Build To Minister

Jan. 3 marks the start of a political transition in Surprise.

Mayor-elect Sharon Wolcott will be sworn in alongside three re-elected city councilmen. She defeated incumbent Lyn Truitt handily in the November runoff election, taking 55 percent of the vote.

Wolcott sat down this week to discuss over a cup of coffee her policy goals and plans coming into office. The conversation focused on her efforts to reach out to residents, plans to improve relationships on the City Council and perception of the citys unresolved financial troubles.
Truitts last council meeting somber, short

Here are highlights of the conversation. Some answers have been condensed for space.

Question: What have you been doing these past few weeks to prepare for the transition?

Answer: Meeting. Meeting with everyone. Trying to keep up with all of the requests for time with the mayor-elect and to start setting the stage for things that we want to do come the first of the year. Our Number 1 focus is going to be on starting by building trusting relationships within City Hall with the mayor and council and the staff, being able to move forward into a working year to start to prioritize budgets. We want to be able to have at least established some working relationships.

I have been meeting with people, constituents. Weve been doing the Town Hall meetings. … We want to hear from them on a more regular basis, so weve done a lot of that outreach. Weve started that outreach. Weve also heard from businesses. Weve heard from people who want to do business in the city of Surprise, and so were just doing what we can to just be an open door and a listening ear.

Q: What policy initiative do you plan to attempt to tackle first? Is there any certain area?

A: Our strategic plan. I really more refer to (it) as a strategic framework at this stage in the game. Its been adopted by our City Council, but it really is more of a framework and it needs to put meat on the bones now. The process has been started by the council in terms of prioritizing those elements of the strategic framework as we move forward. But the election helped me prioritize through the voters a lot of things that are top on their lists.

I would say that the Number 1 issue for the voters right now is jobs. Clearly, if were going to grow our economic viability as a community, we need to establish jobs that are household-supporting, sustaining jobs. We have a very large inventory of empty homes and the only thing thats going to fill them is family-sustaining jobs. A minimum-wage job is not going to pay a mortgage. We need to be able to establish those types of jobs that can truly sustain a family.

Q: During the campaign, you mentioned several times that voters have been kept in the dark about the extent of the financial problems at City Hall. When do you think we will get the full information about the extent of those problems?

A: I think that as soon as all of the details are clear and have been presented to the mayor and council, it will become a public discussion. We know that the first part of the job has been, one of the hardest parts of the job is actually getting to the Red Oak (consultants that audited the city) report. And the Red Oak report has given us kind of an insight as to the other areas there are trouble and given us kind of some guidelines on where we need to focus our energies in terms of creating policy that prevents future missteps and to kind of clean up our act.

Q: Can you say anything about what types of problems havent come to light?

A: Ive been out of the loop, so I suspect that once the new year comes around and theyve had more of a chance … I know that theyve adopted some policies to kind of address some of the impact-fee issues and they had to adopt something at the last meeting that basically set in motion the opportunity to address how were going to move forward on impact fees given the state legislation. But in terms of other things that have been revealed though the process of opening files and looking at the Red Oak audit, I havent been in the loop. So, Im sure I will be brought into the loop Jan. 1, and if theres anything there that needs to be discussed yet. I just dont know the details right now.

Q: How will you build consensus on the City Council, which has been divided in recent years?

A: Thats easy. Thats called listening. Make sure that everyone feels heard and that everyone feels appreciated. Every single person on City Council was elected for a reason. They actually bring something valuable to the table or the voters wouldnt have chosen them, and I think its really important the leadership keep an open mind and listen. It doesnt mean that any one of us are going to get our way 100 percent. That cant happen. But if at least we feel listened to and our perspectives are respected, then we can move forward as a team.

Q: How do you view the mayors role compared with that of the rest of the council? Are you just one of seven votes or is there a broader degree of authority or responsibility?

A: One of seven votes is what occurs when Im running the meetings. The mayor convenes the meeting and effectively, at that time, is the chair of a committee. So, yes, when Im chairing a committee, Im one of seven votes. But the role of mayor is substantially different from the City Council because the mayor is essentially the first person that people want to see. (Those) that want to engage the community, (those) that want to bring a business to town, the first person that they want to see is the mayor. The mayor is an advocate. The mayor is an ambassador. The mayor is a leader.

Many of the specific roles are somewhat traditional because we lack a charter, they arent as specific as other communities are. But just because we dont have a charter does not mean that we dont have specific roles that have been traditionally filled by a mayor. One thing that I think people misunderstand about our form of governance is that just because we are a quote unquote weak mayor form of government does not mean that the mayor has to be weak.