The most recent campaign missive from Scottsdale’s incumbent king of the crony capitalists, Jim Lane, says,
If there is one thing being your Mayor has taught me is that all voices are important. And it’s important to seek differing opinions and ideas.
“Seek?” Right. “Differing?” As long as they aren’t “opposing.”
I can speak with authority on that, having been on the receiving end of Lane’s warm embrace of differing opinions. When I opposed high-rise housing projects in the Scottsdale Airpark (which violated the spirit of federal grant assurances against residential encroachment on the Airport), Lane led the charge to fire me from the Airport Advisory Commission. In his own words, he wanted me gone because I “turned him in” to the Federal Aviation Administration.
In reality what I did was CONTACT the FAA to ask them to REVIEW Lane’s actions and advise whether he had violated those grant assurances (conditions under which millions of dollars in airport improvement funding was received). The FAA let him off the hook with an admonition that those housing projects were a really bad idea, but didn’t explicitly violate those assurances.
But Lane was embarrassed because it either never occurred to him that he ought to contact the FAA about zoning matters that might affect the long-term viability of the Airport. Or maybe he just plain (no pun intended) didn’t want the Feds to know about it. I lean toward the latter.
So keep that in mind if you encounter Lane on his city-wide good will tour of, “coffee shops, delis, restaurants, and yoga studios” (and bars). Lane will listen as long as you don’t actually oppose anything he’s doing.
Lane goes on to say,
My opponent Bob Littlefield surrounds himself with the same voices of negativity, with the same voices who want to close businesses downtown, with the same voices who tell new residents they’re not welcome here. Bob Littlefield surrounds himself with the same voices who want to take us back to the malaise of 15 years ago when businesses were leaving town and our economy was on the rocks.
I’m not 100% sure but I don’t think Littlefield has EVER advocated for the closure of an existing business that was in compliance with city ordinances and was a good neighbor to the residents. Obviously, Lane doesn’t mind if his liquor industry contributors bend a few laws, or maybe break them just a little.
Littlefield has never to my knowledge said that “new residents” are “not welcome” in Scottsdale. What Littlefield HAS said very clearly is that city government shouldn’t violate Scottsdale’s General Plan and degrade the quality of life of EXISTING residents in order to help Lane’s real estate developer contributors make more money by building zoning-busting high-rise housing project apartments.
Lane’s memory is faulty (or he’s just lying) when he says that “our economy was on the rocks” 15 years ago. The local downturn actually coincided with the beginning of the national recession…about the time that Lane was elected to City Council!