Council candidates head to May 21 runoff election
Betty Guardado and Vania Guevara in District 5, and Carlos Garcia and Mike Johnson in District 8 can begin preparing for the May 21 runoff election. Phoenix has released the final unverified election results and is set to approve them Wednesday.
Four Phoenix City Council hopefuls will head to a May 21 run-off election to fill two open seats.
Former council members Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela resigned last year to run for mayor. Gallego won the race for mayor.
Phoenix released the final unverified election results Friday night. The results become official once the council approves them Wednesday.
District 5
District 5, Valenzuela’s former district, covers most of west Phoenix, including Maryvale and Villa de Paz. It’s a largely Latino and mid-to-low-income area.
The winner will fill a term that expires April 19, 2021. The top two votegetters advance to the run-off.
❚ Betty Guardado: 37.90 percent. ❚ Vania Guevara: 25.29 percent.
❚ Audrey Bell-Jenkins: 21.89 percent.
❚ Lydia Hernández: 14.30 percent. Guardado is the director of organizing and vice president of Unite Here Local 11 and Unite Here International,
labor unions representing hospitality workers.
She is also a board member of Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy and Arizona AFL-CIO.
Guevara is currently an interim council member. The council appointed her in August.
She worked in Valenzuela’s council office from 2012-2017. She managed community initiatives, developed community partnerships and interacted with constituents in District 5.
Guevara graduated from Arizona Summit Law School and substitute taught in Washington and Pendergast elementary school districts.
She is a board member at the Maryvale Family YMCA and a member of the Hispanic Bar Association and Latina Mentoring Project.
District 8
District 8, Gallego’s former district, includes parts of downtown, south Phoenix and Laveen. It’s historically been a heavily African-American district.
The winner fills a term that expires April 17, 2023. The top two vote-getters advance to a run-off. ❚ Carlos Garcia: 28.78 percent.
❚ Mike Johnson: 21.47 percent.
❚ Lawrence Robinson: 20.80 percent.
❚ Warren Stewart, Jr.: 9.89 percent.
❚ Gilbert Arvizu: 8.66 percent.
❚ Camaron Stevenson: 5.82 percent. ❚ Onesimus “Pops” Strachan: 4.15 percent.
Garcia is the director of Puente Arizona, a grassroots migrant justice organization. He has been vocal in the community on immigrant rights issues for years, gaining national attention with the group’s opposition to the immigration law Senate Bill 1070 and some of the actions of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
He helped organize the “4 lanes or no train” group, which was in opposition to the proposed south Phoenix light rail extension unless it maintained four vehicle lanes along Central Avenue.
Johnson was the District 8 councilman from 2002-2013. He is a retired Phoenix police detective, the founding partner of Johnson-Neely Public Strategies and serves on the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency.
He is an active member of a slew of local organizations, including the St. Luke’s Medical Center Board, Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission, National Forum of Black Public Administrators and the Greater Phoenix Urban League.