Saul N. Ramirez, Jr.

Saul N. Ramirez, Jr. (born October 22, 1958), is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, an interest group based in Washington, D.C. Previously, he worked with Greystone and Company, a firm which provides debt and equity financing for multi-family residences and economic development projects. From 1990 to 1997, Ramirez, a Democrat, was the mayor of Laredo, Texas.^[1]

Background

Ramirez was born in Los Angeles, California to Saul Ramirez, Sr., and the former Bertha Villarreal. He moved to Laredo when he was three years of age. His father had been a line foreman and diesel engine mechanic at Douglas Aircraft. In Laredo, Ramirez attended the Roman Catholic St. Augustine elementary and high schools.^[2]

Ramirez and his wife, the former Aggie Ramos, have three children: Saul, Joaquin, and Alexis. The Ramirezes reside outside Washington^[3] in Vienna, Virginia.

Political career

At thirty-one in 1990, Ramirez became the youngest mayor in the history of Laredo. He earlier served for two four-year terms on the Laredo City Council, prior to becoming mayor. Previously, he worked for nearly two decades in the insurance industry in Laredo.^[4] He is a former board member of the Inter-Government Risk Pool of the Texas Municipal League.

Ramirez won the nonpartisan runoff election for mayor in 1990; he defeated Maria "Bebe" Zuñiga, the wife of a former city council member, Carlos Alberto Zuñiga, Sr. (1927–2011), and the sister of J. C. Treviño, Jr. (1930–2007), a veteran trustee of Laredo Community College.^[5] "Bebe" Zuñiga had first faced a court-ordered recount with a third candidate, Rick Reyes, to determine that she had won the right to challenge Ramirez by a margin of only nine votes.^[6] The incumbent, Aldo Tatangelo, was term-limited under the Laredo municipal charter and instead ran unsuccessfully later that year for county judge of Webb County. As mayor, Ramirez secured a permit for the construction of the World Trade Bridge. He also worked to build four recreation centers, three fire stations, and a new public library at the intersection of McPherson and Calton roads.^[7] Because Ramirez vacated the mayoral position at the end of his second term, a special election was called early in 1998 under the charter. Betty Flores, a former Laredo banker, won that contest and a few months later the regular city election as well. She served the remaining months of Ramirez's term and then two terms of her own from 1998 to 2006.

Ramirez resigned with several months remaining in his second term to take a position in the Clinton administration in Washington under United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo. From 1997 to 1998, Ramirez was the HUD assistant secretary of community planning and development. On June 19, 1998, President Clinton nominated him to become the deputy secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a position under Cuomo that extended until the end of the administration in January 2001.^[3]

On January 1, 1997, the Laredo Morning Times named Ramriez "Laredoan of the Year". In 1995, he was named "Mayor of the Year" by the Texas Municipal Library Directors Association. In 1996, Newsweek magazine named him one of the twenty-five most dynamic mayors in the nation.^[8]

In 2008, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and U.S. Representative Henry R. Cuellar of Laredo petitioned U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to choose Ramirez as the HUD secretary. At the time, Ramirez served on Obama's transition team.^[8] Obama, however, chose Shaun Donovan, a housing official in New York City, to the Cabinet position.^[9]

On March 17, 2010, Ramirez testified before the House Financial Services Committee on the Obama administration's "Choice Neighborhoods Initiative," also known as the "Proposal to Revitalize Severely Distressed Public and Assisted Housing."^[10]

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