Dianna M. Náñez

The Republic | azcentral.com

Seven candidates seek three open seats

If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote%2C the six candidates with the highest percentage of votes will proceed to the General Election.

In an upset, challengers Lauren Kuby and David Schapira were elected to the Tempe City Council outright late Tuesday, according to unofficial results.

Kuby and Schapira won in a field of seven candidates, leading by a wide margin with 29 of 31 precincts and a portion of early ballots reporting Tuesday. Provisional and early ballots turned in at the polls are still being counted.

Their victories mean that at least one of the incumbents — Robin Arredondo-Savage and Shana Ellis — has been voted out of office.

Arredondo-Savage and Ellis and challenger Dick Foreman were less than a percentage point apart for the third seat. That seat might go to a November runoff.

They were followed by Matt Papke and Ernesto Fonseca.

"I'm shocked right now," Kuby said as ballots were coming in.

Voters made their picks on who will lead the university town amid an era of sweeping growth, urban development and, evidently, voter dissatisfaction.

"We're very pleased and it's the result of hard work, the kind of hard work we'll invest into the council and the people of Tempe," Schapira said.

Challengers Schapira, superintendent of the East Valley Institute of Technology, and Kuby, a community-engagement and events manager at Arizona State University, are seeking to infuse new ideas into Tempe politics, as is Foreman, a manager and lobbyist for Southwest Gas Corp.

The next City Council will face difficult decisions about high-rise development, a wave of college-student apartments and commercial construction that would continue to add density to the landlocked city. Those elected might determine a route for Tempe's modern streetcar, which has drawn support from the business community and concerns from fiscally conservative council members and residents.

Also Tuesday, Tempe became the first Arizona city to ban discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender city workers as voters approved a historic charter change.

Proposition 475 carried overwhelmingly, according to unofficial results. With its passage, any future City Council would have to go back to the voters to abolish workers' rights. U.S. military veteran status also becomes a protected class from employment discrimination.

Proposition 473, 474 and 476 also appeared to be passing by overwhelming margins.

Prop. 473 changed the charter to add two alternate members to the City Council-appointed Merit System Board. The board's duties include reviews and recommendations on Tempe's personnel rules and regulations, and hearing employee appeals related to dismissal, demotions and disciplinary pay reduction or suspension.

Prop. 474 required notice of claims or demands, typically tied to a legal suit, to be filed within 180 days of an injury or damage. This change would align charter language with state law, which allows for the 180-day period. Currently, Tempe must accept claims within this period because state law is pre-emptive. The Charter language is outdated because it states a 90-day period.

Prop. 476 created gender-neutral charter language, replacing "Councilman" with "Counci lmember;" "Councilmen" with "Council members;" and "he" with "he/she" and "his" with "his/her."

This is the first primary election Tempe has held in August. Past elections were in the spring. The shift had left candidates wondering whether a boost in new voters would change dynamics, making it more difficult to get elected outright in the primary.

For more coverage on this race, follow @DiannaNanez