Surprise, AZ News blog

With Surprise Mayor Joan Shafer, more is less: The more Shafer speaks, the less clarity she provides.    

She always has been a politician who has shot from the lip, often contradicting herself and not thinking before speaking. But as she nears retirement, her comments have taken on the aura of a mayor who doesn’t seem to want to let go.

Her latest head-turner was her comment wanting to fire the city manager, Jim Rumpeltes, before her term ends later this year. Rumpeltes, we should point out, was given a boost in confidence with a hefty pay raise.

But that was before Rumpeltes, in June, made a statement in front of the City Council in which he accused some members of using “threats and coercion” and strongly implying that there were city code and state Open Meeting Law violations. He called the elected officials the most dysfunctional group that he had worked with in three decades of public service.

Immediately after Rumpeltes spoke, a recess was called and Shafer went up to him and shook his hand.

“I congratulated him because I thought it took a lot of guts,” she said at the time, allowing as how she was aware of some of the things for which Rumpeltes criticized the City Council.

It didn’t take long for Shafer to admit, in a stunning disclosure, that during her more than 16 years in public service as a councilwoman and as mayor she repeatedly violated Arizona’s Open Meeting Law. And she later was implicated in violating the city code by giving orders to a city staffer and going around Rumpeltes, a definite no-no in the city manager form of government.

The Attorney General’s Office is looking into the allegations of Open Meeting Law violations. No findings have yet been released, but a private attorney hired by the City Council to look into misdeeds admonished the politicians, and said they all need a refresher course in the Open Meeting Law.

What specifically has prompted Mayor Shafer to reverse course on Rumpeltes is unclear. She says she has been consumed by the controversy and lies awake nights.

“I’m about sick,” she told The Republic’s Tony Lombardo.

She must realize that she’s part of the problem. Rumpeltes was the messenger, giving the public an inside look at the shenanighans at City Hall, troubling disclosures that she, herself, has acknowledged.

Yet Shafer now wants to punish Rumpeltes by sending him packing. The timing is certainly suspect, a payback for his comments that she once said were gutsy. That she chose to urge his firing while he was traveling in Uganda was classless. With only a couple of months left in her term, Shafer is once again out of bounds.

The decision of Rumpeltes’ future as city manager appropriately ought to be left to the next mayor and City Council once they take office, not to the undignified whims of the lame-duck Shafer.

 

Topics: PLUGGED IN - WEST VALLEY

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, along with a Phoenix-based not-for-profit company, will hold a free seminar on identity-theft prevention Nov. 16 in Sun City.   

Hosted by Bob and JoAnn Hartle of ID Theft Services, the gathering will be at 9 a.m. at the Sun City Posse Building, 10861 W. Sunland Drive.

The seminar will cover felony and employment ID theft.

The Hartles, whose identities were stolen in 1994, help victims and give free presentations at the OASIS Foundation for Senior Living in Scottsdale.

Information: 623-695-5190.

With days left before the conclusion of the Surprise runoff election, campaign finance reports show that candidates with council experience drew the big money.   

In the race for mayor, former Councilman Cliff Elkins has raised more than $31,500 since campaigning began in the summer, according to the most recent round of campaign finance reports released last week.

Elkins said the funds have allowed him to send six to eight mass mailings since he started campaigning, two or three since securing a spot in the runoff.

“I feel I have a message to get out, and that’s what I’ve concentrated on,” Elkins said.

Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Lyn Truitt raised more than $22,000. Since the runoff began, Truitt said a major expenditure was 100 additional front-yard campaign signs.

Truitt said having less money did not deter him, because the bulk of his donations have come from residents themselves.

“People are continuously telling me they believe the mayor’s race will be mine,” Truitt said.

Elkins has received a majority of his campaign funds from those with business stakes in the city, but he said his message has “crystallized” with residents.

“People are realizing that while my knowledge of transportation issues is strong, it’s not my only asset,” he said.

Meanwhile, District 2 City Council runoff candidates Richard Alton and Paula Forster have raised similar-sized war chests, but District 3 council incumbent Gary “Doc” Sullivan’s funds dwarf those of his challenger, newcomer John Williams.

Alton, a city planning and zoning commissioner, has raised more than $6,000 through a combination of donations and loans. Forster’s pot of about $5,100 is all from loans.

Forster, who chairs the city’s Revitalization Advisory Board, has repeatedly criticized Alton for accepting donations from certain people, specifically developers. Accepting those donations could create a conflict when the developers come before the council, she said.

“If I’m going to make a decision, I want to make the best decision for Surprise,” Forster said.

Alton, who also has received several in-kind and monetary donations from Valley firefighter groups, said no one is buying his vote and that his record supports that.

“We both have something to contribute,” Alton said, referring to his opponent. “I fortunately have the skill set and the professionalism in order to make a change in Surprise.”

In District 3, meanwhile, Sullivan has raised about $26,000 while Williams has raised only about $8,700, more than $2,200 of that in loans.

Sullivan said the difference in funds is not surprising.

“Incumbents probably stand a better chance of collecting more campaign contributions only because they have more contacts,” Sullivan said.

Williams, too, chalked up the difference in fundraising to experience.

“Doc’s the heavyweight here, and I am the David to his Goliath right now,” Williams said.

Sullivan, unfazed by the comment, quipped: “Is he saying I’m fat?”

The majority of Sullivan’s donations also have come from city business interests, including developers.

Williams received $390 from a consulting group called Progressive Majority, which functions as a “Democratic group” in partisan races. Surprise elections are non-partisan.

Williams said he was able to gain enough money to send out his first mailer since the election cycle began. Sullivan has sent out two since September, and one more is planned.

The Surprise city engineer is assuring residents that the city is closely monitoring problems at a county island intersection where two fatalities have occurred in the past 10 months, and is moving ahead with efforts to install a streetlight there.   

What Bob Maki is referring to is 163rd Avenue and Jomax Road, a rural residential area about 10 miles northwest of Surprise.

In March, a 6-month-old girl from Surprise died at this intersection, and three of her family members were badly injured after a pickup truck rear-ended the family’s car.
Last week, a 59-year-old motorcyclist was killed there after being struck by a northbound truck making a left-hand turn onto Jomax.

Despite the fatalities this year, Maki said, “The crash experience has been relatively good there.”

According to Surprise Police Department figures, Maki said, there have been only two fatalities and three other accidents at that intersection since 2004. Maki said there was one reported accident involving an injury in September, and two accidents with no injuries in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

There were no reported accidents or fatalities in 2004, he said.

Although Jomax is a county road, the intersection in question is not under the jurisdiction of the Maricopa County Department of Transportation, said spokesman Roger Ball.

“Point is, there seems to be a sense that we’re not paying attention to this location,” Maki said. “We’ve been monitoring crashes, and we acknowledge these are terrible tragedies.”

An effort to get a traffic signal at the intersection is in the works, but it will take another six months before the plan for a signal is designed, Maki said.

Before a streetlight is added, the city will need to widen 163rd Avenue, which may take about two months, he said.

Maki foresees this as a “major expenditure, but we are prepared to make that investment,” he said.

“It’s not just a matter of putting some poles into the ground and stringing some lights,” Maki said.

In the meantime, city workers will continue to monitor the traffic flow of the intersection, and once traffic volume is up to “warranting level for a signal, then we’ll go ahead and hire a contractor to install it,” he said.

Maki said the last count done by the city was in February, and it still did not reach the required level.

According to national guidelines, the traffic level warranting a signal on a rural road is 420 cars per hour, averaged over eight hours, on 163rd Avenue, and 140 cars per hour during the same eight hours on Jomax.

“We try to reach those national guidelines,” Maki said.

Maki called both fatalities at 163rd and Jomax tragedies, but he said, “I don’t know how much a traffic signal would have helped. Traffic signals are not safety devices.”

He agreed, however, that there should be additional patrols in that area. Maki said his department has talked to the Surprise Police Department about putting a speed trailer at the intersection to monitor speeders.

He has also suggested additional speed-limit signs on 163rd, he said.