FAYETTEVILLE -- Evelyn Rios Stafford is seeking a second term as the justice of the peace for District 12 on the Washington County Quorum Court.
Stafford, 49, has lived in District 12 since 2018. She is serving her first term on the Quorum Court. Justices of the peace serve two-year terms and are paid $200 for each Quorum Court meeting and for committee meetings they attend when they are members of the committee.
The owner of Blue Star Business Services, a digital marketing agency, Stafford received a bachelor of arts degree in English from Rice University. She was appointed to serve on the board of the Fayetteville Housing Authority and served on the board from 2018 to 2020 when she was elected to serve on the Quorum Court.
Stafford said her time on the Housing Authority board prompted her to take more of an interest in local government.
"I'm interested in making a difference," Stafford said. "Working on the Housing Authority board really opened my eyes to how local elected officials can really make a difference in our community, helping people and making people's lives better."
Stafford said she decided to run for a seat on the Quorum Court in hopes of working as a facilitator to make government work for people.
"I had seen a lot of things and read a lot of things about the political dysfunction on the Quorum Court," she said. "I felt from my experience on the Housing Authority board I could help to build bridges and make things function better, to help build bridges between the county government and other entities."
Stafford said she is proud the county partnered with the Fayetteville Housing Authority to provide emergency rental assistance to residents during the covid-19 pandemic. She said she has advocated for the county to use other federal covid-19 relief money for community needs, not to expand the county's jail as some have proposed. She said the county has alternatives to incarceration identified in a recent study that should be tried before any expansion project is approved.
"I'm proud of the fact that I've been fighting every step of the way to see that this $46 million in American Rescue Plan money is used the way it was intended," she said.