Why he matters
From 2002 to 2015 Bob Littlefield was the Scottsdale council’s steadiest voice against subsidies to developers and against zoning changes that added density. He came to the council by beating an incumbent in a 2002 runoff, and his positions in the decade’s big fights, a city fire department, the Los Arcos land and SkySong, trace back to the promise he made then.
Where to find his work today
In the city’s ballot pamphlets, where his arguments are on the record, and in the Los Arcos referendum and fire-department initiatives pages.
The 2002 campaign
His candidate statement in 2002 was blunt: “I have no ties to the development community and if you elect me to the City Council I will stand firm against special interests who want profitable but density-increasing upzonings or who want the city to subsidize their projects.” He also wrote that the city’s redevelopment process needed reform. He finished fourth of six in March, with 10,119 votes, and in the May 21 runoff beat Councilman George Zraket, 9,637 to 8,696. The same cycle turned out Councilman Robert Pettycrew, so two incumbents lost.
On the council
In 2003 he took the firefighters’ side. Scottsdale bought fire protection from Rural/Metro, and he wrote that residents “will get more protection per tax dollar spent from a municipal fire department than they do from Rural/Metro … They are a monopoly.” Voters rejected the initiatives, and the company left anyway in 2005. In 2004, after voters rejected the Los Arcos Walmart subsidy, the city bought the site for an ASU innovation center; Littlefield objected that the city would collect no property taxes, no sales taxes and no rent on the land ASU used, The State Press reported. He was vice mayor in 2004-05, by the city’s budget book, and was re-elected through a 2006 runoff over Councilman Kevin Osterman and again in 2010.
Later
In his third term he led the written opposition to the city’s new General Plan. In 2012 he wrote that it “weakens the General Plan through language that encourages special interests to exploit Scottsdale’s unique character,” and the Coalition of Pinnacle Peak, arguing beside him, said “It could easily be mistaken as a plan for Phoenix.” Voters rejected it on March 13, 2012. In 2013 he and Kathy Littlefield argued against the city’s four bond questions, which all failed. The 2010s politics chapter follows that bloc through the decade.
Term limits ended his council service on January 6, 2015. In 2014 he ran in the Republican primary for the Arizona House in Legislative District 23, a candidacy the Associated Press reported; by Wikipedia’s account of the state canvass, he lost. In 2016 he ran for mayor against Jim Lane with a “Top Ten” platform that included “No Desert Discovery Center!” and lost, 37,716 to 66,582, carrying one precinct of 53. In 2018 he argued for Prop 420 in the city pamphlet as a “Former Scottsdale City Councilman,” and in 2019 the Scottsdale Progress described him as an ally of the committee that forced a referendum on Southbridge Two (see the Southbridge Two referendum). His city biography describes him as the founder of NetXpert Systems and a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War who lived in Scottsdale in the early 1970s and again from 1984. The 2000s politics chapter sets his first terms beside the decade’s other arguments.