The Daily Agenda: Four Oro Valley candidates vying for three council seats

Oro Valley's council race is a mix of veterans and rookies ... But only the newcomers answered our questions ... Big bucks in CD6.

Election season is in full swing and Oro Valley is right there in the mix, with three council seats up for grabs and four candidates for voters to choose from.

Current Oro Valley Town Council members Tim Bohen and Harry “Mo” Greene are both seeking a second term and joining the pack are newcomers Mary Murphy and Elizabeth Robb. It’s a nonpartisan election, so the race will be decided on July 30.

The Tucson Agenda reached out to all four candidates to find out who they are and where they stand on the issues. Only Murphy and Robb responded to our inquiries, but we did some digging into the background of the other two candidates.

Here’s what we learned:

Tim Bohen.

Originally from Southern California, incumbent Tim Bohen has lived in Oro Valley since 2015, according to his campaign website. He was elected to the Town Council in 2020 and for his second term, he is running on a campaign of fiscal responsibility, putting residents first, defending the general plan, and maintaining a safe community.

Bohen said in an interview with the blog LOVE: Let Oro Valley Excel that transparency is the “cornerstone” of his work on behalf of town residents.

"I wanted the residents of our town to have a council member, at least one, that is extremely knowledgeable about our Town finances...and the level of oversight I saw from Sun City was far superior to the level of oversight we engage in,” he told LOVE.

The Arizona Daily Star reported that during his first term, Bohen was censured by Mayor Joe Winfield and the other five council members for poor behavior in the community, with four specific occasions cited.

Harry “Mo” Greene.

An Oro Valley resident for the majority of his life, Harry “Mo” Greene was elected in 2020. Looking to his second term, Greene told LOVE that he’s focused on transportation and water.

“I have two long term issues that I'm interested in. One is having a rail system from here to Phoenix and on to LA. And the second is to have sustainable water for the rest of our lives,” he told LOVE.

Greene said during the same interview that other priorities include providing more housing for seniors and increasing the town’s water supply through desalination efforts.

Greene is a military veteran, serving as a Battalion Surgeon in the 321 Artillery, 82nd Airborne Division, where he was awarded a Combat Medical Badge.

Mary Murphy.

An Oro Valley resident for eight years, this is Mary Murphy’s first crack at running for public office. 

She first thought about running for office after taking a community academy class offered by the town shortly after moving here from Massachusetts. She told the Agenda that after finishing the class, she felt inspired to serve her community and started serving on the town’s Judicial Board of Adjustments, as well as her homeowner’s association board. 

For her first term, Murphy is focused on maintaining transparency and availability as a council member.

“I want to bring back Council on Your Corner, something that I heard used to be here in our community,” Murphy said, adding that the only way that she’s been able to interact or hear from council members is to go to the council meetings. “My goal is to be a representative for the people.” 

Murphy is also an advocate for making sure there continues to be no Oro Valley property tax. 

“One of the things this town was founded on was no property tax,” she said “We don't have one and we don't need one if we focus on controlled spending and keeping a balanced budget.”

Elizabeth Robb.

Elizabeth Robb has lived in Oro Valley for 26 years, and is also a first-time political candidate. She said her cornerstone values are responsible growth and land use, protecting water resources, maintaining a safe community, and keeping recreational open space.

Robb said that her priorities are all about maintaining and nurturing Oro Valley’s “small town feel.”

“We’re not a big huge bustling city, we don't have big, tall buildings, we don't have people everywhere, we don't have tons of traffic. You can walk in the streets in most of our neighborhoods on most days and nights,” she said. “You don't hear business and commerce and things going on all the time around you…you can hear if your neighbor has chickens.”

Robb said she spends every Saturday at the Oro Valley farmer’s market at Steam Pump Ranch, selling goods from her “Elizabeth’s Garden” shop. She’s also served as a Captain in the Army Reserve, an Intelligence Officer in the Army, and as a Second Lieutenant in the North Carolina National Guard.

Always the scapegoat: The Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller weighs in on Arizona’s proposed Border Security Act, which will appear on ballots in November, after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that it’s in line with the state’s constitution. The referendum was challenged in court on the basis that it doesn’t address a single issue, but the judge said that the proposal does in fact target a single issue: “Harms related to an unsecured border.” Steller writes that in today’s political climate, every American problem seems to be blamed on the border.

Proving his point?: A fire broke out in the Pima County jail Friday, leading to the evacuation of nearly 400 inmates, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. The electrical fire is being investigated as arson, after it began in a maintenance area away from where inmates are held. Two corrections officers were taken to the hospital for assessment and others were treated at the scene. The jail’s aging infrastructure has been a hot topic over the past year, with Sheriff Chris Nanos saying the current facility is in a state of disrepair and asking Pima County Supervisors to fund a new one.

Hot topic: The Arizona Luminaria’s Jasmine Demers breaks down where Democratic Pima County Attorney candidates Laura Conover and Mike Jette stand on a variety of issues, including abortion access and criminalizing people who are unhoused. With no Republicans in the race, the Democratic primary will decide who will be the next Pima County Attorney. And since the two candidates don’t differ much on the major issues, the race could be decided based on differences in political style and partisanship.

Campaign contention: Pima County Attorney Conover has faced recent criticism by the families of several local crime victims, the Star’s Analeise Mayor reports. Conover told the Star in an email that it’s “appalling” to see “victim grief exploited for political gain” in campaign ads and speeches, adding that she hopes the families don’t look back and feel used. Jette said his aim has been to amplify the voices of grieving families but that his campaign “was not involved in organizing the criticism.”

Big bucks in CD6: A fundraising record has been broken in the race for Congressional District 6, the Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel writes. Democratic candidate Kirsten Engel raised more than $1.7 million between April 1 and June 30, setting a new state record. She had more than $3 million on hand at the end of June. U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s campaign spokesman declined to provide Nintzel with details about Ciscomani’s fundraising quarter, but campaign finance reports from the first quarter of the year showed that Ciscomani raised $750,000 between Jan. 1 and March 31. During the same time period, Engel brought in $1.2 million.

Fuzzy math: Santa Cruz County officials are raising questions after a compensation study commissioned by the board of supervisors recommended lower starting salaries for several positions, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi writes. Several county officials spoke to the NI about their concerns, saying that the study recommended lower starting salaries for 31 out of 38 positions in the county court system. They pointed out other inconsistencies and say that some positions appear to not have been analyzed as part of the study.

76 mph: The highest wind gust recorded during yesterday’s storm, according to the National Weather Service Tucson.