Surprise hopefuls speak out at forum

The heated three-person race to become Surprise’s next mayor increased a few degress Wednesday night.

Matters became a bit personal during the League of Women Voters’ candidate forum at City Hall when a question was raised about former Councilwoman Sharon Wolcott’s political party affiliation.

All city elections are non-partisan, but Wolcott has been receiving flak for not being forthcoming about the political party with which she is affiliated.

Wolcott said she is a lifetime registered Independent, noting, however, that the matter is irrelevant.

Mayoral candidate Lou Provenzano and incumbent Mayor Lyn Truitt agreed, but chastised Wolcott for supposedly not being forthright from the outset.

“Why cover it up and deny your party affiliation?” Provenzano said.

Added Truitt, “I always tell the truth when I’m answering a question.”

Wednesday’s forum also included candidates running for council in district 2, 3 and 4, but the mayoral race has been in the Surprise political spotlight for weeks.

Truitt has been touting his record in office, although Wolcott and others contend the City Council and city staff are the ones responsible for the creation of 1,000 new local jobs, the Communiversity @ Surprise attracting Northern Arizona University as another partner institution and construction of Loop 303 through Surprise, which begins this month.

However, Truitt said it’s the relationships he’s built, for example, while serving on the Maricopa Association of Government’s transportation committee that led the county to put Surprise on a timely construction schedule for the Loop 303 project.

The mayor also said his outreach with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council has helped lead to the creation of 1,000 new jobs in Surprise. It’s believed that 60 percent of city residents commute out of Surprise every day for work.

“I have laid the foundation for a bright future,” Truitt said. “Changing leadership at this time would not be in the best interests of Surprise.”

Wolcott said experience plays a large part in what newcomers are able to accomplish right off the bat as “the learning curve is quite steep.”

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” she said.

Wolcott, who’s running on the platform of the council watchdog who will vet all city spending actions and ask the tough questions, also said developing relationships with city staff and becoming regional partners with surrounding cities only strengthens Surprise’s efforts.

JOBS: The City of Surprise lost by FORFEIT at a time when both of ...

At the July 20th Debate: “All of the candidates emphasized the need for the city to market itself to companies outside of Surprise.”

However, BOTH of my opponents voted to eliminate our City Economic Development Department and staff last year and transfer the function duties into another Department.  I am a fiscal conservative, but I prefer to make smart reductions instead, and that vote did not make good business sense.  Don’t be fooled by election year calls to bring JOBS.  The two Solar Companies found us, we did not go out and find them.  The City is in a reactive mode regarding JOBS based upon policy votes made by both my opponents.

Check out the Economic Development Website http://www.surpriseaz.gov/ .  I stopped counting broken links listed as “under construction” when I got to 8 and then looked at the OLD outdated data on the other links that would not be very useful to prospective businesses looking to relocate here.  This is indicative of a lack of leadership, oversight, and priority on JOBS by BOTH of my opponents.   How can they even begin to try and claim it is now all of a sudden a priority during the election season when they have not shown actions and results consistent with their claims.

It is one thing to lose the recent announcement of a new $5 Billion Intel Facility to Chandler had we made our best effort to bring them here, but we were not even in the game.   http://www.azcentral.

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