Page 8 - the NOISE July 2014

Jamey hasapis: artist, actor, vocalist & tourism commissioner aims to unseat flagstaff’s mayor
story by kyle boggs
What follows is the first of many profiles of candidates for mayor and city council, which will be decided in the upcoming November elections.
Jamey Hasapis is running for mayor of Flagstaff, and is currently the only candidate challenging the re-election of current mayor Jerry Nabours. After growing tired of southern California, Mr. Hasapis — originally from the Sac- ramento area — moved to Flagstaff in 2005. He had been visiting family here since the mid-1980s and said he fell in love with the community of Flagstaff, and the mountains.
The decision to run for mayor came after years of work- ing for the city, and engaging with multiple communities in Flagstaff. “After moving here I immediately started work- ing in the community, started getting involved. I’ve really watched the city council and the direction our current may- or is leading us. I decided it was time to get involved. This is my last term as tourism commissioner. I’ve seen what’s going on in the tourism industry, and how the city spends money, as well as the kind of development going on in our community. I decided it was time to make a change.”
Mr. Hasapis’ mayoral platform identifies the following three key issues: jobs/wages, affordable housing, and the environment. “I hear stories from people of all ages in Flagstaff, families trying to make it here. We have a lot of trailing spouses in our community who can’t find jobs. I know a number of people who have left this town because while they found a job, their spouse couldn’t find anything in their field,” he said. For Mr. Hasapis, jobs and housing are related. “One of the things I’m hoping we can do is to start attracting businesses that are going to pay a livable wage, one that would allow people to purchase homes or actually afford rent.”
In response to the city’s efforts to bring in high-tech in- dustries in the field of biotechnology, for example, Mr. Hasa- pis is concerned with a broader spectrum of employment opportunities. “I was talking to a plumber last night who cannot find vocationally trained individuals to work for him. So I’m concerned with not only how to develop and retain high-end research or medical professions, but we need to look across the spectrum and include laborers, vocationally skilled workers, hospitality, and retail work.”
Mr. Hasapis was blunt on his perception of housing costs in Flagstaff, both for homebuyers and renters. “I believe we do not have enough affordable housing in our community.
I’m interested in how we can work with our local city staff, with local businesses, and nonprofits to figure out a way to develop more housing that is affordable for our profession- als, for low to medium income folks,” he said. “There are a lot of professionals in town who can’t afford a home here.”
Mr. Hasapis further broke down Flagstaff’s disparities between income and housing costs into its simplest terms. “The median household income here is about $48,000, yet
the average cost of a house is $300,000, and that’s over the recommended 30% lenders prefer to lend to borrowers. So it makes it very difficult for folks in our community to pur- chase a home. And rent is also too high,” he said. “The mar- ket is demanding a higher price because we have people coming into our community and buying homes. Nation- wide, only 16% of homebuyers are first time homebuyers. And that’s not a good number. I don’t even know what the percentage is here.”
Aside from his role as tourism commissioner, Mr. Hasapis has worked on strategic planning with neighborhood asso- ciations who represent Southside, Sunnyside, and Plaza la Vieja. As the university continues to grow in population, Mr. Hasapis learned from working with these communities that the cost of housing is just one of many growing con- cerns.
“Congestion is also a key concern in our community. I be- lieve we need to start having dialogues with the university about population increase. Not only does that affect the university but it also affects the quality of life among our residents, tourists, and students themselves.”
And while Mr. Hasapis believes conversations are hap- pening between the city and the university, he believes more direct input from citizens is required. “There should be more of a community conversation; as we are growing the university, it is impacting the quality of life of our neigh- borhoods. With that controversial 650-room student-hous- ing proposal on Blackbird Roost, that is definitely going to affect the congestion, whether it is bicycles, vehicles, or pedestrians. Then when we look at the one out on Woody Mountain and Route 66, that one is supposed to house at least 815,” he said. “It’s not entirely clear what procedures, plans, or conversations are taking place to address the im- pact of these developments.”
Another important component of Mr. Hasapis’ platform is his concern for the environment; particularly the way water resources are managed in the city. “We need to seri-
photo by charles seiverd
ously look at our water situation. Water is not an abundant resource. 75% of our water usage goes down the drain, which tells me we need to look more at conservation and recycling. We need to be concerned with what’s going in our water as well. These are worldwide concerns, as we’ve introduced more and more chemicals into our water supply and environment. Part of this is to construct more rigorous filtration processes in our treatment plants.” While the fail- ures of the Wildcat Treatment Plant demonstrate how ex- pensive water recycling improvements can be, Mr. Hasapis believes it is worth the cost.
“It is expensive, but it’s important because we focus on the outdoors and the local environment to draw people here; we really need to focus on that in order to allow our com- munity to thrive and protect it. But there are simpler ways Mr. Hasapis believes water can be conserved in our city. “We should encourage restaurants to serve water only when pa- trons specifically ask for it, possibly a tiered water pricing system may encourage businesses to conserve the water they’re using,” he said. “I’d like to see new developments constructing water-farming techniques to collect usable water resources.”
In addition to his seven years as Flagstaff’s tourism com- missioner, Mr. Hasapis is an actor — sometimes appearing on the stage at Theatrikos — a musician, and an artist. Though many Flagstaff citizens know Mr. Hasapis in this way, prior to moving here, he worked in organizational develop- ment in the corporate world, managing departments, creat- ing and managing multi-million dollar budgets.
“Part of being in the arts is having a business perspective.” While in the corporate world, Mr. Hasapis spent half of this time also as an instructional designer who did research for organizations to identify their needs and goals, then help- ing them craft long and short term plans that allowed them to achieve those goals.”
In this way, he believes in highlighting the arts as small businesses, but also as an important economic asset to the city. “The arts are really big to me. I really believe we need to promote our artists better as a community, but also as a business. I think our local government needs to look at ways we can promote our city better to retain our artists so they can sell their art and keep their businesses going. I’m interested in questions like: ‘How do we promote our city to keep those small businesses going?’”
Under his direction as tourism commissioner, Mr. Hasapis
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