With the race between Kathy Littlefield and Dennis Robbins for the third Scottsdale city council seat leaning only slightly toward Kathy by a couple dozen votes, 0.02% of total, the 2014 election may be bad or it may be worse. It all depends on the final count of provisional ballots, and an almost-sure challenge from the dark money liquor/development industry upon final tally.
Dark money darling Jennifer Petersen is out. Unfortunately, so is public safety advocate Cindy Hill.
Linda Milhaven is (also unfortunately) returning to her seat, and David N. Smith will begin warming one, too.
With only 2 points separating Smith and Hill, a) clearly the COGS endorsement that went to David Smith (aka the new Ron McCullagh) could have elected Hill, a reliable community advocate; and b) any COGS questions about Hill’s ‘elect-ability’ (the reason that has been given for not endorsing her) are highlighted for their utter stupidity.
I guess we can all hope that Smith will turn out OK, but how many times have we had those hopes for others in the recent past? Examples include the aforementioned Ron McCullagh. Mayor Jim Lane in his first term was OK for about 18 months before he started seriously considering his future in politics and purged his speed dial of the folks who got him elected. Wayne Ecton is another good example.
I’m going to predict with confidence that COGS will regret their decision. And I’ll buy the first round at AZ88 if I’m wrong.
2 Comments
Well I hope things turn out for the best, and we get Littlefield. There needs to be a change in the city council. The Korte council needs a fracture to the foundation of ‘rail roading’ the citizens of Scottsdale.
Please note, that Millhaven keeps on speaking about alternatives for transportation in Scottsdale. What can she be speaking about? Why could it be light rail? Hmm, we can only wonder. For who are her Dark Money backers?
COGS – You slipped a gear, or a dozen, with that endorsement. The city has this ‘crime district’ and now a high density residential a stones throw away from it. It needs a strong police force. WHO is best for speaking about public safety? It is NOT David Smith. Maybe he will change, we can only hope.
Look the city of Scottsdale is at the cusp of dramatic change. Can the newer city council make that change positive or continue our downward spiral to a generic city? Hey, we still need our General Plan ratified, maybe this newer council will at least look at it more often. That would be nice.
I would love to be proven wrong that David Smith is not anti-PD and that he’ll reach out and understand what the boots on the ground need to do their best to protect the citizens and make it happen. If that happens I’ll buy the second round.