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 […]
Norton’s Big Lies
Mike Norton just can’t help himself. Setting aside the Scottsdale Unified School District budget override for a later discussion, Norton could have just silently savored the Scottsdale city bond election ‘victory,’ and parlayed his big success into the relevance he desperately craves. Instead, he continues to lie, to inflate his own role, and to celebrate […]
Balanced coverage?
Just like with the Scottsdale Independent a few years ago, I had high hopes for the renewed Scottsdale Progress newspaper. The original Scottsdale Progress, under editor and publisher Jonathan Marshall, did great things for our community. In fact, Marshall and his crew had significant impact on state law affecting, among other things, government open meeting […]
“A city government exists only for the purpose of…”
During a refreshing, unplanned visit to the Phoenix North Mountain Visitor Center, I saw on display this letter to the residents of the Sunnyslope area, sent to them upon annexation of the area into the City of Phoenix. It says, in part, A city government exists only for the purpose of performing necessary municipal services for […]
“I deserve affordable housing in Scottsdale”
I recently had an–interesting–social media conversation with a couple of keyboard warriors who are essentially demanding cheaper (“affordable”) housing in Scottsdale. It’s clear from the comments they made that, while cloaked in proletariat self-righteousness, their motivation is really more about self-interest and entitlement than the “working class.” The conversation started with an opinion piece posted […]
Bond Grifters
In a recent comment appended to an article in the Scottsdale Trough Feeders newsletter (aka the Scottsdale Independent), village idiot (and muni bond huckster) Mike Norton claimed (among other things) that the assertion that Scottsdale has the “Most Debt Per Capita” is a lie. I’m the only guy who’s been saying that, so I guess […]
Phony Poll-ony
Jason Rose, who basically lies for a living, has put out a press release in which he claims, “Substantial and Deep Voter Support for November Bond Measures.” That presser bounces through many more hyperbolic adjectives and adverbs like, “strong” (several times), “sweeping,” “substantial” (again), and “diverse.” Hey, the more, the merrier, right? Reminds me of […]
Before you vote to raise your taxes…
Until the last election, Scottsdale had a 100% “Republican” city council and mayor. I put “Republican” in quotes, because I always thought the party platform’s primary plank was fiscal responsibility. During the last decade, our elected officials (including Mayor Jim Lane, Virginia Korte, Suzanne Klapp, and even some who are supposedly populist politicians who are […]