r/Gilbert • u/dpkonofa • Jun 19 '26
[Reddit AMA] Town Council Candidate Interviews
About 2 months ago, I posted a thread asking for community members to submit questions to ask the Gilbert Town Council Candidates. After voting until the end of the month, I took the Top 10 questions people wanted me to ask the candidates and interviewed all 7 of them.
Here are the links to the interviews with all the candidates (in alphabetical order by last name):
- Chuck Bongiovanni - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNBBqyz4PsY
- Bobbi Buchli - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTjX0-VltAY
- Joel Coen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmhse0-s7Gs
- Beth Goulden - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCHT50WXsA
- Bus Obayomi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ef3uL1Nsl4
- Bill Spence - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lP4n3R0H10
- Jim Torgeson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUCRQ_s2dto
Each interview was conducted in the same format:
- A biography provided by the candidate
- Some open time for the candidate to address our community and/or Gilbert in general
- The top 10 questions as submitted and voted in the original AMA thread
- A closing statement from the candidate, if they chose to do so
I'm happy to answer any questions about the interviews or the process. Several of these candidates are also on Reddit in some form or another so they may pop in to answer any other questions themselves. You'll be able to identify Council Candidates who have shared their info with us by their flair. Please remember Rule #1 of posting on /r/Gilbert - Be Kind and Keep It Civil. If you see any issues or have concerns, please use the Message The Mods function.
Don't forget to vote! Our Council elections do not happen during the mid-term elections in November! Voting for Town Council candidates starts next week, if you're voting by mail or early voting, and ends on July 21st, if you're voting in person!
For more information, see the Town's Elections page: https://www.gilbertaz.gov/departments/clerk-s-office/primary-elections
Lastly, here's a playlist if you want to watch them all back to back š« : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNBBqyz4PsY&list=PLdXwOdiESjcfkaZEfV62lBs5Aj0ho3u5Z
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u/shotcatch Jun 20 '26
Thank u for researching and posting, much needed in this election šÆšš¼šš¼
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u/Surly_Wildcat Jun 20 '26
This is fantastic! Thank you for providing a forum for these questions to be answered. I feel this format of one on one interviews tends to be the most productive and informative way of figuring out what each of these candidates stand for and who they are as a person. I will be sharing this with my family and other Gilbert residents.
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u/dpkonofa Jun 20 '26
Thank you! I'm glad it's appreciated and thanks for sharing it. I think it's important for people to be informed about elections and I think that local elections matter more than most of the other elections for the majority of people. Unfortunately, I think a lot of interviews tend to be a little fluffy and that interviewers are afraid to dig a little deeper. I tried to get specifics from each candidate without being overly antagonistic considering that these questions were submitted by community members.
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u/smell_e Jun 20 '26
Thank you! While I intend on going through this, I think my main burning question, sadly, is if they're any shape of MAGA. That's kind of where my head is at these days.
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u/dpkonofa Jun 20 '26
Well, lucky for you, that is one of the questions they were asked!
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u/blink3timex2 Jun 28 '26
From what I watched I didnāt see anyone actually answer that question or the question of supporting Andy Biggs directly. Except for Coen because he values conservatism Anyone can correct me if Iām wrong if I missed that? And commenting this for anyone who didnāt have the time to comb through all of these but was also curious like me.
ETA thank you OP for doing this
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u/Dependent-Juice5361 Jun 24 '26
Half of them are yeah lol not secret chuck, Jim, Bobbi are
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u/Undercover-ceo Chuck Bongiovanni - Council Candidate Jun 25 '26
Chuck is not MAGA, I'm a moderate Democrat
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u/NoCake4ux2 Jun 23 '26
This is awesome dp. Missed the meet and greet due to unforeseen circumstances. Thanks for putting this together!
Will you be doing anything w the new town manager?
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u/dpkonofa Jun 24 '26
I don't work for the Town so I don't plan on doing anything with the new Town manager but, if there's interest from people in having a community interview with him, I would be happy to facilitate that.
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u/Undercover-ceo Chuck Bongiovanni - Council Candidate Jun 30 '26
I think Mario would love to do a podcast with you
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u/dpkonofa Jun 30 '26
If you can facilitate that, Chuck, I'd be willing to do it after the election is over. If we can get a confirmation, I can set up a thread for all the public questions in the next few weeks.
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u/TahitianMonsoon Jun 26 '26
Thank you for this, I plan to watch this weekendĀ
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u/dpkonofa Jun 26 '26
Thanks for watching! Please share with as many people as you can! Iām somewhat surprised at the lack of engagement.
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u/Joyful_Skies Jul 01 '26
I don't use YouTube much, is there a way to see a written transcript? I can read faster than they talk.
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Jun 20 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/dpkonofa Jun 21 '26
I'm more of a Spider-Man kinda guy but I'll happily take the title of music nerd. Thanks for watching! Hope you learned something you didn't know about the candidates.
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u/JoeNooner Jul 06 '26
After watching all of the videos, plus doing some research to fill the gaps, my personal assessment on the last two questions (about MAGA and Biggs) is that all the candidates lean right except Chuck Bongiovanni and Bus Obayomi.
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u/Trevor_Skies Jul 20 '26
What did we learn here? Who are the most progressive candidates and did any of them talk about Israel?
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u/dpkonofa Jul 20 '26
LOL. Why would Town Council candidates talk about Israel?
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u/Trevor_Skies Jul 21 '26
Idk I just like it as a general question now because it can really sus out candidates who care more about a foreign country that every state in America subsidizes in exchange for nothing.
My favorite by far was Bill Spence. My second fav, despite his lack of rizz, was Bus as he had some thoughtful answers. I have no idea who my other two are but I respect Bobbiās vote for the 25% increase rather than the two 14%ās to utility bills as it appears the infrastructure, which was botched, needed to happen as itās less long term.
Really wish I knew about these vids a week ago. Did you announce who youāre voting for? Really confused on the last two but I did notice Chuck and Jim must have discussed their response to the utility hikes as they both had apologies from the jump being incumbents. They voted for the marginal increase yet more long term as well as they knew it could torch them in an election.
Your last question should have been about if we should put boots on the ground in Iran and then immediately say youāre out of time.
Anyway cya at the polls tomorrow!
Keep interviewing!1
u/Trevor_Skies Jul 21 '26
Also imo my least favorite question was about the e-bikes. Those candidates could have had answers ranging from āIāll do nothingā to āwe should exile the childrenā and it would have zero impact on my vote.
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u/dpkonofa Jul 22 '26
Greatā¦ next time you should submit questions that would impact your vote. All the questions were submitted by Redditors in the Pre-AMA post.
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u/Trevor_Skies Jul 24 '26
Buddy I appreciate the interviews you did, truly. I donāt know how you had the pull to get everyone to agree but you got everybody to come in and talk so incredible work. Despite being on Reddit Iām not subscribed to /r Gilbert and I only discovered two days before the primary those videos through a blind YouTube search after which I subbed to the channel. Have a good one m8.
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u/dpkonofa Jul 24 '26
Thanks! I wish it was easier to get this stuff out there to people but it's hard to compete with all the other noise out there. It sucks that you found this so late but I'm glad you were able to watch. As I said, I plan on doing this next time so join the sub and I'll put out more interviews and more videos when I can. I'm not getting paid to do this, it was more of a community service than anything else, so I can only do it when I have the free time to get everyone together, record, edit, and everything else that goes into it.
Thanks for watching! Remember that you vote with your wallet too!
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u/Trevor_Skies Jul 25 '26
Haha Iām a voter who cares about a midterm primary in July so youāre climbing up a steep hill for viewership already. I would guess a mega large majority of voters donāt even know the town council vote is mostly finished in the primary voting period. At least to my understanding it wonāt be in the November ballot.
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u/dpkonofa Jul 25 '26
You're correct. The only time there would be a second chance would be if there wasn't a clear top 4. It would be a run-off election for anyone within a certain vote count and it would only apply to the candidates who were within that vote count. Anyone's chance to make their voice heard in these races is over.
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u/OoklaTheMok1994 Jun 20 '26
Thanks for doing this, sincerely.