The final slate of candidates seeking a seat on the Camp Verde Town Council has been determined after the filing period closed last week.
Two men will be competing for the mayor’s two-year seat, incumbent Bob Burnside and challenger Steve Goetting.
Burnside said he decided to run again after several people in the community approached him about it. He also feels he’s got some momentum going to eventually accomplish projects the town would like to see completed, like the development of the park land purchased a couple of years ago from the U.S. Forest Service.
Goetting, a longtime event organizer, said he wants the position in order to bring new ideas to the town. Goetting is also behind Verde Entertainments, the group that organizes the annual Pecan, Wine and Antique Festival since the town government gave up sponsoring large events to save money.
Goetting also serves as president of the Diamond S ditch company.
The mayor’s seat isn’t the only contested position, although there are few people running for office in a town that has typically fielded several candidates in recent elections.
Three other seats are open on the council, those currently belonging to Norma Garrison, Carol German and Pete Roulette.
Roulette isn’t seeking reelection.
German, a former town planning and zoning commissioner, was elected after a write-in campaign in the last election. She will run again, saying she wants to ensure professionalism is an integral part of local government in Camp Verde.
Garrison was not planning to seek reelection after serving her first four-year term, but the low number of candidates running for office this year played a factor in her decision to pull the papers and get the signatures required to run again. As it is, Garrison is the only candidate who ran for office in 2007 who remains on the council.
Like Burnside, Garrison said several people approached her urging her to run for office again.
“I had a lot of people stop me,” Garrison said. “It was nice to hear that kind of support.”
For Garrison, running again was also a matter of giving some choice to the electorate.
“With just three candidates running for office, there would have been no choice,” Garrison said. “I wanted to give the people an opportunity to choose.”
Also running for the remaining seats on the council are Alan Buchanan, another former planning and zoning commissioner, and Bruce George, a local resident who wants a say in how the town government is run.
Buchanan said he felt his service on the planning and zoning commission gave him a deeper understanding of how local government works.
All of the candidates have signed documents indicating none of them will spend more than $500 on their campaign.
The primary is set for Tuesday, March 8. The general election will be held Tuesday, May 17.
