[Music] [Applause] hey boat sheriff lamb here welcome back to the pcso podcast I'm here with my co-host Nevada and we're here with one of our supervisors supervisor Pete Rios I've honestly been really excited about this for those of you don't know but I'll let Pete explain a little bit more but we have in the county we have five supervisors and they basically are like our City Council the people that help make the decisions and and the reason we're doing this podcast because we want to talk about things all things pcs are all things Pinal County pcs so we want to talk about businesses we want to talk about law enforcement now tell us you're the supervisor before we get into your background you're the supervisor for which district I'm the supervisor for supervisorial district 1 which encompasses the mountain area that we dearly referred to as the copper corridor a lot of mining up in that area that's what they're you know famous for not as much as what there used to be but still mining is is the number one industry I also represent in district 1 Central Pinal County which a lot of people forget and I do represent what we're sitting right now Florence Eloy and Coolidge then I swing around and I pick up Saddlebrook ranch and Oracle and from there I go to Mammoth and salmon wild and Dudley building Winkelman and Kearney and superior and then back around and everything that's in between but typically what's in between is a lot of prison cells yeah have the state prison county jails Federal Detention and I supposedly represent the inmates as well but clearly we all know they don't have any rights so they never call me for anything nor does the county provide any services there it's either the privates that provide the services to the inmate the state or the county through your office of course that's a big district like if you for those of you who'd are familiar with Pinal County that is a huge district we have a big mountain range right in between that so you've got to do a lot of that's a lot traveling in a lot of even though a lot of those are smaller towns there's still a lot of area and people that that you represent yeah and initially when I first started back in 2009 as the County Supervisor because I had been a state senator for over 20 years they offered me a County car well I wasn't used to using anybody else's car but mine when I was in the legislature it's your personal vehicle yeah and I was putting a lot of miles on my vehicle because then I represented a district that went from Oracle all the way to Allendale who from the reservation Indian Reservation north of Scottsdale all the way south of Arizona City and everything in between so I I put a lot of miles on my vehicles so when they offered me a County vehicle I said nah I said I'll just drop my vehicle so what the first term the first full four years my poor little 2007 Mustang I put so many miles on that thing that I eventually going into my second term I said you know what the county manager was leaving Fritz berry now he was taking a job in Scottsdale I said you don't know what are you gonna do with your vehicle linnaeus I'm just turning it back to sleep I said I'll take it that's a high miles ago and it had about 90,000 as it I'll take it so I use that vehicle now so that really helps me get around the district without having to tear up my own personal car so now you've had a long cuz you mention the legislation legislature you've had a long career in politics and I've been fascinated I've been really excited to talk to you because you are a longtime Pinal County resident as well tell us a little bit about you Pete Rios and then your your background and politics and and just where you what your background is in yeah well and a lot of people know me because I've been around for so long that a lot of people do know my background and where I grew up and where I went to school and who I affiliated and associated with but a lot of people don't know that as a kid I was born in Hayden Arizona I was raised in Hayden Arizona but in the 50s Hayden Arizona was a very segregated mine community where mexican-americans live on one side of the wash white folk lived on the other side of the wash and never shall the two mix until you go to school and then when we went to school the schools were over there but in our Barrios we call it San Pedro where we we were raised and if you lived up the slope they referred to that as San Miguel so there was even rivalry in that particular little side of town but nevertheless we only spoke Spanish so when I went to school and people will speak to me in English I mean I just look at them and smile I am a no clue what they were saying so when my teacher would even ask me what's your name I'm going like what does that even mean what is my name I've never heard that in English if they have said in Spanish for Monty I must what I said no but that's another funny story because when I was in second grade there was - Pedro's in the class and the teacher said Pedro's by then I I know how to answer that question and and then the other one was Pedro Santa Maria and then he put his hand up and then she looks at us and she said can't have that what can't have two painters in the same class from here on out you are Peter it's pointed to me in your paper then I went home I told my mom I said she just changing my name a lot of Latinos at that time do not want to challenge authority and even today and and they have a lot of respect for authority and they think that anybody that's in a teacher or an administrator they're always right so my mom says well son she knows best and I'm thinking but nevertheless so from there on now I became oh yeah it was it I was Peter and then it got shortened to Pete in high school and then I just kept it but but nevertheless it was of a great learning experience growing up in that type of an environment because I came from a very large family there was 14 OS and in our parents where they fallen fully divided seven brothers and seven sisters and I was number 13 at the Annika though towards the last so by the time I was born my older brothers were back from the war they were already married and some of them after I was born had kids so I have nephews and nieces that are basically my age so when we used to play on the school ground around in the neighborhood and they got a little dirt keep that carb under them so many things but but nevertheless like I was second-to-the-last all of us were born in home even though we had a hospital there towards the end and mom could have gone to the hospital she refused so she knew the doctor by first name and she had so many kids that she says no I'm not going you're coming to the house and he said ok you know have somebody called me because not everybody had a phone in those days so they would call the doctor and he show up and deliver the baby at all yeah so the last one but the youngest of the family's name is Tommy when he was delivered at home the doctor said I've delivered so many of your kids Angela that's my mom's name she said he said I got a baptized one of them I said he says I want to be these kids Godfather so he became the god father mother little brother so anyway that's a Nicole that's a great community to grow up in is your childhood home still there no it got demolished they got demolished probably 30 years ago a lot of those homes in San Pedro and in Haiti it's a dying community the mind is still in full operation they still have the smelter at a circle but the community itself my name is good it's a good livelihood for a lot of people a lot of guys especially when they came back from the war became carpenters plumbers electricians the trades that the copper mines offered but we all realize that it was putting out a lot of pollutants that are not good for human beings people had to make a decision do we move away and find another job which was going to be hard to do especially good-paying jobs because the mines paid well I mean everybody had a bright no four wheel truck draw a four wheel drive truck especially after a contract because they knew they were good for another four years you know they could pay off the truck so they wouldn't believe but the decision was made by a lot of families including my parents consciously that even though we know it's not healthy to be living under and at that time it was two smokestacks Asarco had a smelter Kennecott Copper Corporation had a smelter and you know this is where dad works and he's not gonna find anything better that's gonna pay him but what the mines but nevertheless it it was a good area to grow up in I went on Hayden high school and because the student population was kind of low I mean it wasn't a big school got to compete in all the major sports got to be in student government even though this is something that that the grocery magnate said and he wanted on his tombstone when he passed any Bashan oh yeah that was a bad boy but I hope everybody considers me a good man and that's pretty much where I come from because I need to look back and now if I'll refer to a couple of things in him but that that's that's a type of a folk that came out of there but in school it gave me an opportunity even though I did have some problems with your badge it gave me an opportunity to participate and when I went out for football or basketball or baseball they wanted me to both track I said I can't do all four that's crazy but I would make the team even as a freshman it's a freshman I didn't play on the Freshman team I played on the JV towards the end of the season they moved me up to the varsity and it's like a who hears of that a freshman playing on the varsity and also it was good recognition but it gave us a lot of positive strokes at that normally you wouldn't get in another school so it gave me the idea and it gave me the opportunity to know that I could succeed even though I had failed a couple of times I could succeed and even as a kid once I learned a little bit of English they had tracking back then so kids were placed in in the class depending on their ability on how they tested so they had tracks a B and C smartest kids were a meaning over kids would be not so smart kids we're seeing I was always in the 8th class and I was started making the Honourable so that in itself gave me some recognitions where a lot of teachers would give me more challenging work and I was able to do it so I appreciate growing up in a small town I mean I can talk talk my experience for a long time but I know you have other questions well what led you to politics because how many years have you been in politics in the state of Arizona that's a lot so how you what at what age and what drove you to get into politics well I mentioned that I had gotten in a little bit of trouble as a jewel and I pointed at your start a head mean I got in trouble with the law when I was 15 I was driving my dad's truck without a license police officers what everybody did back then care there's a particular one pulled me over and and gave me a citation for run for driving my dad's truck without a driver's license I mean I couldn't get one I was 15 so they set up a court date for me and I had asked the chief of police I said does my dad have to go yes of course he has to go you're a minor I was more afraid of my dad than I have or the court but little did I know in and then later that Jacob when he saw me I think I was going to the theater and he pulled me aside and hey you know why you don't have to bring your dad being go to court by yourself I talked to the magistrate he says you can go by yourself okay cool man Thanks no well I didn't was getting set up so neverland's I went by myself and the Chief of Police started ranting and raving that I was our control I was a kid that was a real incorrigible and blah blah blah so the magistrate said okay he says your punishment is going to be ten days in jail oh and I'm thinking 15 years old dude what are you thinking and then he says and but if you work for the town we'll give you five days in jail is anything and got me by the arm the jail was next door it wasn't until I heard the iron door slammed the idling their reality nothing this fool really did it and I'm thinking maybe it's just trying to be part of this scared-straight and maybe he's going to live beyond a few minute uh-huh no such thing he was serious I spent five days in jail because I said okay I'll work I'll work and every morning one of the police officers will pick you up I go work with the Public Works Department out on the road cleaning up brush and whatever and then one of the guys says hey Rios can you move the dump truck over here I said kidding me whatever so when you ask what what what kind of motivated me to get into politics if that was one major incident that had a major impact on me because I knew of the injustice and I'm thinking I don't want this to happen to other something's happen to me I can take it and I mean the reputation that I do now of course was that uh people were afraid of me people or me the kids because of men he's a con now man he's been in jail I don't know it but I tried to do everything to show him no I'm not and I'm not a bad guy I mean just because I was in jail for five days at the age of 15 were there no kids they all and you know it did that motivate you to get into Social Work that motivated me to go to college because what then then I got in trouble another time and then one of my coaches pulled me aside and I was at that time in eighth eighth grade going into high school and he's basically said uh sit on the economy table is so on you gotta slow and means to thick-headed sit down and I said what's up good he says look you've been getting in trouble and I know what you're trying to do you don't like the way things are being run in certain places and you don't like certain things the way they're taking place in school and you're trying to change things but the way you're going about it is the wrong way this is you might as well just go but your head up against that brick wall because that's all you're going to get there's a busted-up hit this is you want to change things you want to change society just learn the rules learn the rules but learn him better than anybody else you want to play their game and then they got nothing on you especially I've learned them better you know that kind of I thought it had gone in and out of my head but it really stuck because then I spent seven days in jewelry after I had been in jail for something else yeah we're breaking and entering into a little grocery store there in San Pedro right so I love us Rogaine no took Levi's and albums you know didn't have any time using yeah wasn't in her CDs at that time it was maybe three LP yeah and then they had him and we knew the guy that owned that had a case of beer into the walk-in so we took the case of beer nevertheless we showed up back our homes at 6:00 in the morning at 6:30 there's a knock on the door its police so they take us to juvie up and glow so they put us in solitary confinement in a particular cell all together I mean not together all in the same building but you separate south and for six days they let us out one time to take a shower we had a lot of time to think so one of the things that happened to me was I'm thinking about what the coach told me because here I am again in trouble and I'm not changing anything just making it worse for myself so I thought about what he said if you want to change things if you want to improve society learn the words I made up my mind at that split second that come hell or high water I was going to go to college and I was going to learn the rules and for me the rules were the loss so that was my first step towards knowing that I was going to get into some political office I didn't know what then but that that's pretty much what sparked me is those two incidents that the jail incident in and then the coach telling me to learn the rule to know did you go to you they know what I did is the year that I went was the following year that we're gonna open CAC but I didn't want to wait for another year and this is back in 69 the other thing that happened is I did a lot of things that are young age by the time I was a junior in high school I was married I have a child my child is a state senator right now but whenever that I've got Eric comfort sighs yeah and a good kid I mean she's got a great head on her shoulders but yeah I asked my dad it's in my girlfriend pregnant what do I do I didn't want to get married because I knew the school board had a policy if you're married you couldn't play sports anymore and you couldn't be in the Honor Society you couldn't be in student government you could only go to school and so my dad is all of this stuff negative stuff is going to happen if I get married I said and they say the guy is going to get the same punishment as the girl because the girl shows the guy doesn't but he's responsible for him my dad just said your child ya need out no this is not your blood you take care of them so marry so nevertheless social so from there I mean it was like okay and when I go to college I mean I graduated from high school so I worked a year and a half at the mines build up a little mess they made statements of whatever you fall into some money and I started going to school at Phoenix College okay because this one was not opened so I figured the transition from a graduating class of 44 to go to ASU that had at that time about 40 50 thousand students I figure I'll go to Phoenix College they only had ten thousand I was still lost you know but but nevertheless when they're two years got my associates transferred to Arizona State University got my bachelor's when to work for the state for a year they came back and went back and got a two-year master's degree in social services administration and then you did social services how many years did you serve in the legislature how many I will I serve twenty years and years on a state Senate and then four years in the house after the Senate because I had turned out in in the Senate so it was either go home or run the other team I never wanted to serve in the house I knew the folk that worked over there as a matter of fact we had a a former Speaker of the House that had to run for the Senate and he won because he was turned out of the house and then he wanted to go back to the house so why don't you want to stay here in the Senate yeah he says you know he says it's like school in education or here in the Senate you guys are tours I told you address each other is senator you're so cordial is it's like beating the library over here it says are there in the house I've been every he says anything name of chaos I didn't like it I don't want it know exactly what we were doing and you know and down the line but but nevertheless though those are the years that I served in the legislature me being a Democrat in a Republican state mm-hmm it's probably tough and then being a Democrat Republican County it's probably tough how do you get things done so well I think I'm going to working across the aisle when I was in in the in the Arizona State Senate in in 91 92 I became the first Latino president of the Arizona Senate in the history of the state of Arizona not the first first and only but nobody else has done that yeah but I was able to get full support me for president and the only way you do it is by getting the other 29 senators or the majority of them to vote for you could be President so I figured you know what if I can succeed in getting them to support me for president yeah I can succeed at anything and I just started reaching across the aisle where other Democrats would like some Republicans at that time wouldn't reach across the aisle for Democratic support now they don't but back then they would but I I made that part of Pete Rios I'm gonna be bipartisan I can work with anybody it doesn't matter who it is I mean if I could get along with Russell Pierce at that time I could get along with anybody I mean the majority of Latinos and the majority of Democrats hated Russell Pierce peers with a passion and they wouldn't ask me why do you still talk to him I mean why are you nice to him I say he's a human being to begin with and I said secondly he's got his principles you know the guy takes his positions because he believes in what he believes well he was a deputy sure right and he was in Welland okay and he went to the part there's a whole bunch of yaki and Mexican kids there and he got into a hassle with the kids and he started wrestling over his gun and they shot his finger off and that's one thing reason that I know he was not very fond of minorities in Latino then his son who was years years later a deputy he went to sir some papers at some trailer court up in the Mesa area and he got shot through the door right in the chest they didn't know whether he was gonna live or not so I know where he's coming from I mean if somebody of a particular group did that to mine and it probably wouldn't be too fond of them either I mean I will tolerate it but he did it so I know where he was coming from so I kind of and in a lot of it goes back to to my education having been in sociology taking hundreds of hours in psychology dealing with complex families that don't get along absolutely so I can understand people and I I can work with me I can tell you having been here a year and nine months as the sheriff and working with the board you know for Republicans and you be the lone Democrat I can always say that I I find you to be one of the most consistent members of the board and you I know I usually have a pretty good idea what your values are and I appreciate that you stick to those values and I think you represent very well the people of the copper corridor I you're a good voice for them and I know you work hard for them speaking of the copper corridor what are some of the things that you would like to see moving forward as far as progression in it and how can we involve force how can the Sheriff's Office help you in your district well answering your last question first I think since you came in to office I think this office has been more responsive to that area the east side of the county than the previous administration because the previous administration removed a lot of the deputies brought them down to San Tan Valley and even though we could use more deputies in the area at least the response time has been reduced people feel that you all are available and they appreciate that so I think you're providing more services to them that area that met them they had seen in the previous four years but the the copper corridor unlike this part of my County the central penile County area of Florence called the g1 it's very different because here you have the infrastructure especially Eloy and Coolidge they got interstate 10 interstate 8 Union Pacific Railroad a lot of things happening there I mean a lot of growth and development that's going to come into the area unlike the copper corridor we have one road one highway in one night way out and that's state route 77 so when you try to attract other businesses they're looking at like how do we move product out of here we you got a two lane highway and also that really really limits what we can do we've been focusing on ecotourism which has helped because we have our country is beautiful up there in the mountain area with rivers with the arrow viper Creek we've got a lot of different birds that come through there and settle in there and we've had a lot of our launchers yeah a lot of people don't realize I own this fair as in here or your area it's in that district and now we've recently got a very popular attraction there which is the zip lines in Oracle I mean they're four months in at the ends so that's a good attraction and then we also have the st. Carlos Apache Tribe that moved in and brought a small casino to the area which I'm hoping that they can develop further so that they can attract more traffic off state route 77 especially the people from Tucson and in that area as they're going up to the White Mountains for fishing camping or in the winter you know for for scheme that they'll pull off but the casino doesn't have a nice restaurant yeah and that's what I've told the chairman of the tribe I see if you don't have a place for people to eat and they don't want to gamble there's no reason for them to come off the highway and come up here it's only less than roughly a little over a quarter mile to get to the casino and there they're just not there yet there's some issues with the quality of water not the quantity of water and I think they need to put in a water treatment plant before it grows more than they need a vegas-style buffet yeah well what are you what do you have what kind of message do you have for the people of Pinal County and for your district what is your message that you'd like to get across them I think that Pinal County is ideally located between what I used to call the two-headed monster two-headed monster being Maricopa in Pima County and back then 2025 years ago I wasn't sure whether that was a blessing or a curse and back then it was a curse because nobody came to Pinal County they all went to Pima or Maricopa County because that's where the urban centers were located I'm finding now that we are ideally located and it's a blessing now because Maricopa and Pima County have about hit their limits and people are discovering and when I think people companies corporations are discovering Canal County they're wanting to come here they're wanting to locate here and when you get companies like lucid motors that wants to invest and they just got a billion dollars from the Saudis to invest in Pinal County for their plans for electric battery powered vehicles when you have companies like Nikola that wants to locate in Coolidge but in reality it's Illinois because they're further down but it's it's part of incorporated city of Hulett and they're gonna manufacture a semi tractor-trailer rigs that are again over less in many cases but it's a thing of the future but they're coming in there's going to be a growth in the Eloi a Coolidge area that nobody is expecting that's why we need to get busy and win this lawsuit that's been filed against them the voters of penile County for the half cent on the Regional Transportation Authority because we need to start developing the north-south corridor that would run from Apache Junction through Florence through Coolidge through picanha and connect with interstate 10 and that's what we want to use some of those monies were about the Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit that the language was not clear and there was a taxi tour tax judge in Maricopa County that agreed with them so we're in the process of appealing that to the appellate court and hope to get a favorable ruling so that we can start funding some of these projects that we need to fund it and Pinal County you know I had a lot of people that said Hawaii why you for this reasonable trans I said look we need better roads we had 26 fatalities last year because of this 8 that we had recently we're probably going to exceed that this year and so we have to have better roadways in this county what I was for was putting it in front of the voter and what we did was as as County officials we put an optic option in front of the voters none of the officials were the ones that passed this and so the voters that pass that's what I'm saying the voters wanted better roadways so hopefully that will get resolved because I agree there's some good things come to the county and we need the infrastructure the roadways to be able to accommodate these big businesses that want to come the only the only restriction that we may encounter in Pinal County and it's getting to be more real as time goes by there's water water will dictate the size of Pinal County I still envision in five to ten years probably 10 years this county will be pushing a million people who populate I agree but I think water may put a limit on how big we could grow I think water will put a limit on a lot of our farming and ranching current and and we're facing that right now because we we need to work with the other states that takes EAP water and that's something that the governor and some other folks are working on to see if we can come to some resolution on that because the first ones they get cut off in terms of farming is peanuts right that's an issue we always have to keep in the back of our minds well supervisor real estate over having us today thank you frankly for all your service to the state to the county I know the area the people in your area are lucky to have a representative that cares so much for their district I know that Pete does I've seen it firsthand so thank you for what you do and for your support of the sheriff's office we appreciate it and we look forward to working with you Phil a long time so thanks for coming indeed taking the time you hear in a podcast here with supervisor Rios I'm sure will happen back in the future but god bless everybody take care and remember just do right thank you you