By Ronald Sampson
When following elected leaders, you have to be used to disappointment. They need to make myriad decisions on votes and even the best of them have to make difficult and sometimes bad decisions. It’s a part of life…you can never expect perfection. But what this lame-duck iteration of the Scottsdale City Council has done has been beyond the pale, and even the cooler heads seem to have lost their mind.
Case in point has been the recent Axon controversy. You probably know the story by now (if not you can read our coverage here). Axon berated, blustered, and bullied its way to a yes vote for its egregious and unwanted apartment megaplex plan against the wishes of local citizens. Those citizens are now banding together to put it on the ballot and let the citizens make their voice heard.
I thought I had seen plenty of gaslighting from elected officials, but then I saw this post from Councilwoman Solange Whitehead and somehow still managed to be shocked. She was one of the unfortunate Yes votes when this issue came to council last month, but then she followed it up with this Facebook post where she unnecessarily throws shade on the grassroots efforts to fight back against Axon’s plans.
To that, I need to ask…has the Councilwoman hit her head recently? Is she alright? Because it seems as though this is a different person.
For instance, remember when Axon threatened Planning Commissioner Christian Serena by calling his employer and making veiled threats because it didn’t like one of his votes? Is Whitehead now standing up for bullies? Seems out-of-character.
Why is she standing up for the firm that bullied the city by threatening to move its headquarters if it didn’t get its way? Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Does she love a bully now?
She always seemed pro-education…so why is she standing up for the firm that singlehandedly screwed Arizona’s public schools out of north of $10 million by misleading the State Land Trust as to the purpose of the land it purchased? Is she anti-schools now? What happened?
I have long thought Councilwoman Whitehead to be a principled person. Unfortunately I’ve had to come to the conclusion that I was probably wrong.