The Daily Agenda: JP candidates off and running
Lots of new faces ... Voters will decide on five justices of the peace this year ... Record-setting balloon.
We’re back with another round of local elections that often fly under the radar.
Two weeks ago, we went through candidates for Pima County constables. Today, we’re shining a light on the candidates for justices of the peace, who as it happens often work hand in glove with constables.
First, what does a justice of the peace do? They’re the ones who decide evictions, issue protective orders, handle small claims, and oversee other civil issues. They also handle much of the lower-level crimes, such as shoplifting, and traffic crimes like DUIs.
Although they have important legal positions, and all the seats up for election this year come with a $126,000 salary, they don’t have to be a lawyer to get the job. In fact, many of the sitting justices and candidates aren’t lawyers.
Seven justices of the peace work in Tucson, while two others oversee courts in rural areas. The duties of the ones in Tucson are limited, but those in the rural areas have more freedom to create programs and tailor services to fit residents’ needs.
For example, in Precinct 7, which includes Green Valley, Sahuarita, Corona de Tucson, Arivaca, Amado, Sasabe and Vail, Justice of the Peace Ray Carroll relaunched Green Valley Justice Court’s traveling court and night court programs during the pandemic. Last year, he created an alternative program for first-time DUI defendants, which gives offenders the opportunity to downgrade their potential DUI conviction to a reckless driving misdemeanor by participating in drug tests and regular therapy.
Carroll’s seat is safe this year, but voters will elect five other justices of the peace in Precincts 2, 4, 6, 9, and 10.
Incumbents Erica Cornejo in Precinct 2, who is finishing her second term, and Alexander Ball in Precinct 6, who is nearing the end of his first term, are running unopposed thus far. That leaves the races in Precincts 4, 9, and 10 as the only ones where voters will have a decision to make.
In Precinct 4, which extends from Tucson’s west side and includes Tucson Estates and Three Points, the race is between a two-term incumbent and a longtime law enforcement officer.
Charlene Pesquiera was first elected justice of the peace in 2016 and is now the chief administrative judge. She also highlighted her service on the City of Tucson’s Homeless Court Coalition Committee in her bio on the court’s website. Prior to serving as a justice of the peace, she was a state senator from 2007 to 2009.
Michael Buglewicz is a detective with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, where he’s worked since 1993. He’s part of the department’s domestic violence task force. If elected, he would “lean on my years of experience on the street and in the office,” as he put it when he announced his campaign on Facebook.
Over in Precinct 9, which covers much of southern Tucson and the San Xavier reservation, the race is between a first-term incumbent and a small business owner who was born and raised on Tucson’s south side.
Kendrick A. Wilson was elected justice of the peace in 2020. Before that, he was a county prosecutor from 2010 to 2015, where he handled domestic violence cases and animal abuse cases. He went on to work for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe from 2015 to 2019. He ran unopposed in 2020, so this is his first time facing a challenger.
That challenge is coming from Renee Ann Garza, a small business owner who pointed to her Mexican and Yaqui ancestry when she announced her campaign, noting that she grew up in a house her grandfather built.
“My values of treating everyone with dignity and fairness will be my guiding principles as your judge. The south side deserves to be represented by one of their own,” Garza wrote.
The race in Precinct 10 is a three-way contest among a first-term incumbent who worked in law enforcement for decades, a local attorney, and a school board member.
The precinct includes Marana, Oro Valley, Picture Rocks and areas to the west. Those areas lean more conservative than Tucson, so it’s no big surprise that the only two Republican candidates in any of the races for justice of the peace come from this precinct.
Like Wilson, Vince Roberts won an uncontested election in 2020, but he did have to fend off a primary challenge in 2016. This time around, attorney Robert J. Forman is challenging him in the Republican primary and the winner will face Kathryn Mikronis, a Democrat who currently serves on the Marana Unified School District Governing Board, in November.
Prior to serving as justice of the peace, Roberts served three terms as constable in Precinct 10. He also was chairman of the Constable Ethics Standards and Training Board.
Mikronis initially planned to run for the county supervisor seat in District 3, where former Supervisor Sharon Bronson served for nearly three decades before she retired in November.
But Mikronis told the Tucson Sentinel she wanted to support Jennifer Allen for the supervisor’s seat, so she withdrew from the race and is now running for justice of the peace.
The Agenda hits the airwaves: The Tucson Agenda made its inaugural appearance on the Bill Buckmaster Show Friday, when Curt was a guest, alongside David Godleski, president and CEO of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association. We’re excited to be included in Bill’s rotation of local journalists!
Water woes: Seven states, including Arizona, appear likely not to reach their March goal of agreeing to a comprehensive, long-term settlement on how to curb their overuse of Colorado River water, the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis writes. Now, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wants the states to come up with their own proposal for an environmental review that will be used to help set guidelines for how the river will be managed when the current guidelines expire at the end of 2026. Experts say the states are getting “too close to comfort” to reaching what they call a “Colorado River Compact tripwire,” meaning that in a few years, the four Upper Basin states may no longer meet their legal obligations to deliver river water to the three Lower Basin states.”
Honoring activism: The YWCA of Southern Arizona has unveiled a new mural by Jessica Gonzales of Dr. Laura Banks-Reed, a native Tucsonan and civil rights activist who helped change public education in the region, KGUN’s Adam Klepp reports. The mural coincides with the announcement of the new Dr. Laura Banks-Reed Center for Gender and Racial Equity, which will house the YWCA’s education, training, community engagement and policy and advocacy efforts. The YWCA will be hosting an opening ceremony for the center in May.
Deadline delay: All three of Arizona’s public universities extended the Free Application for Federal Student Aid priority deadline to May 1 because of delays at the federal level, Arizona Public Media’s Paola Rodriguez writes. In January, the federal government told universities that delays with the FAFSA will prevent the U.S. Department of Education from providing student FAFSA records until mid-March. The data is used to tell schools which students qualify for the Arizona Promise Program, which covers tuition and fees for low-income Arizona students. As a result, the Arizona Board of Regents voted to extend the deadline to make sure more students and families can apply for the program.
Capital concerns: A Town of Oro Valley analyst said that revenues at the Pusch Ridge 9 golf course don’t cover the course’s capital expenses, Tucson Local Media’s Dave Perry writes. Capital and maintenance needs for the course add up to between $150,000 and $180,000 a year, with four large looming needs set to spike the cost. Vice Mayor Melanie Barrett said the town could spend more than $2 million over the next 10 years to keep the course running, then be forced to spend it again to convert the golf course to another use if it’s shut down. Earlier this month, the town council voted 4-3 to continue operations of the course, with opponents saying that water use is their biggest concern.
Breaking records: A University of Arizona-led balloon mission out of the Steward Observatory has broken the record as NASA’s longest-flying heavy-lift balloon mission, UA News’ Hannah Hindley writes. The GUSTO balloon mission (Galactic / Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory) is currently flying 120,000 feet above Antarctica, collecting far infrared radio emissions from the matter between stars. It broke the previous record of 55 days, 1 hour and 34 minutes at 10:22 a.m. Saturday Tucson time.
0.5: The inches of rainfall the Tucson area could get on Wednesday.
