The Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions (“TAAAZE”) committee, led by former Councilman Bob Littlefield, ran the out-of-state, union-funded Axon referendum. Of the about 27,000 signatures gathered, a total of 25,000 Scottsdale voter signatures were paid for by a California labor union.
Just as our U.S. Constitution guarantees a defendant the right to a speedy trial, in this instance, Axon was told by a majority of my council colleagues, their trial by election would be delayed two years, set in November 2026.
Axon appealed the delay to the Arizona Legislature, which resulted in Senate Bill 1543 (“the Axon bill”) being passed and signed by the Governor. Axon “won” an exception to local zoning control, which effectively made our votes in the referendum election moot.
However, the Axon bill had defects that make it susceptible to constitutional legal challenges. If the election was held before the legislature fixed those issues, it would have made SB 1543 meaningless. Instead, the legislature had plenty of time to override our right to have a meaningful vote.
In July, I asked the City Council to hold the referendum election at the next available date, which would have been November 2025. Councilmembers Dubauskas, Graham and Littlefield refused, and they were successful in blocking a timely election set earlier this month — at de minimis cost to the city.
Again, in October, I asked the City Council to hold an election at the next available date, which would have been March 2026. Again, those same Councilmembers refused to listen to reason and said, “no.”
Mr. Littefield has been quoted as saying, “I always said we need to let people vote on the issue,” which is a curious comment from Bob because his political allies on City Council repeatedly denied my requests to hold an early election. What is even more curious is Bob telling a colleague the reason for delaying the election until November 2026 was to get himself and Councilman Graham re-elected.
Accordingly, we were left with only two choices:
- File a lawsuit against the flawed Axon legislation, only to have Axon go back to the legislature to fix SB1543, neutering TAAAZE’s and the City’s legal claims and further nullifying the referendum election, leaving Axon free to build 2,000 apartments or more; or
- Strike a compromise to reduce the number of units and project density.
I promised the voters to oppose high-density apartments. In keeping with my promise, I negotiated a major reduction of density, down from 2,000 apartments to 600 apartments and 600 condominiums. Importantly, TAAAZE representatives agreed to resolve the entire dispute if Axon agreed to build 500 apartments and 1,000 condos. In the end, my negotiations with Axon resulted in a much lower overall density than TAAAZE’s last demand.
Isn’t it time to end the political gamesmanship and jockeying?
Delaying the election cost us our right to vote on the Axon project and resulted in the city being stuck with SB 1543. If we are faced with another referendum, let’s have the election right away and not make the voters wait and risk more legislative interference.
Editor’s Note: Lisa Borowsky is serving her first term as mayor of Scottsdale.
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