Council candidate analyzes field, opts to run for 2-year seat

If the votes don’t add up this year, Rich Vitiello will try again.

The city council candidate and resident since 2005 has his mind set on serving – a desire he described as three or four years in the making, and encouraged by his friends as well as former Maricopa Mayor Kelly Anderson.

“Kelly has been telling me for years ‘you got to do this,’” he said.

Vitiello, who announced his candidacy in February, said if he isn’t elected this year, he’ll run again in the next election. But for the present moment, the nine-year resident and his campaign advisory board are looking at the best chances of winning. On Sunday, Vitiello announced a switch – bowing out of a race for three, four-year term council seats and opting instead to run for a single, two-year seat left open by former councilman Leon Potter. 

“My bottom line is to get on city council – to serve the citizens of Maricopa,” he said. 

Candidates who are running for the two-year seat cannot also run for one of the three, four-year seats. The position of mayor, which is up for election every two years, is a separate race as well.

Potter resigned in March so he could run for mayor. The person who fills Potter’s seat will finish out the former councilman’s term, which ends in 2016.

Barry Goldman, Vitiello’s friend and campaign consultant, said the campaign advisory board – made up of himself, Vitiello and two other people – had some “very serious discussions” about making the switch.

The group looked at the candidate field.

Fourteen people, including Vitiello, have pulled packets to run for city council, according to a nomination packet distribution sheet InMaricopa.com acquired through a public records request.

Of those fourteen, two – councilwoman Julia Gusse and former Pinal County Sheriff candidate Kevin Taylor – have publicly announced plans to run for justice of the peace for the Maricopa-Stanfield Justice Court. Three people – Vitiello included – have opted to run for the two-year term seat instead.