Why does it seem that most things involving embattled Paradise Valley Town Councilman Paul Dembow circulate around unethic and sleaze?
Wrongly, even comically, Dembow is seeking a FOURTH term on the Town Council. That’s a man with an identity crisis. How else to explain someone wanting a 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th year on an unpaid dais in a community that has a deep bench for replacing him? Perhaps this is the primary reason Christine Labelle, a competitor of Dembow’s in the upcoming council elections, is calling for term limits. Scottsdale has them. So does Phoenix. So do most places. Why not Paradise Valley?
But we digress. Recall Dembow has supported putting one of his political consultants on the taxpayer, errr the Town’s payroll, and even absconded a crucifix at a memorial site within Paradise Valley, itself memorialized on video. Reacquaint yourself with that despicable act by reading here and watching the video here.
So just went you thought Dembow cold not go low(er), along comes this. Recently, conspicuously, a “Phyllis Patterson” wrote an opinion piece in the Paradise Valley Independent lauding Dembow and blasting his opponents Christine Labelle and Ellen Andeen. That kind of stuff happens and is often engineered in campaigns. No problem there. But there is when “Phyllis Patterson” doesn’t appear to exist. No one by that name is registered to vote in Paradise Valley, or has voted there in recent memory. At the candidate’s forum in question put on by the Eagle Society where Dembow was purportedly impressive and the others not, at least according to “Patterson,” leaders of the organization say they don’t know a Phyllis Patterson either.
So was this a phantom person put up by Dembow? Did he write the piece? Did an ally? What does he know? If the Paradise Valley Independent is going to run items from ghosts it has an obligation to now challenge Dembow. From what email did this opinion piece originate? There are so many unanswered questions to yet another ethical issue that now confronts Dembow.
If we are wrong this space will be his or someone else’s to refute. The invitation is open. Bueller? Dembow? Somebody? Anybody?
Until then and quite simply, it’s time for Dembow to go. It’s what often happens to people who serve too long and think the title belongs to them, rather than the people. Dembow has become an embarrassment to the noble men and women that serve on the Town Council and wholly unnecessary to the effective operations of Paradise Valley.