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.
This past week I and the other Glendale city councilmembers have received identical, word for word emails from all who signed a petition circulated by the Worker Power Political Action Committee (PAC). I have not seen the petition but somewhere within it there had to be the petition signer’s permission to allow Worker Power to send emails on the signer’s behalf as well as revealing to the recipient (the city council) the email address of the signer. I bet that everyone who signed the petition didn’t know that. Below is Worker Power’s application for a Referendum petition:
Here is just one of the emails I received. They are all the same with the exact same verbiage. All of the emails come from everyactioncustom.com with the personal information of the petition signer provided at the bottom of the email. What is everyactioncustom.com?
This domain is used to send emails on behalf of the supporters (petition signers) of organizations that use the EveryAction advocacy tools. Each one of those emails represents a form submission by a real person (the petition signer) wanting to contact (did they want to contact or did they even know that their signature granted permission to contact using their personal information?) a custom advocacy target (in this case, the members of the Glendale city council) configured in the EveryAction system. In other words, Worker Power hired Bonterra, the company that runs EveryAction, to set up a system where every signer will automatically have an email sent on his or her behalf. Here is a sample of the form email we are receiving. I have personally redacted the name, address and email address of this sender:
“Dear Vice Mayor Joyce Clark,
I am aware that City Council has approved a 25-year property tax break to VAI Resorts known as a GPLET and I would like to express my concern with that decision. This is tax money that could be going to improve our infrastructure, schools, our parks, public safety, and more. There have been major transparency issues with this project. Despite announced changes to the size and scope of the resort, change in ownership, and changes to the GPLET, it took over a year to update the Development Agreement. For such a massive project that has been delayed for so long, there was very little opportunity for the public to comment given that it was added to the agenda the day before it was set to be heard. We also heard the Mayor express a need to consider the effect of new lighting, more noise, and additional traffic caused by changes to the project from the original approval, but we have yet to see these findings . Finally, the next vote involves a sale of public land to the developer to expand the project. At the last neighborhood meeting, multiple nearby residents expressed concerns about amending the zoning to turn this public land into a parking lot and a six-story office building that could overlook private backyards.
Sincerely,
Daniel ———–
—— W Blackhawk Dr Glendale, AZ 85308-9638
————–@gmail.com”
What is Worker Power? It’s a super political action committee (Super PAC):
“The Worker Power PAC is a Democratic Party-aligned Super PAC founded in 2020 as the Working Arizona PAC that expanded to conduct activity in other competitive states in 2022 after changing its name. The PAC is closely aligned with organized labor and has received money from labor unions and other left-of-center advocacy groups including Unite HERE Local 11, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers, and the Arizona AFL-CIO.
The PAC has conducted campaign activities in support of Democratic candidates in Arizona and Georgia as well on behalf of the presidential campaign of Joe Biden during the 2020 election. The group also created a separate PAC to funnel funds to support congressional and U.S. Senate Candidates in Georgia in 2020 and 2022 called the Worker Power PAC for Georgia.
The Worker Power Pac was founded in 2020 as the Working Arizona PAC. The PAC is organized as an unaffiliated ‘super PAC’ that is allowed to spend unlimited amounts of funds in support of candidates via independent expenditures. The PAC describes itself as ‘dedicated to delivering wins for progressive political candidates.’ In 2020, the PAC focused its spending on Arizona-specific state and federal elections. In 2022, the PAC ‘conducted a massive independent expenditure field canvass that provided the margin of victory for numerous progressive candidates and delivered a decisive blow to a slate of extreme right-wing candidates at every ballot level.’
Candidates that the organization deployed paid canvassers to support in 2022 included those of Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D), Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D).” (Google search)
What should be interesting to note is that the city council approved the original agreement with ECL (ownership has changed to VAI) nearly two years ago and that agreement included the original GPLET (Government Property Least Excise Tax). Where was Worker Power then? They didn’t care almost two years ago and now they do. They are opportunists.
What are they really up to? Part II of this blog to be published tomorrow, Saturday, should explain a great deal.
© Joyce Clark, 2023
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