For subscribers: A 'dirty' small-town election campaign shows how partisan politics seeps into Arizona communities
Candidates and local officials said they’ve never seen anything like this year’s"vitriolic" election in Fountain Hills, a small town of 25,000 people in the Phoenix area's northeast Valley where races are typically low profile and amicable.
. It’s a shift for the conservative-majority town where voters have rarely balked at electing Democrats in the past. Complaints from the PAC and Republican council candidates about Dickey’s leadership largely centered around more material issues, like the town’s four “sober homes” — which multiple officials said sparked the desire to flip the Town Council — rules about how businesses can display signs, and COVID-19 mitigation measures that ended last year.
“Nonpartisan or not, every single candidate for public office has a party behind them,” said Toth, the second-highest vote getter in the Town Council race. “In a lot of ways, I think we were kidding ourselves to believe otherwise.” “We had unregulated sober living homes moving into our community, which was very unpopular with ,” said the newly elected council member.
Kalivianakis and other local conservatives said council members “watered down” the proposed ordinance over fears that it was too “exclusionary” and would cause the town to violate federal laws that limit how much“There was some concern that that was maybe too exclusionary. And so the council ended up cutting in half,” said John Wesley, the town’s development services director.
Meyers, who served as treasurer, said ROT members hashed out a strategy with the conservative candidates before the PAC was formed. The plan was that the committee would“Before we formed the PAC, we went to the conservative candidates and we told them that if we were to form the PAC, we would take the role of the aggressor,” Meyers said. “We told the candidates you should be positive about what you want to do, the changes you will make, and stay away from attacks.
“I've been here 38 years and I'm not acting as a partisan in any way, shape or form, but that was probably their best shot,” the sitting mayor said of the ROT campaign against her. “You have to connect all of the dots,” the PAC representative said. “We connected the dots, and the dots are who runs the town. … Because the town is run by a majority. The current majority, which is still seated right now, is a bunch of liberals.”
ROT also slammed Dickey for “increased crime” under her leadership, as well as a rise in the town’s homeless population. “Some people have said some things online that are a lot different than what they say on the stage. There’s three of us who are telling the truth and is not,” said Skillicorn, who went on to quote President Ronald Regan by saying, “it isn't so much that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so many things that aren't so."
“Skillicorn, as is reflected by the vote, didn't listen. He attacked a lot,” Meyers said. “The overwhelming consensus was one of two things: I knew we needed a majority on the council, so I held my nose and voted for Skillicorn, or I didn't vote for him because he attacked Couture in a personal manner at the forum.”
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