It was so 2025.
The first Scottsdale City Council meeting of 2026 was certainly “retro.”
Indeed, the Jan. 7 crowd that packed City Hall might have thought they were in a timely machine. After three hours of excited talk … nothing happened.
Mayor Lisa Borowsky, who called the special “downtown summit,” echoed her intro speech of last January as she again pledged to “revitalize Old Town.”
Then, as they did throughout 2025, City Council members frustrated the mayor’s plan.
In a nod to the 2025-dominating “Parkingate,” though not quite “Parkingate 2: The Sequel,” Councilman Adam Kwasman challenged Borowsky over a potential procurement violation. Rather than speaking to a county detective, as he did last year, Kwasman interrupted one of Borowsky’s invited speakers, Chris Milke of the company SoniPark, calling for a Council-city attorney huddle.
After a brief executive meeting, Borowsky said she was ceasing Milke’s “Downtown Parking Solutions” presentation “out of an abundance of caution.” But, later in the meeting, she vented her frustration.
Though a majority of the crowd that packed City Hall seemed to share Borowsky’s vision for a task force to study Old Town, City Council stiff-armed the mayor – as they did repeatedly in 2025. Remember Borowsky’s failed volunteer fire department? Or her vain, repeated attempts to move a planned parking garage?
Just like 2025, several public speakers passionately pleaded not to move forward on the First and Brown garage – and to let the farmers market remain there.
Another failure, for Borowsky.
After 5-2 opposition to the mayor’s Old Town task force, a 4-3 majority rejected her pitch to “agendize an item for a future City
Council meeting related to future action on downtown parking solutions.”
“Big surprise,” one in the crowd grumbled, after Kwasman, Barry Graham, Jan Dubauskas and Kathy Littlefield voted against the future agenda item.
Councilwoman Solange Whitehead, who dubbed the above four “the bloc,” voted with the mayor and Councilwoman Maryann McAllen on the agenda item. But Whitehead joined the majority in the winning vote against “forming a Downtown Task Force to provide recommendations on improving the Downtown Character Area Plan and the Downtown marketing effort.”
Whitehead noted: “I support the need for a parking study, I have all along.”
Whitehead said the voter-approved General Plan “referenced pretty much all the things you guys mentioned tonight … again and again we reference the need to protect Old Town.”
She stressed a previous City Council action limited heights of buildings in Old Town.
“The way the task force is described now undoes the General Plan,” Whitehead said. “What I am looking for is more time to describe the task force.
“This task force is too broad,” she added.
Dubauskas followed Whitehead, saying, “We realize Old Town is a gem.”
She said City Manager Greg Caton has focused money on paving projects and “beautification of Old Town.”
Dubauskas pointed to a new hire: “We are going to have someone whose full-time job is to talk to all the businesses in Old Town.”
Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield then said she agreed with those points.
“I do not believe another task force creation is necessary right now. I think that would be counteractive to helping Old Town. … we’re doing so much now.
“Another task force is just another level of bureaucracy and slows things down.”
Borowsky said Littlefield’s criticism “surprises me.
“There’s an overwhelming sentiment we’re not hearing residents and we’re not taking action,” the mayor said – supported by applause from the audience, though not by City Council votes.
Public scolding
The crowd was energetic and vocal to the point of being rowdy, booing and groaning at the votes against Borowsky’s dual ideas.
Several spoke harshly to City Council during the public comments sections.
Yvonne Cahill, a real estate professional who briefly worked in Borowsky’s office last year, “I’m very disappointed the council shut down the most productive presentation we had tonight … he was just giving a solution and you guys shut him down – shame on you,” she scolded, to applause.
She said when she worked for Borowsky she was told the city does not have a list of downtown merchants. “I have personally experienced staff members telling me Greg Caton is telling staff members he’s not allowing them to work with the mayor or her staff,” Cahill alleged.
(The Progress asked Caton to respond to the accusation. “That statement is not true,” he said, via a spokeswoman.)
Cahill also criticized the Milke presentation shutdown, following advice from Acting City Attorney Luis Santaella.
“I’m disappointed in the city attorney,” Cahill said. “I just think he listens to ‘the bloc’ and just does whatever they want.”
Crystal Carroll, the owner of an Old Town cafe since the summer of 2024, followed Cahill.
She questioned the need for spending some $20 million on a new garage, with an explosive suggestion: “Obviously there’s some incentives going on behind the scenes.
Before spending money, she demanded, “we need to know if those (current Old Town) parking garages are being utilized; and the only way to know if they’re being utilized is to do what Chris (Milke) was talking about …”
Taking off her glasses for emphasis, she pointed at Kwasman.
“Disappointed in you,” the business owner called out. “Disappointed you would stop Chris from speaking. We need education. This was about nothing other than educating us on our parking situation. And shame on you and shame on anyone up there that doesn’t want to educate the public.
Dan Ishac criticized the parking garage process as “decisions on spending enormous amounts of money without data to support it.
To proceed without data is mismanagement and inappropriate.”
French Thompson, an Old Town business owner, pushed back on the critical public comments that preceded him.
He said he has been attending meetings on Old Town parking for years, never seeing most who packed City Hall.
“Where the hell have you guys been?” he wondered.
“You guys are applauding on stupid things you know nothing about because you’ve been brainwashed to believe it,” Thompson said, as many hissed and booed him.
Mayor reloads
The day after the Jan. 7 meeting, the Progress asked Mayor Lisa Borowsky how she felt it went.
“I’m disappointed by my colleagues ongoing focus on creating division and chaos,” she said.
“Our constituents deserve better. We had a packed house last night of dedicated stakeholders who are passionate about not only keeping Old Town strong but enhancing the visitor experience.
“It is too bad that, once again, (the public’s) voices were disregarded and shot down by the council majority. We would have kicked off 2026 on a positive note,” Borowsky said.
After her pitch for an advisory committee was rejected, the mayor said she has a new plan:
“I will be appointing an ad hoc Downtown Task Force.”
And, Borowsky added, “three qualified individuals expressed their intent to run for council after witnessing the nonsense from the dias — civic engagement is alive and well in Scottsdale.”