Council votes to continue search
By Jon Johnson
SAFFORD – After previously deciding to increase his salary for his increased duties as interim Safford City Manager, the Safford City Council voted 4-3 to keep Eric Bejarano as the interim manager. At the same time, its search for a permanent replacement continues, open to all applicants. Mayor Richard Ortega and Council Members Steve McGaughey, Alma Flores, and Brad Hemphill voted against approving Bejarano for the permanent manager appointment. In contrast, Vice-Mayor Arnold Lopez and Council Members Dusti Brantner and Luke Arbizo voted in favor of it.
Vice Mayor Arnold Lopez brought the agenda item to approve Bejarano as the manager. He said Bejarano has the aptitude and attitude needed for the position. Lopez made a motion to offer Bejarano the position on a one-year contract (typical for the city) and to waive the city’s stipulation that the city manager live within the city limits.
In dissent, Council Member Alma Flores said the city already has a contract with Bejarano to serve as interim city manager, and that the council unanimously voted to keep the position open to all applicants and begin a search.
Council Member Brad Hemphill agreed with Flores and said the hiring process was the same one that brought Bejarano to them in the first place.
“The support that has been shown tonight is important to me, but the process is also important to me,” Hemphill said. “But when we created (the) assistant city manager position, we had an internal candidate who was a finalist who didn’t get the position and had we not done that process then it’s extremely conceivable that this person would have just been promoted and we wouldn’t even have Eric. The process gave us Eric, and I’m not willing to insist that all the other department heads’ high-level positions in the city rise to that level and that we skip that for our most important position, um, so again, that my vote tonight, uh, against this vice mayor will be because of that.”
Council Member Luke Arbizo said he hasn’t seen a local city manager in the 21 years he worked for the city and expressed his strong support for Bejarano.
“It’s not like we’re just going to give it to him,” Arbizo said. “He’s proven himself. He does stuff that we don’t ask him to do. He doesn’t have to do that.”
Council Member Dusti Brantner said offering Bejarano the job was the best path for the city, and that city employees universally belove Bejarano.
Multiple community members, business owners, and others spoke in favor of promoting Bejarano, including former Safford Council Member and Graham County Treasurer Mary Bingham and community service members, including Jon Stewart and Jo Hancock.
Stewart told the council of his experiences working with multiple municipalities and how hard it has been for other cities and towns to find quality managers. He advised that Bejarano is invested in the city and has already been performing the job at a high level.
County Supervisor John Howard, appearing as a business owner rather than in his role as supervisor, told the council that they had already vetted Bejarano when they selected him as assistant city manager.
“You can choose this man,” John Howard said. “You don’t have to go outside. You don’t have to go anywhere. The process has already been done. You’ve vetted him once; why vet him again? And look who you chose. You went for the process, and this is who you chose, so why keep delaying it?”
“So why waste everybody’s time? Let’s get this city moving.”
Thatcher Mayor Jenny Howard spoke to the council on Bejarano’s behalf as a Safford business owner and a previous city of Safford employee.
“Eric is educated,” Jenny Howard said. “He has the experience. He’s vested here. He’s lived here many years. He’s fulfilled the city manager responsibilities and maintained the responsibilities of the assistant city manager. What more do you want? And where do you intend to find it?”
The council previously terminated Safford’s last city manager, John Cassella, without cause during its Dec. 8, 2025, meeting by a 4-3 vote, with Vice Mayor Arnold Lopez and Council Members Dusti Brantner, Alma Flores, and Luke Arbizo voting in favor, and Mayor Richard Ortega and Council Members Steve McGaughey and Brad Hemphill voting against.
That decision came eight months after the council voted 4-3 to increase Cassella’s salary to $190,000 annually, add a $500 monthly contribution to his deferred compensation plan, and approve a generous severance package that includes 12 months of salary and health benefits if terminated without cause. A provision in the contract had protected Cassella from no-cause termination for the first six months following the election of a new council. The council will now continue its search for a permanent replacement.
Bejarano was named Interim City Manager by a vote to serve as acting city manager. At a Jan. 26 council meeting, the council voted unanimously to increase Bejarano’s salary to $168,000 annually retroactively to when he began his increased duties on Dec. 8, 2025. The council also guaranteed that Bejarano would not lose his job if the council chose someone else for the permanent position.
Bejarano was previously selected as the Assistant City Manager in June 2024, after serving as Director of the Eastern Arizona College Small Business Development Center.
Before his time at Eastern Arizona College, he was the business/area manager for Air Methods in southern and central Arizona and western New Mexico for eight years. He has served as an associate faculty member at the University of Phoenix in Tucson and as an independent instructor at Tucson Medical Center/GEICO. He is also an independent instructor for the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, providing child passenger safety courses in the Gila Valley.
Bejarano retired from the Tucson Police Department as a motorcycle patrol officer in 2014. Before his law enforcement career, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps for six years as a telecommunications center watch supervisor (Sgt/E-5). He holds a master’s degree in counseling/human relations and a bachelor’s degree in justice systems policy and planning from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and a doctorate in organizational leadership from Liberty University. He is also a Safford Lion and a member of the Safford Rotary Club. Additionally, Eric serves on the boards for the Graham County Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of Graham and Greenlee Counties.
