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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Jul 14

11

Zanjero Falls

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 11, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale • Glendale zoning issues • Westgate  | Tagged With: , , | 4 Comments

This is a good story about Glendale. In the Arizona Republic of July 11, 2004 it reports that Zanero Falls has been purchased. Many readers will not be familiar with this property. It is located just northeast of Cabela’s and slightly east of the Marriot hotels on the north side of Glendale Avenue.

zanero

Zanjero Falls Corporate Center 2008

It was completed in 2008 for $45 million just before the national economy tanked. It is a 150,000 square foot signature office complex for the West Valley and especially Glendale. It reminds one a great deal of the architecture one would see in southern California around the Newport Beach area with its Spanish colonial architecture. It is a beautiful complex.

It was recently purchased for $9.1 million (a great buy!) by Select Healthcare Solutions LLC, Phoenix Cyberknife and Radiation Oncology Center LLC. The plan is to turn the complex into medical offices. Medical service for west Glendale residents and the surrounding area are long overdue. There is a tremendous pent up demand for such services. It doesn’t hurt that the complex is close to the new Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Westgate Medical Center on 99th and Glendale Avenues. The buyer is investing $6 million in the property and plans to open a cancer center in part of the complex by January of 2015.

Congratulations to all of the principals involved in making this deal happen.  It’s a great development for Glendale but more importantly for west Glendale residents and residents of nearby communities.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

11

Barrel district council candidate Randy Miller

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 11, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Please note: Some of the information presented here is repetition of information from my previous blogs on the Cholla candidates and applies to all candidates. Some of you reading this blog for the first time may not have read the previous ones.

If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Barrel district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Barrel candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We move on to the Barrel district council candidates in alphabetical order: John Benjamin, Reginald Martinez, Michael Patino, Randy Miller and Bart Turner. Three of these candidates will be reviewed together and Miller and Turner will be reviewed separately.

All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read.

Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost?

At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

Randy Miller

Campaign Finance Report – He submitted all 19 pages. He is self funded in the amount of $1,500 to date.  He has received 5 individual contributions to date. Two are from Glendale individuals in the amount of $150. Of note, one contribution in the amount of $100 is from Don Rinehart, past CEO of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce. He received contributions of less than $50 and they totaled $70. He has no treasurer. Please remember, Mr. Miller is ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. Miller’s expenditures are usual and ordinary. He has hired Gail Meyers as his campaign consultant and paid $1,362 to date. This fee probably includes his web site hosting and design.

Campaign website – his website is: http://randyforcouncil.com  . His contact information is:     Randy for Council, 6439 W Townley Avenue, Glendale, AZ 85302                                                                    Telephone : 623-764–4521                                                 Email address: randy@randyforcouncil.com  .

His website provides you biographical information, a photo gallery, campaign donation info and contact info. His Issues page offers a strategy for dealing with Glendale’s financial problems by advocating for keeping the sales tax sunset provision and looking at Operating and Maintenance Costs throughout the city. I did meet with Mr. Miller. In a meeting that took about an hour I asked him and any other candidates with whom I met the same series of questions.

Mr. Miller has lived in Glendale for 14 years and the Barrel district for 4 years. When redistricting occurred in 2010 his home became part of the Barrel district. He is married. He has not participated in Glendale community affairs. He has his own computer business and believes that his work schedule is flexible enough to accommodate the demands of serving as a councilmember.

His observation with regard to the relationship between council and staff is that it is best served by doing one’s homework and questioning staff assumptions. He has been highly visible at council meetings and speaks to the council agenda items. He is receiving the police union and former Vice Mayor Tom Eggleston’s endorsements but is relying on neighborhood donations and self-funding. He believes the sales tax increase should sunset in 2017 and is confident that there are other options, such as the sale of city assets and the encouragement of industry location within Glendale, available to offset the revenue loss. He understands that city council has no authority over school districts.

After review of all 4 Barrel district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with the other council races, there are so many candidates none of them are expected to win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, Bart Turner.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

10

It most certainly is “time for action”

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 10, 2014
Posted in City Council Actions • City issue and actions • City of Glendale • Glendale finances • Glendale's Fire Union  | Tagged With: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Joe Hester, President of the Glendale Fire Union, had an opinion piece in the Glendale Star dated July 11, 2014 entitled A lot of talk, now is time for action. Here is the link: http://www.glendalestar.com/opinion/editorials/article_409c876a-0618-11e4-aa9f-001a4bcf887a.html .

He made quite a few statements that bear further scrutiny. One was, “…the fact that Glendale is Arizona’s busiest fire department per capita…” Why, you ask, Is Glendale’s fire department the busiest? Does Glendale have more sick people and medical emergencies than every other city in the Valley? No. Does Glendale have more fires than every other city in the Valley? No. What Glendale does have is an automatic aid system shared with every other city in the Valley. But there is no parity. Glendale responds to its partner cities far more often than they respond in Glendale. That’s why Glendale’s fire department is the busiest.

Glendale Fire Union President, Joe Hester, goes on to say, “Simply put, our city cannot cut $27 million a year in revenue…” That is true but that was never the plan. At the time of the passage of the sales tax increase with the sunset provision, the plan was to gradually cut $5 million a year from Glendale’s budget. It was a plan that could have been accomplished had council had the backbone to implement cuts every year. It was never the plan to cut the entire sales tax windfall of $27 million from Glendale’s budget in one year.

Mr. Hester is now upset with Mayor Weiers and Councilmember Hugh because they filled out candidate questionnaires, “promising to save public safety from the chopping block at all costs.” I suspect that is still their intent but not in the manner the fire union desires.

It is interesting to read Mr. Hester saying, “We know the city in the past has struck bad sports deal and in the future may face the threat of bankruptcy.” Where was the Glendale fire union when the deal with IceArizona for $15 million a year was inked? Where was the Glendale fire union when the Camelback Ranch deal was struck? Will the Glendale fire union support cuts in the fire department of all non-core functions (fire and emergency medical response) if Glendale does indeed face bankruptcy?

Mr. Hester complains by saying, “…especially with paid petition circulators on the street…” He is referring to the fact that the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) has circulated an initiative petition to overturn the permanent sales tax increase recently approved by the city council. What he fails to mention is that fire fighters were out in droves, often blocking the AFEC’s effort to collect signatures. They also recited dire consequences to potential signers if the sunset were to occur.

On July 4, 2014 the Arizona Republic ran a story about the Glendale city clerk’s efforts to validate the initiative petition signatures. Here is the link: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2014/07/04/petitions-filed-let-glendale-voters-decide-tax-hike/12208445/ . I may be incorrect but it has been my understanding that the Secretary of State verifies initiative petition signatures.

Leaving signature verification to Glendale (biased against any effort to sunset the sales tax) is like asking the fox to guard the hen house.  In a previous effort to get an initiative on the ballot regarding removal of the sales tax on food all petition signatures were ruled invalid because the type on the petitions was a smidge too small. When the petitions were reproduced for distribution to signature gatherers the reproduction reduced the petition type slightly, by something like two-tenths. That was enough to terminate the entire effort. This time, with 20,000 petition signatures turned in it may be more difficult for Glendale to disqualify a minimum of 9,000 signatures. If Glendale succeeds expect this issue to end up in court.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

10

Barrel district council candidates…John Benjamin, Reginald Martinez and Michael Patino

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 10, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Please note: Some of the information presented here is repetition of information from my previous blogs on the Cholla candidates and applies to all candidates. Some of you reading this blog for the first time may not have read the previous ones.

If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Barrel district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Barrel candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We move on to the Barrel district council candidates in alphabetical order: John Benjamin, Reginald Martinez, Michael Patino, Randy Miller and Bart Turner. Three of these candidates will be reviewed together and Miller and Turner will be reviewed separately.

All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read.

Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost?

At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

John Benjamin

Campaign Finance Report – He submitted a “No Activity” campaign finance report. That means that he has not collected any campaign contributions or made a loan to his campaign committee. He reports no expenditures. Please remember, Mr. Benjamin ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Campaign website — He has no website and no campaign signs. He has not paid for the printing of any campaign literature. There is no publicly available information on a website offering his positions on Glendale’s issues.

As of this date, he should not be considered a serious contender for the Barrel district city council seat and consequently I did not meet with him.

Reginald Martinez

Campaign Finance Report – He submitted all 19 pages of the report. He did make one error in reporting. Schedule A has a column labeled “Cumulative total this campaign to date.” It wants the total amount of money that an individual has given to the candidate’s campaign as of the date of filing. That column is not to be used as a running total of all contributions received from all individuals. It’s the first time that I have seen a candidate misunderstand the instructions provided for filling out the Campaign Report.

He reports 3 individual Glendale contributions totaling to date $350. $200 of that amount is from the candidate and is not a loan. There are a total of 15 contributors. 9 are from acquaintances and friends at the Phoenix Union High School District totaling $1,050, where the candidate works; 2 are from Darshak Law totaling $100; and 1 is from attorney Nick Wood in the amount of $200. There is one in-kind contribution reported from Aniset Rodriguez of La Tolteca Restaurant in the amount of $250 for food for a fundraising event. Please remember, Mr. Martinez ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. Martinez’ campaign expenditures are usual and ordinary: supplies and printing. One item of note is a cumulative total of $211.76 (or 25%) of $894.16 in total expenditures was spent on food for volunteers who presumably collected his petition signatures.

Campaign website – Mr. Martinez has no campaign website. There is no publicly available information on a website regarding his positions on Glendale issues. He declined a meeting invitation. As of this date, he should not be considered a serious contender for the Barrel district city council seat.

 

Michael Patino

Campaign Finance Report – All 19 pages were submitted. Mr. Patino reported one individual campaign contribution in the amount of $200 from J.D. Campbell of Peoria. Please remember, Mr. Patino ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. Patino reported no expenditures of any kind.

Campaign website – Mr. Patino has no website. There is no publicly available information on a website regarding his positions on Glendale issues. As of this date, he should not be considered a serious contender for the Barrel district city council seat and consequently I did not meet with him.

After review of all 4 Barrel district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with the other council races, there are so many candidates none of them are expected win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, Randy Miller.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

9

Picks for the Cholla district city council seat

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 9, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

My vetting of the Cholla district candidates is done. I congratulate them for their willingness to put themselves before the voters to be weighed and measured on the issues of the day.

While each candidate may have developed campaign literature that they pass out or mail to the voters, it is just that, voter specific, and may not reach the entire Cholla district voter universe.

All 4 of the Cholla council district candidates share some commonalities. All are articulate. Sometimes a candidate will pop up and immediately your radar says there is something that is off. Not so with these candidates. My belief is that they want to be part of the solution with regard to Glendale’s financial difficulties. My choice of 2 among the 4 candidates will be based on the information publicly available to date used in my previous blogs about each candidate; plus my personal interviews.

All are self funded to date and have done minimal fund raising. Deardorff and Petrone are the gorillas having loaned their campaigns at least $10,000 each.  DiCarlo and Tolmachoff have made more modest loans under $2,000 each. Does a larger loan indicate more commitment? No, of course not.  It is surprising that none of the candidates appears to be reaching out to their constituency for campaign support to date with the exception of facilitating campaign donations through their websites. But my guess is that political strategy may mean that the candidates prefer to reveal their contributors in later Finance Reports as a means of keeping that information from their opponents.

It is difficult for the voter, based upon publicly available information, to determine how each candidate stands on a particular issue. Deardorff and Petrone have no issues information available on their websites. DiCarlo has taken up one issue, that of Glendale’s finances. Tolmachoff has the most robust site and clearly takes a stand on Glendale’s finances.

All of the candidates acknowledge that Glendale has financial problems. Deardorff, DiCarlo and Tolmachoff support the sunset of the sales tax increase in 2017. Petrone has made no public statements regarding the sales tax and as mentioned above has no issues on his web site as of this date. Petrone has also had a series of past personal financial problems which leads me to question his ability to make sound financial decisions for Glendale. His personal financial decisions have led to court cases and documented judgments against him. His judgments and personal history led to my decision not to interview him as I do not see him as a viable candidate.

All 4 candidates seek to reduce Glendale’s debt burden. Deardorff wants to look at personnel costs and believes there is room to cut those costs. DiCarlo and Tolmachoff believe that selling Glendale’s assets is a viable course of action. All point to Camelback Ranch and want to explore ways to deal with its massive debt.

Deardorff and Dicarlo oppose a reservation, and hence the casino, in Glendale.

Deardorff, DiCarlo and Tolmachoff state that the relationship between staff and council is broken and seek more staff transparency as well as a council united in exploring and solving Glendale’s current crop of problems.

All candidates understand that Glendale has no responsibility or power over local school districts. A Glendale candidate or elected councilor cannot impact education. That is for local school boards. Be wary of any district council candidate promising to “fix” local education for that is simply not true.

All are married and have lived in the Cholla district from 9 to 40 years signaling that they all have roots in Glendale. All are self employed and that does provide them the flexibility they need to fulfill a councilmember’s responsibilities. Only Petrone has served on Glendale’s boards and commissions.

Of Note; Deardorff has received the support of former mayor Elaine Scruggs listed as a member of a Host Committee fund raiser. It was under her watch that Glendale assumed the massive debt with which it must deal. There is an old saying that you are judged by the company you keep. With no other apparent Glendale involvement to balance her influence there is the risk of a second coming of an old strategy…a strategy that drove Glendale over the fiscal cliff. It is because of this issue that he was not picked as one of the two final candidate choices.

Councilmember Martinez has endorsed Petrone and it appears that he will have the endorsement and financial support of the fire union. Fire opposes the sunset of the sales tax. That signals a candidate who agrees with the fire union’s agenda. Another concern with Petrone is related to his service on Glendale’s boards and commissions and it may not play in his favor. His interaction with staff may make him more sympathetic to the current staff agenda. These issues are grave enough to eliminate him as a council candidate pick.

Di Carlo has the experience of a prior campaign. He has experienced the subtleties of staff in dealing with candidates and may have developed a more confident manner in dealing with Glendale staff and current Council.

Tolmachoff has the most informative website with issue specifics in her blog available on that website. She is the only candidate to publicly express her support of the casino.

It seems safe to assume that with 4 candidates no one will take the Cholla councilmember seat out right in the Primary Election. The two top candidates will face off in the General Election in November. It is not an easy decision for any voter but based upon information publicly available to everyone, this writer’s picks for the Cholla district are:               

                                           Gary Deardorff

                                  checkmark__bottomheavy_140 Van DiCarlo  

                                         

                                           Robert Petrone

                                 checkmark__bottomheavy_140  Lauren Tolmachoff

Please be sure to check the straw poll to the left of this column and vote for your choice as the Cholla district city council pick. You do not have to live in the Cholla district to participate.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

8

Last up…Lauren Tolmachoff Cholla district council candidate

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 8, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Please note: Some of the information presented here is repetition of information from my previous blogs on Cholla candidates Gary Deardorff; Van DiCarlo and Robert Petrone; and applies to all candidates. Some of you reading this blog for the first time may not have read the previous ones.

If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Cholla district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Cholla candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We begin with the Cholla district council candidates in alphabetical order: Gary Deardorff, Van DiCarlo, Robert Petrone and Lauren Tolmachoff. These 4 candidates share some commonalities. They are running, generally, because they were encouraged by friends or family to do so and obviously, they all believe that they can contribute solutions to fix Glendale’s financial situation.

All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read.

Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost?

At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

Lauren Tolmachoff

Campaign Finance Report – Her report consists of all 19 pages. Ms. Tolmachoff loaned her campaign committee $1,200.00. Her treasurer is Rhonda L. Gaul. Please remember, Ms. Tolmachoff ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of her report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Ms. Tolmachoff has received one contribution from Glenn Hickman for $150 to date.  She has no campaign consultant. Her campaign expenditures are for usual items such as printing, web hosting and supplies.

The noteworthy take-aways from Tolmachoff’s campaign report are: 1. Her campaign is self funded in the amount of $1,200 to date; 2. She submitted all 19 pages of the Campaign Finance Report; and 3. There are no unusual contributions or expenditures to date.                         Website — her campaign website:  http://www.electlaurentolmachoff.com .                                                    Contact information:  Elect Lauren Tolmachoff, P.O. Box 10072, Glendale, Az.  85318-0072    Telephone:  (602)730-5589                            E-mail: electlaurentolmachoff@gmail.com

Her website provides you biographical information, an extensive blog on Glendale issues, a mission statement, campaign donation info and contact info. Under the Blog tab she does address many of Glendale’s issues.  I did meet with Ms. Tolmachoff in a meeting that took about an hour. I asked her and any other candidates with whom I met the same series of questions.

Ms. Tolmachoff has lived in Glendale and the Cholla district for 9 years. She is married. She has not participated in Glendale community affairs. She is a realtor and believes that her work schedule is flexible enough to accommodate the demands of serving as a councilmember.

Her observations with regard to the relationship between council and staff are that she respects the work of staff a great deal but feels that the leadership and policies of councilmembers, past and present, are part of the problem. She indicated that she is not receiving fire or police union support and is relying on neighborhood donations and self-funding. Under her Blog tab she states that the sales tax increase should sunset in 2017. She advocates for the liquidation of city assets as a partial solution to Glendale’s debt problem. She understands that city council has no authority over school districts. She is supportive of the Tohono O’odham’s proposed casino on the grounds of job creation.

Now that we have taken a look at all 4 Cholla district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with the other council races, there are so many candidates none of them are expected to win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, candidate picks for the Cholla district.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

7

Third up…Robert Petrone Cholla district council candidate

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 7, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Please note: Some of the information presented here is repetition of information from my previous blog on Cholla candidates Gary Deardorff and Van DiCarlo; and applies to all candidates. Some of you reading this blog for the first time may not have read the previous ones.

If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Cholla district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Cholla candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We begin with the Cholla district council candidates in alphabetical order: Gary Deardorff, Van DiCarlo, Robert Petrone and Lauren Tolmachoff. These 4 candidates share some commonalities. They are running, generally, because they were encouraged by friends or family to do so and obviously, they all believe that they can contribute solutions to fix Glendale’s financial situation.

All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read.

Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost?

At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

Robert Petrone

Campaign Finance Report – His report consists of all 19 pages. On the heading of his first Summary page he failed to fill in the name of the office he is seeking and an email address. Mr. Petrone loaned his campaign committee $10,000.00. He has no treasurer. Please remember, Mr. Petrone ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. Petrone has received 4 contributions from individuals in the amount of $4,600. He received $900 from David Penilla, an attorney; $1,000 from Simon Kottoor, owner of Sunshine Group Home; $200 from Goodman & Schwartz, a political consulting/lobbying firm; and $2500 from Sovereign Consulting. Petrone employed Sovereign, the same consulting firm that contributed $2,500 to his campaign. He paid Sovereign $1,155.00 for signature collection and verification. The balance of his campaign expenditures are for just one campaign item, signs.

The noteworthy take-aways from Petrone’s campaign report are: 1. His campaign is self funded in the amount of $10,000 to date; 2. He has received 4 contributions in the amount of$4,600 to date; 3. He failed to provide complete information on the Summary page of the Campaign Finance Report; and 4. While he received $2,500 from Sovereign Consulting, he also turned around and paid the firm $1,155 for signature collection and verification. He used information provided by Sovereign to challenge Deardorff’s number of valid petition signatures signaling that he considers Deardorff to be his greatest threat. He appears to have personally collected petition signatures but also used this company to get signatures as well.

Website — his campaign website is http://www.citizens4petrone.com  . Contact information: Citizens4petrone, 19626 N 73rd Ave., Glendale, Az. 85308                                                                                                                 Telephone:  623 451 8328    E-mail: citizens4petrone@aol.com

His website provides you sparse biographical information, a photo gallery (just 1 photo), campaign donation info and contact info. Mr. Petrone offers nothing regarding Glendale issues. Throughout his website he often makes reference to his service as Chairperson of the citizen Planning & Zoning Commission.  It appears that he is relying on that service and the endorsement of Cholla Councilmember Martinez to provide him credibility. I have not talked to Mr. Petrone but I have met him at past city functions and have observed his work on the Planning Commission. I did not meet with him because in a previous blog dated April 22, 2014  (here is the link: Glendale Cholla district council candidate Robert Petrone http://wp.me/p3aHul-wG  )  I discussed Mr. Petrone’s past personal financial difficulties. Those difficulties seem to indicate that he has had problems in managing his financial affairs and seriously diminish his viability as a serious candidate.

Mr. Petrone has lived in Glendale and the Cholla district for almost 40 years. He is married. He has participated in Glendale community affairs most notably as Chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission. He has his own landscaping business and believes that his work schedule is flexible enough to accommodate the demands of serving as a councilmember.

His relationships with staff demonstrated by his service on boards and commissions indicate his sympathy for staff’s agenda. Although the fire union will not declare support for candidates until after the Primary Election, Mr. Petrone seems to be first in line to receive their support. He has offered no website stance on the issues of Glendale’s finances, the sales tax sunset or the proposed casino.

After review of all 4 Cholla district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with the other council races, there are so many candidates none of them is expected to win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, Lauren Tolmachoff.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

3

Second…Van DiCarlo of the Cholla district

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 3, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

Please note: Some of the information presented here is repetition of information from my previous blog on Cholla candidate Gary Deardorff and applies to all candidates. Some of you reading this blog for the first time may not have read the previous one.

If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Cholla district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Cholla candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We begin with the Cholla district council candidates in alphabetical order: Gary Deardorff, Van DiCarlo, Robert Petrone and Lauren Tolmachoff. These 4 candidates share some commonalities. They are running, generally, because they were encouraged by friends or family to do so and obviously, they all believe that they can contribute solutions to fix Glendale’s financial situation.

All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read.

Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost?

At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

Van DiCarlo

Campaign Finance Report – His report consists of only 6 pages. He submitted the 2 summary pages, Schedule C showing his loan to his campaign, Schedule D indicating expenditures and Schedule E showing In-Kind contributions.  The rest of the pages, including Schedules B and F…are simply not there. This is not his first run for the Cholla district council seat. He ran in 2006 and by now should certainly be able to fill out the report fully. Mr. DiCarlo loaned his campaign committee $1,937.00. He has no treasurer. Please remember, Mr. DiCarlo ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. DiCarlo has received no contributions from any source to date. He did receive 2 in-kind contributions for the use of a golf cart for a month valued at $350 and web design valued at $400.  He has no campaign consultant. DiCarlo employed Stephen Martin for nominating petition signature collection at a cost of $756.  The balance of his campaign expenditures are for usual items such as printing, web hosting and supplies.

The noteworthy take-aways from DiCarlo’s campaign report are: 1. His campaign is self funded in the amount of $1,937.27 to date; 2. He has received 2 in-kind contributions in the amount of $750 to date; and 3. He failed to submit all 19 pages of the Campaign Finance Report.

Website — his campaign website is http://www.electdicarlo.org  . His contact information:  Committee to Elect DiCarlo, 20280 N. 59th Ave, Suite 115-631 Glendale AZ 85308 Telephone:  623.695.6124                            E-mail: voterinput@dicarlo.phxcoxmail.com

His website provides you biographical information, a sparse blog, a photo gallery, campaign donation info and contact info. Under the Issues tab DiCarlo does address Glendale’s finances in part.  I have talked to Mr. DiCarlo and know him and his positions on the issues. We are not close, personal friends. I did not meet with him because I had discussed issues with him when he first declared his candidacy.

Mr. DiCarlo has lived in Glendale and the Cholla district for 13 years. He is married. He has not participated in Glendale community affairs. He has his own business and believes that his work schedule is flexible enough to accommodate the demands of serving as a councilmember.

His observations with regard to the relationship between council and staff are that staff could be more forthright. He indicated that he is not receiving fire or police union support and is relying on neighborhood donations and self-funding. Under his Issues tab he states that the sales tax increase should sunset in 2017. He advocates for the liquidation of city assets as a way to dig Glendale out of its debt problem. He understands that city council has no authority over school districts. He is not supportive of the Tohono O’odham’s proposed casino on the grounds of objecting to the placement of a reservation within Glendale’s boundaries.

After review of all 4 Cholla district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with the other council races, there are so many candidates none of them is expected to win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, Robert Petrone.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jul 14

2

First up…Gary Deardorff from the Cholla district

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 2, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale  | Tagged With: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Please note: If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Cholla district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Cholla candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We begin with the Cholla district council candidates in alphabetical order: Gary Deardorff, Van DiCarlo, Robert Petrone and Lauren Tolmachoff. These 4 candidates share some commonalities. They are running, generally because they were encouraged by friends or family to do so and obviously, they all believe that they can contribute solutions to fix Glendale’s financial situation. All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read. Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost? At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

GARY DEARDORFF

Campaign Finance Report – his report consists of all 19 pages. Mr. Deardorff loaned his campaign committee $11,858.43. While he reports this amount on his summary pages, he does not report the loan on Schedule C, Candidate Loans.  Mr. Deardorff has a treasurer, Scott Rulon, who filled out the report. Please remember, Mr. Deardorff ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Deardorff’s individual contributions consist of a contribution of $100 from a Glendale resident and $50 from another resident. He has a campaign consultant, Gail Meyers, to whom he has paid $1,258.27 to date. Ms. Meyers has often been recommended to various candidates over the years by former Mayor Scruggs. We have our first inkling of Scruggs’ behind-the-scenes support of some of the current crop of council candidates. Here is another clue. The Host Committee for this fundraiser consisted of: Rich Shelton and Michele Tennyson, Campaign Co-Chairs; Robert “Bob” Campbell, Cathy Cheshier, Janet & Sean Lee and former Mayor Scruggs.

image002

While the bulk of Deardorff’s expenditures are the ones usually expected with a campaign there is one that sticks out and that is $3,141.00 to Petition Partners for nominating petition signature collection.  The Sonoran News in March of 2012 reported that the District Attorney of Covington, Kentucky filed suit against Andrew Chavez, CEO of Petition Partners, for fraudulent signature gathering. Here is the link: http://www.sonorannews.com/archives/2012/120314/frontpage-Chavez.html . The use of Petition Partners by Deardorff appears to have almost sunk his campaign. Robert Petrone, another Cholla council candidate, filed challenging the validity of Deardorff’s signatures. Deardorff staved off the Petrone challenge by 2 signatures.

The noteworthy take-aways from Deardorff’s campaign report are: 1. His campaign is self funded in the amount of $11,858.43 to date; 2. He has received 2 individual contributions in the amount of $150 to date; 3. former Mayor Scruggs appears to be backing his candidacy; 4. He is using a political consultant; and 5. While he collected some petition signatures personally he hired a seemingly questionable firm to collect petition signatures.

Website — his campaign website is http://deardorff4cholla.com . Here is his contact information: Deardorff for Cholla, PO Box 10430, Glendale, AZ 85318-0430    623.776.5436       Email address:deardorff4cholla@gmail.com .

His website provides you biographical information, a photo gallery, campaign donation info and contact info. As of this posting there is nothing, absolutely nothing regarding Mr. Deardorff’s position on any Glendale issues. In the absence of information I did meet with Mr. Deardorff and his campaign consultant, Gail Meyers. In a meeting that took about an hour I asked him and any other candidates with whom I met the same series of questions.

Mr. Deardorff has lived in Glendale and the Cholla district for 18 years. He is married. He has not participated in Glendale community affairs. He has his own financial consulting business and believes that his work schedule is flexible enough to accommodate the demands of serving as a councilmember. His observations with regard to the relationship between council and staff are summed up with trust but verify. He believes past City Manager “falsehoods” have led to Glendale’s problems of today. He indicated that he is not receiving fire or police union support and is relying on neighborhood donations and self-funding. He believes the sales tax increase should sunset in 2017 and is confident that budget cuts can be made to offset the revenue loss. He readily admits that he does not have enough insider information to offer intelligent solutions to Glendale’s finances but he does think personnel costs are too high and could be cut. He understands that city council has no authority over school districts. He is not supportive of the Tohono O’odham’s proposed casino on the grounds of objecting to the placement of a reservation within Glendale’s boundaries.

After review of all 4 Cholla district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with other council races, there are so many candidates none of them can be expected to win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, Van DiCarlo.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The 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 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 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.

Jun 14

30

It’s candidate season

Posted by Joyce Clark on June 30, 2014
Posted in City issue and actions • City of Glendale • Glendale's Fire Union  | Tagged With: , | 4 Comments

Early Primary Voting ballots will be mailed to voters at the end of July, 2014 and the primary voting locations will be open on August 29, 2014. Candidate season reaches a fevered pitch in July. I bet you have already received campaign mailings on behalf of either congressional, state or local candidates.

Recent petition signature verification by the courts shines a light on just how ill informed inexperienced candidates can be. It is a tried and true political tactic to challenge signatures. Sometimes it’s easier to try to knock a candidate out of the running by challenging signatures than running against him or her. Former Councilmember and Vice Mayor Tom Eggleston was a master of this particular art.

Petition signature gathering ranks as an elementary task for a city council candidate. He or she should at the very least, know the district boundaries of the council district they wish to represent. I am always surprised by candidates who get signatures from people who have a Glendale mailing address even though they live in another city. Simply put, if a candidate can’t be bothered to do his or her homework to recognize district boundaries and instead fills his or her petition sheets with signatures from folks with just a Glendale mailing address he or she doesn’t deserve a spot on the ballot. They will be pummeled by those candidates supported by the fire union, who provide their chosen candidates with complete walking lists of registered voters on each street within the district being covered. It is difficult enough for an experienced candidate to run against a fire union candidate. It is a daunting and unpleasant task for an inexperienced candidate.

Another very rudimentary act for the candidate is to check one’s petition signatures against registered voter lists. Inexperienced candidates will accept all signatures not bothering to verify that the signator is a registered voter in Glendale. I suppose they really think no one will check. Do they really think that a massive show of numbers will dazzle enough to overlook the legal validity of signatures?

This year the candidate crop in Glendale is vast. There are a few diamonds-in-the-rough among them and it is revealing to see that there are so many of them ready, willing and eager to change the current culture and vision. However, it is disappointing to see so many that are downright ill informed or completely uninformed about the real issues facing Glendale.

It is no secret that those running are quietly and surreptitiously vetted by City Hall. After all, a new crop of councilmembers can change the city hall equation in an instant. A candidate may be identified by someone in City Hall as sympathetic to the current City Hall agenda. That candidate will receive assistance in subtle, barely discernible ways. A candidate who is not in favor at City Hall will find that the city will keep a very close eye on his/her campaign and will be quick to put up road blocks…also subtle and barely discernible. Having run in 4 Glendale elections I have been a recipient of both kinds of treatment.

Then there’s the tremendous assistance that the Glendale Fire Union will provide to their identified candidates. Now, remember, that pesky federal Hatch Act. Local employees may not be involved in their community’s election, in any way, shape or form. The fire unions have developed a neat “work around.” Fire fighters from other Valley cities will contribute to the candidate’s campaign. Fire fighters from other Valley cities will walk for the candidate and work the polls on election day. Fire fighters from other Valley cities will put up the candidate’s campaign signs. Fire fighters from other Valley cities will form Political Action Committees, registered with the city, and then do “independent mailings” or “independent campaign signs” in support of their candidate. It’s a quid pro quo relationship. Next election cycle you will find Glendale fire fighters doing the same for their brothers in Peoria, Gilbert or Phoenix.

Be wary. The Glendale Fire Union’s agenda is just that…their agenda. Their agenda is to protect what they have in wages, benefits and work schedules and to get more. While that agenda is great for them and while they may tell you it is great for you — it may not be a great agenda for Glendale taxpayers…just remember that’s you and me. One more union thought. Always use this as a voter guide. Does my company give me the same level of benefits enjoyed by union fire fighters? At this time with the nation’s economy still struggling, probably not.

You may find it helpful to realize most voters don’t know the local issues in depth. You are not alone. So it is not surprising that the candidates often don’t know either. Look for candidates who ask questions and offer solutions. They may not have the benefit of insider city hall knowledge but at least they are willing to take their time to do their homework and to learn… and then to develop a position on an issue. Some candidates do nothing more than pander to the voter expressing a popular position assuming that it will produce votes.

One further caveat, reject any city council candidate who promises to “fix” local education. The Glendale city council has no authority over the curriculum, teachers or administrators of the myriad of school districts in Glendale. A councilmember may be asked, from time to time, to do something about traffic or parking adjacent to individual schools. That councilmember may or may not, be able to assist in such a circumstance. That is the sum total of city council involvement in local school issues.

Look for candidates who dress appropriately as a sign of respect for the office they seek. Look for candidates who have developed roots in Glendale. Look for candidates who can not only articulate their positions on issues but also put their positions out there for you to weigh. Having visited all the candidates who have websites I am surprised that quite a few of them do not use this venue to tell you, the voter, where they stand on a particular issue. They’ll put up their bios, ask for a donation or campaign help or provide a “Contact” link but they fail to tell you what their position is, for example, on the sales tax sunset issue, Glendale’s debt burden or the casino issue – three hot topics in Glendale right now.

I would suggest calling the candidate directly. Now is not the time to be shy. All of them should be pleased to have a conversation with you and to be given the opportunity to express their views. Please don’t feel as if you are intruding. Candidates welcome every opportunity to make connections to voters.

During the month of July as I discuss each candidate I will post publicly available phone numbers, websites and contact information. Use this information. Please don’t feel as if you are intruding. Candidates welcome every opportunity to make connections to voters. After all, it is candidate season…

© Joyce Clark, 2014

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