Credit: Axon
Sometimes you can make this stuff up. Bear with us.
A number of years ago Axon said it would build its new corporate headquarters in Scottsdale. It received approval to do so. That turned out to not be true.
Years went by and it returned with a new corporate headquarters plan, this time saying it could and would build it BUT . . . it needed a whopping 2,600 apartments to do so. After justifiable headwinds with what would have been the largest apartment entitlement in Arizona history x 2, the company said, let us rethink the proposal.
Channeling its inner Pinocchio, Axon returned to say that it really only needed 1,900 apartments, still 50% higher than the state record.
Along the way it denied trying to threaten the job of dissenting Planning Commissioner Christian Serena. We all know what the real truth was there.
After ignoring repeated warnings that its plan would be referred to the Scottsdale ballot, Axon pledged that it would challenge every single signature to prevent people from voting on its historic rezone. Perhaps after seeing the results – a record 27,000 signatures submitted with high validity rates – no challenge has surfaced.
After criticizing its opponents for not being transparent, Axon itself is now refusing to disclose whether it was six or seven figures it spent trying to bully Scottsdale residents to not sign petitions, a failure for which it may receive fines.
Then, after Maricopa County verified the referendum signatures, Axon made yet more promises that it would leave Scottsdale if there wasn’t a costly special election called before November 2026, the timing of which is its own fault for seeking passage of its zoning in the 2024 Scottsdale City Council lame duck session.
Does anything these guys say stick?
Remember the 2026 point for a moment because it will be relevant in just a bit. Basically, Axon has said that it won’t wait until 2026 and will move elsewhere if it doesn’t get more special favors.
As many readers know Axon is now trying to short circuit Scottsdale citizens’ constitutional right to put the project to a public vote with state legislation that would eliminate every Arizona citizen’s right, in any town, from ever undertaking a referendum against a city council’s decision. Whether it’s putting a homeless shelter in the middle of a neighborhood or a massive and unnecessary apartment project like this one, rights be damned, ones that have existed since statehood. That’s as extreme as it gets.
But let’s assume Axon runs the legislative gauntlet and Governor Hobbs signs the legislation – a very big if. There will be a lawsuit, unquestionably and immediately, upon that law taking effect. It’s as unconstitutional as it gets. And what will be the effect of that? Legal wrangling through the Superior Court, Court of Appeals and then the Arizona Supreme Court, taking them all the way to Summer, 2026. If Axon thinks this won’t happen – just as they didn’t think the referendum would – well, that would be a little like betting on the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. So all of this to get to the middle of next year, only to lose, and be right back where it is now?! It’s exactly where Axon said it didn’t want to be in 2026, having won nothing but granting opponents yet more ammunition to defeat it at the ballot box with its insane legislation.
As we have said, their strategists can’t shoot straight. Axon CEO Rick Smith clearly relied on good people to build a good company. But he apparently doesn’t have any around him now.
At least we will give Axon some credit for finally being straight with some new members of the Scottsdale City Council, admitting privately what anyone with a couple of marbles has known from the get-go. Smith wants to build a Taj Mahal new headquarters yet his Board of Directors won’t let him do it without financial subsidies (not going to happen in Scottsdale per its charter) or giant new zoning rights that are at issue today.
But Axon’s hubris is not Scottsdale’s problem or Arizona’s. There probably is a deal somewhere amongst Axon’s arrogance and incompetence, if it could only see it. But don’t count on it.