New Chandler City Councilman: 'I Want To Do A Lot Of Good'
Chandler City Council has appointed its newest member after Vice Mayor Nora Ellen stepped down to run for a seat in Arizona’s Legislature.
The council unanimously selected Jeremy McClymonds from a pool of 36 applications. His term runs through January 2021.
KJZZ recently talked to McClymonds about why he wanted to serve on Chandler City Council.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What do you do?
I manage wealth for a living. I have a small private practice here in Chandler.
Tell me about your background.
I was born in Prescott. At a very young age my parents divorced and my dad wanted the great adventure so he moved us to Alaska. I did the whole K-12 experience in Homer, Alaska, ultimately got my degree in Anchorage, Alaska, got my degree in finance, had a great opportunity. I worked all the way through college for First National Bank of Alaska. At the end I had a great opportunity in portfolio management; if I would have stayed there I’m sure it would have been a blossoming career. I had great relationships, friends, everybody up there, ultimately met my wife up there. I wanted warmer weather. So I came back to Arizona. I still have a lot of family here. Zero family in Chandler. It was just business opportunities that brought me here 15 years ago. Just fell in love with Chandler and kept looking to get more and more engaged in the community and looked to give back where I could and I’ve done that.
Why did you want to be on the Chandler City Council?
I wanted to serve on City Council because I wanted to make an impact in a new and challenging way for the Ccity of Chandler. The city is a place that my family, friends, neighbors, people that I care about call home. I just believe that with my experience and skill set I can make Chandler a better place to live for them. Throughout my career I’ve strived to work with local organizations that significantly improve the quality of life for the community at large and the bottom line is occupying the seat on city council is my opportunity to maximize the good I can do for the 257,000 people that reside in Chandler.
What are the skills you bring to the council?
A significant strength of mine is my financial and business expertise. Financial and retirement planning is my experience, education and livelihood. I thrive in the world of spreadsheets, analysis, investments, budgets and I excel at and enjoy the kind of fiscal management responsibilities that come with serving on council … Another I strength I bring to council is business development — sales and membership growth in several organizations, I’ve held that role with those organizations. One being the Chandler Chamber, another one being the Chandler Compadres ... I believe we can do great things for Chandler when we work with all of our community stakeholders.
What do you think the biggest priority need to be in order for Chandler to move forward?
I believe our biggest challenge is navigating the build out. Chandler’s developed a reputation as a high-tech community and we’ll continue to attract knowledge-based employers and employees who desire an urban living environment ... With limited land resources it will become increasingly important and difficult for the city to seek redevelopment of obsolete sites and best use development of vacant properties to expand economic development opportunities.
How do you make sure you hear from Chandler residents?
Ultimately you’ve got to be an engaged and active citizen that participates in a lot of diversified activities in this city and I do that ... I have social media across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Between those three I call it Chandler loyal. I am Chandler loyal, and you should be too. I’ve just for years posted thousands of posts about businesses that I find interesting for the city of Chandler. I don’t even promote about my own business. I truly do it just for the connection and the feedback and learning about what makes the community tick. So engagement on a social media level and engagement on getting out there and meeting more and more people and listening to them.
What do you want Chandler residents to know about you?
In a nutshell, I want to make Chandler a better place to live. I really think that we already went from good to great. We are a great city, a world-class city and I just want to see us go from great to elite. There’s not really a lot of things wrong with Chandler. It’s just tweaking to improve and I want to do that by continuing to foster a strong economy and also utilize technology where we can to improve efficiencies. We already have a killer economic thriving city and I just want to continue fostering that.
Final words
The bottom line is I want to do a lot of good and I’m ready to go to work and do that and there’s going to be a lot to learn. You know, I’m going to be frank. I don’t know everything, and I’m happy to learn along the way and really learn from other people in similar roles so we can work together as a team.
