This crazy ‘public art’ installation was recently… ahem, erected, at Indian School Road and Marshall Way. “In the end, they [the artist and the public art division of Scottsdale Arts] went directly to the city council, which has the power to overrule the [city] design board. In February, all but one city council member voted […]
Scottsdale Darts
The latest edition of the “Voice of Scottsdale” (aka, “voice of Virginia Korte”) threw a dart at Scottsdale Arts (formerly known as the Scottsdale Cultural Council) this morning. I’ve reprinted the column below, but I’ll give you a little background first: Scottsdale Arts is a private business that contracts with the city, ostensibly to manage […]
Bookshelf Intellectualism
In a column that ran recently in “the other so-called newspaper” in Scottsdale, the editor regurgitated nonsensical remarks by Jim Bruner, which Bruner had delivered at a reception for city board and commission volunteer appointees. Scottsdale’s boards and commissions are SUPPOSED to vet issues and provide citizen-oriented recommendations to the mayor and City Council when […]
Department of Translation: “Divisive”
For those of you who haven’t heard of Dan Schweiker, he’s a recent carpetbagger from Paradise Valley running for Scottsdale City Council with a ‘nuggets of nothingness’ campaign (shades of Virginia Korte). Dan hopes you’ll vote for him because he’s a nice guy and because his name is very similar to another ‘tea’ guy, David […]
Desert Discovery Center and a Venetian Blind | Phoenix New Times
Someone mentioned the “Canals of Scottsdale” project in a Facebook comment this morning pertaining to the Desert Discovery Center controversy. Boy, did that kick off a little trip down memory lane. I moved to Scottsdale shortly after a grass roots effort had crushed this silly “Venice in the Desert” idea at the ballot. Here’s a little […]
Korte is Anti-Small Business
In response to an anonymous email missive from Scottsdale city council incumbent Virginia Korte this morning, Scottsdale artist and downtown gallery owner, Bob Pejman, penned the reply below which really digs to the bottom line. To Bob’s commentary I add the following: Along with hotels, merchants and galleries have historically been the mechanism by which […]
Another $4 million taxpayer subsidy down the drain
Tuesday night the Scottsdale City Council and Mayor Jim Lane voted to flush another $4 million of your money down the award-winning toilets of the Scottsdale Cultural Council. Fiscal Year 2016/17 Scottsdale Cultural Council Financial Participation Agreement – Approved on Consent. Request: Adopt Resolution No. 10452 authorizing Agreement No. 2016-065-COS, an annual financial participation agreement […]
Some truths about Phoenix’s property tax deals
I don’t think this appeared in the Republic’s online AZCentral site, but it was clipped and forwarded to me by a sharp-eyed ScottsdaleCitizen reader who knows I have been highly critical of GPLET abatements for private developers. Thanks MK. While I do not believe the GPLET mechanism has been used directly in Scottsdale, the principle […]
Scottsdale Museum of the West management agreement amendment
Shades of the Scottsdale Cultural Council…let’s throw good taxpayer money after bad. The Museum of the West, Inc., got the City Council to give it free land and over $11 million in taxpayer money for the purpose-built structure…mind you, that’s BORROWED money, for which we (the taxpayers) are on-the-hook. Plus, we gave them a $400,000 […]
Voice of Korte on the Scottsdale Art Scene
In the latest edition of her Voice of Scottsdale email, Virginia Korte parrots many of the themes of Becky Bartkowski’s New Times article last week about the Scottsdale Cultural Council. I wrote about my take on it, too. Korte sums up with: Becky Bartkowski’s assessment of our city’s arts community was tough to take – […]