At a glance: Mary Manross was mayor for the whole decade, and most of its big questions went to the voters. They kept the private Rural/Metro fire contract in 2003, and the company left anyway. They rejected a forty-year sales-tax subsidy for a Walmart on the old Los Arcos mall, 83 to 17, and the land went to ASU. They refused to elect the council by districts. They taxed themselves for the Preserve again, by the narrowest margin of any Preserve money vote, and overturned the council’s strip-club ordinance. Then a state law moved city elections onto the November ballot, turnout quadrupled, and Jim Lane unseated Manross by 590 votes. The 1990s chapter tells how the city got here.
The council
Mary Manross, a councilwoman since 1992, won the mayor’s office in a May 2000 runoff over Ross Dean, 17,964 to 14,298, and was re-elected in 2004 over Councilman David Ortega, 21,949 to 11,007. Incumbents fared worse on the council. Richard Thomas lost in 2000; in 2002 Robert Pettycrew finished last in March and Bob Littlefield, who promised to “stand firm against special interests who want profitable but density-increasing upzonings,” beat George Zraket in the May runoff; in 2006 Littlefield’s colleague Kevin Osterman lost to him in a runoff. The 2004 election, Manross wrote, produced “the most inexperienced [council] in Scottsdale’s history, with 6 first-term councilmen.” Turnout in the spring elections ran from 31 percent down to 13.93 percent in March 2006.
Jan Dolan, who had run Menlo Park, California for ten years, became city manager in August 2000 and left in 2008; John Little was acting manager and then, briefly, manager.
The fire vote
The decade’s first big fight was over who should fight fires. Scottsdale had contracted with Rural/Metro since the town’s first years, and in 2003 the state firefighters’ association and a local committee put two initiatives on the ballot for a city department. Littlefield called the company “a monopoly”; Jim Lane, on the council’s fire advisory committee, said a city department would cost “an additional 3 million dollars a year,” and Rural/Metro’s founder, Lou Witzeman, asked voters as “your neighbor” to vote no. On May 20, 2003 voters kept the contract, about 63 to 37. In November the company said it would not renew, and on July 1, 2005 the city fire department took over. The fire-department initiatives page tells it.
Los Arcos, again
The arena plan for the dead Los Arcos mall had died in 2001. Its developer, Steve Ellman, came back with a Walmart, a Sam’s Club and a Lowe’s, and on July 2, 2003 the council voted 4 to 3 to return about half the center’s sales taxes to his company for forty years, about $37 million in principal and, opponents said, “more than $187 million” with interest. A committee called STOP’EM forced a referendum, and the Chamber of Commerce, under Virginia Korte, joined it. Ellman withdrew; on March 9, 2004 voters rejected the agreement anyway, 29,444 to 5,856. Two months later he sold the land to the ASU Foundation, and the city bought it for what became SkySong. The Los Arcos referendum page has the details.
The same ballot rejected council districts, 21,345 to 13,684. “If democracy is a good thing, then certainly, a little more democracy is even better,” former mayor Bill Jenkins argued; opponents answered that residents would trade three council votes every two years for one every four.
Growth by plan and by tower
In 2000 voters approved six of nine bond questions, $358.2 million in all, and turned down WestWorld land, city buildings and housing. In March 2002 they ratified the city’s first General Plan under the state’s Growing Smarter law, 12,950 to 5,988; no one filed an argument against it. In 2003 the council approved the Scottsdale Waterfront, using an infill-incentive district to let two condo towers rise about 13 stories, and put in $5.35 million, by the city’s own account; a trade report said the council attached an emergency clause so the approval could not be referred, which no other source confirms. In 2009 the council adopted a new Downtown Plan.
The Preserve, a second time
On May 18, 2004 voters approved a second Preserve sales tax, 0.15 percent for thirty years, with up to $500 million in bonds and a separate public-safety tax. No one filed an argument against any of the three. The Protect & Preserve Committee, led by Art DeCabooter and Jim Hill, promised “19,000 acres of state land … larger than the city of San Francisco.” The tax still passed with only 54.53 percent, 17,196 to 14,339, the narrowest Preserve money vote, and it lost in the city’s southern and central districts while winning in the north. The city also condemned land for the Preserve in these years; a 2008 appeals decision on one fifty-acre parcel sets out the process. The Preserve guide carries the story on.
Cameras and clubs
On January 22, 2006 the city switched on six speed cameras along the Loop 101, the first fixed speed cameras on a major U.S. highway. “Nothing else is working,” Councilman Osterman said; Sen. Dean Martin called it “a tremendous cash cow for the city,” The State Press reported. A state evaluation found crashes down by about half. The state took the cameras over in 2007, and construction removed them in 2008.
In December 2005 the council unanimously rewrote its rules for strip clubs: no nudity and dancers four feet from customers. The city’s two cabarets gathered signatures and forced a referendum, arguing that the council had acted “in a closed-door executive session”; Manross answered that the code was “not designed to harm the strip clubs in any way.” On September 12, 2006 voters rejected the ordinance, 16,781 to 15,543, and the older rules stayed. In December 2007, on the recommendation of its personnel board, the council added sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s employment protections; Lane voted against, by Wikipedia’s account.
The 590-vote mayor
A 2006 state law required cities of 175,000 or more to hold candidate elections on the state’s September and November dates. Scottsdale’s charter already followed the state calendar, so 2008 brought its first fall election. In September Lane led Manross 17,463 to 17,098, a majority of the votes cast for mayor but not of all ballots, which the charter then required. In November, with the presidential race on the ballot and 85 percent turnout, Lane, who had asked “Why’s there such a culture of secrecy and so many secret Executive Sessions?”, won 51,848 to 51,258. Manross had run on “an all-time record $3.3 billion dollars of new investment in downtown and Southern Scottsdale.” In 2009 the recession forced deep cuts in the city’s budget, and the arguments of the 2010s, over taxes, height and the Preserve’s future, began on Lane’s watch.