by Brad Rollins
Reprinted with permission under a mutual agreement between the Hays Free Press and the San Marcos Mercury.
Less than a year after losing a bid for U.S. Congress, former San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz is moving with her husband, Mike, to Carlsbad, N.M. where she has made influential friends among the state’s political movers and shakers.
All in a two-month whirlwind, Narvaiz reconnected with Carlsbad developer and investor Joe Brininstool, who had once ferried Narvaiz to a prayer breakfast on his private plane, and within weeks she and her husband, Mike, were fielding job offers and contemplating a new life in southeastern New Mexico’s Eddy County. Mike Narvaiz has already begun a job there working for an electrical contractor while the former mayor winds up the couple’s affairs, including overseeing the move out of their Parkview Lane home, the sale of which was closed on Friday.
“This all happened so quickly that I just believe that God’s hand is all over this and has guided us to do this, just as he always has guided us in our lives,” Narvaiz said.
Narvaiz, who dominated municipal politics during her 6½ years as mayor before deciding not to seek a fourth term in 2010, said she has considered positions in the Carlsbad municipal and Eddy County governments but, for now, will continue her public policy and political consulting firm, Core Strategies Inc.
Narvaiz said Brininstool, whose development interests include The Meadows at Buda residential subdivision, offered to take the former mayor and her then-assistant, Elisabeth Darnell, to Carlsbad where Narvaiz was scheduled to give the keynote address at a regional mayors’ prayer breakfast in late October 2012. In June, Narvaiz contacted Brininstool when she was looking for a way to travel to Springfield, Mo. for hotelier John Q. Hammon’s funeral without missing a presentation she was scheduled to make on State Highway 45 SW before a Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization committee. Brininstool was unable to give her a lift to the wake but the renewed acquaintance resulted in an invitation for Mike and Susan Narvaiz to visit Carlsbad, where Brininstool and his wife, Jill Holt, are a prominent business couple and bipartisan political donors.
“I’ve been very blessed to have the community of Carlsbad, the mayor and several people there, feel I bring value and want me to be part of their community and their organizations. I just think the possibilities are wide-opened. We are talking but we’ll just see how this unfolds,” Narvaiz said.
A native of San Antonio, Narvaiz’s rose quickly through the political ranks after moving to San Marcos in 1995. Less than three years after her arrival, she was running against longtime council incumbent Billy Moore for mayor, forcing a runoff and then a recount before ultimately losing by a handful of votes. She won a seat on the San Marcos City Council in 2002 and, two years later, overtook Bob Habengreither to become mayor.
Narvaiz ran unopposed for a second term in 2006 and handily won a third in 2008 against two challengers, though she came perilously close to an embarrassing runoff. By 2010, she decided not to seek a fourth term but her hand-picked successor, Daniel Guerrero, rode her coattails to victory over front-runner John Thomaides, a city council veteran of more than a decade.
In 2012, she threw her hat in the ring for Congress in what turned out, after redistricting was settled, to be a Democratic stronghold; she won the Republican Party nomination for Congressional District 35 without a runoff but ultimately drew only 32 percent of the vote in the November general election against veteran U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.
