When it comes to explaining how he’d fulfill his campaign promises, Leon Potter comes up short on answers.

The Maricopa mayoral candidate struggled to dig deeper into the particulars of his three-pronged platform to stymie the city’s growth, in front of a dozen constituents during a town hall yesterday at Native Grill and Wings.

His platform advocates making Maricopa an undesirable place for people to move to, working with local chambers of commerce to help small businesses and bringing veterans services to Maricopa. However, aside from a few talking points, he didn’t offer tangible details to back up his plans.

In discussing his advocation for stifling growth, Potter said he plans to “say no to rezoning,” specifically cases in which land parcels zoned for industrial or commercial use may be rezoned for residential building. He said this would allow infrastructure to catch up but didn’t back up the claim.

Maricopa Planning and Zoning Commission Chair Bill Robertson, who attended as a private citizen, disagreed this was an issue.

“I don’t have the numbers, but I can tell you more property has been rezoned from residential to commercial than from commercial to residential,” he said during the town hall.

As an example, he cited the commission’s most recent approval to rezone a high-density residential parcel into commercial use for the Anderson Farms development on Bowlin and Hartman Roads.

Others challenged Potter on how, if elected, he plans to keep his slow growth promise to constituents if he is always only one dissenting vote of seven on city council. He said that he hopes as mayor, he will have enough influence to sway votes.

“Well, it would definitely be challenging,” he said. “However, the level of influence [of the mayor] I think is different. And if there’s that change in leadership, the rest of the council may go on board with that.”

Potter, however, admitted he has not recently spoken with any sitting councilmembers for their feedback on whether they would side with him.

Other issues related to his platform — pulling the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce back into government orbit and bringing veterans services to Maricopa — similarly lacked information beyond the surface level. When asked by MCC Executive Director Kelly Anderson, who also attended as a private citizen, about specific policies or programs for working with chambers, Potter couldn’t formulate an answer.

“I don’t have anything specific; it’s more of being a partner with the chambers of commerce,” he said. “To design policy to fix whatever we’re working on, whatever needs to be addressed.”

Unfortunately, constituents may not have another opportunity to ask questions. Potter, who declined to participate in an upcoming candidate debate hosted by InMaricopa, said he does not have another speaking engagement planned before the July 30 primary election. Potter also declined to face incumbent Nancy Smith in an MCC forum April 30.

Smith led Potter by 32 points in an InMaricopa poll that month.