July 13, 2018 • Local News
Samaniego prepares for big job
Ricardo Samaniego won’t take office as El Paso County judge for another six months, but he’s spending a lot of time learning about county government and the challenges he’ll face.
He defeated former El Paso Mayor John Cook with 51 percent of the vote in May’s Democratic primary runoff and has stayed busy since. Samaniego has no opponent in the November general election.
On Thursday, he had a lunch meeting with former El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar, who resigned last August to run for Congress. She is running against Republican Rick Seeberger for the 16th Congressional District seat.
“I’m interested in her wisdom and her experience,” Samaniego said during that meeting at the Corner Bakery on the Westside. “If someone’s coming out of a cave, and you’re going in, you should ask them what’s in there.”
He said he’s also met with interim County Judge Ruben Vogt, who was Escobar’s chief of staff before he was appointed county judge.
Samaniego plans to sit through this summer’s county budget meetings. The county budget now stands at $412 million, and Escobar told him attending the budget hearings is about the smartest thing he could do to prepare for the highest elected office in the county.
Escobar recalled sitting through hours of budget meetings before she first took office as a county commissioner in 2007.
“You’re in a great position to be able to observe and learn – an advantage that most folks don’t have,” she told him as she ate a light lunch and he sat with pen in hand and an open notebook.
“Then, you can come in January, after you’ve been through the budget process and have spoken to a whole lot of people who have been working in county government or who are no longer there, like me,” she said. “I think it’s a tremendous advantage.”
Samaniego, 69, said he’s learned about taking on a new job – many times. He retired as a vice president of human resources for Cementos de Chihuahua in 2014.
“I have probably gone through 25 different industries in my life, and every time I had to learn something new,” he said. “So, what I’m doing now is taking that same approach and saying, ‘I don’t know anything.’
“That’s as opposed to saying I was the VP, and I’ve been this and that.”
Escobar said that’s a great way to approach public office, adding, “The more people you can talk to for perspective, the better off you’ll be.”
Samaniego said he’s also recently had meetings with Jacob Cintron, CEO of the county hospital, University Medical Center, and the head of El Paso Children’s Hospital, Cindy Stout. He also went on a plane ride with El Paso businessman Stanley Jobe to look at the residential development on the city’s fringes from the air.
“Right now, I have the luxury of doing things that I probably won’t have the ability to do (once I take office) because they become too political,” Samaniego said. “People are saying ‘You don’t have to do this, you’re not on the payroll.’ But when I get there, I want to be the best informed county judge I can be.”
Samaniego said he’s also interested in helping the Opportunity Center homeless shelter because of the unrecognized support it provides Downtown.
He’s also interested in seeing a finished version of the sculpture of Benito Juárez, the Mexican hero and former president, that the late 12 Travelers artist John Houser started, installed in front of the County Courthouse.
“That excites me because it would set the stage for the county taking a big role in heritage tourism and really doing something,” Samaniego said.
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