A recent screed from Jason Rose (reprinted in-full below) peddling the notion of leasing a currently-unused, taxpayer-owned school property, to his soccer (and development) clients at Phoenix Rising, pre-aims blame for failure at the residents of surrounding neighborhoods. Somehow, the Scottsdale City Council (as the elected body in charge of development, though having nothing to […]
Solange is a Liar
In addition to deluding herself into visions of being Scottsdale’s Henry Kissinger, running shuttle diplomacy between developers and the citizens for whom she’s supposed to be advocating, city council member Solange Whitehead is a liar. I don’t use that term lightly, but she either knows or damned well ought to know that the information she’s […]
Ignorant Donkeys
The deluded donkeys of the LD23 Democrats have published a screed in support of the new-and-diluted Scottsdale General Plan 2035. I’ve reproduced it below for reference. I’d guess that it was mostly written by Solange “Kissinger” Whitehead. It’s somewhat entertaining that this group, which is largely ignorant of local issues, is decrying “disinformation”; yet their […]
Solange Kissinger
An anonymous political blog here in Scottsdale recently criticized council member Solange Whitehead for her waffling support of zoning changes and other concessions (aka, “developer welfare”) for widely-opposed high-density housing projects. The term used to describe Solange’s efforts, “shuttle diplomacy,” caused me pause. As referenced in Wikipedia, the term was first applied to Henry Kissinger’s […]
Does Development Pay for Itself?
Vice Mayor Betty Janik finally came to [Scottsdale Planning, Economic Development and Tourism Director Randy] Grant’s aid. “I’ve read quite a bit on does economic development pay for itself,” she said. “You can go and check all the literature and you can get six experts say it does and six equal expert people that say […]
How Bad Must It Be? General Plan Update Election
https://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/elections To paraphrase former Scottsdale city councilman Bob Littlefield: How bad does Scottsdale’s General Plan update have to be, to have garnered so little support from the council majority, the Chamber of Commerce, and the movers-and-shakers who think nothing of dropping $100 to get their supporting arguments published in the election pamphlet? I dutifully handed […]
Scottsdale Toad Enforcement
A neighbor of mine has been plagued for years by an adjoining AirBnB (aka “transient,” or less than 30-day) rental, which has now turned into an interminable demolition/remodel nuisance. He has carefully documented many of the zoning code violations, and contacted the city dozens of times at all levels from code enforcement (which is where […]
Caputi’s True Colors
Tammy Caputi’s recent opinion piece in the so-called “Independent” demonstrates exactly the reason I recommended against her for city council in last year’s election. I’ve reproduced her letter below my comments. It is full of half-truths and outright dishonesty, with one goal in mind: Usurping the very purpose of the General Plan and our zoning […]
Scottsdale’s Election
If you are visiting ScottsdaleCitizen for the first time because you received my letter, welcome! The information below is all in the letter, but forwarding this article to your Scottsdale friends is a great way to leverage it out to a larger audience of voters. And I’ve included convenient hyperlinks to the websites of the […]
Otis and the SCOTT Project
I received an entertaining, late-night email from Otis Norton in my inbox this morning, in which he threatened me for mentioning one of his friends in a social media post. I’ve been around and involved long enough to have been threatened by a few folks. So, while I always take threats seriously, this one mostly […]