The last 18 months as the Mayor of Kearny have certainly been eventful. Thanks to the hard work of previous administrations, we are about to complete a $3 million repair to our town water tanks, wells and booster station as well as a $2 million repair to our wastewater treatment plant! It has been an honor to be involved in those projects to help see them to completion so thank you to Mayor Ramsey and Mayor Sommers for seeing those projects funded and begun. We also have a couple new projects we are about to kick off including some water line repair work and an upgrade to the filtration plant for our drinking water. Those new projects will total over $4 million in grant funding.
In addition, we relocated our Town Hall and Library due to mold contamination and termite damage, put a plan in place to rebuild these facilities, repaired our main wells (remember the cloudy water?), began the town lake rehabilitation project funded primarily by ASARCO, APS and CNSI; and maintained a healthy town employee culture. It’s been busy and I appreciate every town employee who has been asked to stretch professionally to make these projects successful.
I have kept my campaign promise of putting the Town of Kearny first in every decision I have made, at times even straining personal friendships that I hold dear and certainly stretching my personal time resources. I was not perfect in these decisions, but no one ever is when hindsight is available; however, given the information we had at the time of the decisions I would not change a thing about what we did and am overall happy with our performance over the last 18 months. There is always more to do.
I am once again asking for your vote to continue the work in front of us.
We currently have approximately $1 million in our road maintenance fund (we are going to spend some of that soon to fix some of our roads) and approximately $1 million in our general fund carry forward (basically left over after all expenses). We do have some financial challenges facing us. Our water and wastewater units require us to spend roughly $300K per year out of the general fund to keep them solvent. This is why our water rates continue to increase. The State of Arizona cut nearly $100K out of our state shared revenues, and vehicle leases are hitting us for an absurd amount of money every year. We can fix the vehicle lease issues and work toward solvency on the water side of things, but we will continue to dip into the general fund for the next few years to do this.
We have a professional staff that manages the day-to-day operations of the Town and, in terms of the strategic direction of this community, there are no blind spots related to my engagement in the town. I actively help our professional admin team with all the projects, strategic planning, with day-to-day challenges they face that I may have some experience or expertise that can be applied, and with their professional development where appropriate. I always respond to resident requests for information with the most up-to-date information available. I am engaged.
I manage to do all of this while also working 60-70 hours a week in my professional job. I don’t do this because I want any accolades or admiration. I always give everyone else the credit for the good things that happen in our town; it is a team effort, and I am just honored to be a part of it. I do the work because I live here and because I love this community, none of us on the Town Council are paid in any way. I do this because I have a vision of this town thriving, with full school systems, fully occupied commercial districts, new homes being built, and an economic outlook that we can be proud of and that will support our families and our children’s families for decades to come.
I don’t know what will happen when you all go to the polls but I hope you will see fit to return me to this office so I can continue to work for you all.