By Your Valley
A primary election is Aug. 2 for candidates in Mesa City Council districts 4, 5 and 6, with terms expiring in January 2027.
Candidates filing for a seat in each district are:
District 4: Jenn Duff (incumbent), Trista Guzman Glover and Nathaniel Ross;
District 5: Alicia Goforth;
District 6: Scott Somers and Darla Trendler.
As the primary election nears, the Independent is conducting Q&As with each council candidate to get their opinion on various topics having to do with the city of Mesa. In this installment are the answers to “What do you think should be the city’s priorities?”
As the election gets closer, keep an eye on yourvalley.net/mesa-independent and the print edition of the Mesa Independent for more from the Q&A series.
For the following, candidate Alicia Goforth didn’t respond to emails.
Nathaniel Ross, 21, is a biology graduate student at ASU. He is a lifelong Mesa resident.
What do you think should be the city’s priorities?:
Sustainable growth must be at the center of all the city’s priorities. Sustainability encompasses many areas: the budget, property development, resource management and so much more. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility extends beyond families and includes our government. As the city continues to invest and grow, we must keep potential economic downturns in mind and prepare for such situations with budget surpluses. I am a firm believer that we must be stewards of the Earth, which includes the responsible management of resources. Future generations rely on what we do to keep our environment clean and healthy. Mesa currently has aspirational goals to reduce the city’s impact on the environment by 2050. Mesa’s future generations deserve better. Developing actionable steps to ensure fresh air and clean water today and decades from now must be a component of the city’s plans for sustainable growth. Housing costs have gotten entirely out of control. Young people and first-time homeowners have been especially hard-hit by the lack of housing supply and sky-rocketing costs. The city must keep housing costs in mind as part of sustainable development.
