Oro Valley mayoral candidate drops out during forum

Mayoral challenger Joseph Winfield withdrew his candidacy, saying he defers to challenger Pat Straney.

“It was poor judgement to enter the recall election, although I had good intentions,” said Winfield, who needed two attempts to announce his withdrawal, after running out of time during the candidates’ one-minute opening statements.

Because of the structure of the debate, Winfield had to wait to speak again until it was his turn to answer the first question. After Straney and mayoral incumbent Satish Hiremath gave their answers, Winfield said he’d like to continue his statement and promptly dropped out of the election.

Because the ballots are already printed and will be mailed out this week, Winfield’s name will appear as a candidate for mayor.

While the audience applauded loudly, Winfield stepped down from the podium and took his seat on the stage, where he remained for the duration of the debate.

Hundreds of Oro Valley residents filled the Sun City Vistoso Activity Center, eager to hear the nine remaining candidates — seven for town council and two for mayor — discuss issues including the highly debated golf course purchase and sales tax increase.

“I’m surprised that I’m here under these circumstances,” said town council incumbent Joe Hornat, during his introduction.

The recall was initiated after Hornat and the three other incumbents facing recall — Hiremath, and council members Mary Snider and Lou Waters — voted to approve the $1 million purchase of El Conquistador Country Club and a half-cent sales increase to pay for improvements to the clubhouse, which is being converted to a community center.

Hornat and his challenger Ryan Hartung agreed on the first question as to whether the sales tax should have a sunset clause setting a specific ending date.

Hartung said he had initially been upset that it didn’t, but he’s since changed his mind. “Right now we’re stuck subsidizing this golf course and we can’t sunset the tax until we fix this issue,” he said.

Although Hornat agreed that a sunset clause wasn’t the answer, he said he wasn’t ready to take a “Plan B” approach to handling the golf course’s financial losses. “Eventually we’ll tame this beast,” he said. “But it’s never going to make money. Services provided to the community don’t make money.”

All vying for the same seat, challengers Shirl Lamonna, Doug Burke and incumbent Snider were questioned about what defines appropriate transparency for the town council.

“Everything we do is transparent,” Snider said, defending the country club purchase. “I believe that in 10 years the community will look back and think it’s one of the smartest things we ever did.”

Lamonna and Burke both said the council didn’t take public input before deciding on the deal.

Waters said he wanted to be clear: “We didn’t vote for a golf course, we voted for a community center.”

Challenger Steve Didio cited the golf course purchase by saying, “You know what’s not business-friendly? Competing with private enterprises in our town,” he said, referring to the town’s plan to act as operators of the golf course and its amenities.

Hiremath, defending his vote, said that with so much information swirling around the golf club’s purchase, it’s important to let the plan come to fruition and not base opinions on only two months of operations.

“People should be thankful that we had a mayor and council that had the courage to vote so we could have this discussion,” he said. “This transparency issue is manufactured.”

Straney fired back, echoing Didio’s point that the golf course is in direct competition with private businesses. “The town is on an unsustainable course right now,” he said. “Oro Valley needs my skill set and it needs a full-time mayor.”