AUSTIN (KXAN) — Community Health Advocate Vanessa Fuentes was elected to serve in the Austin City Council District 2 seat.
The three-way race included David Chincanchan, Fuentes and Casey Ramos competing to represent Austin City Council District 2 in southeast Austin. The district is currently represented by Austin Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza, who will be leaving the council at the end of this year after being elected as Travis County Attorney.
Fuentes received 14,803 (56.1%) votes, Ramos had 5,221 (19.8%), Chincanchan had 5,033 (19.1%) and Strenger, who dropped out before election day, had 1,319 (5.0%).
Vanessa Fuentes is a community health advocate with the American Heart Association. She shared that her priorities are in affordable housing, property taxes, wage stagnation, and COVID-19’s effect on Hispanic communities.
“As someone like me who comes from an immigrant working-class family, who for all intents and purposes wasn’t meant to run for office and certainly was a long shot in this race, we know our results show the hard work of our efforts,” Fuentes said in a speech through Facebook Live on election night.
“While Austin continues to grow, the reality is that our working families in this city are struggling,” she said at an event earlier on in the race. “I got into this race because the people who built this wonderful city can no longer afford to stay.”
David Chincanchan, who grew up in Dove Springs and previously served as Chief of Staff to Austin City Council Member Pio Renteria, emphasizes that his focus is on affordable housing, public transportation, and workers’ protection. Chincanchan attended The University of Texas at Austin and serves as the chair of the Austin Tejano Democrats and as a board member of the labor union American Federation of State, City, and Municipal Employees.
“I am running to make sure our families in Southeast Austin have our own voice when decisions about our health, our lives, and our quality of life are being made at Austin City Hall,” he said in a virtual forum with The League of Women Voters and ATXN.
Casey Ramos is a professional boxer and third-generation Austinite who studied economics at St. Edwards University. His areas of focus include fighting gentrification by opposing city attempts to overhaul the land development code, proposing a stormwater infrastructure bond to mitigate flooding, and expanding access to health care and healthy food. Ramos ran for the District 2 seat in 2016, losing to Delia Garza.
Alex Strenger also ran for this seat but dropped out in October to endorse Ramos.
