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.
When I post a blog on a topic, I often get readers who send me material related to the blog topic. Most of it cannot be verified. Rarely, if ever, can it be publicly used. But every once in a while, I do receive useable information. One particularly interesting piece of information came via email because of my recent Chamber blog.
In 2020 when COVID struck, Robert Heidt, CEO and President of the Glendale Chamber, posted a Facebook video on the internet. In it, he advocated for the strictest of measures, including the implementation of mask mandates everywhere as well as the closure of all but essential businesses/services. He chided then Governor Doug Ducey and the Glendale City Council for not doing so.
I bet you don’t know that Mr. Heidt, in June of 2020, applied for and was approved for a PPP loan in the amount of $95,404. A reader sent me the result of a Google search on PPP loans. I am not about to discuss whether PPP loans were good or bad. That is not the issue. Just to be sure, I confirmed there are several sites that list the Chamber of Commerce PPP Loan Number 3905188007. Here are the links to just one site:
https://www.pppdetective.com/loans/AZ/glendale/14
https://www.pppdetective.com/ppp/az/glendale/glendale_chamber_of_commerce
What’s ironic is that Mr. Heidt advocated for mandated business closures and berated the Governor and the Glendale City Council for not doing so while the Chamber applied for and received a PPP loan to cover the salaries of employees to ensure that the Chamber stayed open. Oh, and by the way, the loan was forgiven in the amount of $96, 152 which included any accrued interest.
The reason this may be of interest is because it raises the question, have there been other instances, as the voice of the Chamber, that Mr. Heidt publicly espoused one position only to have done or said the opposite?
I can’t help but surmise that there will be other revelations about Mr. Heidt and his leadership of the Glendale Chamber.
© Joyce Clark, 2023
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