Write-in candidate set to enter race for mayor

The race for mayor is about to grow by one with the addition of write-in candidate Jim Hull who said he plans to complete filing the required paperwork with the city of Maricopa today.

Hull, a Province resident who moved to Maricopa from Mesa just more than a year ago, said he spent most of New Year’s Day finishing a four-page mission statement and campaign platform he’s been putting together for about a week. He picked up a packet at City Hall yesterday containing forms for the necessary paperwork.

By this morning, all but one of the documents were ready to file, he said, except the one requesting detailed financial information.

“I have to gather this other information,” he said (see “8 running for 3 council seats; 1 for mayor”).

Unless or until his registration is verified and completed, the lone candidate for mayor is Anthony Smith. Smith will step down this month from his position as chair of the Planning & Zoning Commission.

Hull has been a regular attendee at City Council and Planning & Zoning meetings and has been interested in serving the community in some capacity for some time.

He missed the chance to run as anything except a write-in candidate, but Hull said he’s still eager to meet the challenge.

“When I realized that we only had one candidate for a very important office and a leadership position that required a great deal of strength and passion, it was a mystery as to why no one else had thrown their hat in the ring,” he said. “This is America. We love choices.”

Hull said he is determined to provide just that.

“At least I am a write-in candidate. I am offering a choice,” he said.

Why should someone vote for the self-proclaimed “Johnny Come Lately”?

“I know something about how to get things done,” Hull said.

It isn’t the first time Hull has offered his services to the city. In the last City Council meeting of 2007, he spoke to a full house explaining why they should name him to one of three positions then available with the Planning & Zoning Commission (see “Council appoints three new commissioners to Planning & Zoning“).

Hull, although he touted at length his years of experience in management in the private sector and with volunteer fire departments was not among those selected.

This time, he said he hopes the voters will recognize his potential that those on the Council apparently missed.

Hull said he’d mix things up a bit by going to the public for information more often than those in office do now. For example, he’d have liked to have seen local youth and the retirees in Province given the chance to design the city’s logo rather than having paid consultants thousands of dollars for what he referred to as a miserable result.

“I’m sure we could design a logo we could be proud of,” he said. “I see using our own people and our community to move us in the right direction with the right ideas, because good ideas come from many places, and can come from anywhere.”

Matters of higher ethics, improved communication, better strategic planning, bottom-up management, the increased development and preservation of arts and natural resources and strong economic growth all top his agenda.

Getting his message out, however, isn’t going to be easy. His son, Eddie Hull, and a handful of neighbors and friends have joined to form a five-member committee to determine and implement a plan of action. Among the projects they are undertaking is a Web presence in development at www.hullmaricopamayor.com. It should be live within a week.

Outside of any donations which might come in, he’s basically running on a zero-dollar campaign budget.

“It would be nice to have a war chest, but I think in our case, what we need in Maricopa is volunteerism, and what we need are people willing to help for all the right reasons.”

Photo by RuthAnn Hogue