The ROX Interview: Craig McFarland

Casa Grande Mayor Craig McFarland was born and mostly raised in California, though he moved around a bit as part of a Navy family. His father went to work for Anheuser-Busch after leaving the military, and he followed suit after graduating from California State University-Fresno in 1976.

During the next 26 years, he worked across its sales, distribution and marketing functions in six states, moving 10 times with his wife Nancy and their two children.

In 2005 he was hired away by Golden Eagle Distributors, which brought him and Nancy to Casa Grande. They now have five grandchildren, who live with their parents here and in Phoenix. He retired as Golden Eagle’s vice president of sales in January 2015 and almost immediately got into local politics, winning the first of his four two-year terms the next year.

Since, he’s sat on 25 local and regional boards, spearheaded efforts to widen Interstate 10, worked with others to find a long-term solution to the area’s looming water shortages — which have already hit the agricultural industry — and overseen the economic expansion that has brought Lucid Motors, a new Kohler plant, several semiconductor industry suppliers and waves of new residents, for starters.

More city amenities have come online too, most notably the Casa Grande Community Recreation Center.

I was there as Craig began his journey into local government eight years ago, and as he begins his final two years in office due to term limits I wanted to check in with him about how the city has been transformed over his tenure and what the future may hold for him.

GRANDE LIVING: At this point in your political career, we want to look back on your legacy. We want your ideas on your time in office leading this great city and your hopes and dreams when you started, your successes and later we’ll talk about what you still have to accomplish. We also want to talk about what you think about your future.

Mayor Craig McFarland: The scary part.

GRANDE LIVING: It wasn’t this conference room, but it was a similar conference room, where the idea first came up of becoming involved in local politics and you showed up.

Mayor Craig McFarland: It was two months after I retired from my previous life, in January 2015.

GRANDE LIVING: Thinking you were going to head out in an RV and retire, play golf all day?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Yes, exactly. I was going to buy this RV and start traveling around the country. And then because my wife dragged her feet, it was sold before I could make an offer on it.

GRANDE LIVING: So you ran for mayor?

Mayor Craig McFarland: I told her: “If you’ll let me buy the motor home, I won’t run for mayor.” We went to my brother’s wedding in California and on the way back she goes, “OK, you can buy the motor home if you don’t run for mayor.” The minute I get back I called the guy, and he’d sold it the day before.

A couple weeks earlier you, me and the then-Mayor Bob Jackson and a few other people were sitting around a conference table similar to this, having a conversation about who we were going to get to run for mayor.

GRANDE LIVING: Who would possibly want to take on that job?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Exactly. And so I kind of mulled it over as we were sitting there, and I think I raised my hand. I said, “Well, I’ll run for mayor if you all, guys and gals, will support me.” And you all were a bit aghast at first but ultimately said, “Yes, of course we’ll support you.” So that’s where it started.

We sent out a questionnaire, a survey. Collected about 500 surveys back out of 4,000, tallied up all the results, and from there we built the platform. We already had ideas but wanted to hear what people had to say. We used that along with things we thought were important for the city like education and workforce development.

We even formed a committee on education and workforce development, and the education piece spun off as Achieve Pinal, which became part of the Pinal Alliance for Economic Growth and is still active and quite frankly, doing an amazing job on third-grade reading and also on Careertopia.

GRANDE LIVING: That’s amazing. So back to your first race in 2016, I remember we had a slogan and we had pins and we had all sorts of things and yet you ran unopposed then and every subsequent time.

Mayor Craig McFarland: We had this conversation, and we thought, “If you come out early and you raise enough money, maybe we’ll scare people out of the race.” It worked.

Once you’re in there, then you’re the incumbent, right? And one thing about Casa Grande is, as long as you’re doing a good job, I think they like consistency. It certainly is healthy for the council to have consistency. One thing about Casa Grande that I’ve noticed is they don’t really turn over their council very often, or their staff.

Now, voters just approved term limits for the council. So now it’s 12 years maximum, it’s three, four-year terms. So we’ll have turnover but someone can still be on council for 12 years. And the current council is grandfathered in, so some of them could be in for another 12 years, if they wanted. Mayors are different, so I’m already limited to four, two-year terms, and I just started my fourth.

GRANDE LIVING: So looking back on all your terms, what do you recall as your first big success or big issue that you made your own stamp on in the City?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Probably working on Interstate 10, widening of I-10. I have been a thorn in ADOT’s side in trying to get I-10 widened and our city name signage changed on I-10. That was the first probably real big accomplishment, meaning something everyone could see. I also think the updating and improvement of our strategic plan is a major accomplishment.

We kind of dusted off the old goals and then took four or five subjects that I ran on like education and workforce development, safety, making Casa Grande easier to do business with, economic development and incorporated them into the strategic plan. It really was the Council’s influence of putting that into the strategic plan that made a big difference. It gave the City direction, it gave staff direction. So those were probably the two biggest things in my first term.

GRANDE LIVING: What about the next two years? I can think of one big elephant in the room: economic development.

Mayor Craig McFarland: Economic development was always on my radar. It was that and customer service, those two things with the City. And so early on we had conversations on how things were done, and the City Manager Larry Rains and I had several conversations about our City’s customer service. Our customers are our constituents, our businesses, our industries and builders/developers, and our attitude wasn’t, I would call, customer friendly.

And then also in the first term, Larry and I went and visited every builder and every developer in the state. We took the dog and pony show to the builders and developers because we couldn’t figure out why Maricopa was building houses and we had 10 permits a year. It was very frustrating.

GRANDE LIVING: You did it like the marketer that you are.

Mayor Craig McFarland: That’s my background, sales and marketing. And it was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun, too.

GRANDE LIVING: So what year did the economic development landslide first hit here? In terms of jobs?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Well, early on, we had PhoenixMart, and Atessa. We had the Dreamport Villages and we had Lucid. And so Larry and I commented to each other, we just need one of them to land. We know what happened with Dreamport Villages and Phoenix Mart.

Atessa’s coming along, the Podium Club is now a real thing. There’s a real track out there. It’s just taking a little longer. And then there’s Lucid.

And, I’m not going to take credit for all of the economic development.

Was I able to help and talk with people and put Casa Grande in a good light in terms of it being business-friendly? Yes. But, there were many before me, people like Donovan Kramer Sr. and others back 40, 50 years ago, who first envisioned Casa Grande being a center for industry with Hexcel and Frito-Lay and Abbott. I mean, we’ve had the bones there and the desire to make it go.

GRANDE LIVING: Well, let’s talk about development before the big names like Lucid. In the years before that, you had private developers like Tim Smith and Jackob Andersen doing things like the Central Arizona Commerce Park (CAZCP), which led to Tractor Supply Co. coming. That was not insignificant.

Mayor Craig McFarland: Sure, and the Walmart Distribution Center.

GRANDE LIVING: There’s a host of industries that aren’t necessarily game-changers, but they started to build things up. Tractor Supply was the reason CAZCP really got started on the south side of Peters Road, which led to the Lucid availability.

Mayor Craig McFarland: I agree; the desire has been there for a long time. And I think you have even said it, you’ve always thought that Casa Grande would be that place that was eventually going to get there. I think we finally have gotten there.

We have the Taiwan Semiconductors of the world; that is a monster project. It’s a $40-billion project in Phoenix. We have at least five now, possibly six, of their supply chain locating in Casa Grande. And I think we’ll see more.

I think we’ll see as Lucid grows that they continue their expansion, increase their number of employees and increase their output. I think they’re producing about 80 cars a day or close to their initial target of 30,000 cars a year. They’ve got 2.8 million square feet of new construction that will be open in the next six to eight months.

GRANDE LIVING: Let’s talk about this for a minute: How many hours do you suspect you devote to this job a week? 70, 80?

Mayor Craig McFarland: No, I wouldn’t say it’s that much.

GRANDE LIVING: We’ll call it 60. That’s a nice round number. How on earth can anyone but a retired person do this job? Both in terms of time and finances?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Mayor is supposed to be a part-time job, it’s not.

GRANDE LIVING: So part of me would like to say that the public doesn’t appreciate the hours you put in, but on the other hand, they may because you run unopposed every single time. So, I mean all the pictures of you at ribbon-cuttings and chairing committees and speaking before the news cameras, it may have hit home. But it’s a big job.

Mayor Craig McFarland: It is a big job, and it really needs to be a full-time job. I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. But as we get larger, and as we grow, when we hit that 100,000 population mark, which I think will happen in the next 10 years, we need to look at part-time versus full-time mayor job expectations.

If you listen to the 2020 census, we were at about 53,700. But we were right in the middle of a pandemic. People wouldn’t answer their doors. People didn’t fill out forms or complete the survey online. We have a fairly large elderly population; they didn’t come out of their houses. And we also have a very large Latino population, and they didn’t trust the government.

But my point is that we were way undercounted. The 2019 Census Bureau estimate was 57,700, and if you just take the housing, the new housing starts in the last five years, our population has to be close to 62,000 to 65,000.

GRANDE LIVING: It’s pretty obvious. So, whether you do or not, I will rank economic development as your biggest accomplishment. What would you say is your second biggest accomplishment?

Mayor Craig McFarland: A couple things. I think the collaboration between education and workforce development has been key. Workforce development is critical to bringing in all this industry, and without a good education system feeding your workforce, it doesn’t happen.

And I think that bringing all the educators and education systems together, and at least having some collaborative conversation, has been a key accomplishment.

And then along with that, the collaboration with the Homeless Commission. We had 15, 16 different social organizations doing their own thing. And with the help of (City Council members) Lisa Fitzgibbons and Donna McBride, the three of us really built this collaborative effort to bring everybody together.

We’re rebranding the commission as CGHELPS because it addresses more than just homelessness. It brings the social organizations together like Sun Life Health, Faith Based Alliance, Laundry Love, CAHRA (Community Action Human Resources Agency), portable showers and CHIPS, just to name a few. This and many other groups help people who need help and we have the CGHELPS resource center in Peart Park, so it makes sense to rebrand. And then under that umbrella, we help the homeless, we help those who are near-homeless, we help those who need help.

GRANDE LIVING: Do you want to talk a little bit about residential development in the last several years and where that’s headed?

Mayor Craig McFarland: We have seen tremendous growth in residential development over the last five years. Since 2018 Casa Grande has issued 4,283 single family building permits. That’s an average of 850+ permits per year. Recently however, we have experienced a big increase in interest rates that is having a negative effect on new home starts.

We still have a very large housing need with all our new industry.

On the bright side, home starts are down but, we should have close to 1,000 new single-family-for-rent product coming on line in 2023.

So we’ll see what happens out there, but I think we’ll continue to see growth. I think this downturn is a lot different from the last one. We still have new jobs coming in. We have tons of new people coming into town. We need places for them to live. They need houses, they need apartments.

We haven’t built and opened a new apartment in 15 years. Now we have new apartments on Kortsen, Trekell , Peart, Florence, and most of those are the single-family-for-rent product, which is a nice product.

GRANDE LIVING: Let’s open the category of things left undone. What’s a giant gap that just hasn’t come to fruition in your mind, in your heart, on your agenda?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Trails, and the new park and park upgrades at Paul Mason/Rodeo facility. Some of the things I was hoping for were passing our bond questions this past November election. We should have gone for the bond election two years ago when interest rates were really low.

GRANDE LIVING: So do you take that as a failure on your part? Not to push it further two years ago?

Mayor Craig McFarland: To some degree. I think we should have done it in 2020. This past year interest rates have come back up. The failure of the bond election this past November, I think, was voter fatigue, and a long ballot. It was four pages, and I think people were just not in the mood.

I think we’re going to try again. One bond out of the four did pass. And so it tells me that our constituents are interested in good roads.

GRANDE LIVING: Any last things you want to say before we talk about Craig McFarland, the guy?

Mayor Craig McFarland: If I had one thing that I’m going to be critical of myself is, we still have a lot of buildings that need attention. There’s the Kmart building and Casa Grande Mall.

Finally getting the auto mall built because people see the old Sam’s Club and they say, “Can’t we get Sam’s Club back?” I said, “Nope, because it’s been sold. “And can we get a Costco?” “Nope.” Because Sam’s Club won’t let Costco use the building.

Can we get the Target back? Well, Target owns the building, and that’s a business decision on their part. And have you recently looked at big box stores and how well they’re doing? Not very. Look at the Chandler Fashion Center. What did they do to the whole Macy’s building? It’s now an entertainment center. They’re building a massive indoor roller coaster…

GRANDE LIVING: Along those lines, when it comes to buildings, there’s a deficit in the realization that this is America. It’s free enterprise, business goes where business goes. It has nothing to do with the city.

Mayor Craig McFarland: True, it is all about free enterprise and up to business to build and develop. But, I will say that the city can make it easier for businesses to do business. And, I always say…cities and towns are where the rubber meets the road.

GRANDE LIVING: I know you don’t want to have this conversation, but there’s a horizon to your term in office and on that day, many politicians find it hard to let go. They find it hard to not be a part of the game, a part of the solution, a part of the conversation. You’re faced with either letting that go and golfing more and buying that RV or running for some other office. Your thoughts?

Mayor Craig McFarland: I’m still mulling it over. I’ve got about six months or so before I may need to make a hard decision. I like being involved. And I guess that the allure of what you speak is that you feel that you’re needed, and everybody wants to be needed.

And I certainly feel like I can give more. I’m not worn out, I’m not tired. I’m not tired of people enough to not try and do something else.

But can I do it from a volunteer, charitable direction? Probably, because I know most nonprofits will scoop up anybody who wants to volunteer. And there’s certainly a lot of worthy programs around Casa Grande that you could have an impact on.

Would I like to run possibly for state House or Senate? Maybe. But I like being in local government because you have more of an impact on people in your community.

GRANDE LIVING: What about county level?

Mayor Craig McFarland: County is a possibility. It depends on what Supervisor Steve Miller’s going to do.

GRANDE LIVING: OK, now let’s talk about Craig McFarland, the man. I have to say that I don’t have many role models, but you’d be right up there on many different fronts.

But looking at what’s on your horizon, let’s talk about golf and Hawaii and RVs and European river cruises. You’re not getting any younger.

Mayor Craig McFarland: In fact, I’ll turn 70 in my last year in office.

GRANDE LIVING: Might a solution be a little more leisure and a little less direct involvement, but still some involvement?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Yeah, I would think so. I think whether I’m elected or not I’d like to be in some position of being able to maybe still influence what goes on in the City. Obviously I won’t be involved in all of the boards that I’m involved in today; like the Arizona Mayors’ Education Roundtable, which I am now chairman. CAG, being part of Central Arizona Governments, being the chair of the Pinal Regional Transportation Authority…

GRANDE LIVING: But you failed on that one, didn’t you? As far as Prop 469 being defeated last year?

Mayor Craig McFarland: I did, yeah.

GRANDE LIVING: So golf, Hawaii, come on. Skiing, Colorado.

Mayor Craig McFarland: Obviously it’ll give me some more opportunities to travel.

GRANDE LIVING: Show Low, Pinetop. Grandchildren, great-grandchildren.

Mayor Craig McFarland: Grandkids, for sure. But Rock, I can’t sit still. The problem with me is if I get involved in something, it’s not a part-time deal. I don’t work that way; it’s not how I’m wired. I’m either all in or I’m not.

GRANDE LIVING: OK, can you cap this off with a heartfelt, genuine statement about your time in office and what you like; community, you, your family, whatever?

Mayor Craig McFarland: Some of the fun part is when I go to an event and my grandkids are there and they get to introduce their papi as the mayor. So that’s some of the heartwarming part. Or when somebody sends me a note and says, “Thanks for doing a great job.”

And the little girl that came up to me today, shook my hand and handed me four little chocolates and said, “Are you the mayor?” And I said, “Yes, I am.” And she ran away, talking to her mother. And then she came back and says, “I was born in St. Louis.” And I say, “Well, I used to live in St. Louis.” She goes, “I know.” And she ran away again.

Or when I go to the mayor’s reading program with kindergartners or first-graders, and the teacher introduces me as the mayor and they always look at me and go, “You’re really the mayor? Is that like the president?”

GRANDE LIVING: OK, last statement?

Mayor Craig McFarland: It’s been a good ride. We, as in the Council and the staff, have accomplished a lot in the last six years. It’s been a really good run and I hope we can continue it.

I hope that we can find somebody who is going to put as much time into it as I put into it. I just hope we find the right person. This shouldn’t be a popularity or partisan contest. It should be: Who’s going to do the best for the city?

GRANDE LIVING: Well, for what it’s worth, speaking for my constituency, I agree with everything you just said about the job you’ve done and what it takes. Kumbaya.

Mayor Craig McFarland: It’s a lot of work. Hope somebody’s prepared.