Kris Mayes addresses constituent concerns in Flagstaff town hall
- Taylor McCormick
- May 3
- 4 min read
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes visited Flagstaff for a town hall to update constituents on the 12 lawsuits she and other Democratic attorneys general across the country have filed against U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
Directors and researchers whose organizations lost funding and grants for critical projects shared their experiences. From the PROTECT Grant for U.S. Route 89’s drainage repair project to the Environmental Protection Agency grant for resiliency hubs at the Murdoch Center, Market of Dreams and the Community Assistance Teams program, funding has either been delayed or rescinded.
Trump allowed businessman Elon Musk to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to eliminate wasteful spending of federal funds. Some of the sectors impacted by these cuts are health services, environmental protections and education.
“In all of these lawsuits, there are some fundamental tenets if you read them,” Mayes said. “What you’ll see is we are saying: Number one, he is violating the Constitution’s separation of powers. This is Congress’ job. If Donald Trump wants to do any of these things, he must go to Congress to do it.”
Attendees shared their experiences and concerns around the cuts and layoffs. The most common question asked was how Flagstaff’s residents can be resilient and provide for the most vulnerable communities facing homelessness, food insecurity and mental health crises.
Flagstaff Shelter Services Executive Director Ross Schaefer said it serves more than 300 homeless individuals every day. She said 34% of its funding comes from the Department of Economic Security and Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Emergency Solutions Grant, not accounting for the cost of continual care and sustainable housing solutions.
“The number of private funders and individual giving is already dipping,” Schaefer said. “This fear is pervasive, and it’s moving through people. Foundations that give to us chose not to give this year because they want to see what’s going to happen in their stocks.”
Flagstaff Family Food Center Community Impact Director Summer Grandy said it serves over 41,000 families and distributed 6.7 million pounds of food over the region last year. She said critical food security and resiliency programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including the Local Food Purchase Assistance funding that offers local farmers retail food prices for their crop yields, will be cut starting in March 2026.
“On an indirect level, the cuts to Health and Human Services, North Country Healthcare and Flagstaff Shelter Services will affect our clients as they decide whether to pay for rent, utilities, medical expenses or put food on the table,” Grandy said.
Mayes took notes of each constituent’s concerns, asking questions about which departments they earned their funding from and requesting the letters they received about the cuts be sent to her office. She mentioned her partnership with other Democratic attorneys general to file lawsuits against the Trump administration, explaining why probationary employees were reinstated, per some of the speakers’ experiences.
“[Flagstaff] is obviously a community that is being dramatically impacted by Trump and Musk’s DOGE efforts to slash and burn its way through the federal government,” Mayes said. “I’m trying to get to as many communities as I possibly can, and this is also a place that Eli Crane refuses to hold town halls.”
Mayes said there are three C’s citizens can use to push for change from the government: courage, courts and crowds. She encouraged residents to keep showing up to town halls and protests, call or write their members of Congress and vote in every election. She said she believes the U.S. is facing a coup with danger not seen since the Civil War.
Karyn Fox, the senior research associate for Technical Assistance to Non-Governmental Organizations International, said her group partnered with and was fully funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Through their research in Nigeria, she said she found that people’s resilience capacities were strengthened by collective action and social capital.
Coconino County Democratic Party Second Vice Chair Joan Arrow, the group’s first openly transgender member, was the last to speak. She expressed her worries about keeping LGBTQ+ individuals safe. Mayes shared that she is the state’s first openly gay attorney general and that she and other Democratic attorneys general will not tolerate violence against their community.
Mayes said before filing a lawsuit, she has to have standing by proving direct injury to the state. She said she plans to discuss the notes she took with the other attorneys general and is likely to pursue another lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Mayes thanked attendees for their courage in speaking out against recent decisions. She said town halls are an opportunity to gather evidence for future lawsuits and file motions to compel the Trump administration to act according to court orders.
“Every one of you is a patriot,” Mayes said. “Don’t ever let anybody take that word away from you.”
Mayes has been to 15 town halls in Arizona and said she plans to visit St. Johns and Prescott Valley for her next two stops. No official dates have been announced yet.
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