For decades, Ruben Jauregui cut hair as the owner of Wild West Haircutters. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he came to know many of the important people in the then-small town of Cottonwood as they came in for cuts.
“Mayor Joe Jones at the time would come get his hair cuts with me,” Jauregui said. “We’d have a good time. We’d discuss things happening in the community and so forth. He suggested that I run for the council. I immediately said, ‘no, I don’t think so.’ He came to my shop and said, ‘I’ve got half of your petition filled out.’ So I got the rest of it filled out — it only took a fraction of the signatures it takes today. I figured I’ll run, I’ll lose, and everything [will continue as normal]. Well, I ran and it came out that I got a seat at the council.”
Jauregui followed up his time on the council by running and winning the race for mayor in 1997, a position he held for a decade.
On Nov. 5, Jauregui’s long time in the Cottonwood government came to a close, as the former mayor, who ran again for city council in 2011 after his two terms as mayor ended in 2007, saw his replacements on the new council sworn in. Helaine Kurt took Jauregui’s vacated seat on the council, with incumbents Tosca Henry, Jackie Nairn and Mayor Tim Elinski sworn in for additional terms as well.
“The people who are on this council now along with the mayor are the right people to guide this community in coming years,” Jauregui said of his replacements. “They’re progressive, they’re younger, they’re open minded. And I think this group is committed to the future of the community.”
Jauregui’s long period in government coincided with the city’s population nearly doubling, and the former mayor’s actions reflected that, with work to develop the Cottonwood Recreation Center, the Cottonwood Public Safety building that currently houses the city’s fire and police departments, and the purchase of the water company.
“What I brought to the table was a sincere desire to serve the community. I found it kind of interesting and exciting at the same time,” Jauregui said. “We were in a period in Cottonwood where a lot of upgrades were needed — the police department headquarters along with fire. There were a lot of things that were developed during that time that impacted the community in a positive way. I tried to stay open minded. Fortunately, I had a council that were interested in serving the community.”
Jauregui nevertheless misses some things about the old Cottonwood, before its development over the past two-and-a-half decades, when it was a small town.
“The appeal to me was the small- town atmosphere — you go down the street and you see people you know” Jauregui said. “[But] it’s inevitable that it’s going to grow. You lose a little bit of that closeness that you had as a small community …. You just can’t help it.”
“We started seeing a rise in people, especially businesses, wanting to come into the area,” Jauregui said. “I remember when Old Town was, not deserted, but many buildings not occupied. We were happy to have someone move into those buildings and set up some kind of store. Now you go down there and a lot of parking spaces just aren’t available. That’s a good problem to have. It shows that people are frequenting the restaurants.”
Jauregui’s only serious worry about Cottonwood’s future is water, with more and more people and businesses taking advantage of fixed resources from the Verde River.
“The city has bought some wells and has some water rights,” Jauregui said. “Ensuring that we have enough water for the growth is going to be a big [challenge]. Without water it’s going to be hard to grow. We’ve done a lot of work there. I hope that these [future] councils also recognize that.”
Jauregui is looking forward to retirement — he ends his time cutting hair as well — and intends to spend some of it restoring an old car that he had told his daughter he would fix before she died in 2009. He nevertheless said he will miss one of his favorite parts of his city job, which was his opportunity to talk to children about government, Cottonwood and the future by visiting local schools.
“It’s been a fantastic honor to serve this community, and to have the support that we’ve gotten over the years,” Jauregui said. “It’s something I never thought I would do, but I’m glad I had that opportunity.”
