By Ronald Sampson
Scottsdale is a city that prides itself on a certain standard — of beauty, of civic engagement, of community. So when a single photograph taken at a San Francisco Giants spring training game manages to capture both what is right and what is deeply wrong about local politics, it’s worth pausing to reflect on both.
The image in question shows former Mayor Dave Ortega and current Scottsdale City Councilwoman Jan Dubauskas sharing a warm greeting at the ballpark: a friendly embrace, a conversation, two people who have sat on opposite sides of the political aisle choosing to simply be human beings together. Ortega, formerly a Democrat, and Dubauskas, a Republican, are not known as political allies. They have represented different visions for this city. And yet, there they were… chatting, smiling, hugging because apparently not everyone in Scottsdale has forgotten how to be a neighbor.
That, unambiguously, is the best of Scottsdale.
Then came the posts.
A page called “Protect Scottsdale” took the same photograph and published it with the caption: “Is Councilwoman Jan Dubauskas now ’embracing’ Democrat former Mayor Ortega? Wonder what they are plotting.” A separate post added romantic insinuation with a trail of red hearts.
A hug at a baseball game, the kind exchanged a thousand times a night in every stadium in America, was repackaged as evidence of either conspiracy or impropriety, depending on which narrative was more useful in the moment.
This is the worst of Scottsdale. Not a political disagreement, not a sharp editorial, not even a tough question, but the reflexive weaponization of a mundane human moment for the purpose of sowing suspicion and division.
It is worth noting that this kind of content doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Scottsdale City Hall has experienced genuine turbulence over the past year and a half; leadership departures, internal friction, policy battles that have played out uncomfortably in public. There are real conversations worth having about the direction of this city. But manufactured outrage over a spring training greeting isn’t that conversation. It’s a distraction from it, and a corrosive one.
Scottsdale deserves better than this. Dave Ortega and Jan Dubauskas, whatever their political differences, showed more civic grace in one spontaneous ballpark moment than the people photographing them from the stands managed in their entire post.
Here’s a thought: maybe the fact that former political opponents can still look each other in the eye, offer a kind word, and share a hug is something to be grateful for, not suspicious of.