Guest Editorial: The Truth About Axon

Axon Enterprise, the Scottsdale maker of Tasers and body cameras, wanted one of the largest apartment developments in Arizona history — roughly 1,900 units beside its own campus near Loop 101 and Hayden Road. As a member of the city’s Planning Commission, I studied the proposal, listened to residents, and voted no.

When I refused to knuckle under, I found my personal life under assault. The company repeatedly denied any involvement. Then the city attorney wrote to Axon: “It is apparent to me that an Axon employee did contact Commissioner Serena’s employer.” Such conduct, she warned, “tends to raise public concern about the integrity of the City’s public hearing process … It can also have a chilling effect on the City’s public officials’ willingness to serve in their volunteer capacity.”

Only then did Axon admit what happened — and immediately claim I was the one seeking favor. I wasn’t. That is the company in miniature: deny the conduct, then invent a motive for the target.

Axon has shown this pattern repeatedly:

• Scottsdale’s Airport Advisory Commission — seven volunteers — unanimously refused to recommend the project, warning it threatened the airport’s future.

• A lame-duck council, with several members rejected at the ballot box, approved the rezoning on its way out the door.

• Residents gathered nearly 27,000 signatures to force a public vote. Axon posted paid “blockers” at signature tables to discourage signers. The referendum qualified anyway.

• Axon stormed the Legislature with a legion of lobbyists to pass SB 1543 — the “Axon bill” — to eliminate the referendum. When Scottsdale legislators sided with residents, Axon turned on them too.

• Now it has mobilized more than $1 million to attack Councilman Barry Graham, its most vocal critic facing re-election, and launched a new front group whose website doesn’t disclose donors.

Deny wrongdoing. Buy the officials who can be bought. Attack those who can be neither bought nor bullied.

I was one of nearly 27,000 residents who signed the referendum petition. We were not afraid then, and we won’t be intimidated now. No committee, however well funded or cleverly named, gets to buy us back.

Christian Serena is a Scottsdale resident and former volunteer Scottsdale Planning Commissioner