Integrity Counts

You have to wonder what Liz Gutfahr was thinking when she chose “Integrity Counts” as her campaign slogan for one of her re-election campaigns to the County Treasurer’s office. How could she keep a straight face as she was handing these bags out? 

But ultimately, the joke was on us, the voters and residents of Santa Cruz County. 

Well, here we are once again, slouching towards another election, hoping that we are making the right choices for the county, the state and the nation. 

To that end, the PRT has been working to get the voters of Santa Cruz County access to information about our local candidates. So far, we have held two forums, one for the candidates for Board of Supervisors for District 3, and one for candidates for the County Sheriff’s office. 

We have also conducted interviews via Zoom with candidates for Justice of the Peace, the Assessor’s office and the Treasurer’s office. Visit patagoniaregionaltimes.org/2024-voters-guide/ to view the forums, the zoom interviews and for information about how and where to vote, important dates, ballot initiatives, and candidate information.

What I wish we could share with our readers is detailed information about our state legislature candidates. Sadly, four out of five of the candidates did not bother to respond to the PRT’s request for information.

In July, the PRT sent out letters to the two candidates in Legislative District 19 for the Arizona Senate, incumbent David Gowan (R) and challenger Bob Karp (D), as well as to the three candidates for the two slots for State Representative for Legislative District 19, incumbents Gail Griffin (R) and Lupe Diaz (R) and challenger Gregg Frostrom (D). 

The questions we asked:

• What motivated you to run for office? 
• Describe any efforts you would make as a legislator that would directly benefit eastern Santa Cruz County.
• Who should bear the added expense of having to provide the additional emergency resources that will be required with increased traffic on SR 82 and SR83 due to the Hermosa Project?
• The universal school voucher program has come under fire for exceeding budget estimates. Should funds for these vouchers continue to be paid from the state education budget? Do you believe that there is adequate oversight, accountability and transparency standards for homeschooled and private school students’ programs? 
• How do you plan to balance the state budget without shifting the burden of funding down to the counties, cities and towns in Arizona? 
• Having an adequate water supply is an important issue for residents here who are worried that our region could be affected by increased mining and development. How would you propose to monitor and regulate water usage in Arizona?
• What do you think are the other important issues facing the constituents in eastern Santa Cruz County and what will you do to respond to them?

Only Bob Karp bothered to respond. We included his answers in the August PRT. Astonishingly, NONE of the other four candidates bothered to fill out the questionnaire, even though we sent the questions to them two more times, in August and in September. I went so far as to track down Diaz and Griffin when I heard they would be at the Santa Cruz County Fair and handed them a paper copy of the questions. I even offered to do a phone interview so they wouldn’t have to be bothered to write out their answers. 

Griffin looked briefly at the questions and promised that she would send me her responses within the week, as did Diaz. 

Broken promises, it turned out. 

Frostrom emailed me in August asking for a word count, but never got back to us. And Gowan? Not even a peep. 

Maybe they feel we are such a small part of their district that we’re not worthy of their time, maybe we are asking tough questions, maybe the dog ate their homework, I don’t know.

So, what can we do? Learn all we can about our candidates and ballot initiatives, make sure to vote, and remember: integrity counts.