Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Scottsdale Campaign Season Is Open

The City of Scottsdale's campaign season is officially underway, as denoted by the fact that the City's website now includes a page where all pertinent campaign forms can be downloaded.

Scottsdale's City Clerk, Carolyn Jagger, graciously took a few minutes out of her day to talk about the process and answer a few questions.

Currently active candidate committees include those for the four incumbents up for reelection - Mayor Mary Manross, Council members Jim Lane, Betty Drake, and Ron McCullagh - as well as for previously announced candidates Nan Nesvig and Joel Bramoweth.

Expect more candidates to throw their hats in the ring over the next few months. Many more. :)

Candidates can obtain nominating petitions and other forms either by downloading them from the website or by picking them up at the City Clerk's office. Note: Forms don't have to be picked up by candidates; a representative can do it, also. One advantage to picking up the forms (as opposed to downloading them) is that the Clerk's office can answer any questions right there.

Forms can be picked up/downloaded at any time; however, before any campaigning can take place, either a Statement of Organization or a $500 Threshold Exemption Statement must be on file. (ARS 16-903)

Petitions can be submitted no earlier than 8:00 a.m. on Monday, May 5, 2008, and no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4, 2008.

The City's General Election will be held on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 (the same day as the state's primary election); the City's runoff election (if necessary) will be held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 (same as the state's general election).

All city offices will be at the bottom of the ballot.

Next year's election will mark the first time where the City's election will synch up with the statewide election, and it would be very easy for an minor little municipal election to get lost in the fanfare (and angst! :) ) of a presidential election.

That would be unfortunate, as that local election will have far more impact on the daily lives of the residents of Scottsdale than whoever wins the White House.

Most questions can be answered by reading the 2008 Candidate Handbook or by contacting the Clerk's office. The Clerk and her staff will be happy to help.

Later!

2 comments:

Doktor said...

Does Scottsdale publish candidate information (for candidates who have filed their paperwork) on the scottsdale city web site? (e.g., name, address, email, web site url, position statement, et al?)

Craig said...

George -

The short answer: I'm not sure.

The longer answer: I'm pretty sure that once the nomination period is closed, all submitted petitions are verified, and the final make-up of the ballot is determined, the City will publish an informational booklet that includes a lot of the info that you ask about, and I think that the booklet will be available online. However, that all won't happen until next summer.

As I get information about the various candidates, I'll post it here, except for home addresses (unless one of them has a home addy outside of Scottsdale; that would be significant news :) ). Another good resource is the blog "Scottsdale Activist"; I disagree with a lot of what is written there, but it's got great coverage of Scottsdale elections and has some 'insider' sources of information.