By Jim Lane | Point of View
My early concerns with Proposition 490 were the deceptive ballot language and false premises use to promote it, and the perceived electioneering contained within the ‘helpful’ Q&A in the publicity pamphlet.
The complaint filed against Scottsdale was based on the charge that the city of Scottsdale had violated state law regarding the veracity of descriptive ballot language, that stipulates: “Arizona courts should disqualify a question submitted to the voters when it communicates objectively false or misleading information or obscures the principal provision’s basic thrust.” (Molera v. Hobbs, 250 Ariz 13 [2020]).
Voters and taxpayers implicitly trust their elected officials. I was a plaintiff in the Goldwater Institute-sponsored complaint of the city’s violation of state law regarding dishonest, obscured or otherwise misrepresented ballot language in defining Prop 490 because of my concerned that the City Council was following a misleading, unethical and illegal path of dishonestly describing Prop 490 because they didn’t believe it could pass on its own merits.
Ultimately, the city of Scottsdale was unanimously found guilty by a panel of Court of Appeals judges requiring that the city either withdraw Prop 490 from the ballot or revise the ballot language to their satisfaction. The mayor and City Council hurriedly revised the ballot language and were allowed to put their revised Prop 490 on the ballot.
The unfortunate lingering consequence for the mayor and council’s unvetted actions of using objectively false, obscure or misrepresentation of elements and impacts of this ballot proposition, was to expose the mayor and City Council to an embarrassing ‘Breach of Trust’ with our citizens.
In public and private institutions where fiduciaries or trustees are found to have breached the fiduciary trust, they are generally fired, fined and possibly imprisoned. In the case of elected officials, the voters can first respond with their vote, and responsible administrative management can face dismissal by the council.
This new $1.4-billion extraction from Scottsdale’s private economy, the new tax could be inserted into the operating budget process without the necessary oversight, discipline and accountability exercised by the council in its annual budget process.
This breach of trust casts a shadow of deceit on the validity and rightness of the content of the entire of Proposition 490. I am disappointed in how Scottsdale residents have been betrayed by their mayor and City Council.
The mayor and council are asking the voters to increase the local sales tax by .15% for 30 years and for the voters to authorize an increase in the city’s statutory expenditure limit to allow the spending of the sales tax generated from Prop 490, if it were to pass. It has nothing to do the structure or application of any other existing general sales tax.
There is a great deal more to be said and revealed on this proposition. I strongly recommend that the voters vote ‘No’ on Propositions 490 and 491.
Editor’s Note: Mr. Lane is a resident of Scottsdale and former mayor of the community serving with distinction from 2009 until 2021
