Prescott City Council: Suttles says more collaboration is necessary - The Prescott Daily Courier

This is the second in a series of Prescott mayoral candidate profile articles.

PRESCOTT - During her 12 years on the Prescott City Council, Mary Ann Suttles has seen four mayors come and go, and all have come from outside the ranks of the council.

Suttles would like to change that trend.

With three terms of council service behind her, she maintains that she would bring a level of experience other mayors have not had.

"I served with Daiton Rutkowski, Rowle Simmons, Jack Wilson, and Marlin Kuykendall, and nobody ever came from the council," Suttles said.

That meant that each new mayor had to take the time to become familiar with city operations, she said.

"It's the learning curve - every time a new mayor comes in, it starts all over again," said Suttles, one of three candidates vying for the mayor's post in the August primary. "From the council, you're there, so you know the issues."

Her time serving under the various mayors also has given Suttles an insight into how she would do the job. She says she would take something from most of the mayors with whom she has served.

"I would take the humor and looseness of Daiton, and the business part of Rowle and also the communication part of it," Suttles said. "There wasn't anything from Wilson. (And with Kuykendall), anything was better than Wilson. We needed to get out of the negativity."

Even so, Suttles is critical of the job Kuykendall is doing, maintaining that the current mayor has taken on too many of the city management duties.

"He's here from 7 or 8 in the morning until 6 at night," Suttles said of Kuykendall. "We pay (city employees) to do their jobs. We've been whittling away at the acting city manager that we have now."

Suttles attributes the problem, in part, to the January 2011 departure of former City Manager Steve Norwood. "It could have been a perfect storm - a strong mayor, and a manager leaving," she said.

Suttles sees herself as taking a more collaborative approach as mayor. "People govern differently," she said. "What you've got to try to do is you've got to get the buy-in."

She says her experience with retail sales would help her as mayor. "When I was in retail, you take information in, and you send some out," she said. "It has to be an exchange."

When dealing with city staff, she said, "I have never, ever gone toe-to-toe with anyone or called anybody names."

After moving to Prescott in the 1970s with her husband and two children, Suttles said she got involved in Little League, which ultimately led to her interest in local politics.

"My husband said, 'Mary Ann, you're going to have to find something else to do,' " she said.

She served her first term on the City Council from 1991 to 1995, and then left to run for Yavapai County Supervisor. After two unsuccessful supervisor runs, she returned to city politics in 2003, winning two consecutive terms.

"You either really like politics or you don't," she said. "I like it."

As mayor, Suttles said she would work to shore up flagging revenues.

"I was really concerned about our last census - that we lost population," she said. "We don't have that hook to keep people here. We've got to get something in to fill that void."

Through the years, Suttles has been involved with the Frontier Days Rodeo Association, the Phippen and Sharlot Hall museums, and she currently serves as chair of the Central Yavapai Metropolitan Planning Organization.