Elected Coconino County Democratic precinct committeemen nominated a former county supervisor, a city council member and a Democratic Party official to replace former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who resigned from her District 2 seat last month to run for Congress.
At an Aug. 2 meeting, the precinct committeemen nominated Kara Kelty, a member of the Flagstaff City Council, former Coconino County Supervisor Tom Chabin and attorney Tony Gonzales, who also serves as a vice-chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party.
The Coconino County Board of Supervisors discussed the process of selecting one of the three to replace Kirkpatrick at its Aug. 7 meeting.
The board is expected to appoint a replacement later this month or in early September, but agendas for future meetings were not available Aug. 9 when Arizona Capitol Times went to press.
Arizona Capitol Times spoke with the three nominees about their backgrounds, expectations and the needs of their district in separate interviews on Aug. 6.
Tom Chabin
Tom Chabin says his experience in Native American communities gives him an advantage over Kelty and Gonzales. He owned a business in Tuba City – on the Navajo Reservation – for 20 years, his wife taught in near-by Moenkopi, and he boasts about having been elected to the school board in Tuba City in the 1990s with 65-percent of the vote.
The Board of Supervisors, he says, must determine who is best suited to represent the district. While Coconino County includes only part of the reservation, he expects the reality that more than 60 percent of the legislative district is Native American to weigh heavily in the board’s decision.
Chabin also hopes his familiarity with the board members and county issues translates into support for his nomination. He was elected in 1992 to the first of two four-year terms on the Board of Supervisors, and he served with three of the five current members.
If selected to complete Kirkpatrick’s term, he says tax fairness – especially in property taxes – would be a priority, as would increasing funding for education, both K-12 and universities.
“The Legislature has to pony up and take responsibility to govern,” he said. “This means you adequately fund education so that our standards are not last in the nation and you make sure a college education is – as the Constitution requires – as affordable as possible.”
Tony Gonzales
Land use attorney Tony Gonzales is a relative newcomer to politics in Arizona and specifically Flagstaff, but he thinks his youth, combined with his knowledge of the Legislature and its politics and procedures, makes him the ideal replacement.
The 30-year-old’s family-by-marriage doesn’t hurt either: his wife is the daughter of former Rep. Jim Sedillo, who was revered by many in Flagstaff and died of a heart attack in 2005.
Gonzales, a Colorado native who spent his youth in a small pueblo in northern New Mexico, also says his professional background gives him the ability to immediately “pick up where Ann Kirkpatrick left off…and hit the ground running,” especially on the Judiciary Committee.
He cited a “vast array of political experience in Arizona” and said his knowledge of the Legislature, lawmakers and staff – both through his duties as a vice chairman of the state Democratic Party and his stint as an intern in the House – gives him the ability to be immediately effective.
“The others will have to learn the system,” he said.
Gonzales says his top priority as a legislator will be increasing economic development on the Navajo Reservation, possibly through giving businesses incentives to increase wages, create jobs on the reservation and provide job training.
Kara Kelty
Flagstaff City Councilwoman Kara Kelty is hoping to be the right candidate in the right place at the right time for the second time in her political career.
Getting the nod to replace Kirkpatrick would mark the second time she was selected to fill a vacancy because an elected official resigned mid-term: in 2002, she replaced a council member who resigned because of health problems.
Then, like now, there was a strong desire to replace a resigning woman with another woman. As the only female considered for Kirkpatrick’s replacement – and with the final decision resting on a five-member board that includes three women – Kelty is seen in some eyes as destined to be appointed to the House. But she downplayed that view and said she will be selected to fill the House seat because she is the only sitting elected official of the three and she is the most qualified.
“I think I’m the best candidate based on who I am, not what I am,” she said.
A former Peace Corps volunteer who served in the Philippines and Guatemala, where she met her husband, Kelty says the district’s biggest need is creating infrastructure and economic development in rural Arizona – especially on the reservation – and increasing the availability of affordable housing in Flagstaff.
Legislative Report Editor Barry Gartell contributed to this story.