Current Mingus Union High School District Governing Board President Lori Drake will not be seeking another term on the school board and is instead the sole Republican candidate for the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors District 3.
“Politically, I’m a Republican. I’ve always had more of a conservative voice,” Drake said. “However, I do listen to reason within everything. I go off of common-sense areas … I always try to find the middle ground of something. I do definitely lean towards the more conservative, though.”
Drake cited her eventual opposition to a proposal to consolidate Cottonwood- Oak Creek and Mingus Union High school districts in 2020 as an example of moving “towards the middle ground.”
“It was definitely an issue where most people thought you were going to save more money, and it would be more conservative if you consolidated our entire school system,” Drake said. “It was definitely a time of a lot of research into just how much it is to run a school system versus how much it costs your community, versus how much it’s going to cost to pay out to buy out areas, versus what the tax base is going to be. So I ended up being on the side of not consolidating. And to this day, I’m very much a fan of small schools and small school districts.”
Drake elaborated on how her valuing of smallness extends to small business and the rural setting of the Verde Valley. “I am a Cottonwood girl at heart,” Drake said. “This side of the mountain is a place that I look at as amazing. I want to help in preserving what the lifestyle is for rural. But I also want to be cognizant of the growth that needs to be happening, especially with housing, and industry. And I am definitely a small business person. So I love to see when small businesses grow and give the ability of the people in our community to build their life here.”
Drake cited a desire to conserve the natural resources of Yavapai County but did not elaborate on how her platform would address that issue.
“I want to be a part of the thoughtful growth in our district … and throughout the county,” Drake said. “I want to help conserve the natural resources that our county has, I want to share my voice in the Board of Supervisors’ mission, which is ‘to provide for the welfare and security of the citizens of the Yavapai County, with effective and fiscally responsible leadership while advancing mutual cooperation between other governmental agencies,’ and that is their mission, quote.”
“I’ve proven myself to be thoughtful of being an elected official,” Drake said. “I immerse myself into learning everything about the issues at hand, in offering a common-sense opinion. So I also most definitely reach out to [the] community. I have a large constituency base in my area and I know that that needs to be expanded on into other areas. But I definitely like to listen to our community members about the issues at hand.”
