Mark Young
Just six months after electing a new mayor, Corpus Christi residents are returning to the polls to pick another. Eight candidates from various fields are vying for votes, with the special election set for May 6.
The seat was left vacant after Dan McQueen stepped down after just 37 days when it was discovered that he had lied about his qualifications.
Out of the eight candidates running, one needs to get over 50.1 percent of the vote or the race will go to a runoff, which would be June 26.
The candidates in the running are attorney Mark Di Carlo, business owner and former Mayor Nelda Martinez, business owner Margareta Fratila, assistant principal Jonathan Garison, retired photographer Ray Madrigal, business owner James Hernandez, City Councilman Joe McComb and retired engineer Larry White.
The conversation surrounding the election so far has mostly centered on two things, water and roads.
All the candidates have spoken extensively about their plans to fix these things ever since each announced they were running. There have been multiple forums concerning these issues that have been happening throughout the past month.
In preparation of the election, the Foghorn News sent out 20-question questionnaires for the candidates to fill out and send back. We told them to stay under 150 words for each question and that if they did not send back their answers, we would publish it without them.
The questions are about a variety of issues, from climate change to public transportation, and because of the amount of questions and candidates, we posted their answers in full on our website, foghornnews.com.
We did not edit or change any of the answers and are not endorsing any candidates.
Here are the questions each of the candidate recieved:
Candidates are in alphabetical order:
Reynaldo Madrigal did not respond
Joe McComb did not respond