\u201cAdopt Resolution No. 13584 amending the City of Scottsdale Rules of Council Procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sounds about as exciting as watching a cactus grow, right?<\/p>\n
Not so, here in Scottsdale \u2026<\/p>\n
The item at the Jan. 13 City Council meeting was presented by Interim City Attorney Luis Santaella and City Clerk Ben Lane \u2013 the duo behind contentious rule changes in December; at that meeting, the most anguished move was to eliminate a public comments section that traditionally began Scottsdale meetings.<\/p>\n
As Mayor Lisa Borowsky sharply noted, City Council passed \u201cRules of Council Procedure\u201d in 2011, with amendments in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2024.<\/p>\n
A City Council majority of four \u2013 Jan Dubauskas, Barry Graham, Adam Kwasman and Kathy Littlefield \u2013 that has been accused by Councilwoman Solange Whitehead of voting in a \u201cbloc\u201d powered through two changes last year.<\/p>\n
This week, stiff-arming harsh comments against the idea, they added more changes billed by Santaella\/Lane as \u201cbased on feedback from councilmembers and city staff and are intended to make our meetings more efficient, civil, and legally sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new two changes?<\/p>\n
One: \u201cdirect the city clerk to administratively cancel a council meeting, with the concurrence of the city manager, if the clerk is notified at least two business days in advance that four or more members of the council cannot attend the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two: \u201callow each councilmember to make a councilmember report at the end of the meeting about items of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The councilmember reports were pitched as mirroring the mayor\u2019s report at the beginning of meetings; \u201cthis would be for information only with no discussion by the City Council. This practice is done by other Arizona cities and towns.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the latter, Littlefield said she was behind the idea, as she has been wanting to share \u201ccommunity news\u201d \u2013 but was unable to do so, under the previous guidelines.<\/p>\n
Borowsky insisted she would have been fine allowing councilmembers to share appreciations without changing the format and Whitehead demanded a study session to hash out \u201cguardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both were overruled when the vote was tallied.<\/p>\n
\u2018Mini-mayors\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n With opposition vote Councilwoman Maryanne McAllen relatively muted, Borowsky and Whitehead raged over the new cancellation policy.<\/p>\n As the Santaella\/Lane report noted, \u201cScottsdale boards and commissions follow this practice,\u201d which \u201chelps avoid issues related to the public showing up to meetings that cannot be held due to lack of a quorum \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Whitehead, for one, was not buying that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have repeatedly \u2013 this past year \u2013 shut down government, shut down the voices of the people, shut down the voices of businesses \u2013 and now it appears that if four members of the city council don’t like the subject matter, we shut down the meeting,\u201d she proclaimed with emotion.<\/p>\n \u201cThis makes absolutely no sense \u2013 and just as a reminder for anybody who may not know, boards and commissions are not elected. They’re appointed. They provide guidance. They don’t decide. The Council does.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo (avoiding) tough subjects by getting together and finding three pals to say we don’t want to go to the meeting is silly.\u201d<\/p>\n Noting elected officials can call into meetings if they are away, Whitehead said the change \u201cmakes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Two public speakers doubled down on Whithead\u2019s critique.<\/p>\n Dan Ishac harkened back to last year\u2019s \u201cParkingate\u201d controversy in saying Dubauskas, Graham and Kwasman \u201cactively worked to throw our mayor out of the office.\u201d<\/p>\n He called the new cancellation rule \u201ca blatant attempt to prevent the mayor from stalling from calling special meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n Steve Sutton denounced the changes as \u201cinsulting our intelligence.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about allowing a four-person bloc of political votes to cancel meetings they don\u2019t want to have because they don\u2019t like the subject\u2013 and most likely directed at stopping the mayor from calling special meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n Borowsky bashed the move as \u201cshowing a lot of egos and insecurity.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a paranoid type of person,\u201d she sneered, \u201cbut it does seem to fall in line with the consistent and persistent attempt to make us all mayor up here.\u201d<\/p>\n She concluded that the rule changes were fueled by \u201cquite frankly, jealousy.\u201d<\/p>\n Graham calmly said he gave no value to \u201caudacious claims about motives.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the \u201cstaff-driven\u201d agenda item represents \u201ca thoughtful refinement to our rules and procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n Whitehead again pushed for a study session, though she glumly acknowledged: \u201cI realize I\u2019m going to get voted down.\u201d<\/p>\n Kwasman\u2019s counter:<\/p>\n \u201cJust because Councilmember Whitehead doesn\u2019t like it doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Calling the moves innocuous,\u201d he shared a prediction:<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of 5-2 votes and 4-3 votes in 2026. And that\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n He then called for a vote on Graham\u2019s motion to pass the rule changes as presented.<\/p>\n The tally, as Kwasman predicted: 4-3 (Dubauskas, Graham, Kwasman, Littlefield, for; Borowsky, McAllen, Whitehead, against).<\/p>\n Before another vote, which foiled her plan of putting an Old Town marketing contract on a future agenda, Borowsky commented:<\/p>\n \u201cIt would seem the fix is in.\u201d<\/p>\n After explaining her concerns, the mayor repeated: \u201cThe fix is in.\u201d<\/p>\n Borowsky then joined Whitehead and McAllen in voting against Graham\u2019s motion \u201cto take no action\u201d \u2013 which passed, 4-3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAdopt Resolution No. 13584 amending the City of Scottsdale Rules of Council Procedure.\u201d Sounds about as exciting as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":529386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[179695,5229,5643,1587,166900,5310,138901,12176,1589,7600,152497,228364,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-529385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-adam-kwasman","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-barry-graham","tag-city-council","tag-lisa-borowsky","tag-mayor","tag-phoenix","tag-scottsdale","tag-solange-whitehead","tag-tom-scanlon","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115926439391398046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529385","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=529385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}