City fire & police chiefs speak

On Aug. 9, “people aligned with any political ideology” were invited to the Mingus Mountain Republican Club Luncheon at the VFW Hall in Cottonwood.

“For the month of August we are taking a break from politics,” MMRC’s invite read.

Speakers included Cottonwood’s Fire Chief Ron Sauntman and Chief of Police Steve Gesell.

Sauntman’s presentation focused on emergency management, while Gesell’s focused on “local crime and issues as it relates to national impact.”

Sauntman, who is approaching his third year as fire chief, began his presentation by providing a history about his connection to Cottonwood and the Verde Valley.

“I grew up in Camp Verde and the Cottonwood area,” he said. “When I graduated high school, I went directly into fire service and have been doing that ever since.”

In 2015, Sauntman went to work for the Yavapai County Office of Emergency Management before traveling around the country to teach about public safety and emergency management.

Upon his return to Cottonwood, Sauntman said he was “fortunate” to be offered the role as fire chief, and feels “very happy” to be back in the community.

“I look forward to serving for many years to come,” he said.

In his presentation, Sauntman provided an overview of his department’s emergency management services, followed by a discussion with attendees, which numbered around 70.

Sauntman began by discussing “the two biggest threats” to the community: Wildfire season and associated flooding.

“Ironically, those do go hand in hand,” he said. “When you get major wildfires there’s always going to be a post-fire flooding threat. It’s very important for us to understand that.”

Sauntman explained that when it comes to fire and medical response, “There is a group of fire and medical organizations in the Verde Valley, based on location, geography and demographics, some of those are fire districts. Cottonwood is the only municipal fire department in the Verde Valley.”

Sauntman mentioned Verde Valley Ambulance, which recently celebrated its 50th year of service..

“That’s a very big deal and we’re happy to be partnered with them,” he said.

“Emergency management” is a term that most people associate with “red lights, fire trucks, police cars and ambulances” Sauntman said, but is “technically a process and organization that brings to bear support for those resources” by making sure EMS and other groups in the field have food, water and support “on a grander scale.”

Sauntman cited the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire to provide an example of what emergency management services entail.

“Yarnell sustained a major wildfire in 2013 where we had the loss of 19 firefighters,” he said. “One of the things we did in conjunction with the county and other partner organizations was [keeping] the Yarnell community intact and we do that through a variety of processes such as making sure businesses can get reopened and homeowners are able to access insurance.”

Sauntman said Cottonwood’s Public Safety Division is “constantly engaged” in preparedness.

“Our Fire Marshal Prevention Division is literally going to be working with local businesses and homeowners on their processes and making sure their homes and businesses are kept open and safe,” he said.

“The city does maintain an emergency operations plan which is important for us to have in the event of a large scale disaster; it gives us some guiding principles that we’re going to utilize to help support and manage the community,” he said.

Sauntman and his team also provide a variety of public education programs, which includes preparedness campaigns about wildfire, water safety, hiking and biking awareness and a program that teaches children how to use 911 services.

“There’s a lot more things we’re responsible for to make sure that people have the support they need,” he said. “We take a lot of pride in that and that’s what our agenda is.”

Cottonwood Police Chief

According to the MMRC’s invitation, Gesell’s presentation was designed to cover “local crime and issues as it relates to national impact.” However, Gesell provided a “disclaimer” that “a lot of this is my personal opinion and is not necessarily the opinion as the representative of the city of Cottonwood.”

“I have a reputation for being very candid, particularly for a police chief,” Gesell said.

Gesell’s presentation began with a list of “some of the factors” that he believes are “contributing to the increase in crime across the nation,” though, he said “these factors are not adversely contributing to the crime rate in most of Arizona.”

“Most of the stuff we’re going to cover in this presentation is not happening in Cottonwood,” he said.

Some of the factors Gesell cited in his presentation included a range of theories such as George Soros-backed district attorneys; The “Ferguson Effect,” a hypothesized increase in violent crime rates in a community caused by reduced policing; influence of “leftist ideology” and emphasis of division by race, gender, socioeconomic status, religion and political party.

“What I’ve noticed is that people are trying to frame the narrative [and] will insert an adjective in front of the word ‘justice,’” he said. “Have you noticed that ‘social justice,’ ‘racial justice’ and the last one I hear, and I’m not kidding, ‘food justice.’ I don’t even know what that means. So that’s part of the lexicon that’s taking us down a pathway away from the rule of law and objective justice.”

Gesell also discussed drug trends, which focused on fentanyl, “the new meth” and marijuana.

“This is my 33rd year in law enforcement,” he said. “The meth that is out there today is not even remotely close to what I found undercover [as a narcotics detective].”

Gesell cited recent seizures of fentanyl and meth in partnership with local and federal agencies and said while many of the seizures occur outside of Cottonwood, it’s a reasonable expenditure of resources to prevent the illicit substances from entering the city.

“It is worth taking that Cottonwood resource and preventing 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 pills either getting somewhere else in Arizona or some-where in the United States, even if it doesn’t touch Cottonwood.”

“As long as I’m police chief, we’re going to continue to do that,” he said.

Regarding legal marijuana, Gesell expressed his opinion that “the marijuana industry leveraged individuals that smoked weed when they were young” and stated that the current levels of THC content found in dispensaries have “de-evolved us to where we now have a term called marijuana psychosis.”

Other topics included in Gesell’s presentation included mass shootings, the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and the arrest of an 18-year old Mingus Union High School student that took place two days after the Uvalde shooting following threats the student had made via social media.

“Our detectives got on it right away and we interviewed the kid and [he] fits the stereotypical kid almost to a ‘T’ of a mass shooter and we arrested him and booked him,” he said.

Gesell lamented the student’s subsequent release was “without bond,” and added “there’s no court-compelled mental health treatment for most kids out there.”

“Thankfully we hear that the parents engaged this kid with mental health professionals, so hopefully that will be enough to chill any future malice with this kid,” he said. “But it illustrates that all the signs were there, and it illustrates the shortcomings of the justice system.”

Gesell blamed the mass shooting epidemic on “youths without purpose” and “ego-driven social media.”

“We are not raising resilient children,” he said. “I think it comes to the realization that at this point in time in American culture that we have; some of our kids are resilient, don’t get me wrong, but we have plenty of kids that cannot handle any type of rejection [or] disagreements.”

Gesell concluded his presentation on a “positive note” and reiterated that “none of this stuff that we talked about, these maladies on a grand scale are happening locally,” for which he said “we should be grateful.”

Gesell invited attendees to view the city’s annual report, which he said includes crime statistics and “a bunch of stuff that you may find useful,” and also mentioned that the city is working on a Community Dashboard, “where community members can go and do your own query for statistics of crimes.”

“It creates a tool for us internally for crime analysis, but from a public-facing standpoint it allows the public to see what’s going on around us, and overall the city and the [police department] are very, very healthy.”

About the Club

Following the luncheon, MMRC President Niles Haton answered questions via email for the Cottonwood Journal Extra.

MMRC invites persons aligned with other political ideologies to the meetings, whether non-Republicans choose to identify themselves or not.

“We do not ask any attendee their political affiliation,” Haton said. “We do have some folks who point out that they are with another party and we assure them that’s OK. We have very little contact with potential attendees, as the meeting process is by email invitation and media exposure. RSVP by return email of the invitations is the mode of requesting a place at the meeting. Sometimes questions are asked on various topics, and we respond accordingly.”

Haton elaborated on the club’s policy of inviting people of other parties to the meetings.

“We are, as our club title implies, a Republican group,” Haton said. “However, some of our best Republican leaders, such as Ronald Reagan, were Democrats before they were Republican, so it is important that we attempt to welcome all persuasions so they become aware of the party positions. Through this approach, some folks feel it might be best to switch to Republican, as we notice occurring in several party changes and population mixes as well.”

Lastly, Haton was asked for his opinion on how people of different political affiliations and ideologies can come together on some of the issues that were discussed at the luncheon.

“As stated, this openness can result in party affiliation change, maybe only if it is to vote a certain issue or issues, then move back into your previous party,” he said. “Great thing about the American way is we have this ability to make up our own minds, change our minds and still remain free with our thoughts, idealism and religion. In very few countries can those folks do the same.”

For more information about the MMRC, visit mm-gop.org.