Rick Smith. Photo Credit: Jim Poulin, Phoenix Business Journal
We have spoken at length about Axon’s unwanted attempts to shoehorn a staggering nearly 2,000 apartments into North Scottsdale; about the apparent bait-and-switch that it pulled with both the city and the Arizona State Land Department, and its aggressive dismissal of the concerns of the area (get up to date here). Well Axon recently announced its quarterly financial results, and CEO Rick Smith used it as an opportunity to further alienate himself from the city.
Instead of focusing on financial results, Smith took the time to talk about the self-inflicted Scottsdale fiasco, where he attempted to strong-arm the city by saying that it may need to look elsewhere for its headquarters. Then, in one of the biggest whoppers we’ve heard in a while, he had the gall to mention the “political environment becoming more challenging and, frankly, anti-development.”
If only the city was wearing one of Axon’s body cameras, because perhaps then we could show him the footage and he might see for himself what the rest of us see: a bully and a bad neighbor.
No Rick, Scottsdale is not anti-development. In fact, we’ve been somewhat pleasantly surprised about how this current iteration of the city’s leadership has been rather reasonable in its approach to growth recently. It is not anti-development, it is anti-bad development. Development that is unnecessary and unwanted, development that is all personal gain and no public benefit, development that doesn’t give a damn about valid concerns brought up by the citizenry.
Smith is performing one of the grandest gaslighting attempts we have ever seen. How dare the city not greenlight this monstrosity?!? Nevermind that it certainly seems as though Smith and Axon may have been duplicitous with both the Arizona State Land Trust and the city of Scottsdale (as well as to shareholders and the larger public allegedly), it’s apparently our fault that we take issue with repeated, malignant dishonesty.
We thought Axon’s game couldn’t get more repugnant, but Smith manages to dig the hole further and further.
Smith got to inappropriately use his quarterly reporting pulpit as a bully, so allow us to use ours. Do what you promised you would do, Axon. Abandon your egregious, anti-Scottsdale bait-and-switch and revert back to what everyone agreed on. And if not? Then don’t let the door hit you on the way out, because all of us deserve much better than this.