Betty Flores

Infobox _ Mayor
name=Elizabeth Garcia "Betty" Flores
nationality=American
office= Mayor of Laredo, Webb County, Texas, USA
party=Democratic
term_start=1998
term_end=2006
preceded=Saul N. Ramirez, Jr. (1990-1998)
succeeded=Raul G. Salinas (elected 2006)
date of birth=birth date and age|1944|12|28|
date of death=
place of birth=Laredo, Texas
place of death=
occupation=Businesswoman
spouse= Antonio "Toño" Flores (married 1962)
children=Two children, Christina and Tony
parents=Eloy Garcia, Sr., and Bonnie Lopez Garcia
religion=Roman Catholic
footnotes=(1) Mayor Flores brought the successful Laredo Bucks hockey team to her city.

(2) Flores was instrumental in the establishment of the Laredo Entertainment Center.

(3) Flores is thus far the first woman in history to have served as mayor of Laredo.

Elizabeth Garcia Flores, better known as Betty Flores (born December 28, 1944), is a businesswoman who was the first female mayor of Laredo, Texas. She served a brief unexpired mayoral term followed by two four-year terms from 1998-2006. She is best known as the driving force behind the building of the Laredo Entertainment Center, home of the Laredo Bucks hockey team. Though she is a Democrat, she displayed a picture of herself with U.S. President George W. Bush, who visited Laredo two weeks before Flores left office. She was succeeded by Raul G. Salinas (born 1946), another Democrat who was elected on June 17, 2006. All Texas mayors and city council members are elected on nonpartisan ballots though most have party preferences or have declared party allegiance by voting in a primary or a runoff election.

Early years

Mrs. Flores was born in Laredo to Eloy Garcia, Sr. (1923-1998), and the former Bonnie Lopez. She grew up in the shaded "Heights" neighborhood of south Laredo. One of her neighbors was the late Mayor J.C. "Pepe" Martin, Jr. (service: 1954-1978), whom she says taught her loyalty from a young age. Her businessman father was a member of the Laredo Community College board of trustees and a philanthropist who gave generously to the institution. Eloy Garcia gave Betty her first dollar when she was a little girl and her first campaign check when she decided to run for mayor. Garcia barely lived long enough to see his daughter elected.

Betty Garcia married Antonio "Toño" Flores in 1962. They have two children, Christina and Tony. In 2006, Christina and her husband, Juan Guevara, gave the Floreses their first grandchild, Antonio Guevara.

Although Flores did not graduate from high school, she did receive her G.E.D. Flores worked for the Laredo National Bank, which was established in 1906. She started as a secretary and moved up eventually to become the first woman senior vice president. She was affiliated with the bank for twenty-eight years. "I've worked with men all my life. I was always the only woman in the room. I never focused on that when I was campaigning," she said in a farewell interview with Julie Daffern of her hometown newspaper, the "Laredo Morning Times".

Running for mayor

Flores announced that she would run for mayor in the fall of 1997, after the incumbent, Saul N. Ramirez, Jr., resigned to become assistant to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo in Washington, D.C. Flores won the special election runoff in the winter of 1998. Then she ran for a full term in May 1998. She defeated an outgoing councilman, Alfonso I. "Poncho" Casso. In 2002, she was easily reelected to a second full term when she defeated a former city councilman, Felipe Cardenas, who had been recalled from office several years earlier.

Flores was term-limited by the Laredo city charter, which was drafted during the administration of one of her predecessors, Aldo Tatangelo. She was succeeded by Raul Salinas, but she and six of the sitting eight council members endorsed Salinas' opponent, outgoing city council member John Clifford Galo (born 1958).

As mayor, Flores gained national recognition of her city. She was the chairman of the "Cities and Border Task Force" of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. She once ran for the presidency of the conference but was defeated by another woman.

She was also in office when unemployment in the border city began to drop significantly after years of double-digit jobless figures. Laredo gained a reputation as a mecca for entrepreneurs and small businesses andgrew rapidly in population. "Laredo is now a city that has had the resilency to work with new investment and to understand new growth," Flores said.

Laredo Entertainment Complex

Flores affectionately calls the LEC, located on the Bob Bullock Loop, "the house that Laredo built." Ray Keck, president of Texas A&M International University in Laredo, said that the LEC clearly tops the list of Flores' accomplishments because she was "the driving force behind that." Keck also noted that Flores worked to keep the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra together.

Then City Manager Lazaro "Larry" Dovalina (born 1947) said that when the LEC opened, "people looked at Laredo in a different light. It used to be this sleepy-town type of perception. I think it placed us at a different level."

Flores recalled how the Bucks came to Laredo to take advantage of the new ice center. "I got that now infamous phone call form Glen Hart and met Kiki de Ayala. It took me just a little bit longer to realize how great this LEC would be for Laredo. These two men and their partners will forever hold a special place in my heart." She also lauded the achievements of the Bucks' coach Terry Ruskowski, who in 2007 was given a "lifetime" contract.

Flores' legacy

As she left the office of mayor, Flores said, "I gave some of my best years to this city. It's been a wonderful, wonderful ride. The only thing you can't take away is my love of Laredo." In addition to the entertainment complex and the improved border economy, Flores outlined a dozen accomplishments from her tenure:

# Initiated major airport improvements, mostly from $68 million in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration
# Inaugurated a new Laredo police headquarters, opened 16 police substations, and a new municipal court building adjacent to the police
# Started the secondary water source project, improved the water infrastructure, and began the city's water conservation endeavor
# Initiated the airport "noise abatement program"
# Reopened the downtown Hamilton Hotel as an affordable housing complex for the low-income elderly
# Worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin greenbelt restoration and preservation
# Filed the application process for a fifth international bridge atop the Rio Grande
# Started the International Fire and Law Enforcement Training Center
# Broke ground for El Portal, a downtown revitalization project
# Increased the number of parks and recreation facility, including bike trails, soccer fields, basketball courts, skateboard courts, and a year-round swimming pool
# Fought to remove truck inspections away from the international bridges to relieve traffic congestion
# Established a smoke-free Laredo, with all restaurants to enforce non-smoking policies.

Discontent with Flores' last two years as mayor

Despite these accomplishments, Flores left office in a downturn of her personal popularity. In 2005, she told Lou Dobbs on the Cable News Network that virtually ALL of several dozen Laredoans, who have gone missing in populous and violent-prone Nuevo Laredo, across the river in Mexico, were linked in some way with the illegal drug traffic. Her accusation outraged the families of those who have missing loved ones. The missing Americans were highlighted in several 2006 episodes of Fox's "America's Most Wanted", hosted by John Walsh, to highlight the problems of the Americans missing in Mexico. Flores, meanwhile, has defended her allegation of drug connections because she claims to have seen the proof in the victims' records. Nevertheless, Flores said she understood that the families are grieving and need assistance.

Flores also angered some taxpayers who believed that municipal taxes increased too sharply during her administration. Many questioned the city having paid for liquor and "entertainment" for certain high-level municipal employees who took city business trips to Washington, D.C. Others have questioned the high salaries of certain appointed city officials. Flores herself received a salary of only $18,000 annually, as the mayoralty is parttime.

Flores was not a supporter of the mission that the U.S. Border Patrol was tasked to perform. Flores also said she felt the Border Patrol should not be required to pick up illegal aliens for deportation if they are not carrying guns, drugs or involved in any known crime. "I think they should just give them a bottle of water and send them on their way," she said. "Let's face it, they are coming here to work and take jobs that no one else wants anyway."(Laredo Morning Times June 15, 1999) * http://madmax.lmtonline.com/textarchives/0615/s1.htm

Still others objected when Flores, despite her emphasis on border security, said that the Minutemen volunteers, which seek to prevent illegal crossings by referring aliens to the U.S. Border Patrol, were "not welcome" in Laredo. Salinas also criticized the Minutemen.

There has been speculation that Flores' endorsement of John Galo in the mayoral campaign may have even worked to Galo's disadvantage. Salinas defeated Galo by a margin of some 53-47 percent though Galo outspent Salinas by 5-1.

Though she was prominently featured, usually in a positive light, in the "Laredo Morning Times", she once disputed two articles in the paper and withheld two city advertisements to make her point to newspaper executives. The LMT even once named her "Laredoan of the Year".

Nevertheless, Flores' accomplishments, say her admirers, speak for themselves. She has also won many awards, including "Texas Woman of the Century" from the Woman's Chamber of Commerce of Texas. Because of her emphasis on economic development, Highbeam.com dubbed her the "Margaret Thatcher of Laredo."

References

* "Laredo Morning Times", June 25-26, 2006
* http://www.tamiu.edu/cerempic4.html (Photo of Mayor Flores at a podium)
* http://www.cityoflaredo.com/mayor-council/MayorBio2003%20.htm
* http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/21/ldt.01.html
* http://www.lmtonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16307122&BRD=2290&PAG=461&dept_id=569392&rfi=6
* http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/us_mayor_newspaper/documents/12_13_04/borders.asp
* http://libtree.blogspot.com/2006/02/no-law-in-mexico.html
* http://www.civilrights.org/issues/immigration/details.cfm?id=38048
* http://www.landlinemag.com/Issues/nafta_issues/2002/Larado_sues.html
* http://find.intelius.com/search-summary-out.php?ReportType=1&searchform=name
* http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:54637717/Betty+Flores,+la+Margaret+Thatcher+de+Laredo,+Texas~R~
* http://madmax.lmtonline.com/textarchives/0615/s1.htm (Laredo Morning Times Archive June 15, 1999)