Cardinals’ Michael Bidwill, Bob Parsons, real estate executives backing Lane in Scottsdale mayor’s race.
Guess who’s coming out in support of the biggest phony capitalist in the history of Scottsdale politics? Rich guys who get millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies to boost their business bottom lines; and who get zoning concessions which erode our General Plan and quality of life so they can sell it off to apartment-dwelling millennials who want to stumble to and from the Barf District.
As Gomer Pyle said, “Surprise, surprise!”
The “Super Bowl Host Committee” got a million taxpayer dollars for Super Bowl parties last year.
Bob Parsons got massive zoning concessions (and taxpayer-subsidized irrigation water) for his Scottsdale National Golf Course.
And if you think this is new behavior for Jim Lane and his supporters, you only have to look back to his last campaign.
Lane engineered about $2 million worth of contract concessions and subsidies to Phil Mickelson, who has the lease/concession agreement for the taxpayer-owned McDowell Mountain Golf course (which used to be “Sanctuary Golf”). I’ll bet you didn’t even know that is a city-owned course!
Magically, the week after that happened, Mickelson took time off from insider trading and gambling to shoot a video endorsement for Mayor Lane.
5 Comments
Dude you’re angry. I think you should do some of that quality investigative reporting on your candidate Hillary’s activity. This is peanuts compared to that crook.
Angry? No. I’m way past that. But that doesn’t mean that I no longer call ’em like I see ’em.
Hillary? There are plenty of other folks working on that…and Trump, as well. But here in little ole Scottsdale, where local government has the most direct and visible effect on our local quality of life (and where you can watch it at work every other Tuesday night…if you can find city hall)…there’s not NEARLY enough investigation.
I followed the Scottsdale National zoning closely and they didn’t rezone the property at all. In fact they significantly removed density from the area to the tune of almost 400 units. The former project, Sierra Reserve, received extremely favorable zoning back in the day when Mr. Littlefield was on the council (7-0 vote). Scottsdale National unwound that for the community.
Furthermore, there are no subsidies on irrigation. In fact the irrigation rights are tremendous for the City as they are receiving infrastructure and additional water for its citizens at no cost to the City or its taxpayers.
Mira,
Thanks for your patience in waiting for my reply.
1. Technically, you are correct, this was not a zoning case per se.
2. However, it does incorporate an abandonment case (1-AB-2014) and a use permit (11-UP-2014), both of which are generally considered to be related to zoning, and both of which required approval by Mayor Lane (campaign contribution recipient) and the city council.
3. The abandonment is for several city easements and rights-of-way, in other words encumbrances on the property owned by the City of Scottsdale. As is their habit, Mayor Lane and the city council gave these away for free, a practice with which I have always disagreed.
4. From my read of the application and council action, nothing about the approval of the use permit extinguishes development rights (ie, “density”) under the previous zoning case.
5. Couple that with the fact that the applicant clearly states that his plans aren’t firm (i.e., not limited to the proposed density), and the fact that Mayor Lane, the council, and city staff are notorious for allowing applicants to make significant changes from what was originally approved; and I have no confidence that the final build-out will look anything like what was proposed.
6. There was at least one major parcel (the 40+ acre Kalimnios parcel) added to the project, which may have actually gained density under this application).
7. I have seen no evidence that any of the infrastructure to provide purified, reverse-osmosis-filtered effluent water (pumped uphill from the Hualapai Water Treatment Facility and for a considerable distance) will directly benefit any private residence. In fact, the applicant said (and I quote exactly), “…we are acquiring the final share of water available through the existing delivery systems” [emphasis added].
8. Furthermore, I have been told that the golf course recipients of this purified effluent water are supposed to pay the city’s costs in providing it under the Irrigation Water Distribution Systems Pipeline Capacity Agreement (aka, “IWDS.” Scottsdale National’s share is covered by contracts 2002-066-COS-A2, and 2015-168-COS, both amended 1 July 2015). However, the numbers provided by staff don’t add up for me, and it looks like when all costs are factored in, the water is being provided at significantly less than actual cost.
Now, do I think this project is bad for the neighbors? Probably not, at least not yet, and not compared to what could have been–or may eventually be–built.
But, the point of my post was that Parsons got a pretty sweet deal, which wasn’t quite so sweet for the taxpayers. He’ll eventually make a lot of money from the deal, which is of course the reason any smart businessman would do it.
And I don’t necessarily blame Parsons. If Lane is stupid enough to give him things that actually belong to other people (i.e., the taxpayers), why shouldn’t Parson’s take advantage of it?
If you have any facts to shed light on any of the dark corners of these deal, feel free to share them.
Comment updated, above.