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 my blog of June 23, 2020 entitled “Will the real Robertson please stand up?” I shared typical Facebook postings of Mayoral candidate Michelle Robertson now publicly available only to friends and family, I am told. They represent the causes and values in which she believes. Why wouldn’t she want everyone to see these? Why suddenly limit them only to friends and family? In this blog I will take a look at who is supporting and backing her candidacy and their likely motives for doing so. Even though Glendale elections are officially nonpartisan, Michelle Robertson is a Democrat activist who reportedly reached out to local Democrat groups to ask them to help her “capture” the Mayor’s office.

Unions: It appears the largest backers are the ones with the most money and manpower to spend on her behalf and that would be…wait for it…the unions, with their bottomless bank accounts and deceptive attack ads. The list is the Who’s Who’ of unions and most of them are from outside Glendale and they really have no interest in or connection to Glendale.

When I shared screen shots from her Facebook page one that was not included was this one. It demonstrates her long standing support of unions. Is that why you, an interested voter, can no longer see it?

Downtown dissidents: There are others who have decided to back Robertson, because they are angry with the current leadership of the City and have their own axes to grind. Let’s begin with the most visible representative of the downtown Glendale merchants, Cheryl Knappes. She represents a small coterie of merchants who continue to fight any changes to downtown, to the detriment of the entire downtown area and efforts to revitalize the area.

Save Glen Lakes: Another group that is unhappy with Glendale’s leadership is the ‘Save Glen Lakes’ group, one of whose leaders is Jane Bachman. The fact that the council had given approval to the city manager to sell the Glen Lakes property guaranteed their opposition. It had become a financial sinkhole at nearly a million dollars a year to maintain and operate and it needed very costly updates.

Past political losers: Then there is, for want of a better term, the political group. These are people who have run and lost, or who used to work for the city and lost their positions. The most currently visible among them is Mark Burdick, former Fire Chief, who never produced a balanced budget and ran against the mayor in the last election cycle and lost.

I must digress to show what happens when the fire union calls the shots. Our former City Manager, Ed Beasley (city manager from 2002 to 2012), was advised on major issues by our fire union. They were members of Beasley’s inner circle. Due to the influence of the Glendale fire union when Beasley left in 2012 Glendale was heavily in debt and teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Is this what we are to expect if Robertson is elected and controlled by Glendale’s fire union?

Burdick has made a formal endorsement of Robertson. Add to this mix former Councilmember Yvonne Knaack who has always been an ally of the fire unions because of their support in every one of her elections; and current Councilmember Bart Turner who has made no secret of his absolute disdain for the mayor and our city manager. He has also formally endorsed Robertson. Bruce Heatwole, former Councilmember, and close friend of Bart Turner, offered an endorsement as did Sammy Chavira, disgraced former Glendale Councilmember and a Phoenix firefighter.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions and free expression of them. That the beauty of our system. They are free to support any candidate of their choosing but it is important for voters to to know the reason for their position/opinion causing their support of Robertson.That is how democracy works. There is a world of difference between supporting a candidate because you have the same positions or supporting a candidate to settle a grudge with his or her opponent. We all deserve better than that. 

In my next blog we’ll take a closer look at the unions’ motivation for supporting Robertson and Alexander…and it ain’t pretty.

© Joyce Clark, 2020         

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