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LAS CRUCES CITY COUNCIL

Beerman announces candidacy for Las Cruces City Council

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William Beerman has announced his candidacy for representing District 6 on the Las Cruces City Council. Incumbent Yvonne Flores has previously announced she will seek a second four-term. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 2.

Beerman, 72, retired to Las Cruces in 2007. His wife, Martha, is a graduate of El Paso High School and “has longtime ties here,” Beerman said.

Making his first bid for public office, Beerman said he is running for council because “I have the skills necessary to make improvements and serve as a watchdog. I want to leave a healthy country for my grandchildren, and we need to work on one town at a time.”

“The City government is out of control,” Beerman said, “as evidenced by the McHard investigation report, which cited ‘rampant’ wrongdoing, along with the revolving door for city managers, and the fact that four officials allegedly were fired for reporting wrongdoing as whistleblowers and sued the city. The city council just passed a new budget and bragged that they are not raising tax rates. Nevertheless, the budget has an increase of 20 percent and includes millions more in tax revenues. The city politicians are wallowing in taxpayer money and not managing it well. Money lost or squandered through fraud, waste, and abuse comes not only from those who can afford higher taxes and utility bills, but from those who can’t, and lost money is unavailable to do worthwhile things.”

“The mayor is in his 13th year,” Beerman said. “About two-thirds of the voters (in the 2018 city election) knew his record but voted for someone else. Ironically, he won a new term through reallocation of votes in ranked-choice voting. City council has misplaced priorities. They cut 10.5 police positions while inflating the overall city payroll by 89 to 1,672,” Beerman said.

“When I knock on doors, I ask, ‘What are your concerns?’ Beerman said. “I hear about crumbling streets and the city’s East Lohman Development, but I have many more homes to visit.  The big problems Downtown at city hall affect every district.”

Now retired, Beerman said he “most recently worked nights for the Defense Intelligence Agency for eight years in the Pentagon as an editor for the nation’s morning military intelligence report.” Before that, he was director of the editorial division and a certified internal auditor for the U.S. Navy Audit Service and worked for newspapers for eight years, including a year as managing editor of the Monongahela (Pennsylvania) Daily Herald.

As a part-time reporter, Beerman said he wrote “hundreds of byline stories for the South Jersey edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I have covered dozens of municipalities.”

Beerman has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Penn State, a master’s in library science from Drexel University in Philadelphia and 21 credits in auditing-related subjects from Camden County College in New Jersey.

Beerman said he considers himself “a compassionate conservative.”

“I am active in the local Republican Party and the Hispanic Conservative Outreach Committee,” he said. “A Democrat for decades, I could make a good liberal resume by today’s dubious social criteria if I wanted, having worked for two years as the only white reporter for a black newspaper, having lived for eight years in a black neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and having been married to a fluently bilingual Latina for 31 years.”

If elected to city council, Beerman said as his first priority, he “will ask the city manager to establish a model internal audit function and an audit committee designed in consultation with the Institute of Internal Auditors.”

Beerman said his campaign adviser is Rob Wood. “Paid consultant Paul Smith and Rival Strategy Group, LLC, who worked for Yvette Herrell’s successful congressional campaign, laid the groundwork for my campaign,” he said. His campaign treasurer is Chynna Clark, the manager of Cruces Auto.

Visit www.BeerManforCouncilMan.com.

William Beerman, Las Crurces City Council

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