Header image alt text

Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

This week an anonymous blog about Glendale surfaced claiming to provide “independent oversight.” It’s no more than an anonymous hit piece whose only use is to line the bottom of bird cages.

Let’s compare blogs. Mine has been up for six years and has nearly reached the half million mark of readers. You know who I am and what I do. When I started the blog in 2013, I had been defeated for reelection as councilmember. Four years later in 2017 I returned to city council. I have never made a secret of my biases. Sometimes I write an explanatory blog; sometimes I compliment someone or some initiative; and sometimes I go after an issue or a person. I have a track record and you know where I am coming from. I liberally use quotes with attribution to the author, publication and date. I use a lot of data and facts and often provide a link to or republish within my blog a copy of the material from which my citations are made.

The blog in question is anonymous, and the initial piece is written by “admin.” Now, who the heck is that? If he/she or they are so proud of their work why not disclose who the author(s) is or what group or person has initiated this blog? Anonymity is a sign of cowardice. For if you knew who the writer or group is you would know their biases. How can one be “independent” when his/her or their identity could reveal obvious biases?

As I have stated previously we are already in an election season. These days it seems a new season starts as soon as an election is over. This writer is obviously slanted toward defaming Glendale’s current mayor, up for reelection. Expect that there will be hit pieces on the city council candidates up for reelection in 2020.

I and others have some assumptions. Since the piece was written in defense of soon-to-be (as of July 1, 2019) former City Auditor Candace MacLeod many people are assuming that her city cronies may be behind this. That could include the most visible and notorious members of that group such as former Fire Chief Mark Burdick and former (very briefly) Assistant City Manager Julie Frisoni. If you remember, former Chief Burdick ran against incumbent Mayor Weiers in 2016.

There is also the assumption that at least one unhappy and disgruntled Glendale councilmember is feeding information to this anonymous person(s) or group. The reason for this particular assumption is that there is reference to 7 current, open positions on city boards and commissions. All of council is aware of the openings as we are periodically provided a list but it is not a fact that would be common knowledge. So who offered this seemingly insignificant detail to our anonymous writer(s) or group?

The writer(s) uses no quotes from any sources and quite frankly, misstates the essence of much of the unsupported material used. It would also help if the writer(s) were factually accurate. The writer(s) states that our current City Manager was “(hired Feb 1st 2015 to date).”  Actually the Arizona Republic reports that the City Manager was hired in November of 2015. If the writer gets a simple fact such as this wrong, what else is wrong? Actually nearly everything but I simply don’t want to waste my time listing every inaccuracy or outright lie. There is so much that is exaggeration and misrepresentation of fact leading to incorrect conclusions that it would take a small book to identify everything. Now that’s a true waste of time.

While the writer(s) is at it, a simple spell check seems to be necessary. There are misspelled words such as “procurrment” (correct spelling is procurement) and “Manger” (correct spelling is  Manager). I guess the writer(s) doesn’t see any value in spell check…so sad.

So, it is a piece of writing with inaccurate and misleading information and misspelled words… written anonymously. Under those standards it’s not even worthy of lining a bird cage. Perhaps it’s more fitting to use it as a puppy training aid as the stench coming from it would certainly encourage any puppy to use it.

© Joyce Clark, 2019         

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

What is a BFR?  It stands for “Built for Rent” and is the current ‘flavor of the year’ in the building community. It is a community of single family rentals between 100 and 250 units.  That number of units is required to make it a viable project. Usually three or four different floor plans are available. The amenities vary by community and builder.

 Here are some photos of one such community under construction by Hancock Builders on the west side of 99th Avenue, just north of Camelback Road in Phoenix. . Hancock has already built 1,300 of the single family rental homes with 4,000 more in the development pipeline spread across 10 communities.

 

The builders producing these communities have similar business models. They build the communities themselves and then turn maintenance over to a third-party property manager with experience in multifamily. After the community is fully leased and operational, the builders have the option to sell individual houses within the community or sell the entire community itself to a high-net-worth individual, a multifamily real estate investment trust (REIT), or a single-family rental (SFR) operator like Invitation Homes or American Homes 4 Rent.

Ideally they are designed to be located where there is mass transportation and nearby amenities available such as in a Westgate or Zanjero. A BFR within or very near the Westgate/Zanjero developments is appropriate. But it is not appropriate in an area farther away from commercial/retail/entertainment areas and instead is surrounded by a sea of residential, owner occupied properties. The location at 75th Avenue and Bethany Home Road is not appropriate with the kind of density a project such as this brings.

Yet that is the request of Gammage & Burnham, attorneys representing the proposed developer, Elux and the Brown Group, is desiring to put a BFR community at the northeast corner of 75th Avenue and Bethany Home Road. Since 1984 the property has had a zoning designation of R 1-6 (residential, one to six homes to the acre).

 

Let’s look at what surrounds this parcel. To the east and south is R 1-6 zoning with established neighborhoods. To the west, just across 75th Avenue is Tessera, a gated community of R 1-7 (larger properties and homes). To the north it is zoned R 1-6 but the properties are at least one acre in size. Most are larger and are horse properties and include Griffin Avenue, a historic area.

The proposed developer has the property in escrow and it is assumed that a decision will not be made until after the neighborhood meeting occurring this week. That neighborhood meeting scheduled for:

this Wednesday, June 5th

at 6 pm

at Heroes Library (at northeast corner of Bethany and 83rd Avenue)

It will be your opportunity to learn the proposed details of this project but more importantly it will be your only opportunity to express your approval or disapproval of the proposed project.

I believe the location as well as the assumed density is not appropriate and I have expressed that to the applicant’s attorney already. But now they need to hear from you. I’d like to see 50 or more people at this Wednesday evening meeting. That would be a strong voice to convince the developer that their project is in the wrong location.

Please share this blog freely with your neighbors and friends. Information is critical. It is important that the people of Glendale come out to this meeting.

© Joyce Clark, 2019         

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.