PHOENIX — After defeating incumbent David Ortega, Lisa Borowsky has been elected to serve as the mayor of Scottsdale, the Valley's sixth-largest city.
In a sit-down interview with 12News, Borowsky said she has big ideas for new development in Scottsdale and wants new projects to fall in line with the "high-end reputation" the city has earned. That means fewer apartment complexes.
"We don't want to be average, we don't want to be downtown Phoenix. We don't want to have a ton of high density in our community," Borowsky told 12News. "We've had really an overrun of apartment complexes that have come across all parts of the city and it's really, it has not been thoughtful in that a lot of cities, they focus it in one certain area, so it's not impacting the quality of life of neighborhoods."
Borowsky doesn't want to lose the city's reputation as an upscale community.
"I believe we are, our history, I'm a lifelong Scottsdale resident, actually a Valley native, and we've earned our high-end reputation and No. 1 spot for tourism in the Southwest because we are a high-quality, upscale community. The projects and the development that comes before the council should evidence that."
When asked if she wanted to see more affordable housing in the area she said government should not meddle in the private industry and pricing.
"I do not believe in the government fixing the price for housing," Borowsky said. "I think that's a free-market issue and developers build what they build and they charge the prices to consumers and consumers participate."
She claimed Scottsdale does have affordable housing. If you have a spouse, that is.
"We do have affordable housing in Scottsdale. A strong volunteer on my team is a realtor and she would frequently pull up searches and someone earning a nurse's salary or teacher's salary, times two, could find a $300-400,000 property they could live in. And there wasn't just one or two, there were a couple of hundred or 400 in one case. So that's misleading, I believe."
Borowsky also talked about her day-one plans to reign in the budget by re-establishing the Citizen's Budget Commission.
"They were responsible for taking deep dives into departmental spending," Borowsky said.
The council was made up of seven community members appointed by the council and the then-mayor Jim Lane.
"They were instrumental in reducing our spending without residents feeling the pinch, if you would," Borowsky said. "We didn't have to cut services, we cut the budget by roughly 15 percent."
Borowsky said it is important to her to improve parks, improve and protect the preserve and fully fund the fire and police departments.
Watch the full interview with Borowsky in the above video player.
Up to Speed
Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe today.