Recently several letters have appeared in the local papers arguing that the only way to "revitalize" the southern part of our city is to hand out subsidies and height and density increases to developers. Unfortunately, some of these letters have made claims that are simply not true.

Several of the letter writers claimed that the city has given out subsidies in North Scottsdale while ignoring the southern part of our city. The reality is exactly the opposite. In the five years that I have been on the City Council the biggest subsides we have awarded have been on McDowell Road - the ASU Foundation subsidy (120M of your taxpayer dollars) and the $300K/year given to the car dealers to subsidize their marketing. And last year we actually turned down a request for a $52M subsidy for a shopping center north of Loop 101.

The claim that the city is passing out subsidies in North Scottsdale while ignoring the southern part of our city is not only factually wrong, it is a blatant attempt to "divide and conquer" by pitting residents from different parts of Scottsdale against each other. We all, from all parts of our community, have a common goal in protecting our quality of life and we must work together to be successful. Only the special interests who want to dip their sticky fingers into the taxpayer's wallet benefit from this "south versus north" division.

I do not blame the supporters of subsidies for wanting to forget about the ASU Foundation and car dealer handouts, because these two are the poster children for what is wrong with subsidies and why they fail to “revitalize” the areas they are supposed to help.

The supporters of these handouts claimed that they would “save” South Scottsdale. However, the ASU Foundation deal took 42 acres off of the tax rolls and made those acres unavailable for the sales-tax-generating retail that the residents made it clear that they wanted on that site. Instead the neighbors got an office building of mediocre design, with bait-and-switch apartments added on after the fact. This subsidy actually resulted in less retail in South Scottsdale, nor more!

As for the car dealers advertising subsidy, with at least one and perhaps as many as four of the McDowell Motor Mile dealers preparing to move to Mesa Riverview, that was clearly a waste of taxpayer’s money. Just as Councilman Lane and I predicted when we voted against these two pieces of corporate welfare, they enriched favored special interests while doing nothing to help the residents of the neighborhoods that they were supposed to “save.”

Another letter writer repeated the line from the developer playbook that “if we are to preserve our open space, some height and density is necessary.” This is a false choice. Where is it written that the citizens of Scottsdale are obligated to accommodate unlimited population growth? The truth is that we have a right to decide how (and how much) our community is going to grow and to elect leaders who will implement the type and amount of growth that the citizens want. We do not have to choose between sprawl and overcrowding, we can (and should) reject both, in all parts of our community.

High density, highly subsidized projects that overtax our infrastructure, clog our roads, deplete our treasury, and diminish the quality of life for the current residents are not the answer for any part of Scottsdale, north, central or south.