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.

We all, well most of us, use some form of social media. It could be Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. How do we use them? We post family and friends photos. We post about ideas or values we appreciate or admire. We use social media to update the world on our status. In other words, our use of social media reflects our personalities, what we value, and what we believe in. It is a reflection of ourselves.

Recently, an intrepid user of all social media sent me a series of screen shots captured from Mayoral candidate Michelle Robertson’s Facebook pages. Out of curiosity, I went to her Facebook pages to see these postings for myself. Amazingly, they were all gone. Not some of them, but all of them. Ms. Robertson, or perhaps her campaign team, seems to have carefully scrubbed (erased) any posting that did not reflect her current, carefully cultivated image as a moderate candidate for mayor of Glendale.

Now when you look at her Facebook postings from the past two years there are very few, perhaps as a few as a half dozen postings in each year. Those postings that kept are filled with unicorns and rainbows, puppies and babies…all very benign and extremely non-controversial…unless you hate unicorns or babies!

None of the Facebook screen shots sent to me was anywhere to be seen. So, I thought I’d peel back the onion a bit and share with you a sampling of the items Ms. Robertson deleted.

The first screen shot is from July, 2017 when she was a candidate for Maricopa County Superintendent of Public Instruction. Back when Robertsom was a Democrat activist she embraced a lot of Human Rights Campaign posts and it certainly looks from this post that she supported the Black Lives Matter movement.

The second screen shot is from July, 2017 and expresses her support for the LGBTQ community and the Resist movement.

This screen shot is from August, 2019 and clearly demonstrates her support for Elizabeth Warren as her preferred Democrat Presidential candidate. There’s no expression of support for Biden, the presumptive Democrat Presidential nominee.

I don’t have any issue with her positions but these are the ideas and values that are important to Michelle Robertson. You may agree with some of them, all of them or none of them. That is not the point.

The point is that these postings represent the real Robertson and you, the voter, have the right to know what causes and ideologies she supports and what her value system is. This is the real Robertson that was erased. Why?  Did she think the real Michelle Robertson would not get enough votes? Did she fear that these kinds of posts and these positions and causes  might alienate Glendale voters?

I don’t think Robertson gives Glendale enough credit for its diversity of thoughts and populations. Second, I can’t imagine running for an office while hiding the real me while pretending to be something that I’m not. I’m clearly the opposite. I write my blog so that my constituents can really know what I’m thinking on a variety of issues.

As I reviewed her current postings on her campaign page I noted that while she emphasized what she described as failings of our current mayor I didn’t see what she plans to do to make Glendale “good.”  For that is her campaign tag line, “Good for Glendale.” It sounds great but exactly what makes her good for Glendale?

 I didn’t see any positive action that she would employ should she be elected. What’s her platform? What does she want to accomplish for you? What does she intend to do to improve your quality of life?

What I did find on her Issues page were complaints about the current mayor and a sprinkling of aspirational goals without much meat on the bones. Here’s one example: “You can count on me to be engaged in working in partnership with our state and federal legislative delegations…” That’s dandy but the city employs a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. that lobbies for every possible dollar to which the city is entitled. Doesn’t she know that Mayor Weiers served in the Arizona State Legislature and as a result of that service he developed excellent working relationships, including our present delegation?

Other very generalized promises include restoring the city’s internal audit program. The only problem with her statement is that she ignores that the city has an internal audit committee that oversees the work of an independent auditing firm; ensuring city council transparency.  In order to be fully transparent, I wonder how she plans to get around confidentially protected Executive Session material; and supporting light rail.  Council abandoned the concept of light rail and used the savings generated for its beefed up Pavement Management Program,

Voters should pay attention to her lack of participation in and contributions to our community, Glendale.  While she says she’s lived here for most of her adult life, she doesn’t appear to have volunteered for any service on a citizen board or commission. She is not a member of Kiwanis, the Salvation Army, the Chamber of Commerce or any other non-profit organization devoted to Glendale.  I see no service to the community in her resume. I suppose she can claim any career work in the fields of social services and mental health but did these positions have any relationship to Glendale? If it did I would assume she would say so.

What about attendance at Glendale 101 University? It’s available free to any resident and provides in depth knowledge about the how and why of the operations of nearly every City of Glendale department. That would have been great preparation for someone considering a run for mayor of the city.

She appears to have no legislative experience. Her only experience seems to be within the Cartwright School system. I’m not sure that would prepare anyone to take the reins of a city of 250,000 people. Her career is exclusively in education, largely as a kindergarten teacher. Her first campaign for office was for an education position because she said that was her passion. Now, suddenly, she is passionate about a Mayor’s position that has no authority over the school districts within our city? The decisions made regarding your children’s education is made by your school district’s board, not by the city.

She appears to be what many would call a “perpetual candidate.” Two years ago she ran for the Maricopa County Superintendent of Public Instruction. She lost. Well, that didn’t work out so well, so why not take a shot at running for Mayor?

There are those who seek recognition and adulation as a public figure. It makes them warm and fuzzy all over and provides validation of their self worth. Is that part of her persona? We don’t know because she has only chosen to offer platitudes, not substance. She is a ghost candidate.

Your reason to vote for her should be grounded in truths. What can you learn from her social media? Has she shared her plan for Glendale? Do you even know what her plan is? Do you value her previous experience in contributing to Glendale? For she seems to have none. Do you know where she wants to take Glendale? What exactly, makes her good for Glendale?

What she is against is irrelevant.

Ask yourself, what does she stand for? Do you share her values?

She doesn’t deserve your vote if you can’t answer those questions.

^{© Joyce Clark, 2020}         

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