Watch Your Six, Part IV

November 11, 2012

You still here? Good, let’s continue with our examination of what pressure might be applied to kill the newly renegotiated arena lease deal between the City of Glendale and Hockey Partners. I’ve decided to start using the more correct Hockey Partners moniker for the Jamison group so we’ll all get used to it rolling off the tongue. After all, that’s who will be running Jobing.com (or whatever it is renamed) for the next twenty years or so, assuming we don’t let our guards down in the next few weeks. Another negative article in the AZ Republic yesterday (Saturday, November 10) fits my prognostications fairly well, perhaps I will put in my application for the “Coyotes Nostradamus” with Hockey Partners, LLC?

Today we’ll examine how the Glendale City Clerk’s office is being forced to participate in the anti Coyotes movement. The people wanting the Coyotes gone have been using the City Clerk’s office to send threats and forward their goals for some time now.

Tea For Two

One example was from James Pritchett, who signed the top of the first pro prop Prop 457 petition page circulated by Glendale Tea Party “Patriot” disciple Francine Romesburg. I only mention that to illustrate whatever Pritchett’s relationship may be with the Tea Party people that actively targeted CM Clark. Mr. Pritchett filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents related to the Risk Management Trust Fund audit. A similar, if not identical, FOIA request was coincidentally filed by the Arizona Republic. The end result of that request was an article published on the Saturday before Election Day.

This article, negative to Hockey Partners arena lease deal supporter CM Clark by the way, was then mentioned by Elaine Scruggs when she scheduled an emergency City Council workshop for the day before Election Day to discuss the results of the audit. The audit has been published in September, so the drama starting nearly two months later instead of immediately is odd. Once again, in this case mayor Scruggs used her lack of knowledge of the goings on in the city she “led” for nearly 20 years as an explanation of her shock at the audit results. She actually seemed to not be embarrassed at reading about some large budget issues in HER city government in the newspaper. In the newspaper. Would it be more economical to list the things the mayor IS aware of? We’ll have to ask Ed Beasley, for one, what some of those things are, I guess.

As an aside, Sam Chavira had a bunch of copies of the hit piece printed off on bright paper, annotated with his handler’s comments, as a final attack piece on his opponent Joyce Clark. It’s interesting that it is the Chavira campaign that whined about being mistreated on these blog pages. One thing I did not do was have my children wave a hit piece around at the polls, pointing at CM Clark and saying things on the order of “She stole six million dollars”. My kids wouldn’t think of doing that, they have too much respect for the truth and for their elders.

Tweetyface Chronicles

Another example of attempted intimidation came directly from the aforementioned “Patriot” Francine Romesburg. Using the guise of civic duty, Ms. Romesburg filed a complaint against Glendale United, a political action committee formed to support the re-election campaign of Joyce Clark. I was prominently mentioned in the election law violation complaint, although there were no laws cited in her complaint. The entire complaint was based on tweets and Facebook postings and was ludicrous. Click here to read “Patriot? Not So Much” about it, if you wish.

Francine Romesburg

There has been no further action thus far on her complaint, it remains thoroughly answered and in the hands of the Glendale legal department for disposition. The lack of action probably doesn’t disturb Romesburg, she surely couldn’t actually believe that her theories would fly with the Glendale city attorney. No, that wasn’t the point. Her filing of the complaint was specifically designed to put Glendale United and my family “on notice” that people were watching us. The implication is: “Hey we’re coming after you personally if you continue pursuing your First Amendment rights.”

So, yeah Francine, people did have to spend time answering your complaint. Sure, Francine, it was annoying and consumed time that could have been spent doing more productive things. Doesn’t mean you got a “win”, though. If it makes you feel better, though, go ahead and put a notch in whatever you add a notch to for hollow victories.

As our former goalie would say “Why you hef to be mad?”

Total Recall

The last time waster for the overworked City Clerk’s office is that papers were “pulled” from the Glendale City Clerk’s office to recall councilmember Yvonne Knaack. Why? If we’re to believe the Tea Bagger and Canadian (experts on US politics and law) Twitter trolls that anonymously support the other side, it’s also because of her support of the Hockey Partners deal. In this case, the trolls may be correct.

I actually haven’t been following the recall activity, I assume it hasn’t yet gone past the “paper pulling” stage. Whether it proceeds to the “gathering signatures” stage or not, the threat is clear, if you vote to approve the deal with Hockey Partners, you will lose your job. I also haven’t checked the rules on petition signature counts, it may be that the guy pulled the papers before the general election so that the signature requirements wouldn’t be based on a more popular general election in a Presidential year.

CM Knaack has, thus far, scoffed at the threat as she should. She is another councilmember taking her job seriously, showing up at meetings and participating with levelheaded thoughts. While I don’t always agree with CM Knaack’s positions, I respect her judgment and conviction. I’m fairly certain that the majority of the people of her district agree with my assessment of their councilmember.

Now, if she had instead NOT been attending council meetings regularly, she might have something to worry about. When you have a job to do, it’s important to show up and actually do it. CM Knaack understands that and I’m sure she has confidence that the electorate she represents understands and, for the most part, support her positions.

That’s all for today, boys and girls. The moral of the story is that, on this veteran’s day, our countrymen serve and sometimes lay down their lives so that people could abuse the “system” for their own purposes. Today we give thanks for the service of the people that have served and fought and died for our right to be complete imbeciles. While they might not appreciate the actions of people that abuse our political and judicial systems, every single one of them was committed to defend our right to do so.

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