After Mayor Winfield respectfully and quietly listened to the residents speeches for 3 hours, when it was finally his turn to speak, he was met with residents talking over him, laughing at comments with which they disagreed, booing, and some rudely getting up and walking out while he was speaking. Some residents were even yelling at him on their way out the door. Someone placed a “Recall” sign in the lobby for residents to see as they were leaving the meeting.
Why is this disrespectful behavior noteworthy?
For 8 years we suffered through a bloviating mayor (Satish Hiremath) who was consistently disrespectful and rude to the citizens. A mayor who placed his wants and the wants of his wealthy campaign donors over the wants of the people. That’s how we got stuck with 45-holes of golf that nobody ever requested, because he made “a deal” for the town to purchase them from Humberto Lopez, one of Hiremath’s biggest financial supporters.
It took 8 years, but Oro Valley voters were finally fed up with being treated like second-class citizens, and in August 2018, they replaced Hiremath with Joe Winfield, a mayor who is humble and respectful of everyone. A mayor who accepted no campaign contributions from wealthy special interests and who was elected by the people in a grassroots campaign that promised to address the financial losses at the golf courses, slow the pace of development, and return civility to the Town Council.
What happened next? Well, instead of having a mayor who is rude to the citizens, we now have a particular group of citizens being rude to the mayor.
The rudeness of the pro-golf crowd
Fifty residents spoke for 2½ hours. When the time ran out for the audience to speak and there were still about 50 more people waiting to speak, Mayor Winfield continued to be accommodating to the residents by informing them that the council would shorten their closing remarks from 7 minutes to 5 minutes in order to allow 5 additional Blue Card speakers. He offered that anyone who still wanted to have their voice heard, could either email the town clerk with their comments which would be distributed to the council, or they could speak during the council meeting on July 31st.
Watch how rude the audience members are despite Mayor Winfield’s repeated attempts to accommodate them.
Mayor Winfield’s closing remarks
Despite the mayor reading from published studies, audience members laughed while he was speaking and many of them began getting up and walking out. Keep in mind that after he listened to them for 2½ hours, they didn’t have the courtesy to listen to him for 5 minutes.
Observe their continued rudeness and their mass exodus below:
Vice Mayor Barrett’s closing remarks
Barrett (along with the town staff) researched other communities in Arizona that have municipal golf courses to see what their tax subsidies were. She found that Oro Valley’s 45,000 residents are paying more in golf course subsidies for just 45 holes of golf ($1.8M in the previous fiscal year) than what 5.5 million Arizona residents are paying to subsidize 25 municipal golf courses throughout Arizona combined ($1.75M in the previous fiscal year).
Councilmember Solomon argues against a linear park
Does he ever think before he speaks?
“What is a linear park? It's a solution looking for a problem. No one has ever asked for a linear park. I’ve never heard of it until the last few months…We don’t need a statistically valid survey.”We’d like to remind Councilmember Solomon that no one ever asked for a golf course, let alone three of them, and yet he has continued to endorse them and fight for their continuation. We’ll say it again…In the 2014 Statistically Valid Survey of amenities that residents would like to see in our town parks -- golf courses came in #33 out of 34 possible amenities.
And, as previously stated in Part 3 of this article, a Flash-Vote survey conducted by the town earlier this year showed that multi-use paths were the recreational facilities most used by the town residents. Shouldn’t we be using taxpayer money to fund the recreational activities that are the most used and enjoyed by our residents?
The “Pass the Buck Musketeers”
We’re going to close with this comment that we found on social media:
“Which town council members own the current golf course financial mess? Solomon, Rodman, and Pina of course. They have continually endorsed the purchase and voted via the bond issue to spend additional tax dollars. Yet they put the blame for the financial/revenue misses elsewhere: the opposition, instability, headwinds, rebranding, etc. Let's just call them, “The pass the buck musketeers.”
