Who is the mayor of Guadalupe? What to know about Valerie Molina
Valerie Molina was first elected mayor of Guadalupe in 2016. She was born and raised in Guadalupe, and her family has been in the community since the 1950s — before the town was incorporated — when her grandma settled in the area.
In Guadalupe, "our families are generational," Molina said. "We know who our neighbors are." Today, much of her family still lives in the town, including her first cousin, Vice Mayor Ricardo Vital.
Molina said she was spurred to work to better her hometown upon returning to Guadalupe in 2012 after spending 12 years living in Maricopa. Her son joined the Tempe Guadalupe Little League, but injured himself because of all the dips in the field, she said. When she asked the Town Council to improve the parks in the area, she said that the council wasn’t responsive. “I just noticed, I’ve been gone all these years and my town hasn’t changed,” she said.
In her full-time job as the Native American Program Coordinator for Tempe Union High School District, Molina helps students graduate and create plans for their future, while also removing barriers — whether it’s by paying for them to take college courses while in high school, helping them participate in sports by paying associated fees, taking them on college tours, setting them up with mentors or helping them with credit recovery. She's held this role since the mid-2000s.
Molina said one of her accomplishments as mayor has been giving stability to the Guadalupe Town Council. She first ran for mayor in 2016 alongside Vital and councilmembers Anita Coto Soto and Elvira Armenta-Osuna. Together, they ran under the motto "United We Stand." The four agreed that they would be respectful of each other regardless of differences in opinion, in order to put Guadalupe in a positive light, Molina said. In November 2022, Molina ran with councilmembers Mary Bravo and Joe Sánchez.
Molina and five other members of the Guadalupe Town Council are members of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. Pascua Yaqui Tribe members make up more than 3,500 of the town's approximately 5,300 residents, Molina said. Close partnerships with the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council have been important to the Guadalupe community, Molina said. This was especially true when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she said. In 2020, Guadalupe had one of the highest infection rates in Maricopa County. Rallying support from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Native Health, and Arizona State University, Molina worked to bring testing and vaccines to the community. The town instituted monthly COVID-19 vaccine and education efforts.
Molina also cites recruiting a town manager and increasing the town's revenue reserves from about $800,000 to almost $4 million as highlights of her time as mayor. These changes have helped to make improvements in the community, she said, including to finish upgrading the town's main road, Avenida del Yaqui.
Molina is working with the Maricopa Community Colleges to build a scholarship program to help Guadalupe youth, especially students who aren’t eligible for federal financial aid, attend college or get a trade certificate.
Her term expires in November 2024.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Who is the mayor of Guadalupe? What to know about Valerie Molina
