Re-elect!
Primary Election - August 4th
General Election - November 3rd
Kristel Ann Foster was first elected as a Justice of the Peace in 2022. Along with overseeing civil cases and a range of misdemeanor criminal cases, she presides over the Pima County Domestic Violence Specialty Court. This court serves defendants with second offenses or more serious charges of misdemeanor domestic violence. She works closely with Judge Million in Tucson City Court, who is nationally renowned for her work in this area.
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Judge Foster communicates weekly with local providers who support defendants in completing state mandated domestic violence treatment sessions. She requires her defendants report back to court multiple times for compliance throughout their terms of probation and engages them in conversation around what they are learning and what impact this work is having on their lives.​​
Judge Foster is also appointed to the Judicial College of Arizona, representing non-barred limited jurisdiction judges across the state. This committee oversees judicial professional development for all courts in Arizona. Her particular focus in this workgroup is revising the New Judge Orientation for Limited Jurisdiction Courts, the required training that all new Justices of the Peace and municipal Judges complete when they begin their time on the bench. Judge Foster’s career as an educator where she specialized in professional development for teachers is a great benefit to this statewide work.
Before serving as a Justice of the Peace, Judge Foster served two terms on the Tucson Unified Governing Board (2012-2020). She brought calm and level-headed leadership to the contentious discussions and decisions, collaborating, yet standing strong for her values of equity, justice and community. Kristel demonstrated a strong commitment to children, their families and district employees, and fair decisions that she articulated and defended with passion and reason.
Originally from Denver, and after living in Mexico for a number of years, Kristel moved to Tucson for a Master's Degree program in Latin American Studies. She taught in the Sunnyside Unified School District for almost 20 years, where she was an elementary teacher, instructional coach and program specialist in the Language Acquisition Department. For three years, she was on special assignment at the University of Arizona where she taught pre-service teachers for the College of Education. She earned another Master's, in Educational Leadership, before she ran for school board.
Kristel has always been involved in her community, fighting for immigrant rights, ethnic studies, border justice, and many campaigns for different candidates and political causes in Tucson and across Arizona.