As part of Artlink’s Phoenix arts advocacy initiative, we invited City Council candidates to share their perspectives on arts, culture, and the creative economy. Thirteen candidates responded to our three-question survey, offering Phoenix voters an opportunity to hear directly from candidates about their priorities and vision for the city’s creative future.
City Council races are taking place in Districts 2, 4, 6, and 8 this year. Find your Phoenix City Council district to learn which race will appear on your ballot.
Responses are shared below as submitted by the candidates. All candidates in the four active City Council races were sent the survey and given the opportunity to respond.
Candidates for District 2
Matt Evans
Julie Read
Candidates for District 4
Ashley Harder
Ed Hermes
Patricia Jimenez
Zachary Lauer
Michael Mazzocco
Robb Olivieri
Megan Schmitz
Candidates for District 6
Micheal Del Prete
Kevin Robinson
Candidates for District 8
Kesha Hodge Washington
Jarrett Barton Maupin Jr.
Candidates for District 2
I’m a huge supporter of arts and culture in Phoenix. As a father of three, I’ve taken my kids to the Phoenix Children’s Museum, the Heard Museum, and other cultural institutions throughout the city, and I’ve seen firsthand how valuable these places can be for families.
Arts and culture should be for everybody in Phoenix. It shouldn’t feel like it belongs to one political ideology, one identity, or one part of the city. First Fridays was a good idea, but I don’t think we ever fully realized its potential, and too much of our arts and cultural activity is still concentrated downtown.
My priority would be to expand access to arts and culture across the entire city and support more opportunities in neighborhoods outside the downtown core. I’m a big fan of places like the Musical Instrument Museum in North Phoenix because it shows what’s possible when culture reaches a broader range of families and communities.
I’d like to help reimagine Phoenix’s approach to arts and culture so more people feel like it’s for them, including people who may not traditionally feel represented or welcomed in those spaces.
I’ll be honest: I don’t have a detailed policy agenda for the creative sector today, and I’m not going to pretend I do. This is not the issue that led me to run for City Council.
What I do know is that it matters, and I want to make sure I understand the challenges from the people actually living and working in this community. If I’m elected, I want to develop relationships with artists, creative professionals, organizations, and business owners and learn where the city is helping, where it’s getting in the way, and where there are opportunities to do better.
From there, I want to work with the people in the industry to identify practical solutions and find ways I can use my position on the Council to help. I believe elected officials should listen to the people doing the work instead of assuming they already have all the answers.
I may not have every answer today, but you can be confident that when I’m elected, I will be a strong and consistent supporter of Phoenix’s arts and creative community and will work with you to make sure it has a seat at the table.
I think the first step is showing up and building relationships. I don’t want to sit in City Hall and decide what Phoenix’s arts community needs without talking to the people actually doing the work.
If I’m elected, I would invite artists, arts organizations, businesses, and community leaders into my City Hall office to sit down and talk with me. I’d go out to lunch with them, visit their spaces, and make myself available to hear what they’re experiencing firsthand.
I want to give people a real opportunity to weigh in and help shape the conversation about where Phoenix goes from here. I don’t expect to have all the answers, especially on an issue where I’m still learning. But I do know how to listen, build relationships, and work with people to solve problems.
If you’re part of Phoenix’s arts and culture community, I want you to know that my door will be open, your voice will be heard, and I’ll work with you to help arts and culture thrive in Phoenix.
Arts and culture should be central to building a thriving, vibrant Phoenix. Growing up in a home that embraced the arts, and now raising four children, I’ve seen firsthand how arts education strengthens academic learning, builds empathy, and helps children understand and express emotions.
My top priority would be creating a strategic, citywide plan for arts and culture that connects the many assets we already have and makes them accessible throughout Phoenix, not just downtown. That means coordinating with our sports and entertainment calendars to create unified marketing and complementary events that attract visitors, incorporating civic design and public art into new and master-planned communities, and helping each village develop a stronger cultural identity. We should also expand public-private partnerships to create gathering spaces where art and culture can thrive. Our long-term goal should be to make Phoenix’s arts and culture scene a destination in itself, strengthening our neighborhoods, supporting our creative economy, enriching the lives of our children, and making Phoenix a place people want to visit and call home.
Increasing affordability and opportunity for Phoenix’s creative sector requires us to create more demand for local artists and more places for creative work to happen. I would prioritize bringing more film and television production to Phoenix by strengthening and fully leveraging Arizona’s film incentives, creating jobs and opportunities for our local creative professionals. I also want to continue supporting programs such as Artist in Residence and create an art ambassador program that put artists directly into our communities. We should incorporate stronger civic design standards into buildings, shopping centers, and master-planned communities, and explore an Art In Private Development ordinance that could fund public art projects through new development. Finally, we should use arts and culture as a tool for neighborhood revitalization, creating more affordable spaces for artists and helping emerging neighborhoods develop their own identity and attract new investment. I also want to listen to artists and creative-industry leaders about practical solutions that can make Phoenix a more affordable and opportunity-rich place to create.
I would bring artists, arts organizations, businesses, and residents together to build and implement a Strategic Arts Plan for Phoenix, with measurable goals and community input. I would strengthen the Arts Ambassador program and connect it directly with Phoenix’s village planning committees so artists and cultural leaders have a meaningful role in shaping neighborhood development. Together, we would identify what each village wants to be known for, what makes it unique, and what investments are needed to achieve that vision. I would also launch a coordinated campaign to showcase what arts and culture really means in Phoenix; from murals and public art to music, architecture, festivals, creative businesses, and performances, and connect residents and visitors with those experiences. Finally, I would work with public and private partners to create and activate more spaces for artists and communities to gather, collaborate, and create. The goal is to move beyond talking about the importance of arts and culture and build a city where it is actively integrated into how Phoenix plans, grows, and tells its story.
Candidates for District 4
Arts and culture should be treated as essential civic infrastructure and central to Phoenix’s future, not an afterthought. They strengthen our economy, create vibrant neighborhoods, tell the stories of our communities, and give Phoenix its identity.
My commitment comes from my record. For nearly twenty years, I’ve worked directly with artists and cultural leaders to create opportunities for artists, curate exhibitions, bring art into public spaces, preserve and share community stories, and connect arts and culture to neighborhood revitalization. I understand firsthand what investment in our creative community can do for a city.
At City Hall, I’ll turn that experience into action. I’ll fight for strong and sustained arts funding, expand opportunities for local artists, invest in public art and cultural programming, and make sure arts and culture are considered in the decisions we make about economic development, neighborhoods, public spaces, and our city’s growth. Phoenix’s creative community deserves a champion on the City Council, and I will be that champion.
Affordability for our creative community starts with affordability in our city. Artists, musicians, performers, and other creatives need to be able to afford to live, work, and build their careers in Phoenix.
My housing platform is focused on creating more housing that fits our neighborhoods, activating underused city-owned land, supporting small-scale infill, expanding pathways to homeownership, and reducing barriers that make housing more expensive to build. Those same principles can help keep Phoenix accessible to the people who contribute to its cultural life.
We also need to recognize that many artists are small business owners. They create jobs, activate commercial spaces, attract visitors, and contribute directly to our local economy. As part of my commitment to small business, I want to make sure artists and creative entrepreneurs can access the same City resources, technical assistance, and opportunities we provide to other businesses. We should also support adaptive reuse and affordable spaces where artists can create, perform, exhibit, and grow their businesses.
Phoenix cannot become a city where the people who create its culture can no longer afford to live and work here. As we grow, I’ll make sure our creative community has the housing, resources, spaces, and opportunities to build its future right here in Phoenix.
Partnership has defined my work in arts and culture for more than a decade. I’ve co-owned and operated an art space, curated exhibitions, commissioned public art and murals, worked directly with artists to create new opportunities, and helped lead an oral history and public art project documenting the stories of Grant Park and our historic barrios. Through my development work, I’ve also seen firsthand how arts and culture can activate buildings, strengthen small businesses, and bring new life to our neighborhoods.
I’ll bring that experience to City Hall by working directly with artists, arts organizations, businesses, and communities and making sure they have a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them.
And partnership has to be backed by investment. Every year, I’ll advocate through the City budget to make sure arts and culture are properly resourced and that we’re making the investments needed to keep our creative sector strong. Arts and culture are essential civic infrastructure, and I’ll lead at City Hall to make sure Phoenix treats them that way.
Arts and culture should be central to how Phoenix grows. They bring neighbors together, reflect our city’s diverse histories, and make our public spaces welcoming and vibrant. Artists help build the identity of our neighborhoods and they deserve a voice in how those neighborhoods change.
My top priority would be ensuring that artists can afford to live, work, travel, and create in Phoenix, which means more housing artists can afford, and more affordable places to make, show, and perform. Artists, like many working people, are being priced out of Phoenix. As Phoenix grows, we need to keep the people who make our city creative rooted in our communities. That is why my plan is to build more housing that artists can afford and more public art spaces in which our community can gather – especially on the 2,000+ empty lots that our City owns. Like housing, transportation, and healthcare, access to arts and culture should be affordable and accessible to as many people as possible, especially to our kids and young families. This is why, as a School Board Member, I helped to launch Latino Access in the Osborn School District – a program that provides free access to museums and other arts and cultural events to kids in our Title 1 Schools.
I would work to make it easier for artists to afford housing, earn a living, and help shape Phoenix’s future.
Every Phoenician should be able to afford a safe, stable home near their jobs, schools, transit, and public and community art spaces. Since 2018, the cost of owning or renting a home has nearly doubled. Artists, teachers, and service workers have felt this impact the most in our City and have driven too many artists out of our City. Too little housing has been built that working families can afford, we have a lack of tenant protections that has led to unchecked rent increases and unfair evictions, and there are too many empty lots remaining in our City – over 2,000 of which are owned by the City of Phoenix.
I have a plan to change this. This starts with opening up an Office of Tenants’ Rights to provide free legal assistance and support to tenants who are facing potential eviction or have been wronged by their corporate landlord. I will also work to make it easier to build housing near public transit by removing unnecessary impediments to building housing – such as unnecessary mandatory minimum parking requirements. In addition, I will work to build work force housing and community art spaces on City-owned empty lots so that more families have access to public art and community gathering spaces.
I would support partnerships to turn vacant storefronts and underused buildings into affordable studios, galleries, rehearsal spaces, and shared workspaces. I’d use tools like the city’s Adaptive Reuse Program to cut the time and cost of those conversions. We should simplify permitting for arts events and small venues, give artists clear guidance through city requirements, and expand paid work for local artists through arts programming in neighborhood parks.
Artists and cultural organizations should also have a real role in development and neighborhood planning. That way, growth helps existing creative communities stay and thrive, especially those facing displacement.
I would bring artists, arts organizations like Artlink, local businesses, and neighborhood leaders into planning conversations early, while decisions are still taking shape rather than after they’re made. In practice, this means affirmatively reaching out to the arts community and local artists when building new housing or other projects in our City to make sure we are working to bring the arts and culture into every new project we build in our City. When a new housing project is built, for example, I want to ensure that local artists have input and the opportunity to be hired to design and build public art and other amenities that make art and culture accessible to all. When a studio, venue, or arts event hits a permitting roadblock or faces displacement, my office will bring in the right city department and post a plan publicly. I’ll also reach out directly to emerging artists and to communities whose cultural contributions have too often been overlooked.
Together we would set priorities, clear barriers, and turn shared ideas into real projects. My role would be to navigate city processes, connect partners with resources, and follow through. I would also report back on what we committed to and what got done.
Arts and culture are an important part of what gives Phoenix its identity and brings our communities together. They also give our young people opportunities to learn, create, and express themselves.
My top priority would be making sure arts and cultural opportunities are accessible throughout Phoenix, including neighborhoods where families and young people may not always have the same access to programs and resources.
During my 23 years of service with the Isaac School District, I have seen how important enrichment opportunities are for children and families. I believe our neighborhoods are stronger when people have places to create, learn, gather, and celebrate their culture.
Affordability affects artists and creative workers just as it affects teachers, working families, and small-business owners.
I support expanding affordable and workforce housing and reducing unnecessary barriers for small businesses and entrepreneurs. I also believe we should continue looking for practical ways to connect artists with grants, affordable spaces, public art opportunities, and City programs.
Phoenix should make these opportunities easier to understand and access, particularly for local artists and smaller organizations that may not have large staffs or the resources to navigate complicated processes.
Artists and creative businesses should also be included in conversations about economic development and neighborhood investment because they contribute to the identity and vitality of our communities.
I would start by listening and bringing people to the table early.
Artists, arts organizations, businesses, schools, neighborhood organizations, and residents should have opportunities to participate when the City is making decisions that affect arts and culture in their communities.
During my years of public service, I have learned that some of the best ideas come directly from the people doing the work and living in the community.
I would support partnerships that connect artists with neighborhoods, schools, local businesses, and community spaces, while looking for practical ways the City can help those partnerships succeed.
Phoenix is made up of many different neighborhoods and cultures. I want our arts community to reflect and celebrate that.
Arts and culture should be treated as an economic engine: they bring people downtown and to corridors like Roosevelt Row and Grand Avenue, fill restaurants and shops on First Friday, support thousands of jobs, and generate hundreds of millions in local activity. They also make Phoenix a place families and visitors choose instead of just pass through.
My top priority is keeping working artists and small creative businesses in the city. If studio space, venues, and housing keep getting priced out, the economic value leaves with them. I would focus city effort on affordable workspace, faster permits for events and pop-ups, and putting local artists on public projects, not growing a larger bureaucracy.
Three practical changes:
Reuse vacant space. Convert underused commercial buildings into studios, rehearsal rooms, and live-work so artists can stay near the customers and venues that pay them. Treat that as economic development, same as any other small-business retention.
Cut cost and delay. Streamline permits for murals, performances, and festivals. Expand small, direct awards to Phoenix artists (Artists to Work is a start) so opportunity is not limited to groups that can hire grant writers.
Hire local on city dollars. Public art, GO Bond cultural projects, and venue support should prioritize Phoenix artists, fabricators, and vendors. Grants have stayed relatively flat while applications keep rising; targeted growth tied to jobs and foot traffic is the right response, not a blank check.
Sit down first with the people already generating the activity—Artlink, Roosevelt Row, Grand Avenue property owners and artists, small venues, and the businesses that live off event nights. Regular district working sessions beat one-off “input” meetings.
Then use partnerships that move money and customers: city public-art and CIP projects that hire local; businesses that co-sponsor events because they see the sales; neighborhood groups that want identity and foot traffic, not a downtown-only arts plan. The goal is a sector that pays its way: artists who can afford to work here, corridors that stay creative after they get popular, and a city that clears obstacles instead of managing the scene from City Hall.
Arts and culture aren’t an amenity Phoenix adds once the basics are covered, they’re part of what makes this city worth investing in. I’ve spent my career living that belief, first as someone who built a business around bringing people together for causes they care about, and later as someone whose fundraising work helped keep organizations like the Phoenix Symphony and Ballet Arizona strong. I’ve seen up close how a thriving arts scene pulls people downtown, keeps small businesses afloat, and gives neighborhoods an identity that outlasts any single development project.
My top priority is making sure the economic value the arts already generate for Phoenix actually stays in the neighborhoods producing it. District 4 has the Heard Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Theater and The Arizona Opera sitting half a mile apart, drawing cultural tourism from across the country, yet too much of that foot traffic passes right by vacant storefronts instead of local businesses. Through the Office of Economic Empowerment I’m proposing for my council office, I want to fill that corridor with the restaurants, galleries, and shops that let visitors spend their dollars in D4 rather than somewhere else. That means pairing public art investment with real support for the artists and small business owners who give a neighborhood its character, not treating them as separate priorities.
I also think the city needs to treat arts funding as core infrastructure rather than the first thing trimmed when budgets tighten. Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the country, and our investment in arts and culture still lags what the sector returns to us economically and civically. I’d push for funding that grows with the city instead of staying flat while population and costs rise, because a city that wants to be known for its creativity has to actually fund it.
Affordability for artists in Phoenix isn’t just about housing prices, it’s about whether someone can build a sustainable creative life here without getting pushed out block by block as their neighborhood changes around them. D4 has more renters than any other district in the city and 28 historic districts packed into it, which means a lot of the spaces artists actually live and work in are exactly the ones most vulnerable to rising rents and redevelopment pressure. I want to see Phoenix build more housing, not less, especially the kinds that fit the scale of these existing neighborhoods like duplexes, triplexes, ADUs, and courtyard apartments, because that’s how you keep working artists in the neighborhoods that shaped them instead of only building housing that prices them out.
On the economic side, the Office of Economic Empowerment I’m proposing would give entrepreneurs, including artists trying to formalize a studio or small creative business, dedicated staff to walk them through permitting, licensing, and leasing instead of navigating it alone. Over 1,100 commercial parcels sit vacant in D4 right now while Phoenix ranks as one of the most gentrified cities in the country, and that gap between empty storefronts and priced out creatives is exactly where the city should be stepping in with real support rather than leaving people to figure it out on their own.
Civically, I think the city needs to treat its investment in artists the way Artlink and others in the sector have been asking it to, meaning funding that actually keeps pace with what the creative economy generates for Phoenix rather than staying flat while costs and population grow. When arts funding sits under one percent of the city budget despite the sector supporting thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in economic activity, that’s a signal the city hasn’t caught up to how much it depends on its creative community. I want to help close that gap so opportunity in the arts isn’t limited to whoever can afford to wait it out.
Partnership is really the only way this works, because no single office at City Hall can manufacture a thriving arts scene on its own. What I bring to that table is two decades of actually doing this kind of coalition building, whether that was growing the Greater Phoenix Equality Chamber of Commerce from a volunteer run to fully staffed organization or spending years producing events that depended on artists, venues, sponsors, and community members all pulling in the same direction. I know what it takes to get people with different interests to see a shared stake in the outcome, and that’s exactly the muscle Phoenix needs at the council level for arts and culture.
I’d start by treating our established institutions like the Phoenix Symphony, Ballet Arizona, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Heard Museum as anchors rather than afterthoughts, because their strength draws visitors and dollars into District 4 that can ripple out to smaller organizations and individual artists nearby. But an anchor only helps the neighborhood around it if the city is intentional about connecting the two, which is part of why I want the Office of Economic Empowerment focused on corridors like the one between those museums, so cultural tourism actually translates into support for the working artists and small creative businesses filling in the spaces around those bigger institutions.
At the same time, I want to make sure we’re not just protecting what already exists but actively building the pipeline for what comes next. Arizona School for the Arts has been producing serious young talent in this city for years, and that kind of institution deserves a council partner who sees it as part of Phoenix’s cultural infrastructure, not a nice extra. I’d want to bring ASA, emerging artist programs, and grassroots creative spaces into the same conversations as our bigger institutions so the city is investing across the whole pipeline, from the student picking up an instrument for the first time to the working artist trying to open a studio to the organization filling a concert hall. A future where Phoenix arts and culture genuinely thrives means every part of that pipeline has a seat at the table, and my job as a council member would be building and holding that table together.
Arts and culture play a huge part in this city in many different ways, such as building culture, connecting communities, economic development, and public safety. It allows for our creatives and artist to have an outlet, make a living, beautify our city and offers amenities for all Phoenicians. My top priority would be getting more of the artist community to work on beautification and activation efforts, as murals on buildings or along the canal as well as utilizing parks and other third spaces for markets and avenues to promote the arts and activate spaces around the city.
I would support more adaptive reuse of underutilized and/or vacant buildings for adaptable live-work space, and make it easier to hold performances, showcase and sell art. Similar to the early days of the Roosevelt District boom and Grand Ave. I’d push for more commissioned public art as well. Additionally being able to build a diverse housing supply and commercial space will allow us to stabilize rent prices or bring them down to improve affordability.
I would start by listening to the arts community as to their needs and desires, as well as bring neighborhoods, non-profits, and the private sector together with artists to the table. We should get creative about the variety of event offerings we have throughout the year, work with businesses to get local on as decor or to have shelf space to sell their creations, opportunities for performances big and small, identify spaces we need to activate and/or beautify with public art or performances, and tie it all back to community building. This will help build a more vibrant culture here, boost economic development, and improve public safety.
Arts and culture serve as both the creative heartbeat and a significant economic engine for Phoenix, defining our identity, driving local commerce, and fostering a genuine sense of belonging across our diverse neighborhoods. Having served as Board Chair for the Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation and as a former volunteer and Commissioner for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, I have been a longtime arts advocate, and I have seen firsthand how creative investments transform public spaces, create community pride, support the wellbeing of our residents, and serve as catalysts for small business growth.
My top priority in this area is to champion a comprehensive municipal arts strategic plan. I was grateful to attend the Phoenix Community Alliance Arts & Culture Leadership Forum at the Phoenix Art Museum recently, and this was identified by arts leaders as a top issue. I strongly believe the role of a Councilmember includes the unique opportunity and responsibility to provide leadership and advocacy when gaps like this are identified. I would be honored to work in collaboration with the diverse coalition of arts leaders who have already invested time, energy, and expertise to building a strong foundation for a visionary strategic plan, and I believe this will establish the arts and culture sector firmly in the City’s economic growth story.
Phoenix deserves a plan that sets clear, long-term goals for cultural investment; workforce, housing and studio support; and equitable access across every corner of our city. By embedding creative infrastructure into our broader municipal planning, from our historic neighborhoods to the 19th Avenue International District, Melrose, and Maryvale, we can ensure that arts and culture remain central to Phoenix’s economic vitality and neighborhood character. The nonprofit arts and culture sector generates $449.9M in annual economic activity. This industry cannot be a side note in Phoenix’s growth story, it must take center stage along with the other industries the city has invested heavily in, such as healthcare, sports, tech, construction, and advanced manufacturing.
Making our city more affordable is one of my top priorities and one of the number one concerns I hear from all community members. Families across District 4 are feeling the pinch of climbing rents and home prices, soaring utility and childcare expenses, and the cost of everyday essentials like gas and groceries continue to rise. I am committed to placing everyday affordability at the center of every municipal decision to protect working artists and creatives, along with families, teachers, first responders, and fixed-income seniors.
Phoenix’s cultural identity is driven by our artists, yet the very creators who revitalized our most unique areas are being rapidly priced out of the city. We cannot have a world-class arts scene if our artists cannot afford to live and work here. As a board member of Roosevelt Row I have heard from the community directly about this issue. If elected, I will advocate for programs like Community Land Trusts to permanently protect affordable studio and gallery spaces, and I will call for an audit of underutilized city-owned buildings that could be master-leased to local artists or collectives at below-market rates. I will expand down-payment assistance programs and dedicated workforce housing funds, including artist housing. I will advance policies that expand affordable live-work options for artists by creating density bonuses, such as fee waivers for a percentage of affordable units for artists; and adaptive reuse initiatives to extend the life of unique and historic buildings, studio spaces, and co-op or live/work spaces. I will also work to streamline city permitting to bring a diverse range of housing inventory to the market faster and reduce administrative delays that inflate costs.
Beyond physical space, we must expand direct economic opportunities and stabilize funding for the creative sector, ensuring that as Phoenix grows, our arts community shares in that prosperity. I will work to cut the bureaucratic red tape that burdens creative entrepreneurs, like event permitting, and I will expand direct financial opportunities for working artists by supporting public art allocations and prioritizing local artists. I support micro-grants like a “Love Your Block” program, which would pay artists while bringing more art into neighborhoods, and I support policies that would encourage private developers receiving city subsidies or tax abatements to either contribute to a dedicated local arts fund or incorporate affordable creative spaces into their projects. Additionally, the city has the opportunity to lead by example by establishing a pay standard for artists, guaranteeing fair-market compensation for any local artist, gig worker, or musician hired for municipal events.
Finally, expanding opportunity for artists means treating our creative sector as the vital economic engine that it is. I will work to build partnerships with business, academic, and financial institutions to provide independent artists with robust business incubation, micro-loans, and technical support, such as legal and tax assistance. I would also love to explore a healthcare pool to provide access to affordable healthcare for working artists.
Crucially, any initiatives would be developed with input, guidance, and collaboration with working artists and the arts community to ensure we are creating real solutions that actually work for the people who are most impacted.
Partnering effectively across sectors requires a coalition-builder who understands how to bridge municipal policy, local businesses, and community organizers. This is where my experience will shine as the next District 4 Councilmember. As someone who has spent decades connecting diverse stakeholders, both as a District 4 Chief of Staff and as a strategy consultant and small business owner, I am excited to leverage my experience and relationships to build a city where arts and culture thrives.
District 4 is home to several of our city’s major arts institutions in our central core, and I think we have a real opportunity to expand. I would love to build a city where iconic public art, created by local artists, defines all of our unique neighborhoods. I will work to bring artist- and community-led design to historically underinvested corridors like Maryvale and the 19th Avenue & Camelback International District, ensuring that residents and working artists directly guide neighborhood enhancements.
I will establish regular District 4 Arts and Economic Roundtables to bring local working artists, arts nonprofits, property owners, and business leaders together to unlock innovative collaborations, pop-ups and commercial activations, and shared placemaking and marketing initiatives. I will ensure that the city uses its megaphone to elevate the visibility of independent cultural efforts and advocate for state, federal, and philanthropic funding to support them.
I believe advocating for the community also means showing up to listen, hold space, and be an active participant in the cultural fabric of Phoenix. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to do this for the last 20 years, and I commit to remain a part of the arts community as a Councilmember. I will build a team that is also engaged in the arts community and I plan to dedicate an arts and culture liaison in my office to work directly with the community on the impactful initiatives we embark on together.
Candidates for District 6
Art can start a movement and change a neighborhood. I’ve seen it happen in Phoenix. I promoted local shows, managed bands, and sold T-shirts at First Fridays back when artists were opening their living rooms to visitors and some of the surrounding lots were still dirt. Later, my wife and I had a small art gallery in our Central Phoenix salon. Those experiences showed me how much creative people can do when they have a place to share their work.
I want Phoenix to give more local artists and musicians opportunities to show, perform, and make a living. That would be my priority. I’d start by hearing what they need and working with neighborhoods and local businesses to open up more spaces and events for them across the city.
Artists face the same rising costs as everyone else in Phoenix. Higher sales tax and city service rates make it harder to afford a place to live, create, perform, or run a small business. That’s part of why I’m running. On council, I’d look closely at the budget and work to control costs before asking residents and businesses to pay more.
I also want Phoenix artists to have a fair shot at city public art commissions rather than out of state artists. Those opportunities should be easy to find, with a clear process for choosing artists. The people who help give our city its character should have the opportunity to build a future here.
I’d bring artists, arts organizations, venues, businesses, and neighbors together early, while plans are still being made. The people creating the work should help shape those plans.
I’d ask what’s making their work harder. Is it finding space, getting permits for an event, hearing about city opportunities, or reaching an audience? I’d work with them and city staff on the problems they identify, look for ways to help creative spaces stay open as costs rise, and connect local artists with businesses and neighborhood events.
I remember what First Fridays was like when artists were opening their own spaces and building something together. Phoenix should make room for that kind of creativity to keep growing.
Arts and Culture bring people to the valley, it is a uniting force that helps us become a more complete community. Arts have a tremendous effect on our economy. We need to leverage the partnerships that the city has with the arts community to the fullest extent. My top priority has been to work as closely with the art community as possible to enrich Phoenix.
We need to take a hard look at the relationship that the council has with the arts community. As the chair of the Arts and Culture subcommittee I am looking to start quarterly meetings with the art community with the goal of outlining long term plans to provide opportunity to our artists. We need to make sure that our artists have what they need because they add some much to our community.
I am fortunate to already have a great relationship with the arts community and that relationship comes with consistent communication. When you call my office you will hear back from me, and I am always interested in hearing directly from you so that we can plan this shared future together. Without a thriving arts and culture community Phoenix is not whole. As I mentioned above, we will be starting quarterly meetings to discuss important issues with the arts community.
Candidates for District 8
Arts and culture are essential to Phoenix’s economic vitality, quality of life, and sense of community. They generate more than $445 million in annual economic activity while strengthening neighborhoods, supporting resident well-being, and creating opportunities for connection and expression. District 8 has a strong arts and cultural presence, but we can always do more to help it thrive and move to the next level. My top priority would be increasing attendance and expanding participation by making performances, exhibitions, and cultural experiences more accessible and visible. I would also champion for more public art in shared spaces; not only visual art, but interactive and sensory experiences that reflect our communities and make art part of everyday life.
For too many community members, the arts remain out of reach because of cost and limited access. I believe that Phoenix can change that by building stronger public-private partnerships that make discounted tickets and cultural experiences available through public libraries, schools, community centers, and other trusted neighborhood institutions. I would support expanding initiatives like the Cultural Pass partnership with the City of Phoenix Public Library and creating new pathways for young people, seniors, and first-time patrons to experience performances and exhibitions.
As the Councilmember representing District 8, I actively partner with the arts by sponsoring interactive kid-friendly art experiences at Family First Fridays and funding art projects and murals within the community. I also chaired the outreach campaign for the 2023 General Obligation Bond, which provided more than $50M for art and culture institutions. I recently attended a convening of local arts and culture leaders, where the importance of a citywide strategic plan was emphasized. I would support the formation of an arts strategic plan, shaped by residents, artists, and cultural organizations so it delivers practical solutions that expand opportunity, improve affordability, and help Phoenix’s creative sector thrive.
Arts and culture are the ornament of a city that has first secured order, property, and the ordinary conditions of family life. They are not a substitute for those conditions, and they are not a license for City Hall to lavish millions on public-art commissions while South Phoenix waits twenty-five minutes for a trauma bay and watches its main street emptied by light rail. Culture worth the name grows from churches, schools, storefronts, and paying audiences… not from a municipal patronage list.
My priority is therefore not another sculpture budget. It is to restore the civic prerequisites of culture: streets a family can walk at night, neighborhoods of owners rather than transients, and places of ordinary American recreation in District 8 itself. A movie theater, a bowling alley, and a skating rink in South Phoenix are culture. They keep our dollars, our teenagers, and our evenings at home. A city that cannot keep its parks free of open-air narcotics has no business lecturing anyone on the avant-garde.
The surest aid to artists is the same aid owed every other small enterprise: cheaper space, faster permits, lower fees, and a city that does not treat occupancy as a privilege dispensed by planners. I will cut the red tape that now makes a studio, a gallery, a rehearsal hall, or a neighborhood venue an ordeal of years and assessments. Smart zoning and the right to use one’s own property will do more for working artists than another layer of cultural bureaucracy.
Affordability is not produced by subsidizing rents for a favored few while the rest of the district is priced out of homeownership. The Phoenix Homeownership Fund, character-based underwriting, and the conversion of city-owned units into resident-owned homes will stabilize the very neighborhoods in which studios can survive. Opportunity follows safety. No painter, musician, or theater company thrives on a block that retailers are abandoning because theft and encampments have been reclassified as compassion. Five thousand officers and the enforcement of existing ordinances are cultural policy, whether the grant writers admit it or not.
I will not raid the general fund to underwrite tastes that cannot find an audience. I will make it lawful and cheap for those tastes to find a room, a stage, and a cash register.
Partnership, if it is honest, begins with the people who live here rather than with the organizations that live off the budget. I will sit with pastors, small-business owners, school principals, and neighborhood associations in District 8 and ask a simple question: what would keep our young people here on a Friday night? The answer I already hear is not another installation. It is a theater, a bowling alley, a rink, and restaurants that can open without a pilgrimage through City Hall.
Public-private partnership on city land for that youth and family entertainment hub is the model: operators who must attract customers, first jobs for our teenagers, and revenue that stays in South Phoenix.
Churches and civic clubs have carried music, oratory, and pageantry in this community for generations; they require protection of their property and relief from fee extraction, not a new commissariat.
I will not pretend that every nonprofit is a partner and every taxpayer a patron. Culture thrives where order is kept, property is secure, and the city gets out of the way. That is the partnership I offer: safety, ownership, and permission to build. The rest is up to the artists… and to the public that, if the work is good, will pay to see it.