Guest Editorial: What Scottsdale should say to Axon

Scottsdale is a spectacular city. It was so long before Axon.  It will be long after Axon is gone. We can both applaud a local company’s success over the past many years while criticizing its recent actions.

Below is what Mayor Borowsky and every member of our City Council should be saying in response to Axon’s relentless effort to build the largest apartment complex in state history at a time and in a place that’s wholly unnecessary and overwhelmingly opposed by Scottsdale residents. It goes like this:

“Scottsdale will not be bullied.  By you.  Or by any other corporation or developer.

In 2020 you asked us to rezone a state land parcel for your new corporate headquarters.  The Scottsdale City Council did so.  The city council even granted you millions of dollars in “reimbursements” to do so. In 2024, you came back and said you now needed an apartment entitlement twice as large as any ever granted in Arizona to move forward with your headquarters.  Publicly, you said this was needed to attract workers on a “campus.”  Privately, you told us this was to subsidize and offset the increasing costs of construction.

It’s all nonsense and spin.  We know it.  The public knows it.  There are some 11,000 apartments under construction or approved within 5 miles of this site. Housing supply in this area for “workers” can be found in abundance. But in November 2024 you convinced 5 members of a lame duck City Council to approve your project, three of whom were defeated just weeks before because of their voracious approvals for apartments.  The citizens had enough. This after you threatened the job of a Scottsdale Planning Commissioner who opposed you.  This after you ripped off the State Land Department which helps fund our public schools to the tune of $100 million.

Our citizens took the matter into their own hands.  They exercised their rights to challenge your project and put it to a city-wide vote via the referendum process.  Almost 27,000 signatures were collected in less than 30 days, despite the massive sums you spent to prevent this from happening.  But rather than face a crushing election defeat at the polls – despite your insistence that your plan is popular – you ran to the State Legislature and convinced it to pass an unprecedented heist of our rights to avoid this vote on your extreme plans.

That legislation was outrageous and is unconstitutional. Which is why you fought so hard to stop us from hiring an excellent lawyer to protect our citizen’s rights.  There is no amount we won’t spend to stand up and stand by our citizens.

Scottsdale is not being unreasonable. Your so called “compromises” with city officials in recent days are as hollow as your legislation is callous. We are a city of great resources.  And we are going to use them to defeat your scheme.

If you want to remain headquartered in our beautiful city, you are most welcome.  We would love to have you.  But we are not going to be threatened, bullied or held hostage any longer by a company whose top executive is the highest paid in America, whose stock has appreciated by tens of billions.  You can afford your corporate headquarters without an unnecessary and extreme number of apartments that are as dense and inappropriate as they are poorly designed.

Oh, and by the way, we are not canceling the November 2026 election.  Despite the legislation it is still going to take place so our citizens do have the right to vote on your plans and the infrastructure “reimbursements” that were previously approved for your new office, so those councilmembers who voted for and against you can have that vote evaluated during their re-election campaigns, and so Arizona and the nation can see why you didn’t want to stand for an election in Scottsdale, and why you had to result to eviscerating constitutional rights to avoid a defeat at the polls.”

Bob Littlefield is a Former Scottsdale City Councilman and Chairman of TAAAZE (Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions), the political action committee that launched a successful referendum against the Axon apartment entitlement in Scottsdale. He can be reached at bob@boblittlefield.com.