WeMAR occasionally interviews local candidates running for mayor, city council, county, Constable and Justice of the Peace positions.
In early July, volunteers spent three days interviewing candidates who wished to accept our invitation. WeMAR interviews candidates with a view to how they align with the WeMAR Legislative Policy, Private Property Rights, Right to Private Contract and small business needs.
Keep these criteria in mind as you look over the list. Use this as one of the many resources you use when researching candidates and deciding who to vote for in this or any election. We all have several personal criteria we use when voting, this can be just one of your tools.
Whenever possible, speak with the candidate or attend an in-person forum. Look for print or on-air interviews, read articles by credible sources, and talk with those who know or have had interactions with the candidate.
We hope these endorsements will serve as one tool for your consideration. Read below for the process and criteria of candidate selection.
WeMAR Candidate Endorsements:
Arrowhead Justice of the Peace:
Craig Wismer
El Mirage:
Chance Mikos – Mayor
Bob Jones – City Council
Peoria:
Dennette Dunn – Peoria City Council Pine District
Surprise:
Wendall Fountain – City Council District 2
Eric Cultum – City Council District 6
Gisele Norberg – City Council District 3
Skip Hall – City Council District 5
Roland Winters – City Council District 1
The WeMAR Candidate Interview Process:
Why don’t you see your city candidates? Quite simply, the WeMAR Candidate Interview Workgroup is made of up volunteers. Members of WeMAR who are willing and able to take 3 days out of their business and dedicate those days to this process. That, in and of itself is generous. It is unreasonable to ask more than that, and we are grateful for these WeMAR volunteers.
Some cities are more important than others at this time. They are geographically placed in an area experiencing real estate and property rights issues, they are a city WeMAR has a relationship with or, they are a city WeMAR does not have a relationship with but wants to open those doors. The city may have controversial land use or other issues. There are many reasons one city may be more important than another for purposes of interviewing candidates.
Once a city is determined to be important, then the question asked is what races in the city are important enough for WeMAR to weigh in? Not all candidates are invited to interview. For example, candidates in District A may be interviewed, while candidates in District C are not.
If both the city and the race are deemed important for WeMAR to interview candidates, then we invite every candidate in that race. If a candidate wishes to be interviewed they are asked to return a written questionnaire prior to their appointment.
The written questionnaire tends to be very broad and designed to help the interview workgroup get an idea of how the candidate thinks, what is important to them, and how they see their city in the larger picture of Arizona.
When a candidate is interviewed, the workgroup has pre-prepared oral questions designed to illuminate us on the candidate’s position and thoughts on specific issues in their district and the city, as well as a few over arching questions designed to understand if the candidate’s philosophy aligns with WeMAR Legislative Policy.
All candidates running for a city/county position are asked the same questions. Our Candidate Interview Workgroup decides prior to the first interview what questions will be asked in each city/county race.
Our Workgroup rates each interviewee on an evaluation sheet which highlights the WeMAR Legislative Policy. Once each workgroup member has rated the interviewee, then there is discussion amongst the workgroup members evaluating the candidate’s alignment with WeMAR principles, knowledge of critical issues, their ability to communicate their thoughts clearly, their ability to inquire and reason through the issue and concerns to be further investigated.
Our approach gives us the ability to enter into conversations, not just get “yes” and “no” answers. These conversations are helpful as the first steps to establishing a relationship with someone WeMAR may be working with on issues of importance to our members down the road.
Once the Candidate Interview Workgroup completes their evaluations, they must make recommendations to the WeMAR Board of Directors. The choices are:
• Endorse
• Give funds
• Endorse and give funds
• Do nothing
There are some races the workgroup decides to do nothing, other races may include endorsement and funds. It all depends on what the candidate asked for and how the workgroup evaluated them.
If the workgroup decides to recommend endorsement, funds or both, then the recommendation is forwarded to the WeMAR Board of Directors. The Board of Directors must unanimously vote to approve the workgroup recommendation.
Once the WeMAR Board of Directors approves the recommendations of funds, the funds request is forwarded to AAR so that the RAPAC Trustees can meet to give the final funds approval.
Only after all these steps have been completed may we then issue the endorsement, funds or both to the candidate.
It is a lengthy process and rightly so. Your Candidate Interview Workgroup works hard to make sure your RAPAC dollars go to candidates who support private property rights, right to private contract and your business. Please thank them for their time and thoughtful discernment:
Jay Otlewski (Chair), John Theis, Fred Cleman, Bill Gaddis, Susan Nicolson, and Tom Platt