Three Democrats vie for Tucson City Council's Ward 5 seat

Tucson’s Ward 5 residents will elect a new City Council member for the first time in 16 years.

Democrats Chris Elsner, Selina Barajas and Jesse Lugo will face off in the Aug. 5 Democratic primary election.

The council member who held the seat, Democrat Richard Fimbres, resigned in May, citing health problems. Rocque Perez, who took a leave of absence as executive director of the Metropolitan Education Commission, has filled the Ward 5 seat since then, but is not running for the office.

With no Republicans on the ballot, and barring any write-in candidates in the November general election, the race will be decided in the Democratic primary.

Homelessness, affordable housing and infrastructure are some of the primary concerns of Ward 5 residents, according to the candidates. The area spans most of Tucson’s south side, encompassing the Sunnyside area, the rodeo fairgrounds, Santa Rita Park and South Park Avenue.

Chris Elsner

Elsner was born and raised in Pinetop-Lakeside, Arizona. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Northern Illinois University before serving for two years in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, where he taught English in a village between Kiev and Moscow, Elsner said. The Peace Corps is also where he met his Tucson-native wife, Lexie Elsner.

In 2011, Elsner moved to Tucson to earn his Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Arizona. Since then, he spent about five years as a board member with Tucson Young Professionals and is now president of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Southern Arizona, according to his campaign site. He also currently runs the UA Peace Corps Prep program, encouraging students to pursue careers in public service.

Elsner said he’s running for the Ward 5 seat because he wants to leave his home better than he found it.

“I feel like folks are really frustrated these days with politics, politicians and government. I too feel those frustrations,” Elsner said. “I want to try and do better and be better as an elected official, and make sure people feel heard in Ward 5.”

Elsner’s top three values, according to his campaign site, are serving others, building community and creating opportunity. He said if elected, he hopes to work towards better housing opportunities, more community-engaged systems in dealing with drug abuse, and better roads across Tucson.

He said he also believes he might be able to relate to the migrant population in Tucson.

“I have that perspective of living in another country and being the outsider,” Elsner said. “We have a large non-English speaking population in Ward 5, so I get that perspective.”

Elsner said homelessness and the housing crisis in Tucson are complicated issues, but some solutions he’d like to consider include co-housing, better intervention strategies for locals on the verge of homelessness, and developing better relationships with the county and tax assessors.

“When people end up on the street, their problems just get worse and then we end up paying even more to deal with that problem,” Elsner said.

He said he also disagrees with “going out of the way to criminalize homelessness.”

“We don’t want people camping out or doing drugs on our public transportation, but I don’t think it makes sense for us to push the problem around by pushing people out of parks to another place,” Elsner said.

Recent community concerns surrounding Project Blue also concern Elsner, who said he would need more information before approving of the data centers.

Project Blue is the proposed data-center complexes representing a $3.6 billion economic development opportunity for the city of Tucson and Pima County, according to the Pima County website, but there are major community concerns on the amount of water and electricity needed to power the centers.

“Sometimes people see the big dollar signs for the investment in our community, but how much of that is going to stay in our community?” Elsner said. “How much of that investment is going to benefit our city, and how much of that is going to be extracted from our community on the backs of our natural resources?”

He said he has a lot more concerns than answers when it comes to Project Blue, and as of right now, stands wary of it.

In April, candidate Jesse Lugo filed a lawsuit against Elsner, claiming he collected invalid signatures. The case was dismissed by a judge, who said Lugo had not properly served the papers to the county and recorder’s office.

“I stand by my signatures. I walked door to door and collected about 95% of those signatures myself,” Elsner said. “I’m confident that even if the lawsuit went to the evidentiary stage, I would’ve had enough signatures to remain eligible.”

Selina Barajas

Barajas, born and raised on Tucson’s south side, would be the first woman elected to represent Ward 5 if she wins the primary.

Having attended both Sunnyside Unified and Tucson Unified schools growing up, the Cholla High alum earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Arizona and her master’s degree in urban planning from UCLA.

Before moving to Los Angeles to pursue her master’s, she said, she worked as an academic and community specialist in Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American/Raza Studies department.

After earning her master’s in 2010, Barajas worked with Los Angeles nonprofits and Inglewood, California’s parks and recreation department for about eight years before returning to Tucson to do more freelance community engagement work with Tucson’s Department of Transportation and Mobility, she said.

Currently, she works as the Arizona program manager of nonprofit environmental group Mountain Mamas and plans to open up a South Tucson coffee shop, Luna y Sol Cafe, with her husband.

“Truthfully, I wasn’t thinking a year ago of running for a political position. ... I didn’t see myself in that role,” Barajas said. “I’m the first female candidate ever to just pursue this seat, but I also think with our federal government, politics is not a safe space for a lot of our communities.”

She recalled crying with her two daughters last November during the presidential election and decided she needed to get more involved with local government.

“I told myself, ‘It’s never going to be the perfect time,’” Barajas said. “And then being in Ward 5 and seeing council member Richard Fimbres announce his retirement, I knew we needed to have someone in our community that was going to step up into that role.”

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She said she believes that with the work she’s put into Ward 5 neighborhoods, running for the position is the next step.

“I’m deeply rooted here in this community, you know, both my parents worked with Sunnyside School District for over 30 years,” she said. “We’ve been invested in these neighborhoods since before I was born, and that’s something that I’m going to carry with me beyond my lifetime into the next generation.”

If elected, the fourth-generation Tucsonan says her priorities would be to invest in ample lighting for safer neighborhoods, better roads, green infrastructure and affordable housing.

“Doing work in Santa Monica, I don’t know the data right now, but they had the highest population of folks that were homeless and unhoused,” Barajas said. “What was working over there were holistic models.”

Barajas believes the best approach to addressing Tucson’s homelessness problem would be to provide better mental health and drug addiction resources, job training and housing opportunities.

“David Garcia, who’s a Ward 5 resident, is really active in his neighborhood. ... and every Friday he brings together our unhoused neighbors to clean up the streets alongside him,” Barajas said. “And then he provides stipends at the end, so their return rate has been really successful. They’re creating a sense of community and ownership of the neighborhood.”

She said she would also want to collaborate more with the city of South Tucson and with Tucson’s Ward 1 to address the housing crisis across the south-side area.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all concept,” she said. “We need to try out different things, and it’s gonna take a lot more one on one conversations with our neighbors.”

Barajas said when it comes to Project Blue, she would not vote for anything that hurt the environment or utilized an abundance of water.

“I’m not saying it can’t be done, it just has to be something that’s not going to hurt our environment,” Barajas said. “Honestly, I need more information and I’m looking forward to town hall discussions and reading more about the background around it.”

Barajas has been endorsed by Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Ward 1 Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz, congressional candidate Adelita Grijalva, South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela, former Pima County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom and current Pima County Supervisors Jennifer Allen and Matt Heinz.

Jesse Lugo

A Tucson native and Cholla High graduate, Lugo has worked in Tucson’s business and nonprofit communities for over 45 years.

He has been the CEO of Lugo and Associates for about 40 years, where he works with gas stations around Arizona and New Mexico to develop business strategies.

Prior to this role, he worked for Chevron service stations in Tucson for more than 25 years, starting when he was in high school. He eventually purchased the franchise as CEO of Lugo’s Speedway Chevron Service.

“I had to work to help provide for my mom and my two siblings, so I worked two jobs,” Lugo said. “In 1997, I was honored by Bill Clinton as one of the nation’s top Hispanic business owners in the United States.”

This is not Lugo’s first time running for office, but it would be his first win. In 2000, Lugo ran for a legislative seat and in 2001, he ran for City Council.

Lugo said he was encouraged to run for the council seat this time around by friend and former incumbent Fimbres, who told him in January that he was thinking of retiring due to his health.

“When he smiled at me, I knew what he was going to ask, so I said, ‘Richard, tell you what. Let me talk to my wife,’” Lugo said.

Some of the issues Lugo said he would address if elected include providing adequate fire and law enforcement protection, better roads, safer parks, crime reduction and economic development, according to his campaign site. His website says he is also in favor of placing term limits on council seats, keeping sales taxes low and creating more work opportunities for the elderly.

“The reason why I’m running is to follow in Richard’s footsteps and finish his commitments that he’s done for our neighborhoods,” Lugo said. He said he was endorsed by Fimbres.

He said he plans to keep the incumbent Ward 5 staff if elected. However, he said he wants to wait until he is elected to build strategies to address city issues.

“They’re not my priorities, it’s what the people want,” Lugo said. “Jesse Lugo does not make promises, he makes commitments.”

Lugo said public safety is a key area to improve when addressing Tucson’s homelessness issue.

“You call 911, the chances of police officers arriving at your door, it may not happen unless it’s a shooting, right, there’s not a high priority,” Lugo said.

He said it’s a challenging issue that can’t be solved overnight, but he has enjoyed seeing the success of the Center of Opportunity, 4550 S. Palo Verde Road.

“That facility is number one in the nation, and we have other cities throughout the United States that came over to see what the center does,” Lugo said.

Lugo has “serious reservations about Project Blue,” says a news release on his website.

“I will vote no,” Lugo said. “The amount of palatable water that they want to use, it’s not acceptable.”

Lugo said he stands by his lawsuit against Elsner, stating that if it hadn’t been dismissed, Elsner would have been short 72 names on his nominating petitions.