When it comes to engaging with the community, Cottonwood’s Vice Mayor Jackie Nairn has been taking a direct approach.
Every fourth Thursday of each month, Nairn hosts community awareness meetings at the Cottonwood Public Library to discuss a variety of issues facing the community, such as housing.
“I’ve been trying, since I started running for council, to engage the public, and I’m still trying,” Nairn said. “When council members are elected, we’re the voice of the people, and how can we really vote the way you want us to if you’re not telling us what you want?”
Nairn said that oftentimes, “We hear only from the people that are saying ‘no, no, no’ because they don’t like something we’re proposing to do. But if you get 20 ‘nos’ and nobody is coming to say ‘yes,’ and this is all you’re hearing, then it’s harder to get things done. You’ve got thousands of people who live here and you can’t just assume everybody else is saying yes because they haven’t told you, and this whole thing is trying to engage them to do that.”
Nairn said that, “we have trouble getting people to come to City Council meetings,” and she also doesn’t get many emails from people, “unless there’s something really contentious on the agenda,” such as an airport meeting.
Case in point: Nairn said that at one of the first community awareness meetings she hosted, which was intended to be about the city’s budget, more than 50 people came, “because somebody had went and told all their friends that it was an airport meeting.”
“That was the best turnout I’ve had,” she laughed.
In contrast, a few weeks ago, Cottonwood hosted a meet and greet for candidates running for city council, where only one community member, a business owner, showed up during the first hour of the event. After that, one more person arrived, the business owner’s friend.
The business owner asked the candidates, which included incumbent Debbie Wilden and write-in candidate Stephen DeWillis, why there weren’t more people in attendance, sparking a conversation among the candidates and members of town government, including Nairn, who said “It seems like we only get people who are upset about something who come.”
DeWillis also spoke about the lack of community participation, and offered suggestions on how to get more people involved, including radio advertising and handing out flyers to businesses.
“No offense [to the current council], I don’t mean to throw you under the bus, but where did you go wrong? How come there’s not more seats here? What do we need to do to work together to get the community to come in?” he asked.
“There are things we could do if we want to,” Wilden said, referencing utility bills as a means to advertise meetings.
Nairn explained that the community meetings are open to the public, but she doesn’t typically see a large turnout because, “people make assumptions based on what they believe about federal and even state government, and they make assumptions about local government.”
“Of course, you hear about all of the negative things associated with politicians at those levels, taking bribes in the Senate; then they want to take that information and say that it’s happening at the council level, which, if it is, I don’t know about it, because nobody’s ever tried to bribe me and I’m not one that would take a bribe,” she said.
“I don’t think a lot of people understand how the local government works and how important the things that we pass are for what’s going on right here, and so I’m trying to educate people about the local political process,” she said. “It’s so different from most of the other ones because it’s all nonpartisan. When you run, you’re not running as a Republican or Democrat, because none of that really matters at the local level.”
Nairn said she got involved in local government after attending a council meeting several years ago, where she noticed a large disparity between spending on programs to help the homeless versus the Thunder Valley Rally.
“I was working for Catholic Charities, working with homeless outreach, and I was asked to come and accept a $400 check, or maybe it was a $2,000 check, given to us so that we could shelter people in hotels on a really cold winter night,” she said. “I sat thorough the whole meeting and they gave us the money and we thanked them and then they gave all of these thousands of dollars to the Thunder Valley Rally, which I didn’t understand at the time; I understand better now.”
Nairn said the she began asking people why they didn’t tell the city council how they felt about the situation and they replied, “They won’t listen to us.” Nairn responded by saying, “They won’t listen to you if you don’t tell them.”
It was then that she decided to run for council.
Nairn said that she thinks the current council is doing “a better job than the council we had seven years ago.”
“We have more in reserves now than we did before, and our debt has come down,” she said, while citing that the city now has the amount it needs to fund new projects, such as the newly-purchased rough cut building on North Main Street, which the city intends to utilize as a city hall multiplex.
“When it came to deciding about buying that new building for a new city hall, our debt is down, our reserves are up and it’s a good time to do this because interest rates are low,” she said. “It made sense and it would be nice to have all of [town government] consolidated, so I voted for that. We’ve gotten to a place where we can show we can do this and do it responsibly.”
The next community awareness meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 25, at the Cottonwood Public Library at 4 p.m.
Nairn said a representative from the city will be present to answer any questions the public may have about the local government system, such as why some decisions come to council, and why others do not.
Additionally, Nairn plans to provide a variety of pizzas and light refreshments for attendees.
The event is free and does not require a reservation.
For more information, visit cottonwoodaz.gov.
