Last Wednesday, the town of Gilbert apologized for creating a document ranking residents based on their support or opposition of a road widening project.
Maricopa County island resident Rich Robertson presented the document to the Gilbert Town Council during last week’s meeting item discussing the project. The document listed the affected homeowners, their parcel, their address, the landowners’ stance on the project, and a “vocal level” of 1-4. A rating of “1” indicated the resident was among the most vocal in opposition, while a rating of “4” indicated that the resident was reasonable.
“The town of Gilbert has created, effectively, an enemies list,” said Robertson. “Why are we as residents — who are trying to exercise our rights — being ranked by your staff on how compliant we are with you? This is, I suspect, not how the council really wants its residents to be treated. I think it’s outrageous.”
The city issued an apology statement last Wednesday from Public Works Director Jessica Marlow.
Marlow apologized for using the “vocal level” category, and said that the intent wasn’t to label anyone. She explained that the intent was to prepare city leaders for meetings with affected homeowners last October. Marlow admitted that the document should’ve been named differently, in hindsight.
“It was meant to help staff better understand how to address concerns ahead of the meetings,” wrote Marlow.
Awareness of the issue was made possible due to three freshman council members who placed the item on last week’s agenda: Jim Torgeson, Chuck Bongiovanni, and Bobbi Buchli. The trio and Mayor Brigette Peterson vocalized their dismay over the document. The mayor noted that she wasn’t aware of the document before the meeting, and apologized.
“I don’t know anything about it, and I am just appalled that something like that might be going around,” stated Peterson. “I do believe that you don’t deserve any of that. I apologize for that.”
Robertson, who was rated a “2,” rejected the city’s claim that the classification wasn’t intended as a list of enemies.
“I think that’s what leads to those kinds of characterizations,” said Robertson. “It certainly wasn’t inadvertent. It was clear that it (the document) was intended to identify the people who were problems and to steel themselves against those people.”
Robertson speculated that he received the “2” ranking due to writing letters frequently to the council.
The project that inspired so much controversy about residents intended to widen Ocotillo Road into a 110-foot right-of-way. The expansion would require several new bridges to span a section of missing roadway. It was included in the FY2023-2032 Capital Improvement Plan, with funds from 2022 General Obligation (Transportation) Bonds.
Watch the discussion of the “vocal level” controversy below:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Maricopa County officials have been working for several weeks on replacing County Manager Joy Rich, who is retiring in early April. Now, the county’s top IT employee is also leaving.
Chief Information Officer (CIO) Ed Winfield is retiring later this week as head of Maricopa County’s Office of Enterprise Technology where he is responsible for all aspects of information technology strategy, operations, service, and security.
For now, Winfield’s duties will be handled by Lester Godsey, the county’s Chief Information Security Officer or CISO. Godsey has been responsible for all cybersecurity and data privacy efforts for Maricopa County.
In turn, Godsey will temporarily turn over his CISO duties to Assistant CISO Seema Patel, who is the county’s director of Information Security Assurance.
How long Godsey and Patel hold those interim positions depends on the speed in which the Board of Supervisors replace Rich. The decision has been made to allow the new manager to hire the new CIO, according to a county spokesperson.
Rich, who as Maricopa County’s chief administrator has been responsible since 2016 for roughly 13,000 employees across 40 departments, announced her impending retirement back in January.
Applications for her position were not due until Feb. 13, leading to the possibility an interim manager could be named if a new manager is not in place by Rich’s last day of April 7.
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
Kari Lake has announced she will once again seek review from the Arizona Supreme Court of her claims that she, and not Katie Hobbs, is the state’s legitimate governor.
It will be Lake’s third such effort since the Nov. 8, 2022 General Election, and comes after the Arizona Court of Appeals issued a Feb. 16 opinion upholding a Maricopa County judge’s dismissal back in December of Lake’s election challenge.
Lake has claimed in various legal pleadings that Hobbs’ victory by more than 17,000 votes was improperly influenced by myriad Election Day problems in Maricopa County. As a result, Lake has been seeking to have the county’s election certification voided in the governor’s race.
Her legal filings have argued that a judge should declare Lake as the rightful winner based on various evidence presented to the court. Or in the alternative, she wants an order for a new election in Maricopa County in the governor race.
Last week’s unanimous appellate opinion noted Lakes’ request for relief “fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results.”
The opinion authored by Chief Judge Kent E. Cattani and joined by Presiding Judge Maria Elena Cruz and Judge Pro Tempore Peter B. Swann came on the heels of two failed earlier attempts by Lake’s legal team to bypass the appellate court and have the Arizona Supreme Court hear the case.
Lake now has until March 20 to file a Petition for Review with the state’s high court. There is no guarantee, however, that the Justices will accept the case.
BREAKING: I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, and that's exactly what we are going to do. Buckle up, America! 🇺🇸https://t.co/DXTi4WoEQ3pic.twitter.com/ik5sSqMz5P
Arizona State University (ASU) hosted a panel discussing “election denialism” and President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 election on Monday.
The event featured faces from the last two contentious election cycles, including Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates. Gates and several other panelists responded to questions from a group of “self-identifying election-deniers” placed in the center of a room as an audience of college students and faculty watched and occasionally posed questions themselves.
Nearly all of the “election-deniers” raised their hands when asked if they thought Trump had won the 2020 election.
Gates assured the crowd that the 2020 election was the “most scrutinized in the world.” Gates reminded them of some of the results of investigations over the years, such as that the election machines weren’t connected to the internet.
“If you don’t believe what happened in 2020, then you don’t believe your neighbors, your family members — they were the ones who ran the election,” said Gates.
Gates then urged those who challenged the results of the 2020 election to sign up as poll workers or volunteers to better understand the process. He expressed that he was upset by those who didn’t have confidence in the election processes.
“I want you to understand, we care about you,” said Gates. “If you guys don’t think it doesn’t hurt my heart to hear this tonight, it does. We want to convince you guys, we want to give you faith in [elections].”
Gates then said that he isn’t a fan of progressive dark money mega-donor George Soros, and urged the crowd to believe him that he’s been a Republican his entire life.
If you care about the future of our country, please watch this focus group led by the legendary Frank Luntz. I am grateful to have participated in this open and honest discussion with Maricopa County voters in a productive and non-confrontational forum. https://t.co/urQkd0JQNV
Other members of the panel were Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, CBS News Washington correspondent Major Garrett, and Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) Executive Director and Founder David Becker. Longtime political and communications consultant Frank Luntz moderated the event. In addition to ASU’s McCain Institute, support came from CBS, University of Southern California, and Greater Phoenix Leadership.
Although the panel didn’t focus on this most recent election, controversies remain concerning its administration in Arizona. Last month, Maricopa County announced it was investigating the mass failures of its ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers on Election Day. Over 17,000 voters were affected by the incident.
NEW: Former AZ Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor will lead independent investigation into Election Day printer issues. We look forward to her findings. Statement ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/mOhkWideou
Tensions appear to remain between Maricopa County and GOP lawmakers.
The county initially refused to meet former State Sen. Kelly Townsend’s deadline for a subpoena of election records. The county explained it was busy with court proceedings; at the time, they were facing GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s challenge of the election results.
Townsend announced early last month that she did receive the records, though didn’t say when or where they might be publicized. Several weeks later, she said that much of the audit information still needed to be reviewed and scanned.
Yesterday the audit materials were picked up for review. The seals had been broken and the contents reviewed by staff to ensure no sensitive voter info was inside that needed to be redacted. There is a lot of information to be reviewed so it will take time to scan.
Earlier this month in response to a report that State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-LD07) asked fellow lawmakers not to use the phrase “conspiracy theory” during Senate Elections Committee meetings, the county quipped that some lawmakers based their bills on conspiracy theories.
It's too bad some election legislation is based on blueberry pancakes. It would be beneficial if we kept pancakes out of lawmaking altogether. https://t.co/xrdygTGp9t
This past November’s election in Arizona was a complete disaster. Not only did voting machines fail across Maricopa County, but many voters were suppressed and disenfranchised. Right now, we should be working toward solutions that restore voter confidence and ensure election integrity. But believe it or not, some national groups and liberal billionaires are planning to come to Arizona to run a ballot initiative that would make our elections even more complicated.
It’s called ranked-choice voting, and if you haven’t heard of it, it works a little something like this…
