Senior advocate: City best served with transparent, experienced Manfredi on council

To the Editor: 

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse current Interim Mayor Vince Manfredi for another term on the City of Maricopa City Council. Over the past year, I have had the pleasure to work with Councilman Manfredi on an important project to help provide more services and better information to our Maricopa seniors. This project gave me a great opportunity to better know Councilman Manfredi. I found him to have a “can-do” attitude and a great amount of enthusiasm and support. I see the same commitment in his work on the City Council. 

He has embraced his City Council work with great enthusiasm building on all the experience and connections developed over the past years. You can’t become an effective and contributing member of the council overnight. Not only do you have to learn how processes work, but in the City of Maricopa, you have to learn how to support a moving, evolving target resulting from the rapid growth of the city. They are effectively building a city!  Pretty exciting, but also very challenging since you are building the rules of engagement on the fly. Fortunately, our City Council has enjoyed the benefits of two strong visionary leaders in the form of former Mayor Price and City Manager Rick Horst. The current city council has learned a great deal and they have formed a strong team. 

The City of Maricopa is at a critical point in its growth with much still to be done. With former Mayor Price moving on to MEDA, it is important to allow our current City Council an opportunity to complete some of the important projects that they have been working on. 

Improving Maricopa roads, in particular the SR 347 project, is gaining traction. The experience and connections that Councilman Manfredi has at the state House and with the Legislature is critical in bringing this project home. It takes time and a great deal of work to build the necessary working relationships required to broker complex solutions. Vince has embraced that task and is well positioned to help drive the project forward. 

He is a member of four important transportation committees/agencies. In addition, he and former Mayor Price have spent endless hours trying to keep our community informed about the progress of our transportation projects. He has also learned how to defend our city against ill-advised proposed legislation that could greatly harm the City’s ability to direct its own direction regarding zoning and development efforts. We need to stay vigilant to these ill-advised attempts to steal control from the City. 

Councilman Manfredi is very transparent and communicates well with the community in person and through the media. He is very approachable and accessible. He is not a single-issue advocate. Instead, he advocates for the balance of growth, economic development, public safety, transportation and the quality of life. He understands that it takes both patience and persistence to move a balanced growth forward. 

He is rational, moved by experience, and fiscal conservancy. He, along with the current council, need an opportunity to complete tasks and bring critical projects to closure. Their experience and grasp of the work underway are very important in our City’s ability to successfully navigate the next few years. 

It is time to MOVE (More lanes, Overpasses and interchanges, Violation enforcement and Education) with Interim Mayor Vincent Manfredi! 

Sincerely, 

Ron Smith, CAPS, CLIPP
Senior Advocate 

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Vincent Manfredi is a co-owner of InMaricopa.