Let's see....
Scottsdale has a referendum on September 12 concerning the Sexually Oriented Business ordinance (and yes, it's referred to as "the S.O.B. ordinance" :) ) that the City Council passed last December....
Scottsdale is the home of the latest trash-TV show, "Tuesday Night Book Club" (aka - "Desperately Bored Trophy Wives")...
A holier-than-thou mayor...
The latest hijinks (that's probably too mild a word, but it works) of the City Council involve them ignoring the City Charter and high-handedly ignoring citizens' concerns about that and other issues...
Consider the ingredients to the stew:
Sex.
More sex.
Shady politicians.
Add it up and....
Yup, we're a high-profile trial away from being an episode of "City Confidential."
Maybe one of the "Book" women can cheat on her husband with one of the owners of a strip club; better yet, with one of the strippers. The fallout from the inevitable discovery of the affair and ensuing divorce trial would be a ratings blockbuster!
....Amazing the thoughts that slide into my mind when I get really bored. Like I was last night at the scheduled meeting of the Scottsdale City Council.
In other news from the meeting (other than the news that I was bored for a lot of it)....
Before getting into the agenda of the meeting, Mayor Manross reminded everyone that Vista del Camino's back-to-school clothing drive is underway. Donate what you can.
During the Consent Agenda portion of the meeting, there were a few questions, but the 30 or so items were passed without objection.
The Council voted 6 - 1 to authorize general fund budget support for the Scottsdale Cultural Council. Councilman Littlefield was the lone dissenter, but gave no indication as to why he voted Nay.
Next up, the Council considered a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for Next Bar and Nightclub. While to the unitiated such as me, this looked like a simple issue, the debate became bogged down into a discussion of parking spaces and credits and other magnificently uninteresting stuff. My eyes were glazing over during this one.
The most interesting part for me was when the Mayor tried to prompt the Council to make a motion to grant the permit. No one did until her Vice-Mayor made the motion. She then seconded it. It failed 2 - 5.
With that, the mundane part of the agenda was complete. Time for the colorful (read: contentious) stuff. This stuff was on the agenda as a result of citizen petitions to place the issues before the Council.
The first one was a request to reconvene the ASU-Scottsdale Ad Hoc Working Group to study the SkySong Phase III proposal and to table any Council discussion of the project until the Group has held public hearings and presented their findings. Sounds pretty non-controversial, until you learn that many residents of the area around the project were shocked when they heard that part of the project included a large number of apartments, after having been told that NO housing would be involved. There was a little back and forth, but this one passed 6 -1, with Councilman Nelssen dissenting.
After that was a request that the City Council appoint someone to fill the Charter office of City Treasurer. The Council and City Staff pointed out that the Charter specifically allows one person to fill two Charter Officer slots when feasible. Current City Manager Dolan fills the Treasurer slot. They also pointed out that the city's financial picture is excellent. The motion talk about it at a later date passed 4 - 3.
Then it was time for the two really contentious issues.
The next petition concerned the S.O.B. ordinance that is going to referendum in September. The owners of the strip clubs affected by the ordinance proposed a compromise ordinance and asked that the Council consider and adopt it to avert the referendum and inevitable lawsuit (no matter who wins) afterward.
The supporters of the strip clubs trotted out a couple of their lawyers; their opponents trotted out theirs. Additionally, there were a couple of 'civilian' proponents for each position.
For a while the debate focused on the original ordinance, not the proposed one. "You can't legislate morality" and "flood of new strip clubs" were phrases that were tossed about.
When it finally focused on the issue at hand, some Council members observed that the "compromise" ordinance was no compromise at all; it was a strip club 'wish list'. Even those that have expressed reservations about the S.O.B ordinance couldn't support this one. Even I thought this move by the strip club owners was heavy-handed and unnecessary.
In the end, the proposed ordinance was defeated 0 - 7, meaning the referendum will go forward.
Lastly (for me anyway) was a citizen petition requesting that the Council determine if the city's Charter Officers were in compliance with the residency requirement of Article 4, Section 1 of the City Charter and to fire any COs not in compliance, to make public any legal opinions related to the issue, and to form a three person panel under the City's Code of Ethics to investigate and rule on the matter.
The issue is based in a variation in the language in the Charter. This variation was used to wedge thru the appointment (during executive session) of a city staff attorney (who lives in Paradise Valley) to the position of City Attorney. The variation is that the Charter does not specifically refer to the position as a City Officer while it does specifically refer to other positions such as City Treasurer and City Clerk with that language. However, as critics of the city council pointed out, the only jobs specifically created by name in the Charter are Charter Officers, and that the City's own organization chart lists the City Attorney as a Charter Officer.
After a some spirited debate on the issue, the Council took the position that they had a legal opinion from one of the current city attorney's subordinates that supported their position that the CA was *not* a Charter Officer. When asked for the opinion, the response (to summarize) was "Can't tell you; it's a secret. Executive session and all that."
This part really bothered me. The Mayor, City Staff, and most of the City Council exhibited a reprehensible contempt for both the City Charter and the citizenry.
The Charter, to me anyway, seems to clearly indicate that the City Attorney is a Charter Officer. To be fair, there is some ambiguity in the language. Obtaining a legal opinion of the meaning of the Charter is reasonable.
However, the opinion of a lawyer that is a co-worker and subordinate of the person benefitting from the opinion is of dubious credibility. Outside counsel should have been brought in.
At that, one the staff attorney's opinion was accepted, it should have been public. An attorney for the city, Bronsky (not sure of the spelling here), opined that talking about anything discussed in executive session is illegal.
That's fine, but the opinion rendered was about the meaning of the City Charter. That is most definitely information that the public needs to have available. If necessary, the information that is directly pertinent to the current CA's personal employment situation can be redacted. The rest of it, the parts that 'clarify' the meaning of the wording of the City Charter, is ours.
Here are some other perspectives on the controvery, and some background.
AZ Republic
East Valley Tribune
Laurie Roberts (AZ Rep.)
Mayor Manross, her City Council, and her City Staff have a bright future ahead of them.
They disregarded the very document that authorizes and constrains their actions as city officials, had a city attorney gin up an opinion to say the questionable action was legal, and then wouldn't let anyone examine or question that opinion.
Sounds almost, well, Presidential.
"Mary Manross, Republican for President"?
Aaahhhhhhhhh!!!! [runs screaming into the night] :))
Later!!
On edit: there was one last citizen petition concerning a land exchange in the downtown area. According the AZRepublic story on the meeting, no action was taken.
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