The city of Cottonwood held a meet-and-greet for the three finalists for the post of city manager, Ken Bennett, Mario Cifuentez and Darren Coldwell, at the Cottonwood Recreation Center on Saturday, April 26.
“I had to follow the laws the legislator and the governor passed,” Bennett said of how his experience as an elected state senator and Secretary of State would relate to being an administrative city manager. “I was given a budget every year by the legislator and the governor. I couldn’t set my own policy. I had to work with 15 county recorders and 15 county election directors, half of whom were Democrats, half of whom were Republicans, throughout the state, and execute and administrate statewide elections and all the other things the Secretary of State does, so I have been an administrator even in some of my roles as an elected official.” “As the CEO of our family business for 23 years, I dealt with everything from employees, and customers, and safety, and all the things you had to do to run a business,” Bennett added, referring to the Bennett Oil Company, a fuel distribution firm.
“In fact, the size of our family business in Prescott, interestingly, is about the size of the budget of Cottonwood.” Bennett also stated that he will not be seeking election again and would like to give Cottonwood at least five years of his time, calling the city a second home for him, and recalling how he helped out with his parents business in the area by delivering gasoline when he was young. He said that his vision for Cottonwood includes growth, but controlled growth to maintain the area’s rural character, rather than at the rate of Prescott, which he said took place too quickly.
“Cottonwood reminded us of rural Montana a little bit where we grew up. This became available and I put my application in,” said Coldwell, who was a small business owner, small-town mayor of Troy, Mont., and Lincoln County administrator in Montana before relocating to Page in 2019. He said he believed the position would be an advancement for him, comparing Cottonwood’s population of 13,000 to Page’s of 7,500.Coldwell was also recently a finalist for city manager of Sedona. Coldwell said that he believes in preserving the character of rural areas and recalled his experience in 2020 during Page’s economic downturn as a result of theCOVID-19 pandemic response.
“We decided, what we are going to do, do we just rollup the carpet and leave or do we take it in a different direction?” Coldwell said. “At that time the staff and council decided to market.” He described the results of the marketing campaign as having paid off, with Page having received 5.3 million visitors last year. He also noted that the town had only grown by 200 residents from 2010 to 2020 and that maintaining a small-town feel depends on the marketing strategy.
“Can you recruit new hotel manufacturers?” Coldwell asked. “It was a process but we’ve succeeded. And we also succeeded in recruiting a manufacturing firm. We actually have Zenni Home now, which manufactures tiny homes and they are just starting to produce.” He said he felt that towns in Arizona have to fight for money from the state government.“ They had less than $4 million in grants, and this year we had over $13 million in grants, so we’ve been pretty successful getting our name out there,” Coldwell said.
Mario Cifuentez described himself as a “local government geek” who worked for the city of Visalia, Calif., for 33 years before becoming city manager of Hanford, Calif., in 2019. The former has a population of 59,000, while the latter has a population above 140,000. “There are some great staff,” Cifuentez said of Cottonwood. “It’s one of those I can hit the ground running. This council, having spoken with most of them already, shows me the one thing they have all said is their strong faith in the staff that’s here in Cottonwood.”
“I try to do my research,” Cifuentez said of the differences between California and Arizona. “You’ve got some of the tax base and how it’s distributed to the city level is actually better than California. So I believe it’s something given my 39 years strictly in local government, I can overcome that and speak the same language as my staff.”
“I see a strong list of five-year capital needs, I’ve reviewed the budget, I was fortunate enough to recently download the final report for the strategic planning session this council had,” Cifuentez said of his vision for the city. He said he would be particularly skilled in obtaining federal and state grants, having secured more than $30 million for Hanford in the last three years.
“That’s the money we can use to leverage other projects that require a match and help the local taxpayer dollar stretch to do big improvement projects,”Cifuentez said. “Growth is inevitable. The choice a city has is doyou prosper or do you wither? You can manage thatgrowth,” Cifuentez said.
Cifuentez also said that he had been planning to retire before deciding to apply for the Cottonwood job. “I think my history speaks for itself,” Cifuentez said. “I had 33 years with the first city I was with. I’ve been with this city for six years that I’m with now. I think I mentioned to council what my 10-year goal was. I didn’t say I would be gone in one or two years, I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. ”A date has not been announced for City Council to vote on the hiring of one of the three finalists.
