By Alexander Lomax
Sal DiCiccio. Photo Credit: AZCentral.com
It will be no surprise to anyone who pays attention to Scottsdale politics when I say that 2025 has been a very…spicy year at City Hall. Instead of typical left-vs-right battles, the main battle has been between the conservative faction on City Council against Mayor Lisa Borowsky, herself generally also considered conservatives (or, to be more factual, all of them are registered Republicans). For Democrats, they have likely observed this with a good dose of schadenfreude and a whole lot of “Told ya so”.
Ultimately however, we want a highly functioning city, regardless of political leanings. So a new potential hire has left a lot of people scratching their heads, and he has only justified that hesitation.
Sal DiCiccio was a long-time Phoenix City Councilmember, and was known for being one of the few conservatives on council, but also a bomb-thrower. There were few confrontations that he wouldn’t embrace, and while that’s easy to do when you’re clearly in the minority, it has a different tenor when you’re in charge.
As per Axios, Mayor Borowsky is looking to bring DiCiccio on as her policy advisor, and it didn’t take long for DiCiccio to start throwing punches. Councilman Adam Kwasman sent an email to supporters earlier in the month outlining his priorities in council, and he ended the email with a fundraising pitch as per normal, segueing into that pitch by saying “if you believe in Scottsdale’s potential”.
In one of the most absurd charges I’ve seen in my adult life, DiCiccio has seized upon that segue by saying that it may be indicative of a “pay to play” scheme, i.e. bribery.
Yes, DiCiccio is calling a simple throwaway line the types of which can be found on nearly any email correspondence from elected officials as potential bribery. He knows better than this. He knows that he is full of it.
Granted, this comes with some context. After all, City Council recently stripped Borowsky of a number of her staffers, charging that the six she had at her disposal was too many and they had too few. It was a redistribution of staffers that should have been done better, so this charge seems like a punch back at Council.
That said, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to not pin blame on the Mayor’s office if the people who are going to be in charge of policy are willing to lie to your face in order to strike back at perceived rivals. This is just embarrassing.