Board votes to keep Reyes as chairman
Porchas selected as vice-chairman by fellow county supervisors
The Yuma County Board of Supervisors selected a chairman and vice-chairman for 2020 during its meeting Monday.
Supervisor Tony Reyes will stay in his position as chairman for 2020. Supervisor Martin Porchas will take over for Supervisor Russell McCloud as vicechairman.
The decision came with a unanimous vote in favor and no opposing nomination after Supervisor Lynne Pancrazi nominated Porchas.
Pancrazi said that she made the nomination because of Porchas’ youth, and with elder statesman McCloud leaving, she wants to contribute to the beginning of a lasting leadership for the board.
“It behooves us to get someone who plans on being with the Board of Supervisors for a long time,” Pancrazi said. “Putting him into a leadership position like that will give him the knowledge and allow him a leadership path for the board of supervisors.”
“I”m honored to serve as vice chairman,” Porchas said. “For the past three years, I’ve learned from (Supervisor McCloud) and (Chairman Reyes), and I’m just hoping to pick up more with regards to leadership skills. (Chairman Reyes) doesn’t miss a lot of meetings, though, so I won’t have a lot of chances to step in.”
The role of the chairman requires presiding over and leading the board of supervisor meetings and acting as a sort of primary representative for the board in documents and at events. Documents approving and carrying out actions approved by the board of supervisors carry the chairman’s signature before they’re implemented. Many ask for the vice-chairman’s as well, but the key responsibility for the vicechairman is to act in the chairman’s place when absent.
Porchas grew up in and represents the central section of Yuma County, which includes Somerton and runs north along Avenues C and D. His family, which includes 10 siblings, immigrated from Mexico and worked in the farms in Yuma. Porchas became a research specialist at the University of Arizona - Yuma
Agricultural Center’s Plant Pathology Center.
He served on Somerton’s City Council from 2005 to 2009. The city then elected him mayor, a position he held from 2009 to April 2016. Porchas became District 1 supervisor in 2017, and this will be his first time serving as vice-chairman.
The only nomination facing Reyes for his seat was McCloud, whom Supervisor Darren Simmons nominated. “Since it’s his last year, I feel like he should go out with a bang,” Simmons said of his nomination of McCloud.
McCloud served on and off as vice-chairman since 2008 and once held the position of chairman in 2015. He and Reyes held the positions of chairman and vicechairman together since 2017. McCloud plans to resign after 2020, which will also be an election year in which every supervisor’s seat is up for a vote.
Reyes, who represents south county that includes San Luis and Gadsden, has served in Yuma politics since the 1980s and on the board of supervisors since 2001. He served as the mayor of San Luis for 11 years and has worked at top of various governing and resource distribution bodies throughout Yuma like the Arizona Western Council of Governments, where he served on the executive board, and Comite De Bien Estar, for which he’s been the executive director for the last 35 years.
“I take it as an affirmation,” Reyes said about his reappointment as chairman. “I do the best I can. This is a pretty accomplished and very diverse board. We hardly have any issues that really separate us. Even when we do have different ideas on an issue, we don’t let it keep us from moving. We’re always moving forward, we don’t linger. I’m lucky they allowed me to serve as their chairman for a fourth year. I appreciate the trust.”