Ward 2 candidates Lawton, Cunningham lay out visions for city

Democrat Paul Cunningham, a middle-school P.E. teacher who has served on the council for five years, says Tucson is doing better than it was five years ago and will keep doing so.

Republican Kelly Lawton, a higher education administrator running for office for the first time, says Tucson isn’t making much progress and suffers under leaders who take the city “three steps forward and two steps back.”

Cunningham’s leadership style is reactive and shortsighted, Lawton said.

When it comes to the city budget, Lawton says he’d take a hands-on approach and bring his 22 years of operations management and performance management experience and 13 years in higher education administration to work.

Using a performance-management methodology, he’d look at where Tucson should be and why we’re not getting there. Then he’d help make a plan for how to get there and tie funding to meeting goals, Lawton said.

Lawton said he was disturbed when credit rating agencies downgraded Tucson earlier this year, which will cost the city more to borrow for projects, which costs the taxpayer.

He said the city shouldn’t spend down its savings to balance the budget, a move Cunningham also criticized, although he voted “yes” on each budget.

Lawton also said the city shouldn’t borrow more money until it pays down debt.

Cunningham said the city made strides in road repair in a time when budget problems meant the road-maintenance program was suspended and revenue available for repairs was diminished.

The council approved a chip-seal program for neighborhoods and then a voter-approved bond project repaired most of Ward 2’s main streets, Cunningham said. Badly needed repairs to Broadway between Camino Seco and Houghton are coming through a Regional Transportation Authority project that is ahead of schedule, he said.

How to pay for regular, ongoing road maintenance is a question to be answered through “a community conversation,” Cunningham said. He would prefer an increase in the gas tax to raise the money.

Lawton said the council shouldn’t have let the roads get so bad and criticized the council for borrowing to fix roads.

“We can’t finance the future anymore,” Lawton said. “Roads are a perfect example. When the life of a particular piece of road is 10 years and then you finance that road, you’re paying for that road longer than its lifespan. That doesn’t equate.”

Cunningham said a big part of the budget problem is the long-term costs of the public-safety pension. Groups are working on solving that problem at the state level, he said.

Lawton said the city should move to a defined-contribution plan and away from the pension.

The Southern Arizona Business Political Action Committee, which is made up of members of the Tucson Metro Chamber, endorsed Cunningham, praising him for being solutions-oriented.

“He has offered fresh ideas to help with the pension challenges the city of Tucson faces, worked to bring Major League Soccer to town, and supports new business development in his ward,” the group said.

Lawton “demonstrated his business acumen, but failed to effectively communicate his knowledge of the office he is seeking,” the group said. “He also did not provide details on how he would accomplish the ideas and goals he did express to the interviewers.”

Both candidates support city tax incentives to stimulate economic growth.