Brooke St. George Wants to Bring New Leadership to the Tempe City Council

The City of Tempe has three openings on its City Council in 2026. 

Brooke St. George would like to fill one of them. 

A committed activist who has spent time as a member of the Tempe City Council staff, Brooke St. George would like to bring new leadership and vision to the Council as a new member after the elections in 2026. 

On her reasons for running for Tempe City Council, Ms. St. George wrote on her campaign website:

“I believe local government should be accessible, transparent, and people-first. I’m running because Tempe needs voices that reflect the realities of all its residents – including renters, working parents, and those who’ve felt left out of the conversation.

I’ve never wanted to be a politician. I want to be a public servant. One who listens, shows up, and fights for a Tempe that works for everyone…”

“…This campaign isn’t about me – it’s about us. It’s about our families and what they need to thrive. It’s about making Tempe a place where we can raise our kids, where we can afford to live, and where our elected representatives listen when we speak.

So let’s do this together. Let’s build a Tempe that works for everyone.”

Ms. St. George graciously took the time to interview with Blog for Arizona to discuss her candidacy for the Tempe City Council. 

The questions and her responses are below.

Please tell the readers two reasons you would like to run for the Tempe City Council. 

“I’m running for Tempe City Council because Tempe is my hometown and my heart. I’ve always been a little nerdy about politics and community service. From my time as a child on the Tempe Mayors Youth Advisory Commission and as the Student Council President at Kyrene Middle School, to my time as an adult acting as the PTO President at that same middle school and my time spent working as Mayor and Council staff in Tempe City Hall, I love Tempe. Serving my community on the City Council would be the honor of a lifetime. I’m also running to be a bridge for what I see as a widening gap between Tempe citizens and city leadership.”

“Tempe has always valued community input. We put issues to the voters in a way that a lot of other cities don’t. Rather than major decisions being made by one person or one body of elected officials, I’d like to advocate that we all return to the table and come up with creative solutions to modern problems as a community. As a growing city, if people feel like they aren’t welcome at that table, then that’s just another problem that we need to solve. I’m like, ‘let’s build a bigger table.’ So those are probably the top two reasons that I jumped into the race.”

If elected, what are at least two issues you will focus on as a member of the Tempe City Council?

“The first issue I’d like to focus on is the city’s relationship with local mutual aid organizations. Once upon a time, everyone worked together to help the less fortunate in our community. And in recent years, it seems like it’s become some sort of competition, with drastic legal consequences for some and negative results for our neighborhoods, parks, and particularly for the unhoused community. Tempe is already doing a lot of great work in this area, but so are a lot of other local groups who have a passion for service, and I don’t like seeing those groups so discouraged from doing the good, extremely necessary work that they’re doing. So, I’d like to figure out how to work together towards solutions instead of the current divisiveness that we’ve been seeing, because that’s not helping anybody. At the very least, it’s not helping the most unfortunate among us who need our help the most. That would be issue number one for me.

Another issue that I would like to concentrate on is housing, and I don’t just mean more housing, but truly affordable housing, housing for growing families, and for our aging community. I’ve been running political campaigns for several years, so I feel like I’ve knocked on every door in Tempe, and behind so many of those doors are residents in their 80s and 90s living alone, struggling, and lonely. I would love to see more residential communities for older adults here in Tempe, like Friendship Village and others, so the folks who have lived in Tempe their whole lives don’t have to move away to unfamiliar communities in their golden years. I don’t want to see them have to retreat to Sun City or Sun Lakes or just be outside of what they’ve come to think of as home and be far away from their favorite grocery store, or where they walk their dog, or anything like that. So, I would like to see some attention paid to what I think is going to become even more of an issue in the coming decade and build some more residential communities for them, so that they can come together and have their own kind of spaces to get social again and to not feel so alone – to have a community.

I also see that transition sort of freeing up some of the single-family homes in our neighborhoods for young families to move into, so that we can kind of solve two birds with one stone. We can populate our local public schools, because they’ve been seeing declining enrollment. In so many of the neighborhoods, people aren’t moving out of them, and then young families can’t move into them. So, it’s kind of like a double-edged sword. But of course I’d also love to see more truly affordable housing. Not as lip service, but as a real commitment from developers, whether that’s in a community benefits agreement that we demand from everybody coming towards the city that a portion of this isn’t just going to be a “pledge to Hometown for All,” but their dedication to making a portion of whatever they’re building – or maybe even a separate project – but just to build more truly affordable housing – not just market rate, but actually affordable housing in Tempe.”

Please explain at least two reasons voters should elect you for the Tempe City Council. 

“Two of the things that I pride myself on the most are that I’m a very responsible hard worker and that I’m trustworthy. I often joke that for decades my friends have consistently asked me to do two things for them: watch their kids and their pets. I think that when people trust you with their most precious loved ones, that says something about character. I also back up my words with action. I just have this internal combustion engine that I operate with – just a constant ball of energy, but I show up. I roll up my sleeves, and I do the work.

I don’t want to make campaign promises that I don’t intend to keep. But I will promise that, if elected, I won’t just show up for photo ops or to be a figurehead – I will show up and do the work. I will read and understand the ordinances I’m voting on. I will listen to all the various perspectives on any given issue, and I will vote in a way that I think is best for all residents of Tempe. So, if I make a commitment, I keep it. If I say we need more trees in Tempe, it’s not just lip service. I’ll be out there digging the holes myself. Finally, I spent the last two years working in City Hall. I know all the players in the city. I know I have a good inside perspective of what’s working, and also what I think isn’t working as well, and I would really like a chance to get in there and see if I can fix some of the broken parts.”

Can you share with us how you will reach out to voters and convince them that you are one of the right candidates for the Tempe City Council?

“I’ve been in this for a month now, since I decided to throw my hat into this ring. I have been truly surprised and delighted with the outpouring of encouragement that I’ve received from community leaders, and the offers of volunteer support for this campaign from people who ask ‘how can I help?’ I think this highlights the hunger that people have for change in our leadership. Somebody told me I was ‘breathing a breath of fresh air into the race’ and I just felt so flattered by that, because as a non-incumbent, I won’t be able to count on dollars raised. This campaign is going to be about connecting with voters.

Personally, I plan to spend the next seven months talking to every single voter that I can, and I have a team of passionate volunteers behind me, ready to do the same. So, I am looking forward to knocking on doors. Once you canvass, you kind of get addicted to it, and to having those conversations in person with voters. I’ve got a lot of people offering to hold house parties, invite their friends over, just open up their homes to let me come in and talk to their friends and neighbors about why I’m doing this. I think the entire campaign is really just going to be about talking to people and building those relationships, and kind of hopefully word-of-mouth spreading that I am the right decision to make in March.”

To what extent have you been using social media to advance your message?

“Quite a bit. Actually, as somebody who is – I mean, much to the chagrin of my friends – I have been quite vocally ‘off social media’ for a long time. I wasn’t on Facebook. Then I made this announcement, and all of a sudden, it’s just been like Facebook’s my new life. Facebook is my new best friend, as well as this campaign. I was finally convinced by my friends to jump onto TikTok. I have been like an ‘absolutely no TikTok’ person for a really long time, but they were like ‘you have to do this.’ And I think, because TikTok is going to be a way to encourage younger voter turnout, I actually really find this app very easy to use. I made a video about the new crosswalk that we’ve put in down on McClintock south of Warner, and how easy it was to make that video and post, and have it look as professional as it did… So I am now on TikTok, but that is really to kind of ‘meet the voters where they’re at,’ and if that is where the youth of today is hanging out, I want to go into that space to get the word out, and then be able to translate that back to Facebook, where many of our voters are hanging out. Hopefully that kind of engagement and that youthful vigor can drive some new voters to the polls that wouldn’t normally vote in a municipal election.”

Is there anything not covered in the first four questions that you like the readers to know about you and your candidacy for the Tempe City Council?

“I am truly grateful for the incumbents and their time on the Council, and I think that Tempe is ready for some new leadership.”

Please click here to find out more information about Brooke St. George and her candidacy for the Tempe City Council.