Guest View: Diane Peters ~ Oro Valley Thrives members make false assertions and accusations. Part 2.

Part 1 was published last Wednesday. It described a scathing and fact-challenged email that was sent to the mayor and council by a member of Oro Valley Thrives. If you missed it, you can read it HERE

The Apology
A couple of weeks after sending her email, she spoke at a council meeting during the Call to Audience. She apologized for the earlier email by saying, “Recently I did send an email and it was passionate and I was frustrated and I apologize…thank you for bearing with me and my little tantrum. There was no disrespect, but just frustration and passion.”

Below are the adjectives and other colorful language she used to describe the mayor and vice-mayor in her “little tantrum” email:

“Boldly calculated, disrespectful, outrageous, obvious disregard for human decency, devious collusion, sore losers, self-serving, underhanded, shady, unprofessional, unethical, undignified.”

But “there was no disrespect.”

The Hypocrisy
A few days later, she showed up on LOVE’s Facebook page to complain that, “some of the comments recently posted (on the Facebook page) are generating and supporting slanderous remarks and verbally attacking people by name.” She claimed that they were posting “unfounded information.”

Yes, this from the same woman who sent 18 paragraphs filled with verbal attacks and unfounded information in her email to the council.

She went on to assert that the Green Shirts were not “ill-informed or mean."  (Did she not see the dozens of Green Shirts being rude and disrespectful to the mayor during multiple council meetings between July and October?) She described them as a “concerned group of people who are using the right to freely speak and support issues that are important to them.”

Apparently it’s acceptable for the Green Shirts to freely speak with frustration and passion about issues that are important to them, but she’s not comfortable with people with opposing views doing the same.

Another ill-informed Oro Valley Thrives member chimes in
Another person posted this false information on the Next Door site in an effort to get people to sign the recall:

“Only 10% of the Oro Valley residents voted in the last election. Do the math to see why we are in this situation.”

Let’s do the math
Ten percent of the approximately 44,000 population would be 4,400 votes.

Winfield got 9,242 votes. Hiremath got 6,563. That's a total of 15,805 votes which is 36% of the population, not 10%. She’s not even close on the math.

If she's talking about 10% of registered voters, the last I knew, Oro Valley had approximately 27,000 registered voters. Ten percent of that would be 2,700 voters. Again, she’s not even close as 15,805 voters would be about 58% of the registered voters.

But wait, there’s more
Regarding the search for a new police chief, this same person said, “After assembling the advice of an expert panel he put together to determine the validity and costs over an internal or external search to replace Chief Sharp…he (Winfield) alone decided not to follow the recommendation of his panel to select the least expensive and more community oriented internal search within our police department, and instead, to pursue an external search for someone outside of the current police force and community.”

Fact: Mayor Winfield did not make that decision unilaterally. It was decided by a majority vote of the town council in a 4-3 decision during the July 31, 2019 council meeting. She also neglected to mention the advice that was given to the mayor and council that night by HR Director, Chris Brady, an excerpt of which is posted below:

“I absolutely believe that we have good qualified candidates, but my job is to be objective and give you both sides of this for you to make the best decision. I talked to my colleagues across the state. I asked them who’s had a police chief recruitment in the past five years. Help me out, what did you do? There was nobody that was internal only.

I don’t think you would go wrong either way, but in the past, executive level recruitments, specifically chief recruitments, it was the goal of my previous councils/managers that they wanted to have a process that was transparent, seemed open to the community, and that’s why we did internal/external. The advantage you have there is that you’ll be able to compare internal candidates to other people to make sure that we do have the best of the best.”

So, again I ask…is Oro Valley Thrives disseminating false information to their members or are the members making it up as they go along in order to drum up enough signatures to get their unpopular recall on the ballot?

Switching Gears
Have you noticed how they’ve changed their reasons for the recall? First it was about keeping all 36 holes of golf. When they got that one, then it was about financing to pay for the upgrades (vs. pay-as-you-go). Then it was about hiring a new police chief from within the OVPD. Apparently, they’ve figured out that their support comes only from those living in the golf communities and even some of them don't support a recall. So they needed to add the last-ditch public safety scare tactic in order to drum up more signatures.

Pleading for Signatures
Some recall petitioners have posted on Next Door that they will be happy to drive to your house to get your signature or you can go to their house or meet in a public place. Soliciting for signatures in this manner indicates that they’re not getting enough people to show up at their recall tables to sign the petitions. Of note is that in 2015, when the group TOOTH (Teed off over tax hike) was collecting signatures to put the golf course purchase to a vote of the citizens, they had no trouble collecting the necessary signatures at the recall table they had set up near the entrance to the library.

Wink-Wink!
I’d like to remind Oro Valley Thrives members who are upset with my Guest Views, that I’m just a concerned citizen who is using my right to freely speak on issues that are important to me. Just think of it as my little tantrum out of frustration and passion. Wink-wink.
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Diane Peters has lived in Oro Valley since 2003, moving here to escape the humidity of the East Coast. She’s been involved in OV politics and development issues since 2006. In 2014, she organized a citizens group, who over a 9-month period, successfully negotiated a controversial 200-acre development project. In her past life, she worked in medical research at various University Hospitals in New England. Her interests include reading, writing, nature photography, travel, art galleries, museums, and politics.

Guest View: Diane Peters ~ Oro Valley Thrives members make false assertions and accusations. Part 1.

My purpose in writing this article is to point out how ill-informed some members of the Green Shirts are about town issues. This is concerning because these people are disseminating false information to others in an effort to get them to sign the recall petitions.

Some members of Oro Valley Thrives (aka The Green Shirts) have posted false information on social media. Another “Green Shirt” wrote a scathing email to the mayor and council where she made numerous false accusations against Mayor Winfield and Vice-Mayor Barrett. While speaking at the podium at a recent council meeting, she admitted to (and apologized for) sending the email containing her “little tantrum.” I then submitted a public records request to view the email for myself.

I won’t publish the names of the offenders so as not to embarrass them. What’s important is what they have falsely asserted and the fact that they are representatives of Oro Valley Thrives.

Are the leaders of OV Thrives disseminating this false information to their members or are these members just making it up as they go along? Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on them.

The “little tantrum” email
Below are some of the false accusations in the email that was sent to the mayor and council regarding council discussions that took place at the October 16th meeting.

1. She accused Mayor Winfield of removing Councilmember Rodman from his role as a Planning and Zoning Commissioner. She was furious about this. She referred to Rodman as "one of the most brilliant leaders on the commission."

Fact: Rodman is not a P&Z Commissioner. He is the council liaison to the P&Z. She didn't understand the difference. Second, the mayor cannot make the liaison appointments. He can only make his suggestions for these appointments. It is then decided by a majority vote of the council.

2. After falsely accusing Mayor Winfield of removing Councilmember Rodman from P&Z, she claimed that he did this so that Winfield could stack the commission with people who would vote to close the golf courses.

Fact: P&Z Commissioners have no power to close the golf courses. P&Z is an advisory board only and the most they can do with any planning or zoning issue is to make a recommendation to the town council, but it is the town council who has the final say and they are not required to follow the recommendation of P&Z.

3. She accused Vice-Mayor Barrett of lying about Town Council Attorney Cohen’s advice to not discuss the proposed council liaison appointments in advance in order to avoid the possibility of an open meeting law violation. She tore into Barrett asserting that Barrett’s claim of Cohen giving her that advice “was outrageous” and she accused Barrett of throwing Attorney Cohen “under the bus.”

Fact: It was Mayor Winfield, not Barrett, who stated that Cohen advised him to not discuss the liaison appointments in advance of the council meeting. Additionally, Attorney Cohen confirmed that he did give that legal advice to Mayor Winfield “out of an abundance of caution.”

4. She also claimed that Mayor Winfield was “boldly calculated and disrespectful” in deciding the liaison appointments on his own. She claimed that she attended the Town Academy and that Town Manager, Mary Jacobs “precisely outlined the protocol for council and issues” and she came away from this class believing that the council liaison appointments should have been “put before the Town Manager for ultimate decision.”

Fact: Again, the mayor proposes the liaison appointments and the town council ratifies them. I doubt that Jacobs ever said that this was the Town Manager’s role. It’s more likely, given this woman’s difficulty in understanding town protocols, that she once again misunderstood the information that was presented to her.

I am seeing a pattern here of a very ill-informed person who thinks that she’s well-informed. Why is this a problem? If she is out collecting signatures for the recall or posting comments about town issues on social media, she will be disseminating false information to Oro Valley residents who might sign the recall petition based on that false information.

Councilmember Bill Rodman showed some integrity
Despite all the false claims and accusations that she made in her "tantrum" email to the council, Councilmember Rodman was the only one of the Hiremath Holdovers who wrote back to correct her errors, stating that he wanted “to be sure that the facts are portrayed accurately.”

Councilmembers Solomon and Pina remain silent
Although Solomon responded to her, he did not correct any of her false claims.  He simply said, "I share your concerns."   Pina did not respond at all.  By not correcting her, Solomon and Pina were allowing her to believe that all of her wild assertions were true. I guess when you don’t have any valid reasons for a recall, you have to allow people to believe in falsehoods and delusions in order to drum up enough signatures to get the recall on the ballot. Shame on Solomon and Pina for being accomplices in the propagation of this nonsense.

Part 2 will be published next Wednesday.
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Diane Peters has lived in Oro Valley since 2003, moving here to escape the humidity of the East Coast. She’s been involved in OV politics and development issues since 2006. In 2014, she organized a citizens group, who over a 9-month period, successfully negotiated a controversial 200-acre development project. In her past life, she worked in medical research at various University Hospitals in New England. Her interests include reading, writing, nature photography, travel, art galleries, museums, and politics.

Mayor and Vice Mayor Recall Effort Underway

Note: A previous version of this posting stated that Ed Slentz pulled recall petitions for Mayor Winfield and Vice-mayor Barrett. According to Slentz, "That is absolutely and categorically false, untrue and a lie. I have not initiated any such action" (Source: email from Ed Slentz) This is an inadvertent error on our part. Subject to check with town records, we believe that the individual is Thomas Plantz.
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  Council Member Steve Solomon Attends Kickoff Meeting
This past Friday night, some Oro Valley residents met in the Sunset Room of the Community Center to prepare for an attempted recall of Mayor Winfield and Vice Mayor Barrett. Oro Valley Council Member Steve Solomon was standing in the back of the room. He is seen in the right in the picture we have posted. The meeting discussed petition 'Rules for Signing' and a 'Plan of Action'.

Solomon At Recall Meeting
Sunset Room
Community Center
Friday, November 8, 2019

Petition signature solicitation has started
Saturday, petition circulators set up a tent in the dirt lot on the left entering the Community Center. Oro Valley Thrives head Jen LeFevre and Oro Valley resident Mary Murphy were soliciting signatures Sunday. Oro Valley Thrives is comprised of members of the Town of Oro Valley Golf community. Circulators have been seen in other locations since then.

The issue:
Winfield and Barrett's support PAYg for Golf and Community Center Improvements
Lefevre was enthusiastic when, several weeks ago, the council voted to operate two golf courses. Her enthusiasm can be viewed in the clip of the KVOA Video that follows.

She is no longer enthusiastic because last week Mayor Winfield and Council Member Barrett said that they favor “pay as you go” (“PAYg”) financing for golf course improvements. They support this alternative over financing the improvements by issuing bonds or by borrowing from the town's general fund. The general fund is the fund that supports town operations. She fears that this will defer proposed improvements.

Other reasons given for a recall:
•  The council is looking both internally and externally for a police chief. They should select an internal candidate only
• Barrett is not always civil with other council members

• The degrading of the police department

• Winfield and Barrett have shown themselves to be disingenuous and untrustworthy

May 2020 is the election target date

The petition circulators are telling people that May 2020 is the election target date if the petitions are turned in. In order for this to happen, the group will have to submit 3,952 (for Mayor) and 3,668 (for council) validated Oro Valley resident registered voter signatures.
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