The Tucson City Council has narrowed the list of potential appointments to the vacant Ward 6 seat to four candidates, according to multiple sources inside City Hall.
Former Councilmember Karin Uhlich, former state lawmaker Pamela Powers, current Ward 2 aide Ted Prezelski and attorney Vince Rabago made the cut from the 12 applicants for the job of completing the term of Steve Kozachik, who stepped down on March 31.
Mayor Regina Romero and the five remaining councilmembers will pick a replacement at a special meeting on Monday, May 6. The appointed council member will serve out the current term, through the end of 2025. Voters will elect a new Midtown representative next year.
Applicants will be invited to make a five-minute public pitch and provide prepared responses to two questions at the meeting.
City officials have not yet made a public announcement of the finalists, but multiple sources confirmed the list of candidates to the Tucson Sentinel on Tuesday morning.
At a forum last week, Uhlich said she’d already done the job as a Ward 3 representative, both as an elected councilmember from 2005 to 2017 and then as an appointee for most of 2021, so she was ready to step right in.
“You have a full track record to measure me on and I think also many in the community got to know how I carry myself in the office, my temperament, my style, my way of delivering,” Uhlich said.
Powers, a freelance writer and political blogger who works as social media and technology editor for the American Journal of Medicine, told the crowd at the forum that her experience as a state lawmaker and her skill in working on budget issues would prove valuable to the City Council.
“I want to see Tucson be sustainable and keep its funky side into the future,” Powers said.
Attorney Vince Rabago, a former chair of the Pima County Democratic Party, said his experience at the Arizona Attorney General’s office and various nonprofit efforts would prove valuable to the city.
Rabago said he’d worked on legal issues “having to do with housing, economic development, land use, government policy, working with different governments, whether it be the state, local or the municipality. I’ve worked with in criminal justice as a prosecutor but also in safety issues.”
Prezelski said his time as an aide to Councilman Paul Cunningham and his time on the city’s sign code committee and the county’s budget committee helped prepare him for the job.
Prezelski, who works as a soccer correspondent for the Sentinel, said two areas he’d like to focus on are water issues and developing programs to assist people with disabilities.
The other applicants included former Tucson City Council member Nina Trasoff (who withdrew her name from consideration at the end of last week’s candidate forum); TUSD Boardmember Ravi Shah; Pima Community College Boardmember Theresa Riel; former Ward 6 candidate Miranda Schubert;, former city staffer Chris Leighton; former state legislative candidate Charlie Verdin; and political newcomers Alejandro Terrrazas and Avi Erbst.
