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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Jun 25

6

Councilmember Bart Turner and his use of a City Procurement Card, Part 2

Posted by Joyce Clark on June 6, 2025
Posted in Barrell District • City Council Actions • City issue and actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale finances  | Tagged With: , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

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.

In Part 1 of this series, I explained the use of the city’s credit card and how seriously travel expenditures using the ProCard are viewed. It is taxpayer-funded, and the expenditure is expected to benefit you, the taxpayer, by attending conferences or meetings that will improve an employee’s productivity. The city requires accountability in the form of receipts and transparency by publicly posting.

There is a lot of information that had to be organized and simplified. It was no easy feat. That is why it is taking so long to share this information with you. Special thanks goes to “anonymous” who helped me to break down the over 500 pages of documents I received through my public information request.

One way that anyone can view travel expenses for city councilmembers is to go to the city’s Follow Your Money page. Here is the link: https://www.glendaleaz.com/your_government/city_council/council_expenditure_reports

Since we are reviewing Councilmember Turner’s expenditures, for purposes of comparison I also looked at Councilmembers Malnar’s and Tolmachoff’s expenditures. I did not compare the Mayor’s travel expenditures as they would be quite different to those of a councilmember. I also did not compare with Councilmembers Guzman, Baldenegro or Conchas as they are new and have no previous years of expenditures. Here is what is publicly available regarding Councilmembers Malnar, Turner and Tolmachoff:

Malnar travel

Malnar Maricopa Association of Governments Economic Development Committee Trip Mexico City February 2019

 Malnar NLC Washington DC March 2019

 Malnar Annual League of AZ Cities & Towns Conference in Tucson, AZ

 Malnar NLC City Summit in Kansas City, MO Nov 2022

 Malnar Annual League of AZ Cities & Towns Conference in Tucson, AZ 2023

 Malnar NLC City Summit in Atlanta, GA Nov 2023

 Malnar NLC Conference Washington DC March 2024

 

Turner travel

Turner NLC Washington DC March 2019

 Turner AZ League of Cities August 2019

 Turner WATEC Conference Nov 2019

 

Tolmachoff travel           

Tolmachoff NLC Los Angeles Nov. 2018

Tolmachoff NLC Washington DC Mar. 2019

Tolmachoff NLC San Antonio Nov. 2019

Tolmachoff NLC City Summit in Kansas City, MO Nov 2022

Tolmachoff NLC Congressional City Conference Mar. 2023

Tolmachoff League Annual Conference Aug. 2023

Tolmachoff NLC City Summit Atlanta Nov. 2023

Tolmachoff NLC Washington DC Mar. 2024

What is astounding is that Councilmember Turner has only listed travel expenditures for one year, 2019. Yet expenditures from 2019 to 2024 should be listed but are not. The question is why? Your guess is as good as anyone else’s. I’m sure he’ll try to provide a reasonable explanation, but it does not excuse the fact that he has not bothered to list 5 years’ worth of travel expenditures.

So much for a councilmember that repeatedly calls for transparency and accountability. We can see that he has traveled quite a bit and yet not bothered to publicly list any of it. All information obtained through a public information request as it is not publicly posted under Follow Your Money.

Let’s begin with a list of all of the travel that Turner did not bother to post publicly. (This information was obtained via my public information request. Please note I received no public information on travel expenditures prior to November, 2022. It is most likely due to COVID in 2020 and 2021). Here is the list of Turner’s travel not publicly available:

  • National League of Cities Summit, Kansas City, MO, November 16-19, 2022, $3285.79
  • National League of Cities Conference, Washington, D.C., March 26-28, 2023, $3650.37
  • Indoor AG Tech Innovation Summit, New York City, Jun 29-30, 2023, $3165.36
  • Sister Cities trip, Memmingen, Germany, July 19-23, 2023, $917.46
  • League of Cities and Towns Conference, Tucson. AZ, August 29 – September 1, 2023*
  •  Renaissance Weekend, New York City, October 5-9, 2023, $3683.63
  • Colorado River Water Users Association, Washington, D.C., October 17-20, 2023, $1353.21
  • National League of Cities Conference, Atlanta, GA, November 15-18, 2023, $1979.50
  • Colorado River Water Users Association, Las Vegas, NV, December 13-15, 2023, $1651.32
  •  Renaissance Weekend, Charleston, SC, December 28, 2023 – January 1, 2024, $4661.51
  • National League of Cities Conference, Washington, D.C., March 9 -13, 2024, $4631.96

Total expenditures for these 10 trips: $28,980.11 (*League August 2023 expenditures unknown).

City travel policy states under Section D, examples of what is not allowed: “Priority boarding fees and airline seat premiums or upgrades, unless other options are not available.”

For the trips listed above $836.73 was charged for seat upgrades/preferred seats/main cabin extra seats.

There is certainly more to cover but this is enough overload for you, the reader. In Part 3 of this series, we will take a deeper dive into Turner’s travel expenditures.

© Joyce Clark, 2025   

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jul 24

24

One last look at the two Lupes

Posted by Joyce Clark on July 24, 2024
Posted in Barrell District • Cactus District • City issue and actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials • Glendale election 2024 • Primary Election August 2024 • Yucca district  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

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.

The primary election is in one week, July 30th. Please do vote. It’s now too late to mail your Early Ballot but you can drop it off at the Glendale City Clerk’s office at the Civic Center Annex in downtown Glendale or you can drop it off on Election Day at a polling location.

Here are a couple of recent observations that have come to my attention. Lupe Encinas in a recent mailer used this photo:

I have learned that a complaint has been filed for its use of Glendale’s employees, namely police officers with no disclaimer or permission. A candidate cannot use Glendale’s employees in campaign literature. She will probably plead ignorance and that she didn’t know it was a violation. If she is found to have violated election law I suspect she will be fined.

At the candidate forum held by the Glendale Women’s Club, only the Lupe twins appeared. The Vice Mayor had a previous commitment and Dianna Guzman had had emergency surgery. During the forum, Conchas said at one point, “When I’m knocking on doors I hear a lot about speed enforcement and speed safety… I have been talking to residents about solutions and that includes more motorcycle police and giving out a few more speeding tickets.” This is the height of irony considering that Conchas has two traffic citations in his background and a Failure to Appear at one of those court hearings. Yet now he’s concerned about traffic safety and speeding. Check out these:

A recent anti-Vice Mayor Hugh was mailed out recently. It was paid for by the political action committee, Moving Glendale Forward, ID# 24-02. It was created specifically to do one action – print and mail a hit piece on Councilmember Hugh. The contributors to this PAC are 3 people, no one else, Art Othon of Othon Consulting, donated $500; Andy Konasek of Arizona Strategies, donated $500; and surprise! Bart Turner, Glendale City Councilmember representing Glendale’s Barrell district, $2,325.09. The printing and mailing cost $3,325.09. Bart Turner paid for 70% of the mailer. It appears that Turner despises Hugh and not just Hugh, but me, Mayor Weiers and Councilmember Malnar. In other words, the majority on Glendale’s city council.

He is financially supporting the two Lupes, Conchas and Encinas, both Democrats. There are more skeletons in Turner’s closet, but they are for another day in his future.

Turner appears to be a RINO Republican. When Democrat Mark Kelly was running for office Turner endorsed him and was subsequently censored by Republican Legislative District 24.

Several observers from that night at the Women’s Club shared their comments with me. One said Encinas is really “dumb” and another said she has “no grasp of the issues.” The last observer to reach out to me said both candidates had a golden opportunity to share specific solutions and to identify specific issues. Instead, they used platitudes and spoke in generalities. They both showed that they had no real understanding of Glendale’s policies or issues.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Me thinks thou doth protest too much.” It’s from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The continual protests coming from the Encinas camp about connections with the radical Conchas should raise eyebrows. They had more than one Meet n Greet together. It certainly wasn’t a one-off.

The last thing Glendale needs right now are radicalized Democrats who espouse Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), defunding the police, higher taxes, gender transformation of children and open borders…the Democrat Pary platform.

Glendale is in a good position, economically and socially. Let’s keep it on a path of prosperity and safety for all of Glendale. Please vote for Ian Hugh and Dianna Guzman.

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

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.