Jerry's Accomplishments & Priorities as Mayor

Here are some of Mayor Jerry’s key achievements and ongoing priorities, as he continues to listen to citizens and work with fellow Town volunteers and Town professional staff to lead our Town forward with success:

• Exceptional Quality of Life: Throughout Jerry’s leadership as Mayor, Paradise Valley ranks as one of the best places to live in the country, with Paradise Valley’s top public safety being matched by having the highest property values and per-capita income. This is because of our large (one-home-per-acre) lots and our Town’s natural scenic beauty, which Jerry has a proven, successful record of fighting to protect!

• Protecting our Town’s Cherished Residential Character: Jerry has a long, successful, and unblemished voting record and leadership history demonstrating his protection of our Town’s core identity and character: low-density, high-quality neighborhoods. With a practice of listening to citizens and having grown up in the Town and with three generations of his family in PV (including two school-age children), Jerry understands deeply and personally how important this is to our citizens!

• Top-notch Public Safety: Paradise Valley must be kept safe. Under Jerry’s leadership, the Town has been recognized as the safest place to live in Arizona, and the Paradise Valley Police Department earned accreditation through the Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program (ALEAP) for meeting over 175 “best practice” standards — congratulations to the team for their excellence!

• Fiscal Responsibility & Health: The Town’s finances are as solid as ever. Jerry led the Town to create its first Strategic Revenue Plan before the pandemic hit, which enabled the Town to navigate changing economic conditions over the past several years without negative impacts on Town services or any fiscal consequences. 

• Proven Leadership and Problem Solving: With Jerry’s leadership, the Town resolved significant litigation on the Ritz Carlton development in terms that were very favorable, and helped resolve several other issues that have allowed the project to move along without further issues. On this and many other topics, Jerry has proven his ability to find and execute win/win solutions for the Town even for the most difficult challenges. Jerry has shown his ability to build consensus among the Council team and community, no matter how contentious or difficult the issue seems.

• Solutions to Short-Term Rental Problem: Jerry fostered a constructive grassroots effort with concerned citizens and led cooperative action by more than 30 mayors across Arizona to take the fight to Silicon Valley companies that harm our neighborhoods and return local control to communities to deal with the issues raised by short-term rental properties and party houses. In addition to advancing these issues as a recognized leader at the state level, Jerry was proud to enact recent, unanimously passed groundbreaking local ordinances to reign in as many problems as the Town is authorized to do, which were challenged as illegal but almost entirely upheld by the Attorney General.

• Strengthening Community: Jerry has worked hard and successfully to strengthen community relationships among citizens, the Town, Town schools and houses of worship, neighboring cities and towns, and our resorts while respecting the Town’s tradition of limited government. For example, upon his election, Jerry started the Town’s first-ever youth recognition program to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our students for their achievements in community service, academics, and athletics. 

• Protecting the economic interests of PV citizens: As Mayor, Jerry has always looked out for our Town’s and citizen economic wellbeing. For example, Jerry twice successfully led the efforts to defeat proposed water rates increases that would have cost Paradise Valley citizens over $11 million.

• The pandemic & keeping our Town out of danger: With Jerry’s direct leadership, the Town navigated the pandemic without being dragged into divisive politics and policies, with a clear and consistent response that respected medical and scientific expertise but did not panic or overreact. Our Town and citizens also stayed safe throughout these difficult and dangerous times, with Jerry taking the lead role in protecting our Town with the Town’s Police Chief and Town Manager to get us successfully through the crisis.

But there’s more work to be done, including:

• Protecting our Town’s low-density, quiet and scenic residential character, including by finishing the job when it comes to taking control of the short-term rental situation and ensuring our neighborhoods are protected from unwelcome commercialization.

• Prioritizing public safety together with our fully-funded police department to keep Paradise Valley among the very safest ZIP codes in Arizona and the Southwest.

• Continuing to emphasize responsible land use that is consistent with our Town’s unique, low-density, high quality and beautiful residential character — with the potential for several large development projects in the near future, this diligence will be particularly important.

• Effectively preparing for our Town’s future and continuing to take responsible, proactive measures to protect our quality of life and reduce unwelcome activities in response to resident input - whether commercialization attempts in our neighborhoods (short-term rentals, timeshares, etc.), improved building standards and roadways, and other challenges and opportunities that may arise.

• Working with citizens, the Town Council team, Town professional staff, and other stakeholders in a cooperative, effective, and professional way, with integrity, to advance issues important to all Paradise Valley residents.

• Solidifying Paradise Valley’s full economic recovery from the events of the past several years, including maintaining fiscal discipline and supporting our Town’s world-class resort properties within its existing standards and guidelines that both value our resorts and protect our Town’s peaceful residential character.