with domestic violence in the home they've asked me to be their staff attorney and that's in that court and again the reason i say these things to you is that these organizations have come to me and asked me to serve and believe i have something positive to offer and now i'm coming to you to ask you if i can serve you as a judge of county court at law number five the early voting begins monday i'm julie paterson i'm from san Antonio i'm for san antonio and ask for your vote county court at law number six is an unopposed bench so we'll move to county court at law number seven and we have judge eugenia genie right good afternoon that's your daily thank you so much for letting us be here i am the judge of era county court number seven i don't need to go into my experience and why i should be judge of this court i am the judge and i realized when i came in here that i've been here before i was here for jubilee sunday i was a speaker for jubilee sunday because i'm a silver life member of the naacp i'm a member of a league of women voters and i'm terrible with names elder brian where are you i'm a lifelong left and as a child growing up the things that i like i like stories i like stories from the bible that's how you teach the children religion right my favorite story is marthin mary remember marthin mary mary could sit and listen she had the heart to listen martha could push that green i'm a bit of both because this court requires a bit of both county court seven is a domestic violence court we deal with children we deal with families we deal with the most intimate relationships in your life and you better be a martha and you better be a mary and it's going to well in here the league of women voters i get your email so i wondered what you look like i'm genie wrought and i don't know what what representative hawkins is god but man i won't thank genie wrought next we'll hear from michael delion good afternoon folks again i'm michael delion i'm running for judge of county court law number seven forgive my genes this morning we had block walking efforts going on and several events throughout this busy weekend right before early voting um a little bit about me i'm a born and raised in san antonio went to edison high school graduated from u t s a with a degree in political science and got my law degree at south just south texas college of law in houston texas since then i've been a prosecutor with the district attorney's office for the past 17 years and a majority of my career i've been doing domestic violence prosecution county court seven is one of our domestic violence courts we have two domestic violence courts in barrett county that do domestic violence a specialty court and i feel that because of my experience in domestic violence i not only handle family violence assaults but i've handled family violence aggravated assaults family violence murders family violence capital murders if you think about a domestic violence at the most extreme form turns into murder and that's what we don't want in our community so as a member of the community i want to help our community to stop domestic violence and that's my message today is to stop domestic violence as a judge of the county court seven i'm going to work with offenders to make sure you know because when somebody lands in county court seven we've kind of lost the battle already capital battle is already lost because they've ended up there in our community we want to have prevention so that people don't end up being arrested for this offense and showing up to our court but at that point we have to find out what is going on with this individual is it an anger management problem is it a mental health problem is it drug or alcohol those are things we need to look at and make sure that we work with our probation department work with our resources so that we can make sure that we have people who do not reoffend for family violence and because the next time they do it under the law they become it becomes a felony charge between two to ten years in prison we don't want to have people at that point we want to have homes that are violence free homes um again i'm michael delion i'm running for judge of county court number seven i have cards in the back and delion4judge.com is my website if you want to learn more about me thank you folks next we have county court at law number eight judge celeste brown this is on yes thank you all for having me here today i am honored and blessed to be your judge in county court eight um i've been the judge now for almost four years i uh won't talk about all my experience i'm going to talk more about my drug court and how proud i am of my court um i have a specialty court your i've heard others mention specialty courts um i have the dw i drug court and the dw i drug court helps those that abuse alcohol we try to get them into school get their diplomas get them into college if they can you know uh we get them into sober living safe homes we give them bus passes we give them food we give them clothes if they need clothes everyone needs something different i try to figure out what they need um what the needs are and as far as sanctions and punishment and all those kinds of things everyone needs something different it's like having kids i have three kids and you take a cell phone away from one or you take the bike away from the other or the friends away from the other you know it's whatever that they need um to learn and i really do try to help each and every person in front of me when i have inmates in front of me i want to know if they have ids so that they can get a job a lot of people don't have a job because they don't have an id um so i have a resource where they can get ids i have resources for jobs to get people jobs ask them do you have a job do you have a place to live so i would really appreciate your vote um i love what i do if you help one person you're helping an entire family which helps our community so um please vote celeste browne or county court eight i really appreciate it thank you thank you for having me but one more thing i was awarded outstanding dwi court in texas last year in 2017 we worked really really hard and the center for the judiciary nominated us and we were awarded that award so i'm very proud of that too thank you next we have county court at law number nine judge walden shilton good afternoon thank you for being here today i'm judge walden shilton i've been your judge of county court at law number nine for the past eight years county court at law number nine is a general jurisdiction court but primarily 80 of our docket is dwi cases let me tell you why i am the best qualified for this court i tried the first blood warrant case in bear county i used the first soberlink monitoring device in bear county the first smart stock monitoring device in bear county i wrote the standing discovery order that every judge in bear county uses for dwi cases on blood cases and on intoxicizer nine thousand cases i'm on the texas center for the judiciary dwi committee we provide the training for every judge in the state of texas regarding dwi from your municipal judge all the way to the court of appeals i have the experience i ask you to keep that experience on the bench if you want to know more about me it's judge shilton.com again my name is walden shilton i ask for your vote thank you next we'll hear from gloria saldanya thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to talk to you in person i'm judge gloria saldanya i am a judge at this point in time i have been a judge of the 224th district court and 438 district court when i was up for reelection in 2010 i was not reelected it was a red wave and all the democrats got knocked off the benches but i'm not someone that can be kept down i ran again the next term and i got reelected to the 438 so i'm just telling you that because i'm a strong person and i'm an independent person and i have now been working as a visiting judge hearing district court cases and misdemeanors i finished a two and a half week jury trial about a few weeks ago it was a very complicated one but all that experience that i have i want to use it in county court nine to make it more efficient but much more fair since 1991 i've been a mediator and the most important thing i learned about that training was listening is an art and actually when you listen to people you are showing them respect and we know that from when we raised our children right when we talk to them and looked at them in their eyes and we told them look this is not right they would listen because we were getting their attention so it is very important that that is part of due process actually listening to people so that they can actually defend themselves that's a constitutional privilege we all have and it is unalienable something that cannot be taken away i believe in justice obviously i have been doing my best i have a reputation for good judicial temperament and i don't judge people by the way they look or how much money they have obviously i am from humble beginnings and so i can relate to people who don't have a lot of money so i thank you for this opportunity to talk to you i hope that you will remember i have brought some mixing candies named gloria's and you're welcome to enjoy those and i hope that you will remember to look for my name on the ballot gloria sultana thank you so much i don't think there's anyone here from county court at law number 10 so we'll move on to county court at comic court at law number 11 uh judge tomi stohanski good afternoon i'm judge stohanski at county court 11 i just wanted to come and say thank you i don't have the phone on the ballot but i still wanted to be here i wanted to thank you for being informed i've heard a lot about your country and this these are about local races this is about barrett county these are about the candidates here in front of you these are about the colleagues that i work with every day who are working for you and so i want to thank you for coming and getting informed i'm the judge of county court 11 i have a criminal docket civil docket and i also run our drug court we've heard a lot about drug courts today we have excellent specialty courts here in barrett county so you're always invited to come down visit any of our specialty courts see how they're going if you have any questions feel free to ask us but i want to say thank you for being here thank you for voting and i appreciate the opportunity thank you next we'll move to county court at law number 12 and we have yolanda huff hello everybody i'm yolanda huff i am the current president of setatonia black lawyers association and i really just want to thank everybody for being here today because you made the choice to be informed and you're here and that just means so much to our organization and all our partners like as i stated i am yolanda huff and i run for county court 12 that is a criminal mr. meaner bench um a little bit about myself i i'm a single mom at three i graduated firms ut austin in 1889 i worked three years for the lieutenant governor i then moved to san Antonio to go to law school driver from there in 1896 and i have been here in san Antonio with operating in my own firm ever since 21 years as an attorney why i want to be a judge i think that um i want to serve the community and i really believe that i have a servant's heart i really believe in giving back and i think that it is so important to give back um i was that child there are 12 kids on my mom's side there's 10 kids on my dad's side i was the first one to go to college um once i did it all my little cousins coming up they they saw that it could be done i have a cousin right now that's working on her phd another one that's that's an assistant person at high school i think that the children of bear county the children of color of bear county need to see themselves reflected in the leadership at the courthouse that is so important because it just takes one you see that they need to see if if i can if i can do it they can do it um i will i plan to as much time as i plan to be in the courthouse i want to be in the community put me to the test call me ask me to come out and speak to youth groups because i want to be there and i think that's what it's all about yolanda huff voted for county court 12 i ask for your support thank you now we're moving to county court at law number 13 and we have judge crystal chandler look good afternoon everyone my name is crystal chandler and i'm your judge of county court 13 a misdemeanor criminal family violence court mainly i deal with the domestic violence cases you everyone in our community deserves to live in a home free of violence and what we see with domestic violence is that it knows no boundaries and it knows no zip code and the reason i chose this court to run for in back in 2013 is because after working at the district attorney's office for many years and working in the felony family violence unit handling murders aggravated assaults crimes against children whether it be physical or sexual abuse handling them in the trial courts and then also handling them before the appellate court so you arguing them before our fourth court of appeals and all the way up to the highest criminal court in our state i realized that when the judge of this court was retiring that i had an opportunity to bring the experience and passion that i have in this area to the bench and i grew up in a situation where many of us have our own personal struggles that we deal with yeah i grew up in a small texas town with a blinking yellow light i was abandoned by my birth parents who struggled with addiction and i was erased by my grandmother and it was because i had a family here in san antonio a half-cousin that was willing to take me in and that i had the opportunity to see what a normal family looks like and so with that personal life experience when i started handling felony family violence cases i sat across from those victims and handled those cases and i i i told god that i understood i understood why i experienced the things that i did as a child and how i can bring that knowledge and experience to the court and i come up with innovative ways to deal with the issue of family violence in the home and if i had more time i would talk to you about them but i would love to talk to you after this uh this opportunity here and back in the back also i have my cell phone number on the back of my card you can call me anytime and i can tell you about the innovative programs that i've started in county court 13 and my slogan the choice is clear crystal clear thank you so much next we'll hear from rosie gonzalez thank you dr the first book of john chapter two verse 11 says anyone who hates their brother or sister walks in darkness and is in darkness and i'm very happy to be here with you in what is obviously a very enlightened flock and congregation let me be clear i've been invited by many churches in this community to come in and speak to them but i've not been welcome and i feel very welcome here and i want to thank you for that my name is rosie gonzalez i am running for judge of county court of law 13 you've heard about the domestic violence issue in our county um and i'm going to tell you something despite all the efforts being made at present the numbers of those cases continue to double and they continue to double because we need a change we need a different type of innovation we need a different type of judge we need a different type of justice i bring that to this court i want to bring drug court and established drug court into county court at law 13 not just something ordered through some conditions of probation but an actual program because we all know that violent behavior is fueled by coke alcohol meth and over 90 of those cases coming into this court if you have a sober defendant you have a healthy family and you have a safer community and that's what this county needs especially in light of the fact that we have record numbers of domestic violence cases intersecting with substance abuse drug cases in this county the other thing i want to bring to this court is transparency and accountability integrity as claimed by a judge is no longer enough i want to bring in a live feed into this court so you can watch what the prosecutors are doing what the defense council is doing what the judge is doing and i'm sorry if you're a defendant that doesn't want to be on a live feed keep your hands off of people just keep your hands to yourself and you won't be on that live again my name is Rosie Gonzalez i'm running for judge of county court at law 13 i want to thank the legal women voters for putting this voter guide together if you go to page 41 of the voter guide at the top you'll learn more about my candidacy and my campaign i am asking for your vote i humbly ask for that vote tomorrow on monday or on tuesday or for the next 16 days that followed and if you don't get out to early vote november 6 is the day that you can create change through your acts and through your through your actions thank you very much next we're going to move to county court at law number 15 and we have melissa bar hello everybody thank you for the invitation to be here to speak with all of you today my name is melissa bar and i'm running for county court at law number 15 a little bit about me born and raised in san antonio i grew up not too far from here down the street from st mary's university i went to jefferson high school went to ut austin for undergrad and went to st mary's for law school currently i'm in private practice doing mainly criminal defense cases which are the type of cases that are heard in county court 15 misdemeanor cases and also doing family law with the high concentration of cases involving children going through uh child protective services as a kid i was really close with my grandmother grandma vada and she would take me to the dollar store she would take me to elementary school and i remember this one time in particular we were out eating in a restaurant and a cashier was really rude to her and i must have been eight or nine years old and i asked to speak to a manager because i knew it even that young age i needed to be my grandmother's voice my grandmother was elderly she didn't speak english well and being her voice was something that was important to me and it's something that i've continued throughout my career as an attorney whether it's representing children going through the foster care system representing people through the criminal defense system or representing elderly members of the community and helping them to navigate a complex probate system on the campaign trail people always ask you know what kind of judge are you going to be right fair impartial a judge that has experience that's what all judges should be but i think the difference in this particular race is work ethic and compassion work ethic because as an elected official you need someone who's going to get there early and stay late the express news recently endorsed me over the sitting judge and they saw that there was a need for change in that court i will be that change and work hard for each and every one of you if given the privilege to serve you as judge compassion because i feel that a judge needs to be compassionate to treat every person in every case that comes before them on a case by case basis regardless of what you look like regardless of who you worship regardless of how much money you have again my name is melissa vada i'm running for county court at law number 15 i'm from this community and ready to serve every member of this community thank you next we move on to the probate court number two and we'll you'll hear from julie hardaway remember when they said earlier that probate was at the end but i guess we have some extras but thank you for having us and thank you for being here i am julie hardaway i'm running for probate court too um i'm really looking forward to election day because that means this race will have been run and also because it's the 22nd anniversary of by licensing to practice law i have practice law here in san antonio the whole time in probate trust area i started out as a private attorney with my dad and grandfather and learned probate and real estate with them and then went on to work for the probate court one for poly jackson spencer as her staff attorney where i learned how the court runs and from filing to judgment and from the budget and getting computers everything you can imagine and then i went on to broadway bank where i have served as a trustee and executor for people for the last 13 years um it's been my pleasure to serve those people i think that it's very important to have someone that has experience and has compassion and integrity to help people through those times where they have lost someone or they have someone who can't take care of themselves or their property um i from san antonio i went to macArthur high school i went to southwestern university um it's a method of school or east and i also went to texas center for law school i am i just finished nine years on the board of directors for the ark of san antonio and i served as president for two years and then i'm also on the san antonio state planners council board of governors where i am vice president this year i really hope that everyone you get out and vote it's so important to express your opinions and feelings that way and we need to all get together and just vote in and look at people's experience their integrity their professionalism their work ethic and how they treat people i hope that you will vote for me it's julie hardaway probate court too thank you next we'll hear from veronica vasquez also a member of the NAACU my name is veronica vasquez and i wanted to start off with a quote from martin the king we are prone to just success of man by the index of the salaries rather than or the size of our automobiles rather than a relationship and service to mankind the reason why i bring up that quote is because that is what i do i have dedicated the majority of my career to public service first as interning at the texas civil rights project where that inspired me in college to become a lawyer because i realized a lot of the injustices that were happening across the state second while i got accepted to university of texas school of law but after graduation i interned at the new york legal assistance group where i helped the indigent and the elderly of new york with drafting wills i was an intern there was drafting wills powers returning and educating the public that breaks me to my current spot today i work for catholic charities i was most recently the director of the guardianship and probate department i'm still there a staff attorney um what i do is i serve not just fair county but 19 surrounding counties i serve the working class the the working poor and the indigent and those are the majority of people that are going to end up in this court so i have that kind of compassion and experience i live my values i live my morals the other thing that i think um that i was telling about is it's bittersweet but to say that i'll be the first person of color in the history of the probate court we have had two probate courts in bear county and we've never had a person of color and if you think diversity doesn't matter you're fooling yourself because while i may not be the majority of what looks like a probate attorney the majority of the people that end up in front of that court reflect the rich diversity of our community so i think it's important for individuals to be able to look at the bench and realize that they have somebody they can just like elanda said they can identify with and that's me um the last thing i want to end with is my endorsements i've been endorsed by um the oh my god i can't remember well it's time if you go to my website you'll see all of my endorsements it's the afl cio that the communication workers of america out of lair transit union the probation adult probation officers loy dawg at nelson wolf congress the castles so you can all go to my website to see all that but again compassion matters in this courtroom and i hope you consider voting for me it's veronica vasquez the last court on the ballot thank you go back to the 144th judicial district court and we have judge uh lorina rumble good afternoon everybody and thank you for sticking around for the last speaker i was modeling fancy hats this morning at the baptist church and i walked in right when i was supposed to speak so i apologize for that i am judge lorina rumble i am the city judge of the 144th district court it's a felony criminal district court all bear countywide people say what district is it in all the courts are all bear countywide it will certainly be on your ballot it hears murderers rapes aggravated robberies capital crimes things of that nature and that is what i've spent my career doing first of all i came from a family of service i was military by the time i was in sixth grade i had gone to actually seventh grade i had gone to six different schools lived in five different states two different countries but it didn't bother me i was proud that my father was in the military he served his entire career my brother was also proud he served his entire career in the military but he was deployed to first quake in iraq then afghanistan i too wanted to serve the community and i feel that's what i have done as an attorney here in the community i was with the district attorney's office for 17 years i served as the voice of victims women and children i was a defense attorney for almost six years i served as the voice of defendants making sure that justice was done and as a judge i would like to continue serving i've been effective efficient and compassionate i had the worst docket turned around in four years with the help of amazing attorneys great staff and it now has the lowest number of pending cases the fewest defendants in jail and the quickest to trial i am compassionate because i run a specialty court for human trafficking victims they all have a common background of felony prostitution but i've learned 80 to 9 percent are victims in their own right it's called the esperanza program that means hope and that is what i'm bringing in their lives larina rummel 144th thank you all right so that brings us to the end of the program and i want to thank you all for coming but i think we all should give the candidates a hand for coming here today we've received some very important information and i hope that you'll use that when you go to the ballot box starting next week also remember next week starts early voting and there's no excuse not to vote you can vote almost anywhere and as i said if you don't know where to go we have the list outside also you can check the election department website on the november 6th which is election day you don't have that luxury you have to go to your polling place if you go to the wrong place they'll turn you away and you'll have to find it so it's important that if you're going to vote on election day because some people like to do that and that's great you know exactly where you need to go so at this point also remember that when you vote you have to have identification so you have to take a driver's license you have to take a texas id you can take a military id you can take a passport but in order to be able to vote you're going to need to show some sort of id and lastly remember v is going to be offering free transportation if you show your voter registration card and lyft and uber will offer some sort of discount or free ride but there's you're going to have to have the code and so you're going to have to go to the website and figure that out we appreciate all of you attending this event and we thank you and we hope that you go forth with this knowledge and you vote and you get your friends to vote you get your families to vote because this is the only way we have a say in our government thank you for coming