\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mood at City Hall is feisty \u2013 again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The off-and-on battle between Councilman Adam Kwasman and Mayor Lisa Borowsky seemed to be cooling down, but now the two are again crossing \u2013 with a feud heated by a \u201cdeep fake\u201d video.<\/p>\n
After being mocked in the social media video, Kwasman accused Borowsky of being part of a \u201ctoxic inner circle,\u201d demanding she \u201cdenounce\u201d its supposed members.<\/p>\n
He primarily targeted Sue Wood, who insisted Kwasman lobbied for an unneeded crosswalk in front of his temple.<\/p>\n
Led by Rabbi Pinchas Allouche, Congregation Beth Tefillah is on Shea Boulevard near 66th Street.<\/p>\n
While others have criticized the $600,000 crosswalk \u2013 Wood\u2019s artificial intelligence-fueled protest lit Kwasman\u2019s fuse.<\/p>\n
Around noon Sunday, May 3, Wood posted on her Protect Scottsdale Facebook page, which has 14,000 followers.<\/p>\n
The text:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the audience finds out that Adam Kwasman is getting a special crosswalk for his Temple, in the proposed budget at a cost of over 1\/2 Million dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The real-looking \u2013 to outsiders, at least \u2013 video was an AI-generated \u201cdeep fake,\u201d showing a crowd rising in astonishment as an apparent caricature of Kwasman throws his hands up in victory.<\/p>\n
Hours later, Kwasman ranted against the post on his X (formerly known as Twitter) page.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe use of insanely weird AI in a FB attack on me over the weekend,\u201d Kwasman wrote, \u201cto accomplish one\u2019s political goals tells you everything you need to know about the group \u2018Protect Scottsdale.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be very clear, this scene did not happen at all. It is completely AI fabricated. The audience, the weird fake me, standing up, all of it. Fake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwasman hardly stopped there, calling out Wood as \u201ccurrently involved in an organization with disgraced, fired Borowsky Chief of Staff, Lamar Whitmer, to undo all of our incredible accomplishments in Scottsdale over the past year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first-term councilman and former state representative insisted Wood and Whitmer are key members of a \u201ctiny, but interconnected cadre of Mayor Borowsky\u2019s inner circle.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the Wood-Whitmer allegiance is behind \u201cbar complaints, attacked CPA licenses, sent us multiple frivolous legal demand letters, and even, under false pretenses, made contact with our religious leaders to attempt to ostracize council members from their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwasman bypassed the background: He and fellow council representatives Jan Dubauskas and Barry Graham sparked a feud by complaining to county detectives over Borowsky\u2019s \u201cParkingate\u201d meetings. Early last year, the trio said they wanted the then-new mayor investigated over potential campaign and\/or procurement violations, after she pitched campaign donor David Hovey Jr.\u2019s alternate drawings for an Old Town parking garage.<\/p>\n
Kwasman also failed to mention his texts last summer to Terrance Thornton, Borowsky\u2019s chief of staff, stating the mayor \u201cbailed on\u201d an Axon meeting and is \u201c(expletive) this whole thing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also via text to Thornton, Kwasman threatened to form a \u201csupermajority\u201d that would oppose Borowsky for the rest of her term.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be very clear,\u201d Kwasman wrote, \u201cif she (Borowsky) doesn\u2019t make a deal \u2026 I\u2019m going to take away her (expletive) physical office and give it to Jan.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his X post last week blasting Wood\u2019s AI video, Kwasman insisted it was part of a plan \u201cto destroy our conservative majority.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m officially calling on Lisa Borowsky to publicly and once and for all denounce Lamar Whitner, Susan Wood, Yvonne Cahill, Crystal Carroll, and everyone else in your inner circle, who has consistently been the driving force of conflict over the past two years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwasman said he has been working hard at \u201cbuilding bridges with the mayors (sic) office,\u201d but said the attacks from Wood and company are blowing up the bridges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spoken with the Mayor and her new Chief, Terrance Thornton multiple times about the behavior of those in the Mayor\u2019s inner circle, and it consistently fell on deaf ears,\u201d Kwasman complained.<\/p>\n
\u201c… Madam Mayor, your inner circle is toxic. They will do anything and everything they can to destroy you, the council, and the city of Scottsdale. It is time you publicly distance yourself from all of them. Once that occurs, I\u2019ll be happy to resume working hand-in-hand with you for the city of Scottsdale.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Progress asked Wood about her post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used AI in my video, just for fun,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Asked if she was trying to caricature Kwasman, Wood said she used an actual photo of a council meeting, \u201cand the program Canva (made) a video out of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t change the image, it’s just from the council meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Progress asked Borowsky for her reaction to Kwasman\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n
She did not respond by this edition\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n
Crosswalk crosstalk<\/p>\n
At the May 5 City Council meeting, several spoke in favor of the proposed crosswalk on Shea Boulevard, which is included in the 2026-27 city budget.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ariella Friedman, \u201cspeaking as a mother,\u201d said family members were nearly hit by cars as they crossed the busy boulevard headed to the temple.<\/p>\n
She said the crosswalk will solve a \u201ccatastrophe waiting to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s better to prevent than heal,\u201d added another crosswalk supporter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few others objected to it.<\/p>\n
Jason Alexander called out \u201cthe appearance of it being a pet project put forward by Councilmember Kwasman.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also criticized Kwasman for \u201crunning to the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours after the meeting, Alexander did just that with a media-directed\u00a0 email titled \u201c66th St Crosswalk and Kwasman’s History of Anti-Semitism Claims.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was raised Jewish,\u201d Alexander stated, \u201cmy opposition is about a pork barrel project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another shot<\/strong><\/p>\n After a recall petition was started against Dubauskas, Kwasman took another shot at the mayor. In a May 6 post, he again implied Borowsky was using a proxy.<\/p>\n \u201cMake no mistake. This is the work of Lisa Borowsky\u2019s office staff, teaming up with radical Democrats to oust Scottsdale\u2019s conservative champion,\u201d Kwasman wrote in his X account.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mayor continues to wage outright war with the conservatives of the council. I\u2019ve never seen a self-proclaimed conservative team-up with the radical left to defeat conservatives.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a word for it: Traitor.\u201d<\/p>\n Borowsky did not respond to a request for comment as of this edition\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 The mood at City Hall is feisty \u2013 again.\u00a0 The off-and-on battle between Councilman Adam Kwasman and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":788331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[179695,5229,5643,738,1587,138901,12176,322135,1589,7600,294634,322136,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-788330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-adam-kwasman","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-az","tag-lisa-borowsky","tag-mayor","tag-pedestrian-crossings","tag-phoenix","tag-scottsdale","tag-scottsdale-city-hall","tag-susan-wood","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116554948181537918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788330","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=788330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}