By George Fallar Our Coyotes fans brothers and sisters are very much aware that the petitioners recruited by the Goldwater Institute for their lawsuit against the Coyotes are in the process of collecting signatures for their referendum petition. It’s the American way, we should all celebrate democracy every single day we have the privilege of living in the United States, no place on the planet comes even close.
That said, I imagine there will be Coyotes troops mobilized to check every single signature of every single petition signer and every single circulator of the petition. There are rules attached to gathering signatures for referendum and ballot petitions, nearly all the information is public and there for anybody to request. For example, if someone wished to drop by Glendale City Hall, I believe they could request a complete list of voters registered in Glendale. You would need that to start with, then somebody could easily come up with a spreadsheet or database to make the names and addresses easily searchable and, thus, verifiable. I believe it’s been mentioned that roughly 2,000 signatures would have to be gathered by July 9.
We’ve been told by people familiar with the process that getting that many signatures on a petition in that short span of time is nearly impossible. That may be true, but I personally believe that it will happen. Whether those signatures stand up to the scrutiny of the public is, of course, another matter.
Faithful readers may recall an earlier post of mine entitled “Glendale City Council candidate connected to Goldwater?” where I detailed some of the myriad of coincidental connections between CM Norma Alvarez, the group (Phoenix Monarch Group, PMG) “bidding” on arena management that Goldwater mentioned in their most recent suit against the City of Glendale (which Carrie Sitren oddly failed to mention in her dissertation in court Tuesday), Samuel Chavira (running against Coyotes supporter Joyce Clark), the IAFF firefighter’s union and the “United Food and Commercial Workers” union (UFCW). If not, click here to read it, we’ll be here when you get back.
An important thing to note is that Chavira gathered 212 signatures in ONE DAY for his candidacy. It’s not a stretch to assume that, should a similar campaign be mounted to gather the signatures for Ken Jones and Joe Cobb, they will succeed hitting their signature goal. I’d be willing to bet that, with their Goldwater people advising them, they are confident they already have what they need “in pocket” and may even delay a bit to bolster the confidence of the people (like me) looking for them to fail in their quest.
When I initially began looking at the Chavira campaign because of his ties to the PGM group, I saw that he was a firefighter. So I actually expected the firefighter’s union to be supporting Mr. Chavira and getting his signatures. When a DIFFERENT union turned out to be the “man behind the curtain”, I was surprised until I saw that an assumed relative (same last name) of his is actually in charge of the political action commitee (PAC) for the UFCW and undoubtedly has access to those funds.
There is also a rumor that the firefighter’s unions are actually in support of the Coyotes deal, so it seems to fit the puzzle when they aren’t actively supporting (with circulators and maybe money) a candidate who happens to be a firefighter.
I have some predictions as to names that will show up as circulators of the Goldwater petition, listed below:
- Jamie Aldama, Glendale
- Stan Chavira, Chandler (UFCW PAC contact)
- Emanuel Gallardo, Phoenix
- Aldo Gonzalez, Phoenix
- Tom Henry, Glendale
- Anthony Hernandez, Peoria
- Tony Herrera, Chandler (PGM partner or employee, One Consulting manager)
- Connie Horowitz, Phoenix
- Sarah Jambien, Santa Fe, NM
- Art Jimenez, Peoria (PGM CEO)
- Judy McCoy-Chavira, Glendale
- Gregory Morales, Avondale
- Stanford Prescott, Phoenix
- Max Rubin, Phoenix (UFCW)
- Athena Salman, Scottsdale
- Martin Samaniego, Glendale
- Rachel Sulkes, Phoenix
- Kellen Wilson, Phoenix
- Fred Yamashita, Avondale (UFCW Field Coordinator)
My theory is that, should somebody have access to the membership rolls of the UFCW, more of the above names would be in the list. There’s nothing, that I know of anyway, illegal about people mobilizing union members to gather signatures on petitions. So, what else do the above names have in common (save for Art Jimenez, I believe)? They were petition circulators for both Sammy Chavira (running against Joyce Clark) and Manuel Cruz (running for Mayor of Glendale). Both candidates are endorsed by CM Norma Alvarez.
So what, they’re just mobilizing the Hispanic voters and running for office, right? Yes, absolutely. I imagine many people, perhaps those signing the petitions, might have at least a little uneasiness about an organized union being involved so deeply with a proposed candidate if they were informed about that involvement. It’s not like there has ever been any union interference or manipulation of any elections in the United States, of course.
But, what would it mean if these same people showed up as circulators for the Ken Jones and Joe Cobb referendum petition? Is that referendum related to a vote that a typical Hispanic voter would be likely to reject out of hand? Or would it simply mean that CM Norma Alvarez and Goldwater will decide to use the same procedure that has already succeeded for their candidates at least twice? It would certainly mean that the UFCW union decided to “openly” (now, at least for our readers) get involved against the Coyotes deal. Why would they do that? What’s their motivation?
Meet us at McFaddens in Westgate on Saturday, June 23 at noon to talk about it.
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