By Ronald Sampson
Credit: Axon
Just when I had hoped that it would be the end of it, that the city of Scottsdale would get a reprieve from the constant harassment, it persists. Like a woman at a club who keeps getting hit on by a guy that won’t take no for an answer, regardless of her friends and her beefy boyfriend telling him to get lost, he’s just going to take another shot of Don Julio and give it another try, because she actually really likes it, she just doesn’t know yet.
Scottsdale is that woman, and Axon is that clueless dude, and Axon’s baaaaaaack. Regular readers know what a persistent problem they’ve been in Scottsdale, trying to shoehorn in a massive apartment complex against the desires of essentially everyone and like a petulant child threatening to take its ball and go home (i.e. move its headquarters) if it doesn’t get its way (read our full coverage here).
Well after massive public pushback Axon is preparing to take another swing, with revised plans that it is preparing to take back to the Scottsdale Planning Commission and City Council. And wow, what a change! Instead of 2,500 units, they’ve reduced it down to a mere 1,965 units! Don’t you see? Axon is listening! Axon cares!
Hopefully the sarcasm was obvious. It’s an embarrassingly small capitulation, turning into a potential local nightmare into very slightly less of a potential local nightmare.
Think about it…when have you EVER known of any local company, or ANY corporation at all, wanting to create a MASSIVE apartment/condo complex for its own benefit? This is not a thing that happens. Imagine if GoDaddy Gardens was proposed. It would be rightfully laughed off the stage. Why on earth is Axon even trying to do this? Clearly it seems like a backward way of boosting its own bottom line, and hey, they should pursue profits, but not at the expense of the community and the taxpayer.
After all, perhaps the worst part is that it very much gamed the Arizona State Land Trust, performing a zoning rug-pull bait-and-switch that stole millions of dollars that would be dedicated to Arizona’s schools and yet still trying to cosplay as a “good corporate neighbor”.
“It’s not easy to do something iconic as a big public company,” Axon CEO Rick Smith said. “I want to do something that stands out.”
If “something iconic” is alienating an entire city to feed your own misplaced hubris, than well done…he’s truly an icon.
Meanwhile, Scottsdale should continue to reject this bully, and the only way to treat a bully is to punch them in the mouth. Not literally, but by standing up to them and saying, “Hell no.”