Post-primary and pre-runoff, the Scottsdale political scene in a down period before the Nov. 3 election has been a little snoozy.<\/p>\n
But some snapped awake with a start upon the release of financial documents for the period July 1 to July 15 \u2013 covering up to a week before the primary.<\/p>\n
The co-stars of the reports: Josh Isner and David Megdal. The two are associated with almost-identical twin projects approved to bring 2,400 apartments to North Scottsdale.<\/p>\n
On July 1, Isner, the president of Axon Enterprises, made a $5,000 donation to Raoul Zubia.<\/p>\n
The same day, Medgal wrote a $5,000 check to Councilman Barry Graham.<\/p>\n
Graham and Zubia are two of the three City Council runoff candidates. Former state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who finished a strong second in the primary, is the other.<\/p>\n
In his reelection run, Graham has aggressively opposed Axon\u2019s plan for 1,200 apartments in North Scottsdale.<\/p>\n
Yet, he has been quiet on the similar-sized Parque project, run by Megdal\u2019s FalconEye.<\/p>\n
News of the Parque-related contribution to Graham infuriated Councilwoman Solange Whitehead, who won her reelection bid by scoring an outright win at the primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of irony that I spent a year negotiating with the Parque to make it a better project and took heat from Barry\u2019s team,\u201d Whitehead said. \u201cAnd yet he took money from the developer after doing nothing to make it a good project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regarding Isner\u2019s donation to Zubia, Graham said: \u201cI think voters deserve to know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, Graham said comparing that to his donation from Megdal is \u201capples to oranges.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t vote for the Parque,\u201d Graham stressed. \u201cDavid Megdal made a donation to my campaign. That was after I voted against the large project.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he has before, Graham took a cynical view of Axon\u2019s recent memorandum of understanding with the city, in which the Taser maker agreed to reduce total apartment\/condo units to 1,200.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident with a more favorable council they\u2019ll ask for more density,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Graham pointed to the Better Together political action committee, which did not receive funding from Axon but is headed by an Axon lobbyist and former Axon spokesman. In the primary, Better Together spent more than $300,000 in ads that attacked Graham, Ugenti-Rita and Bob Littlefield \u2013 three candidates who aggressively fought Axon\u2019s development plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAxon\u2019s affiliated entities and principals are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence this election and help Raoul Zubia,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they didn\u2019t plan to ask for more (apartments), why bother?\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham was asked if Megdal was supporting him in hope Graham would in turn support the Parque requesting more units.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2018ve spoken to them,\u201d Graham said. \u201cThey have no plans to bring anything forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham trumpeted a Terry Babb letter to the editor critical of Isner\u2019s financial backing of Zubia.<\/p>\n
Graham seconded Babb\u2019s finding it hypocritical that Zubia said in June he had not received any Axon-related money.<\/p>\n
Zubia shrugged off the criticism, telling the Progress, \u201cBarry and his allies are trying to distract voters with manufactured attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
He jabbed at Graham as \u201can ethically challenged chaos agent\u201d and underscored the FalconEye-related contribution to Graham.<\/p>\n
Three for two<\/strong><\/p>\n Zubia is a newcomer to politics \u2013 he failed in a previous run for Scottsdale City Council \u2013 who received endorsements from Democratic groups before the primary election.<\/p>\n Zubia came in behind a \u201cbloc\u201d of three candidates who hailed their conservative\/Republican credentials: Ugenti-Rita, Graham and former three-term Councilman Bob Littlefield.<\/p>\n The latter is the husband of current Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield, who \u201cterms out\u201d with a 12-year council run ending Dec. 31.<\/p>\n A week after qualifying for the runoff for two seats, Bob Littlefield made it a three-person race by dropping out.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, candidates were required to file \u201cpost-primary election reports,\u201d specifying fundraising and spending in July.<\/p>\n Zubia reported total contributions of $6,328 from July 1-21, bringing his campaign total over $94,000.<\/p>\n Ugenti-Rita raised another $9,000 in the first three weeks of July, bringing her total haul to just under $105,000.<\/p>\n On July 17, Marilyn Hayden made a max donation of $6,750 to Ugenti-Rita.<\/p>\n Ugenti-Rita reported spending around $95,000, leaving $10,000 \u2013 plus whatever else she raises \u2013 for her push to November.<\/p>\n Her unofficial ticket mate Graham, meanwhile, brought in $16,000-plus in the first three weeks of July, bringing his campaign total to a candidate-leading $158,528. Graham reported a balance of nearly $50,000 as of July 15.<\/p>\n Graham\u2019s leading donor was the previously mentioned Megdal, who pitched in $5,000.<\/p>\n \u201cFalconEye Ventures is a real estate investment company founded by tech entrepreneur George Kurtz in 2020,\u201d according to Business Wire.<\/p>\n Kurtz, co-founder and chief executive officer of tech powerhouse\u00a0 CrowdStrike, is using FalconEye to \u201cflip\u201d the old CrackerJax amusement park into a mixed-use development anchored by 1,200 apartments.<\/p>\n FalconEye also recently purchased the nearby Scottsdale Quarter.<\/p>\n Graham voted against the Parque in 2023 and has been a leading opponent of Axon\u2019s plan for a similar-sized project in North Scottsdale.<\/p>\n As previously reported, Whitehead \u2013 who has boasted of \u201csaving Axon jobs\u201d via her support of the development — received a $5,000 second-quarter campaign donation from an Axon executive.<\/p>\n In the first three weeks of July, Whitehead added $4,613, bringing her campaign fundraising total over $145,000.<\/p>\n She reported a campaign balance of $21,000.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWhat we do with that money is not yet decided,\u201d Whitehead said.<\/p>\n The winner\u2019s view of campaign financing?<\/p>\n \u201cYou need money to run a campaign,\u201d Whitehead said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut votes aren\u2019t bought in Scottsdale.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Post-primary and pre-runoff, the Scottsdale political scene in a down period before the Nov. 3 election has been…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1032608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,359089,1587,166900,47018,413112,413113,200839,189881,183858,270103,1589,241098,7600,152497,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1032607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-axon-enterprises","tag-az","tag-barry-graham","tag-crowdstrike","tag-david-megdal","tag-falconeye-ventures","tag-george-kurtz","tag-josh-isner","tag-kathy-littlefield","tag-michelle-ugenti-rita","tag-phoenix","tag-raoul-zubia","tag-scottsdale","tag-solange-whitehead","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117183457089155758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}