Estrada makes second bid for city council

“I’m a very concerned citizen, that’s the only reason I’m running,” Las Cruces City Council district one candidate Jason Estrada said at a Sept. 28 Coalition of Conservatives in Action forum.

Estrada, a Las Cruces native and small business owner, is making his second bid for city council. He received 5.4 percent of the vote among four candidates and was eliminated after the first round of ranked choice voting in the 2019 district two council race. He withdrew from the 2021 mayor’s race.

In this year’s district one race, Estrada is running against Cassie McClure, Daniel Buck, Patrick Potter and Mark O’Neill. Incumbent Kasandra Gandara is giving up the seat to run for mayor. The election is Nov. 7. Early voting began Oct. 10.

Any of the five would do a good job if elected, Estrada said.

“Everybody’s in this together,” he said. “Red or blue doesn’t matter. They’re focused on change.”

Estrada said change means electing a mayor and city councilors who represent their constituents rather than a personal or political agenda, doing a better job of fighting crime and supporting small businesses. Estrada owns Everything Las Cruces, which he said has the largest social media outreach in southern New Mexico.

Estrada said he learned a lot from his first bid for public office in 2019 and is more knowledgeable about city government and more frustrated, but also more passionate, than four years ago.

“It all ties in together,” Estrada said about the issues facing city government.

Poverty creates homelessness and contributes to drug addiction and mental health issues, he said, and “that breeds crime.” Overcoming poverty means supporting small business to strengthen the city’s economy.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our community,” Estrada said.

One way the city could assist small businesses is helping pay for damage caused by vandalism, including the broken windows that business owners, including Estrada, have experienced across the city, he said.

For some, the choice comes down to replacing the window or paying the rent, Estrada said.

Another way the city could help is doing more to stop theft in retail businesses, he said.

The city also needs to do a better job of allocating resources to help people in poverty who don’t have access to health care, Estrada said, and helping parents by paying for their children’s school supplies.

“The economy touches everything,” Estrada said.

In addition to providing better support to existing small business, the city should do more to attract businesses to Las Cruces, he said, including “businesses that relate to children” and appeal to the city’s young population to give them something to do and a place to go.

And, the city should provide more resources to make new and existing businesses successful and to encourage entrepreneurs, Estrada said, including asking local business professionals to lead free workshops on how to balance a checkbook, file taxes, write a business plan and more.

“Everybody wants to make a million dollars, but they don’t know how to make their first dollar,” he said.

The workshops should also be offered to high school students and college graduates.

“It seems like such a simple thing,” he said, “but it doesn’t get done.”

Reducing the city’s crime rate would also be a valuable recruitment tool, Estrada said.

For example, he said, a doctor or other medical professionals considering moving to Las Cruces and adding to the quality of Las Cruces health care, likely would change his or her mind after seeing the low grades the city receives for its crime rate in a Google search.

The city needs to enforce existing laws and city ordinances to reduce crime, he said, and it needs to adopt a panhandling ordinance.

“We’ve got to stop handcuffing the people who should be doing the handcuffing,” Estrada said.

If he had a conversation with whomever the city council choses as the next Las Cruces police chief, Estrada said he would tell the chief, “My door is open and I expect you to walk through it and tell me everything you need to do your job … and then let me know what we need to do.

“Nobody is in this alone,” he said. “We need every gear to be turning.”

Estrada also suggested moving city council meetings from 1 p.m. Mondays at city hall to 7 p.m. at different locations around the city so more people will attend. Every city councilor should also be required to hold a district meeting at least once a month, he said.

Las Cruces is “on the brink of giving up,” Estrada said, and that can’t be allowed to happen.

“You’ve got to give people hope,” he said. Let this city do better. Let’s make this the greatest city on earth.”

Estrada and his wife, Kayla Martinez, have four children, ages 4-17. Martinez is an assistant principal at Centennial High School.