Dear
Fellow Citizens of Scottsdale:
I am running for Scottsdale City
Council for several reasons.
The number 1 reason is the lack of
fiscal responsibility on the part of the current City Council
majority. As former
City Treasurer Smith often noted, for the last several years this City Council
has dealt with declining revenues, not by cutting expenses, but by cutting
contributions to the capital budget. He said flatly that our current level of
city spending is “unbalanced and unsustainable.” The voters of Scottsdale made
in clear in the recent bond election that they will not increase their city
property taxes by 31% to bail the current City Council majority out of the
financial hole they have dug for themselves. We need a strong conservative
watchdog to set over our money.
The second reason is the current City
Council majority’s cavalier attitude toward public safety. It’s not just about how much money we
spend, it’s about what we spend it on. Keeping our citizens safe is job #1 for
any city. The citizens of Scottsdale certainly know this as they have made it
clear many times that fully funding public safety is their number one priority.
Up to now Scottsdale has been a very
safe city. But the current City Council majority’s willingness to underfund
critical public safety needs in order to redirect money to less important but
more politically favored activities threatens to make Scottsdale less safe. We
are losing police officers to other valley cities and our busiest fire station
is understaffed, yet the current City Council majority refuses to make funding
these critical needs a priority. I will fight to fund critical public safety
needs first and, if that means other popular but less critical items lose their
funding, then so be it.
The third reason is that Scottsdale
residents need to have a strong representative voice on the Council which is
focused on their quality of life. Too often, their concerns are
ignored by the very Council members who owe their position to citizen voters.
Time after time residents come to Council urging caution regarding issues that
affect their neighborhoods. Time after time I’ve watched their voices being
ignored. While I do not promise to always agree with them I do promise to
listen to their concerns.
Finally, I will work to restore
transparency and accountability to Scottsdale City government. One of the main reasons I worked so
diligently against the 2013 city bonds was that voters could not tell how their
tax dollars would actually be spent. This concerned me because I believe
citizens have a right to know where and how much of their tax money would have
been spent on each bond item. The absolutely astonishing negative reaction to
the bonds tells me that voters do not trust the current City Council majority to
spend their tax dollars wisely. Also, the fact the Council refused to EVEN
DISCUSS these issues after the bonds were so overwhelming defeated shows just
how out of touch this Council is with the voters.
In short, I would be a voice for the
citizens of Scottsdale. I would be honored to be your choice in the upcoming
City election.
Phone: (480) 951-2549
· Web: www.KathyLittlefield.com
· email:
kathy@kathylittlefield.com
