Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
Lupe Encinas has been a Glendale resident since 1993. She is a wife and mother. I’m sure she is a nice person. I have no issues with her as a fellow resident but as you will see, I do have issues with her candidacy for the Yucca district council seat.
She is the owner of four businesses and a manager of a fifth business. All of the following information regarding those businesses can be found on the Arizona Corporation Commission website.
- On 4/4/2005 she and her husband started Goodie’s Glass, a commercial vehicle glass replacement company.
- On 4/3/2017 she became a manager of Monsin LLC, finance and insurance.
- On 9/3/2019 she established LE Services Enterprize LLC, real estate, rentals and leasing.
- On 11/12/2020 she opened the Pink Door Tea Room
- On 8/11/2022 she started Cactus State Insurance, insurance company
There is an old Elizabethan saying, “Jack of all trades but master of none.” It implies by definition, “a person who is good at a wide variety of things, but who isn’t great at any one thing.”
In choosing a Yucca district councilmember, voters should consider do they want a person that is good or a person who is great at responding to you and representing your interests?
Another issue to consider is that of time to give to the job of councilmember. Owning 4 businesses and managing a fifth business creates incredible demands in terms of time. Just when will Ms. Encinas find the time necessary to also serve as a councilmember?
Serving is not only time-consuming as two full Tuesdays a month must be devoted to attending council workshops, executive sessions and voting meetings. These meetings are absolutely critical. That is certainly not all the job entails. She will be expected to do her “homework” in preparation for those meetings as well as attending various meetings with city staff, attending city events, working with district constituents, and serving as a representative of Glendale regionally. It is possible on any given day that a councilmember will attend a groundbreaking in the morning or a networking breakfast; meet with staff members or a member of the development community during the day; and then attend a city or regional event in the evening.
It is not a 9 to 5 job, and one has to be extremely flexible in devoting time to the job. Ask yourselves, when considering her qualifications, does she have the time needed or is she already spread too thin?
I think we can get some insight into her future performance as a councilmember by observing how she has run her campaign. She filed to run over a year ago in 2023. She could have been out collecting petition signatures during that entire year. Instead, she waited until the last minute…the month before signatures were due to actually collect them. As a result, she barely collected enough signatures to meet the minimum required and was scrambling to get them.
Her campaign finance reports have had missing information and some of the figures she reported have been wrong. She has a campaign chair, Natalie Stahl and a campaign treasurer, Jody Serey. Did they help her to double check her campaign reports to make sure they were accurate? Apparently not. These errors demonstrate that the candidate is not detail oriented, a necessary prerequisite when reviewing the city’s annual budget in addition to city contracts and much of its business dealings.
At a recent Meet N Greet Ms. Encinas was asked why she was running. She never truly answered and appeared at a loss to explain her motivation. She did say something along the lines of she wanted to “do good.”
At recent interviews where she was seeking endorsements it has been reported that her answers demonstrated that she has no knowledge of basic Glendale government. She could not respond to Glendale budgetary questions and did not know that the legislature’s removal of a city’s ability to collect rental tax meant that Glendale took a $14 million dollar hit.
How about her political alliances? Although she has done some door knocking, she appears to be relying on a series of Meet N Greets at Bitzee Mama’s. In attendance, among the few who show up, are Jamie Aldama, the failed mayoral candidate who withdrew after his nomination petitions were challenged for allegedly fraudulent signatures and Jose “Lupe” Conchas, an extremely radical, woke Democrat, running against Vice Mayor Ian Hugh for the Cactus city council seat. There’s another old saying, “You are judged by the company you keep.” The two Lupes (Encinas and Conchas) have aligned with one another because they share values that you may not support.
Many of her endorsements include the buzz words, “gracious” and “kind.” Great if you are running for Mother of the Year. Those attributes do not appear to be prerequisites for a city council candidate. Rather the call is for someone who is knowledgeable about city affairs, has demonstrated the desire to serve the people who will be represented, has the time to give to the job and doesn’t end up owing supporters who are a small, disgruntled, downtown contingent or disaffected councilmembers whose goal is to turn this city upside down.
Her endorsements include Natalie Stahl, her campaign chair; Jody Serey, her campaign treasurer; and David Serey, Jody’s husband. Additional endorsements include several downtown Glendale people including Yvonne Knaack (who no longer lives in Glendale or has any businesses in Glendale). These folks represent that faction of downtown Glendale who have opposed many city initiatives and appear not to be happy with anything the city does.
She has also received the endorsements of Councilmembers Lauren Tolmachoff and Bart Turner. That is no surprise. Their agenda for quite some time appears to be that of getting rid of our City Manager, Kevin Phelps. The strategy they have pursued in hopes of accomplishing that goal has been to support candidates who will align with them. Currently they are a minority on city council and their path requires them to try to create a new majority. If Encinas and Conchas are elected Tolmachoff and Turner will have achieved the goal of a new majority of council.
One recent, very interesting endorsement has been that of Arizona List. Its mission statement says, “Arizona List is a statewide membership network that works to recruit, train, support and elect pro-choice Democratic women running for office in Arizona.” This organization wouldn’t be endorsing Encinas unless she was a proven Democrat, and she is registered as such. Even though political races are declared as non-partisan, a candidate is often asked which party they belong to.
As a member of the Democrat party whose policies include open borders, gender transformation for young children, and the defunding of public safety one can assume that she shares those values.
Councilmember Tolmachoff is a Republican. I wonder how all her Republican friends, allies and constituents feel about her support for and endorsement of a Democrat?
The purpose of this blog is to educate you, the voter. It is important to know as much as possible about the person who wants to represent you. Lupe Encinas is a good person but she is not ready nor she is the right person for this job. She is relying on people with their own agendas to help her but they will expect her to support those agendas should she be elected.
Glendale is a city that is stable and financially strong. Our great bond ratings have allowed us to refinance existing debt at lower interest rates saving our city millions of dollars. Property taxes have not gone up in 8 years. This council has made it a priority to rehabilitate our streets, our parks and street right of ways. We have added more police and fire employees to serve you better. We have created a major employment center of 24,000 jobs at total build out in the Loop 303 area. Westgate and the surrounding area has become a major destination for sports and entertainment. These policy decisions were made by a majority of city council, Mayor Weires, Vice Mayor Hugh, Councilmember Ray Malnar and myself.
This election is perhaps the most critical in Glendale’s history. Do we continue to build a strong, welcoming, vibrant Glendale or do we do a 180 degree turn around and upend the values we all hold? I urge you to vote for a team that will continue to make Glendale prosper and that team is Mayor Jerry Weiers, Vice Mayor Ian Hugh, Councilmember Ray Malnar and the candidate for my seat, Dianna Guzman.
This is a team that will put Glendale first and just like you, want a finally sound city, a safe place to live with good amenities for a family and that provides outstanding basic services. Police and fire share these goals and that’s why they have endorsed Weiers, Hugh, Malnar and Guzman. Please be sure to early vote or vote on Election Day, July 30th in person. Let’s not turn Glendale into Chicago or Los Angeles. Please join me in keeping Glendale going in the right direction.
© Joyce Clark, 2024
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