By Alexander Lomax
Photo Credit: Arizona PBS
Facing an onslaught of negativity for crafting a capitulation rather than a compromise with Axon over its massive apartment plan on Monday night, Mayor Lisa Borowsky sent out the press release below.
After getting booed yesterday at the Palo Verde Republican Women’s meeting I get the attempt at spin.
Unfortunately, our reliable sources are able to debunk much of the Mayor’s diatribe.
Lie #1: She stated a California union funded the referendum drive. Simply not true. One need only look at publicly available campaign finance reports which show the union in question contributing about 6% of the signatures and funds. The Mayor knows yet continues to perpetuate a falsehood.
Lie #2: She engineered a settlement with “600 apartments and 600 condominiums.” Yet, the Mayor failed to include any language – and continues to refuse to do so – that would ensure condominiums. Her deal effectively allows 1,200 apartments.
Lie #3: Basically everything else in the press release, according to sources.
Notably, the Mayor failed to note new special favors exempting Axon from water pledges previously agreed to even though Scottsdale is facing severe problems because of drought and its reliance on Colorado River water or that, for the first time in city history, is allowing a developer (Axon) to police itself during construction. She also, for the first time in history, unilaterally eliminated the constitutional voting rights of citizens.
The Mayor could have ended this issue with a smart, reasonable compromise. She failed, miserably. Fix the problems Mayor rather than channel Pinocchio. You actually have the ability to do so.
Meanwhile the issue remains very much alive because the state law underpinning the Scottsdale scheme remains the subject of compelling litigation, with more litigation on other fronts coming, sources also confirm.
Her press release:
The Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions (“TAAAZE”) committee, led by former Councilman Bob Littlefield, ran the out-of-state, union-funded Axon referendum. Of the about 27,000 signatures gathered, a total of 25,000 Scottsdale voter signatures were paid for by a California labor union.
Just as our U.S. Constitution guarantees a defendant the right to a speedy trial, in this instance, Axon was told by a majority of my council colleagues, their trial by election would be delayed two years, set in November 2026.
Axon appealed the delay to the Arizona Legislature, which resulted in Senate Bill 1543 (“the Axon bill”) being passed and signed by the Governor. Axon “won” an exception to local zoning control, which effectively made our votes in the referendum election moot.
However, the Axon bill had defects that make it susceptible to constitutional legal challenges. If the election was held before the legislature fixed those issues, it would have made SB 1543 meaningless. Instead, the legislature had plenty of time to override our right to have a meaningful vote.
In July, I asked the City Council to hold the referendum election at the next available date, which would have been November 2025. Councilmembers Dubauskas, Graham and Littlefield refused, and they were successful in blocking a timely election set earlier this month — at de minimis cost to the city.
Again, in October, I asked the City Council to hold an election at the next available date, which would have been March 2026. Again, those same Councilmembers refused to listen to reason and said, “no.”
Mr. Littefield has been quoted as saying, “I always said we need to let people vote on the issue,” which is a curious comment from Bob because his political allies on City Council repeatedly denied my requests to hold an early election. What is even more curious is Bob telling a colleague the reason for delaying the election until November 2026 was to get himself and Councilman Graham re-elected.
Accordingly, we were left with only two choices:
- File a lawsuit against the flawed Axon legislation, only to have Axon go back to the legislature to fix SB1543, neutering TAAAZE’s and the City’s legal claims and further nullifying the referendum election, leaving Axon free to build 2,000 apartments or more; or
- Strike a compromise to reduce the number of units and project density.
I promised the voters to oppose high-density apartments. In keeping with my promise, I negotiated a major reduction of density, down from 2,000 apartments to 600 apartments and 600 condominiums. Importantly, TAAAZE representatives agreed to resolve the entire dispute if Axon agreed to build 500 apartments and 1,000 condos. In the end, my negotiations with Axon resulted in a much lower overall density than TAAAZE’s last demand.
Isn’t it time to end the political gamesmanship and jockeying?
Delaying the election cost us our right to vote on the Axon project and resulted in the city being stuck with SB 1543. If we are faced with another referendum, let’s have the election right away and not make the voters wait and risk more legislative interference.