Mayor Phil and his GF get into trouble
Turns out Mayor Phil Gordon has been dating one of his political consultants. The trouble comes because he’s been paying her for political work and has in the past nominated her to city boards.
Sarah Fenske in New Times has an in-depth story here.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon hasn’t needed to raise money since he waltzed to reelection in the fall of 2007, leaving a war chest stocked with $370,000.
Yet in the last two years, Gordon has paid his chief fundraiser big bucks all the same. Records show that Gordon paid fundraiser Elissa Mullany and her business partner, Cate Wunder, a total of $39,000 since January 2008. That’s a period in which the campaign hasn’t shown a dime of revenue.
Gordon says he’s been daing Mullany since his breakup with his wife; their divorce is not yet final. (Mullany’s married but separated too, Fenske says.)
It looks like the mayor had to put out a press release about the relationship after Fenske started nosing around. Here’s how the Arizona Republic plays it:
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon on Tuesday asked the city attorney and a former Arizona Supreme Court chief justice to review his political ties to consultant Elissa Mullany, the woman he is now dating.
The request came after The Arizona Republic and another media outlet inquired about the relationship and whether Mullany was benefitting from any taxpayer dollars.
Note the lack of grace with which the Republic acknowledges its competition. My issue with this isn’t so much not naming the New Times as with the clumsiness. Good journalism should handle various issues consistently, and it shouldn’t leave obvious questions in readers’ minds.
A lot of stories are pursued by different news outlets at the same time. It’s appropriate to say, in those cases, “The mayor released the information after news organizations started querying the office about it.” But if they are going to note that one other outlet in paticular is doing the asking, the paper should name it.
Why did it not name New Times? Maybe it’s because Fenske had a lot more information.
The Republic trumpets its “review” of the matter … and shares it with readers in three paragraphs.
Fenske’s piece is 1500 words long, and more than forty paragraphs. And it has a lot of evidence of the positively continental attitudes of some of the major players in the story:
Mullany, who was then known as Elissa Peters, was divorced from her first husband, Aldon Terpstra, in December 1998. She married James Mullany five years later, in October 2003. She has two young sons.
A former City Council staffer, James Mullany now works for former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson at his development company, Old World Communities/ Berkana Townhomes. Thanks to an appointment from Gordon, he’s also on the city’s Deferred Compensation Board.
3:18 PM
The Scottsdale Mondrian is being repossessed
… so saith the AP:
Morgans Hotel Group Co. said Tuesday it has failed to reach a deal with lenders on restructuring terms of its loan on a Scottsdale, Ariz., hotel and is prepared to surrender the Mondrian property to the lenders.
New York-based Morgans Hotel stopped paying its $40 million mortgage and mezzanine loans on the property in June. The loans, which had been due June 1, are secured by its interests in the Scottsdale hotel.
11:39 PM
What AZCentral thinks is news ...
…is what other people might consider advertising:
1:23 AM
Another legal salvo from Andrew Thomas against the county supervisors
The Arizona Republic says he’s indicting Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox on separate charges:
A grand jury indicted Wilcox on allegations that include perjury, forgery and conflict of interest related to votes she made as a supervisor to fund the Hispanic non-profit group Chicanos Por La Causa, Thomas said.
Stapley’s counts include fraud, theft, perjury and forgery largely related to the use of funds Stapley received in his effort to become president of the National Association of Counties. Stapley also obtained mortgage loans under false pretenses, Thomas said.
[…]
Thomas said the counts were based on Wilcox obtaining five different loans through Prestamos, the lending arm of Chicanos Por La Causa, and continuing to approve funds for the organization in her role as supervisor without filing any type of conflict notice.
Farther down, the paper notes:
The indictments from a Maricopa County grand jury are the latest allegations Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio have leveled against county elected officials and administrators, many of which have been dismissed. Despite the history of Thomas and Arpaio’s allegations against other county officials petering out as they work through the justice system, the sheriff maintained confidence in his investigations.
“Let’s wait to see what the criminal justice system does before you start criticizing my investigations,” Arpaio said.
7:00 AM
Desperado Gay Film Fest dates set—trailer released, too
The Desperado Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is scheduled for Paradise Valley Community College on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 29 and 30.
Here’s the trailer for the fest, which is amusing:
The main film is a Swedish work called Patrik, 1,5, written and directed by Ella Lemhagen; the odd title refers to the film’s plot, which sees a gay couple adopting what they think is going to be a one-and-a-half year old boy, but who turns out to be 15 and not very gay-friendly.
The film won an audience award at this year’s San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. There’s no official trailer yet (and the poster to the left is from the retitled French version), but you can see scenes from it here.
7:00 AM