Solange’s Scottsdale Salience

By SongBird

No matter how the elections turn out Tuesday for Scottsdale City Council, or in November, Solange Whitehead is a Hall of Famer.

Amongst the contemporary rancor over Axon, out of state funding, apartments, development, transparency, elections and parking garages, one can forget her many, many contributions to the city over the past decade.  That shouldn’t be.

She serves with a smile.

Her constituent services are second to few.

She ran 8 years ago as a relative unknown but was an important, early voice against one of the most misguided development ideas in Scottsdale history:  the so called “Desert Discovery Center” at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve’s Gateway Trailhead.  Her sincerity and engagement helped torchbear massive opposition that led to the project’s shellacking at the polls in 2018, a lightning bolt for her insurgent council candidacy.

Over her first term she became a conscience of the council, often seeking to find compromise, interrupting the notion and concern that she was just some tree loving and hugging liberal.

When Scottsdale desperately needed an infusion of infrastructure dollars via a $300 million bond that was crafted without raising taxes – improvements that hadn’t happened in 20 years — no one on the council was more involved in the landslide public vote than Whitehead.

After that electoral success she also helped the city snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for a new and more restrictive General Plan whose fortunes were flailing until she said not this day, and again engaged meaningfully and successfully with voters.

But her biggest legacy may be the perseverance to help power a repurposing of an expiring McDowell Sonoran Preserve tax that voters passed by a substantial margin in 2024, despite opposition from Bob Littlefield, Barry Graham, Michelle Ugenti-Rita, Adam Kwasman and many others.  Those valuable, critical funds will supply billions over time for the very quality of life services the “conservatives” claim  essential but often don’t know how to fund.  Thanks to Solange they have the resources to actually implement their priorities.

And that leads us to another important observation about Whitehead, something the “conservatives” governing and running don’t yet understand.  Newt Gingrich didn’t get beamed with his “Contract With America” in 1994 into 2024 and cause or justify some new type of righter governance in the city.  Scottsdale is Center-Right, Center-Left.  Always has been. Always will be.  And that’s why it’s such a shining city on its Sonoran hills.  Name one radical right or left city in America that’s particularly special for being so.  It doesn’t exist.  Jim Lane served for 12 years as Scottsdale’s Mayor.  He was as conservative as it gets.  Yet, he governed Center-Right, not just Right.  He was rewarded by voters three times.  Whitehead understands this too, as a progressive.  She governs Center-Left.

Yes, Whitehead got snookered by Axon .  The company’s vanity corporate HQ design to ego came in very expensive and they needed a new way to help pay for it since Scottsdale – thanks to Jim Lane – doesn’t do subsidies.  So they concocted a monstrous apartment plan that is a subsidy of a different sort.  Axon’s conduct would have been laughed out of a place like Paradise Valley if such threats to leave or development largesse had been made.  But if the worst you can say about Whitehead is that she isn’t a very good poker player, there are worst things that can be said of a person.

If re-elected Whitehead will have to deal with all of the ethical  questions Axon has injected into Scottsdale politics.  No one wants to go through what Tom Forese and Doug Little endured under similar circumstances. Ask Claude if you don’t recall.  I, for one, don’t believe Whitehead purchases a lot of knee pads at Dick’s Sporting Goods, for anyone.

After all, anyone who gives Axon any more than they received for the “compromise” of 600 apartment and 600 condos in November, 2025 will get recalled and have to live with a personal and policy legacy akin to a skin cabaret.

Whitehead talks a lot about Scottsdale resident Jim Bruner when making big decisions.  While a Maricopa County Supervisor he famously did what was right, casting the deciding vote for what is now the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.  He cast it while running for Congress.  Once the prohibitive favorite, he finished third.  But Axon’s apartments are no Chase Field, amplifying where Whitehead’s analogies fall flat.

But her compass is more right than wrong.  And no matter how the 2026 elections go for her, she has done more good for Scottsdale with her leadership and votes than most councilmembers in the city’s 75 years.  Like Jim Bruner she is a gold standard for public servants.  Even in disagreement.  Especially in disagreement.  Win or lose Whitehead is a winner, especially for Scottsdale.