Here is my analysis: QUESTION 1: VOTE 'NO'
Mayor Giles, Mesa, is the biggest proponent of Question 1. He appears in meetings all over the place, has call-in webinars, and recorded messages that come over the phone.
I was surprised to see that I am captured on the City of Mesa Facebook page talking to Mayor Giles discussing Question 1 as we were packing bags for Arizona Brain Food.
Please vote 'NO'. The Mayor is not telling the whole story.
Along with not telling the whole story, Mayor Giles appears to be the primary backer of the "Yes for Public Safety and Education" PAC. As I dug deeper into the ballot I decided to follow the money of this PAC. Here is what I found:
ReplyDeletea. The PAC is registered at an address that is listed as the law office of John C. Giles. So the PAC that paid for 17 of 18 of the "for" arguments in the publicity pamphlet was either started by our Mayor or is using his office.
b. In the donations report of the "Yes" PAC, both Mayor Giles, Councilman Luna and Kavanaugh donated to this PAC. I'm not implying anything illegal, it just doesn't sit right in my gut that a measure that went through city council and voted by the Mayor, was also "financed" by him. I use that loosely, as I said it just doesn't feel right. Its like "hey, we want this to get passed, so lets approve it through council and then create a PAC that will make it sound AWESOME!"
c. In post-primary report, "Yes" PAC had $226,395.81 before expenditures. Of that $122,500 was donated by General Contractors/Subcontractors. This tells me that this is more about the 2nd item in the question "development projects". I don't think General Contractors with offices outside of Mesa are too concerned about our public safety.
Here's the link to the reports:
http://apps.mesaaz.gov/clerkcampaignfinancereports/doclist?Yes%20For%20Public%20Safety%20and%20Education
Thank you for your comment. I wish I had known this earlier. I guess a good practice is to "Watch the Money". Doing so, you really find out what is going on. The measure will probably pass given they 'in favor' effort is in the $200,000 range and the 'opposition' is $0. Unfortunately, the way it is written will make it almost impossible to keep the politicians honest by tracking expenditures. Unfortunately there is no "balance sheet" that truthfully exposes the long term obligation and increase in size of government this innocuous measure will create.
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