After the Democrats’ poor general electoral performance two months ago, the Democrats of the Red Rocks heard speeches from Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and newly-elected Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Nikki Check addressing party affairs and water conservation at the Sedona Elks Lodge on Sunday, Jan. 12.

“Managing our water’s an important thing. What we haven’t had is leadership to inspire unity on this very critical issue,” Fontes said. “You can’t make semiconductors without water … you can’t play golf without water. I know I’m getting some of you on that. We haven’t had the leadership that is calling for a water vision that brings everybody together.”

“We’ve got a project that’s going to bring everybody together, and it’s going to inspire not just growth in the water area, but restore a riparian blue space that could stretch from Tempe to Buckeye,” Fontes continued. “Guess what? It’s been done before. The dream was laid out there by the late Sen. John McCain. It was called Rio Salado 2.0 … It’s a capstone to the ARC. That’s what statewide leadership needs to do.”

The Arizona Reconsultation Committee works with neighboring states and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior on use of the Colorado River.

“Water is probably one of the very top things,” Check said. “I just spent a day and a half in Phoenix investigating the Rural Water Working Group, and I think this legislative session could produce some new tools for rural Arizona, or for ‘greater Arizona,’ I like that. We need new tools. The world is moving fast. The water mining that I learned about that’s happening in parts of Mojave County — they’re able to happen anywhere in Arizona. Greater Arizona needs those tools, and I believe that the people who are closest to the problems that we’re seeing are going to come up with the solutions.”

“Of course, a couple of people are probably looking a little squinty-eyed at me wondering just how liberal I might end up being as the only Democrat on a five-person board,” Check added.

Fontes also mentioned some of the improvements he introduced to the state’s bureaucracy during the two years he’s been in office.

“I created an artificial intelligence advisory committee,” Fontes said. “When I came into the Secretary of State’s Office, our Business Services Division was losing — are you ready for this — we were losing 700 calls a week because of the low staffing and the really terrible way the place was being managed … What impact did that have on Arizona’s economy? Right now, and only because we don’t have endless amounts of money to get the system that I want to buy, only because of that, we’re losing something between 10 and 12 a week. Think about the reduction.”

Party Affairs

“I should be pissed as hell about the way that we performed this fall,” Fontes said with regard to the November election. Republicans won two seats in the Arizona State Senate and Arizona House of Representatives, maintaining a majority in both chambers; flipped the U.S. Senate to a five-seat Republican majority; maintained a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives; and won both the White House and Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes. “We should be angry about the fact that we were one seat away in each chamber from winning a majority, and you didn’t get the leadership from the party that you needed to make sure to push us over the edge … We went backwards and we should not have gone backwards … Arizona was primed to move in the right direction. And I’m frustrated as hell.”

“There’s a lot of people that are very, very fearful,” Fontes said. “Get rid of the fear, get rid of the trepidation.”

DORR President Ellen Ferreira then invited those present to a “don’t watch” party to avoid watching the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20.

“We have to realize how tenuous a hold we have on this state,” Ferreira said.

“How many people here were born in Arizona?” Fontes asked after describing his listeners as representing “greater Arizona.” Few hands went up.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that I have Republicans to thank for this seat as well,” Check said of her electoral victory. “The fact that I was able to encourage and secure support from a Republican sector, and also have the absolute full support of the Democrats of the Red Rocks — a lot of people have the question, ‘How can you do that? Are you allowed to do that?’ … There’s grounded common-sense policy to be made.”

“I hope the next time I run for this office, even more Republicans will feel comfortable voting for me,” Check added.

Board Actions

Following the speeches, Ferreira presented SOCSD Governing Board member Karen McClellan with DORR’s Barbara Litrell Community Service Award.

The event also served as DORR’s annual meeting, at which the audience elected new board members by a unanimous show of hands. The board members elected or reelected as part of the process were Diana Christensen, Randy Crewse, Lynne Grigg, Shelly Hagan, Sedona City Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella, Angela LeFevre, Cathy Rutherford and Sarah Yost.