Aaron Accurso

Welcome to a special episode of Guiding Candidate Edition presented by Modern Moments Independent News Media, Gilbert Independent, YourValley.net, and the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce candidates.

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Guiding Conversations with Community Leaders.

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Aaron was born in Southern California and raised in a military family who was transferred around the country. He attended the College of William and Mary, graduating with a Bachelor's of Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting A Upon graduation, he worked for Ferguson Enterprises for 17 years as a buyer, branch credit manager, branch operations manager and regional purchasing manager. From there, he took a few years to work and serve on behalf of the Catholic Church. Currently, Aaron works for Poco Verde Pools and Landscaping and serves as their construction manager. He and his wife Christine have been married for 24 years and raised their three children in Gilbert. He regularly attends St. Anne's Catholic Church. Aaron is running for a seat on Gilbert's Town Council. Please welcome Aaron Accurso.

Welcome, Aaron.

Thank you.

We're so glad you're here.

Good to be here.

We're going to start with what we.

Like to call rapid fire.

Here we go. Sarah, you go first.

What's your favorite hidden gem in Gilbert that more people should know about?

Wow, there's so many. Yeah. And it. I'd have to say restaurants. We've got, we've got, we've got. We're a very good place for foodies. Yeah, we are. So. Not that. It's just the. The broad breadth of. Of restaurants that we have here.

You hit the Heritage District and it's like where do I stop?

Both them.

And my waistline is only so big right now. Okay, next question. This one's fun. If you could have any superpower for a day, what would it be, and how would you use it? Wow.

For rapid fires, these are difficult. Oh, come on. Superpower. Unlimited wealth.

Okay.

Okay. And that would be so that I could be philanthropic with it and give to those that are in need. That would be fun. And. Yeah. Just to make other people happy. I think that it's not a typical superpower, but I think if that's available, I think I'd take that so that I could use that in the service of others.

I can't think of a superhero, but I can think of, like, Richie Rich or something like that.

What would you consider to be the town's greatest strength?

Families. Definitely families. It's a family community based on families. And it's really what I'm working my campaign around is bringing Gilbert. Re. Centering Gilbert around the family.

All right, this is kind of a parks and rec question. What's your favorite outdoor activity to enjoy in our community?

Walking. I think that a lot of our individual communities within Gilbert have some incredible park spaces that they've built for themselves along with the Gilbert parks themselves. They all offer a fantastic. The riparian preserve. Fantastic areas to just go for a. A quiet walk by yourself and to collect your thoughts.

Yes.

If our town were a movie, what genre would it be and why?

I would say a romantic comedy, drama, or slash drama area. We've got a lot of young couples in this area. I think. I think that a, you know, a day in the life type of a movie or a romantic comedy would go well in the. In the Gilbert setting. Yeah.

Yeah. If you could have dinner with any one person alive or not, who would it be?

My wife. I absolutely love her. It might be kind of cheesy to say that, but I think every time I have dinner with my wife, especially when it's just the two of us, I can't. It fills my heart.

That's awesome.

If you had to describe our community in three words, what would they be?

Family, safe, entertaining.

Who is a leader you admire and why?

I really admire Ronald Reagan. I grew up. I was a young, young boy while he was in his presidency, and. And looking back on the videos of his speeches and the policies that he had and what he was able to do in conjunction with other world leaders at the time to. To really take down communism was absolutely incredible.

What would you consider to be the.

Town'S biggest challenge right now? I would say the perception of being unsafe. The recent perception of being unsafe.

All right, Last 1. Number 10. What's your mantra or words to live by?

As goes the family, so goes the nation, and from there, the world.

Wow.

Well, thank you. Great responses. Things to think about. We would love to just get to know you a little bit more. So let's start with childhood. What did childhood look like for you?

I was a Air Force brat. As. As they like to say. My dad was an officer in the Air Force. We didn't move a heck of a lot. Was born In California at 5 years old, moved to Massachusetts, and then at 9, moved to Virginia. And then my dad was stationed there for two different tours consecutively. So I really was raised as a child from nine years on in. In Virginia, southeastern Virginia, the Peninsula area. Newport News is the town I. The town I called home. And between Massachusetts and Virginia, I really gained a huge love for history. And then that moved into watching politics and being involved in service around that during that time.

Obviously. Your love for history, how did that come about and who influenced that for you?

Sure. When I was living in Massachusetts, I was on Hanscom Air Force Base. We were stationed there. And as a young kid, between. This is back in the day when parents said, go out and come back at dinner maybe. Yeah, kind of a thing. So we found a hole in the wall of the fence that led that we. The Air Force base was directly connected to Minuteman National Park. So I would crawl through that fence with friends and go down to the visitor center, Minuteman national park, quite often and just would spend time there, watch the movie over and over and over again and. And look at the exhibits and things. Like when I moved to Newport News, that's surrounded by Colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown Victory center and the Jamestown area, the Colonial Triangle. That's just amazing. And then there's also a lot of Civil War stuff there. So those are the. I was. I was very exposed to that. And then as a late teenager, I got a job as an intern at the Yorktown Victory center, working as a costumed interpreter is what they would call them. Person that would, quote, unquote, pretend to be a Civil War soldier. And then in. Into college. I moved over to Colonial Williamsburg while I was a college student. And in the summers I was a brick maker as. As they were in the 18th century. So. So history has been a bureau of love. But it's interesting, although all the Colonial and. And Revolutionary War history that I was surrounded by, my favorite time period is World War II.

So interesting military. So it's safe to say that you probably had some teachers that were involved in this because there's a lot of history in schools, right?

Definitely. A lot of teachers for sure. But my 9th grade teacher and my 11th grade government teacher, those two teachers, Mr. Gardner and Mr. Fields, probably were the biggest influence on me with teaching me how to really dig into the history. But the history honestly came on its own.

Yeah, it was just a passion.

It was just a passion that I was, that created particularly from going to that visitor center at Minuteman national park as a young, young child. And just I could, I, back in the day, I probably could have told you everything that was in it and the word, the exact words that were on every display. So that's how often I was there.

I had a tour like that with the Budweiser factory once, but that's another story for another day.

Okay, so what did high school look like for you and how did end up at the College of William and Mary?

Sure, High school. I was a starting college, not college. A starting football player. Played basketball in junior varsity and did some track and field field events, the shot put and discus and things like that. As, and as a senior, I, I was relatively popular, I would say. I, I became the senior class president. So I have, have that behind me. I, I, and then going into college, college was, I was recruited for football, so I, but, but William and Mary, almost all their players, even though they're Division 1, almost all their freshman players are considered walk on. So there was, it wasn't a scholarship opportunity. So I played for a year with the, with the football team and then decided that just wasn't right for me.

What position were you?

I was offensive line. So mostly center in high school and then, and then the tackles during, during that year in college. So I was on the meet squad, basically.

Who's your football team now?

My college football team. I watch any good football team, honestly.

There'S a lot of those.

There are a lot of them. I tend to get attracted to Big Ten play and Notre Dame. Yeah, I like, I like the ground game. I like it. If it's just a high flying all passes, I'm not super excited. I like the, the gridiron button in the nose at the, at the, off at the line of scrimmage. That's my. Okay, that's where I like it. And that tends to be what more what the, the north, the Northern schools and the Big Ten versus the sec.

Since we're on this track, let's keep it going for Just a second. How about NFL then?

NFL? Well, honestly, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a homeboy. I've lived in many different places and it, it's prior to moving to Gilbert, I, when I say I'm a homeboy, it's the home team. So that right now it's the Cardinals for sure. Growing up I always used to say I was a, I was an LA Raiders fan, but la, and that's just because I was from the Los Angeles area originally and so, oh, I got to be a Dodgers fan. I've got to be a Raiders fan. Of course the Raiders moved back to Oakland and they were traders to move to LA in the first place. Didn't really quite understand that as a kid, but, but right now I'm definitely a Cardinals fan. I look, look up them and listen about them all the time.

I mean if I had the choice between the Raiders and the Cardinals, I'd go the Cardinals too.

Yeah.

So.

All right, I'll get out the sports. Let' talk to you.

So yeah, so after, let's go through college. But after college, how do you eventually end up in Arizona?

Sure. I was recruited and hired by Ferguson Enterprises Plumbing, a national wide plumbing wholesale company to do credit management for them. Did that for a couple of years with them and really realized that that really wasn't my bailiwick either. And so there. But being a large company, they were willing to adjust me into other positions and I went first with they, they're the ones that moved me all over the country. Straight out of college I was in, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Then about a year later I was in New Jersey, Edison, New Jersey for about two years and then then down to Virginia when I moved over into the purchasing roles and from there operations management in, in Utah and then back into purchasing a little bit as, as a senior buyer and, and purchasing manager in California and then that's what moved me to, to Arizona 17 years ago. Yeah, so, and so that's, that's the progression of Ferguson for me and then my wife who we were lucky enough to be able to have at home with our children as they were, as they were born. She ended up getting a job that was, was a very nice job and it was time for her to kind of step out and we didn't want to leave the kids at home as latchkey kids. So I moved into more of a service role and working with my church and that's when I was working for St. Mary Magdalene here in Gilbert as a liturgy director and. But it Gave me the flexibility to be at home after the kids got out from school. And so I, I was able to work a few weekends but. But was there after school. So the kids didn't ever have an afternoon without having either dad or mom, one or one of us there in the house. So. And then once they were old enough to they got into, into high school or late middle school, then I was able to go back into the business world and that's where I'm at now with Poco Ver.

So what about Arizona made you say this is where we're staying?

Really? It's, it's Arizona, but more specifically Gilbert. We, when we moved here from California we had the opportunity. We were looking at West Valley, East Valley, even north North Phoenix. And we decided on Gilbert because of the family friendliness. We just saw the, in the school system at the time was, was really good. Not that it's, not that it's necessarily bad now, but I think all of our school systems are going through some, some issues, some things that have need to need to improve, but I think all school systems go through that and, but at the time it was, we were looking at that our kids were really young and, and then fully, fully expecting after having moved so much for so many times in a short, relatively short period of time. Wasn't necessarily planning on staying a heck of a long time, but within three months. I remember turning to my wife, we were watching the Evening news, the 10 o' clock news and turned to her and I said, you know, I really like this place and Gilbert in particular and I'd love to stay here if we possibly can and raise our kids here because out of every other place that I've lived, be it Northern Virginia or, or, or Utah or California, we just really liked the attitude of the people in, in the area in Gilbert, the family friendliness. We were surrounded by families. It was, it is and was and is a safe community and it, I'm glad we did. We, we raised three fantastic kids and they're finally out of school, so to speak. My daughter's going to her first year of college after a year off doing a gap year to earn some money. So she doesn't end college in such a, in such a dire straits economically. She's going to college next year as a freshman. My, my oldest is graduating college as a freshman and my, my middle son, he's, he's got a near full time job working and doing a very good job for himself. So since they're out, it's time for me to step out a little bit.

Man, that's a dream. Wow.

He's nowhere close.

I can see it. Someday it'll happen.

It'll happen.

It'll come. As you look at that time here, raising your kids, talk about some of the individuals who might have influenced you over that time or supported you or mentored you along the way.

Sure. One of the people that my wife and I always go back to or one of the couples we go back to are the Shaughnesses. They actually are in Virginia, and we met them when we were first married and when we first had our son, oldest son there, and we moved to Gilbert when my oldest son was only five years old. So they. But the Shaughnesses have really stuck with us, and they were kind of our mentor couple as we. As we grew up in marriage and in family. And both my wife and I would go to either one or both of them from time to time throughout the years, and we still do to talk about. To talk about things and really that they're the probably huge. Just our faith community and the people that surround us there, both at. For a long time at St. Mary Magdalene and now we're very involved with St. Ann's both here in Gilbert. A lot of those people are just beautiful people that supported us and helped us along the way, gave us. And we always look for older couples to guide us. Not to guide us, but to ask advice of so that we can make our own decisions. But use them as examples where we saw good examples.

What do you think it's time to roll into our Q and A session. Okay.

All right. So we've assembled a few questions that we think listeners might want to have some answers to. So we will start with, what would you consider to be the most significant responsibility should you be elected, and what would your top three priorities be?

The biggest responsibility would be to help make sure that government stays in its lane. Government isn't supposed to be all inclusive in our lives or take care of everything. So we need to make sure that government really takes care of what it's supposed to take care of and allow people and businesses to do what they want to and what they can do to fully explore themselves and push themselves out into the community without restrictions of government. That's probably the most important top three priorities. I want to get our leadership back to a family's first pro business aspect. Public safety is. Is very important to me. And right now we're as a community, suffering from a perceived lack of safety. I don't think we're in an unsafe place by any means. But I think that we need to help guide our, our government groups, that is the police department and even the fire department and public works, just to be more proactive with their. Engage the public and make sure that the public knows that they're there for them and not sitting back and resting in laurels of past successes, but continuing to push forward with that.

All right, this one's a little less complex. Thanks. Sure. Vision question. And this is intentional, I'm sure. Right. So paint a picture of your vision of a well run Gilbert for us. And how would you contribute to this vision?

Sure. A well run Gilbert, again, is, is as limited as possible of, of government interference with the public situation. There are certain things that the town has to take care of for us and that's why we move to a community like Gilbert. The, the safety, the. The public safety of the police, the fire, safe roads, clean, clean and, and no potholes kind of a thing, and safe water and, and trash disposal. All those things need to be taken care of. Outside of that, you know, we need to allow the community to take care of itself as well. So that I can see that vision. You know, the vision is. Is to. Is to turn back or, you know, allow the community to do its best to take care of itself by itself and let the government take care of this. The. The town government take care of the things that it's supposed to take care of and only those things and not encroaching in between, maybe offering opportunities to connect, make connections. But. But to be as limited as possible.

To expand on that just a little bit. Do you have specific examples of things that maybe the town is doing now that you feel it might be overreach?

There probably are. I haven't dug into them entirely. I think that the, the overreach is. Is definitely in the, in some of the different things that's keeping businesses from being able to prosper. I definitely would not want somebody to come into my house or my, my business and telling me that I'm required to require my customers or my people to wear masks, for example. That should be my decision as a business owner. Now if, if a property owner says you as my customer needs to wear a mask, that's one thing and that that's fully appropriate because it is their property. But to force the mandate on everybody, everywhere, in every situation is. Is quite a bit of overreach and that's a recent example of it.

So the town is approaching build out and some areas of our community are aging even as others continue to develop. How would you prioritize the needs of build out with the needs of aging areas?

They're both definitely priorities. One of the things that I've been very disappointed in with our current councils in the past number of years has been their willingness to, to stray from the general plan that was created by, created by the council, voted on by the public that gives specific. This is what's going to be built on this property during, during build out, like the empty properties or this is what's scheduled to be in on this type of product is this type of business or this type of building will be going into this property. We saw it, you know, potentially at the ranches. A number of the apartments that are going in, they've, they've changed the, the, the town plan, the general plan to accommodate what the, the new owners of those properties want want to build out. And I think that's inappropriate because the people next door and around the corner from, from those properties and even across town from those properties are expecting a particular type of business, a particular type of development in that area. And then all of a sudden it's switching out and it's being something different that's, you know, whether it's more or less water, whether it's more or less traffic. The plan is developed in order to, to accommodate the water infrastructure, the road infrastructure and things like that. And when changes are made, it can have a devastating impact. Now the older areas of town, we need to make sure that we respect the existing property rights of those people while at the same time doing our best to help improve the, the properties such as the roads and the, and the aesthetics of the areas that are town oriented, town owned. We definitely need to be working with, with that for sure and it should be a good balance of both because we are, we do have very good new areas of town and we have some areas that have been around for quite a few years and, but we have to respect property owners for sure.

Sure. Do you feel the master or the general plan, I'm sorry is, is the, the final master copy or do you feel it's a guide to accommodate.

It's definitely a guide to accommodate needs. But but when we go from, from single, you know, the potential of having this, this particular property is scheduled to be single family homes to. It's now the property owner wants to build a, you know, either a strip mall or, or light industrial or whatever or even a, an apartment complex or condo complex in that area. We need to make sure that everybody has buy in especially not just within 150ft or 250ft of the property that I think is the current rules to notify, but a wider swath of people to understand that and because their property rights based on the, on the, on the general plan are going to be interfered with. So.

Makes sense. Okay. How important is to you that all residents feel represented, even those who don't share your same values?

Absolutely. I'm. I'm one who, first of all, I am very disappointed in the past many, many years of how the public discussion has gone very much south and there's not a lot of civil discussion anymore. I am always willing and I always. I believe we as potential, you know, as government officials or potential government officials should be willing to listen and understand the, the concerns of everybody and understand where their concerns are coming from and not make harsh judgments on them. Now, my principles or my, My ideas may differ, but my ideas are open to change. Well, my principles won't change, but my ideas are willing to change if you can convince me or prove to me that my line of thinking needs to be adjusted. And I'm very much open to that, for sure.

Okay.

As a governmental agency, the town is a complex business and major employer with many lines of service and corresponding budgets. If elected, how would you navigate gaining a strong understanding of the inner workings of the town?

I would first begin with meeting with the. The. The. And I'm hoping to do this before. Before the election, meeting with the town manager, Patrick Banger, and. And then working my way down the organizational chart to the assistant managers and other department heads and kind of at least getting a personal opening relationship with them so that I can understand them and their processes and their thoughts and their visions for their departments, and then I can bring that back to the dais of the council to begin to discuss so that I understand what they need and we can make adjustments to that vision as necessary. So I think personal meeting with each of the department heads is very important within the first number of months of being in office or even prior to being in office.

Sounds like a lot of lunches. I'm in for that. Okay, last one here. You ready?

Absolutely.

In the future, another future one, when you look back on your time in office, how would you measure your success?

Wow, that's one I haven't really thought of. How would I measure my success if I did the best I possibly could do and not necessarily to the. To the point of appeasing everybody but the, you know, maintain my principles. Didn't get off my principles, but came to an understanding, a full understanding of each of the project, each of the issues that were going on. And I was able to make what I felt was a good decision based on all of the information. I think that's successful. I, I don't want to go in with any preconceived notions outside of my principles when approaching any topic. So I want to understand, understand both and all sides of any issue that comes forward.

So.

Aaron, thank you for joining us today. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners?

No. I'm here to serve again. My kids are grown now, so it's kind of my time to. I've done my job at raising my family the best I possibly could and I've been active in watching the politics and, and the governance of, of both Gilbert and of Arizona over the last 15 plus years. And it's just time. I'm a service oriented man. We're a service oriented family and it's time for me to step out and I'm willing to serve if they're willing to have me. So and I, if I can plug my, my web website, acurso4council.com I'd love we, we got the signatures. I'm on the ballot now. We're working into fundraising right now. So please go there and check me out.

Thank you so much for the dialogue today.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I enjoyed this conversation. I'm sure those listening enjoyed it as well. So if you'd like to get these in your inbox, subscribe to Our Tribe, we'll send them right to you. You can listen to all the great episodes we have. Thanks for listening. Guiding Growth Conversations with Community Leaders.

Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?

This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor it in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand whether you want to again be on the show. Reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you. Reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection. Sam.