Recently, Kelly Lawton, Republican candidate for Tucson City Council in Ward II, held a campaign event. It was a sort of meet and greet the main event being a bicycle ride. I wondered, “What might a Republican bicycle ride look like? Will they pull $99 department store bikes from the beds of their 4WD pickup trucks, roll up their jeans, and pedal around the parking lot?”
I felt a deep need to know and so participated in the event. As it turned out, the crowd, including the candidate and his family, were full-on road racer types complete with lycra shorts, shaved legs, and even some real team jerseys. Kelly Lawton is actually a triathlete, so his bike was set up for time trialing. Fortunately for me the ride was a mere 14 miles at a recreational pace—which meant that the main group of riders was never quite out of his sight.
After the ride, and some coffee and pastries, Kelly Lawton spoke with the me about his life and his candidacy.
Lawton had a 22 year career in the airline business. Starting out loading baggage and cleaning airplanes for TWA, he eventually moved to Delta where he held jobs in every aspect of airport operations. He retired from Delta in 2008. After completing a masters program in 2002, he took his first job with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as an instructor. He taught management classes in airline and airport operations. For the past eight years, Lawton has worked as the campus director for the Embry-Riddle campuses in both Tucson and Sierra Vista.
Lawton’s passion for aviation was first sparked as a child in the early ‘70’s when his family decided to watch planes land. So, they parked the car near the end of a runway at LAX where 747 airliners were coming in to land (think “Wayne’s World”). He watched and thought, “I want to do that!”
Lawton is a native Tucsonan who earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Arizona. He believes that Tucson is on a path of decline and needs new leadership and fresh ideas. He believes that the city could use leaders with a better understanding of business and budgetary issues. He sees the problems as citywide. “It’s quality of life. One in four children live in poverty. A third of our population earns less than $25,000 a year. We are the fifth poorest city in cities of comparable size.”
He added that roads are better, but we need and annual maintenance schedule to maintain them. With effective maintenance, roads will last longer.
Lawton continued, “There is one individual on that council who I think does exhibit some leadership, Steve K. He’s the only one who voted against the budget, $1.36 billion, and said, ‘How are we going to pay this?’” He added, “I think we really need to focus on reengineering the way we do business and look at our departments.”
Lawton believes that Tucson city government could benefit from a “top down, bottom up review” which would help identify overlaps in spending and bring fresh ideas to the administration. “I’m not going to be middle of the road status quo. I’m not going to settle for that. If there is something that not in the best interest (of the city), I’m going to raise my hand and vote ‘No’,” he said.
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2015.
A few platitudes and well rehearsed lines, but does he have anything of substance to say? He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but parroting the half truths of Frank Antenori is leadership.
Sounds like a new perspective the council is desperately lacking. How does he feel about sanctuary cities?
Maybe the candidate could let us know his position on the protection of illegal aliens by the city so what happened in New Jersey doesn’t happen in Tucson (again). I say “again” because the Tucson media never report the immigration status of violent criminals.
How many have died in Pima County by illegals? But don’t look there, choo choo , we have a choo choo train!
Illegal immigrant admits murdering his pizza parlor co-worker and setting her body on fire
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3187301/Illegal-immigrant-pleads-guilty-murdering-pizza-parlor-worker-setting-body-fire.html#ixzz3iEwTCtVp
Seems like a decent guy.
After reading the responses of the council candidates to the Star’s questions Sunday and this interview with Kelly Lawton today, I sense the three Republicans are naive or disingenuous regarding the limits within which mayor and council govern our city. I suspect it’s more likely naiveté, as they all seem like reasonable and caring folks and all have lived here long enough to know that Speedway is north of Broadway. This early in a season with no contested primaries — would that the August 25 election could be cancelled — it’s impossible to know how they will comport themselves in the fall, but I’m betting on a more interesting and civil general election campaign than we enjoyed two years ago.
The current elected officials along with the majority of Board of Supervisors has put the city of Tucson on the ‘worse of’ in so many ways. Consider this, look at the city of Tucson as a home in the city of Tucson. What the city council has done is paint that pretty white fence, nice new window shutters, new house paint and especially on that that front door (downtown Tucson). But walk up to that door, the city of Tucson, and walk in. You will find floor boards that will barely hold you up. Appliances who died out long ago,(parks), and the worst backyard, (Tucson roads), you have ever seen, (the rest of Tucson). But we have more than enough business owners who are at the trough. Let’s see a list of all of those business owner who are at the trough at city council and Board of Supervisors.