Buckeye voters have an opportunity to change the direction of their city and set it on a course toward a future of visionary leadership and professional management.
Ballots have been sent out and the voting has begun in this election by mail.
What's different about this race from all of the Buckeye council elections in the past is that all of the challengers are relatively new residents - transplants from other parts of the state or country. In previous elections most, if not all, of the candidates were born or raised in or near Buckeye. It's partly because of those close family ties that Buckeye's government has a reputation for being a "good ol' boy" town. In most cases, the reputation is richly deserved.
But big changes have come to Buckeye over the past decade. Previous town councils voted to annex huge swaths of land, bringing the town's planning area to some 650 square miles. New residential developments have sprung up in those far-flung areas and people have moved into those new homes - people who weren't born and raised in Buckeye. Now they want to have a say in how the town is run.
Over the past 10 years, Buckeye's government has stumbled around like Keystone Kops. The Town Council's track record in hiring town managers has been dismal. Town managers were hired and disposed of with wild abandon - and at exorbitant cost to the town's taxpayers.
Poor management led to one embarrassing fiasco after another (remember the water bill boondoggle?). The town is in desperate need of new faces and new ideas on the council.
That's why Buckeye voters should use this election to begin a clean sweep of the Town Council.
In District 4, we recommend Ray Strauss. He's bright, energetic and has already demonstrated a deep commitment to community affairs. As a church pastor and resident of Festival Foothills, he'd bring the communities in the far northern reaches of Buckeye the representation on the council they haven't had thus far.
In District 5, we recommend Craig Heustis. A resident of the Sundance community, Heustis has been a community activist (far more so than his opponent) and has served on the town Planning and Zoning Board.
In District 6, we recommend Eric Orsborn, who lives in the Verrado community. Osborn is another young, bright, energetic candidate. The only yellow flag is that he has worked for developers, including DMB, the company that is developing Verrado, so if he's elected, we hope that he would abstain from any votes that might involve a potential conflict of interest.
His opponent, incumbent Dave Rioux, has recently been embroiled in a couple of embarrassing personal scandals involving allegations of sexual harassment and the discovery that 14 years ago he fathered a child he didn't know about until recently. The issues raise questions about personal character. Voters will always have to wonder if the character he demonstrated in his personal life might carry over into his public life.
