Please forward this information to everyone that you have on your e-mail list.

I just got off the phone with Dan Symer regarding 7-TA-2008- Hotel Live Entertainment Text Amendment.  I called to see if this request had had a hearing, if it had, what was the outcome, and, if it had not yet come for a hearing, when would it.

First, be advised.  This text amendment will apply to the entire city of Scottsdale.  It will not exclude the downtown or entertainment district.  It will apply city wide.

This request has not yet been scheduled for a hearing and probably will not until after the holidays.  At this time staff at the planning department is accepting citizen input on the request. 

Put your best letter together and send it to the e-mail address below if you want bands to be playing outside whenever a bar owner feels like it.  They will not have to go to the Special Events Planning Committee to get a permit for this if this Text Amendment passes.  Theoretically places like W and Axis/Radius could have a band outside 7 nights a week if they want to.

Send you letters to:  dsymer@scottsdaleaz.gov

The notice and project narrative can be found at: 

http://eservices.scottsdaleaz.gov/cases/casesheet.aspx?/caseid=35784

 " Print your "Bird" picture again to remind folks about what the TRUE picture is".

"Yes we need to get on this ASAP!!! John Berry wrote the amendment."

"Good morning. I do thank you for the (enclosed) alert. As I am certain you are aware I take the denigration of Scottsdale, the whole city, very seriously. Frankly, I am amazed that there appears to be an issue around every corner, every week. Last week it was, and still is the outrageous, noise and crude behavior emanating from W Hotel. {I was invited by a friend living within that area to share a drink and 'experience' this....yes, it is worse than I could imagine}. The matter of allowing bands, and potentially other activity ad hoc, is an extension of the 'Coney Island Mentality' that we have been set up for. I will write, but I wonder if more aggressive push back is not in order? Note, by this I refer to the interesting debate over the 'anti-abortion' truck making the rounds at schools. While, I do not agree with that, I believe a more confrontational situation is in order. I would be willing to park my vehicle at strategic locations with a banner attached.  It should be noted that my neighbors here in Far North Scottsdale are, surprising as it may seem, NOT aware of matters within their city. I campaigned relentlessly for Jim Lane, not because I agree with him 100%, but the possibility of Manross, again as Mayor, set my teeth on edge. I am pleased that I was able to 'turn' at least 200 votes away from her. These were people who had little idea of her worth, but tend to vote for the incumbent. I am, once again, grateful for your alert."

"Agreed. Action needs to be started to stop this nonsense immediately, So much for your rest!!!"

"Here we go again!! When the hell are we going to find out that Jim Lane is our new mayor, or do they need more time to corrupt the voting system? Maybe we need to go downtown and personally escort "Queeny" out of her office and out of the city.. Permanently!!! Let her move somewhere else and corrupt their city. She’s done far, far too much damage here"

"The Planning Commission and the DRB need to be taken over by those who care about the city, not their personal pocketbooks and how they line their pockets in the coming years by doing favors for their favored developers today. Enough is enough and I’m not sure the new council has the guts to make the necessary changes although a recall effort might wake them all up and we only have to wait 6 months to start one. I’m sure someone out there will finance the entire recall effort just to get the city back on track."

We watch in utter surprise the approval of ho-hum building designs and 7-0 approvals of large projects on a case by case basis with multiple changes to existing zoning and requirements.  "Flexibility" is the key word throughout the current Downtown Plan Update----we had better get a handle on the commission positions who broadly define this with the Rule Book. There are 4 openings for the Planning Commission this next round of interviews and appointments.  Commissioners Barnett, Hess and Schwartz all have terms expiring 4/25/09 and are not eligible for reappointment.  Commissioner O'Neill's term expires 2/10/09, and he is eligible for reappointment. The Code does not spell out any specific requirements to be a member of the Planning Commission. 

Commissioner Jones' term ends 3/21/09 -- he is not eligible for reappointment.  He represents a design background.  As such, the Council must appoint
somebody who is an "architect, landscape architect, environmental scientist or person otherwise qualified by design background training or experience." Dates for the next round have not been nailed down yet, but Lisa Blyler (City Mgr office) is planning for a January nomination meeting and a February interview/appointment meeting. They will batch all commission openings together in the January/February time frame. 
Lisa passed along a bit of information regarding the past few rounds of appointments. Some current board members were seeking appointments to other boards, and the Council has asked that these members resign their seats prior to taking the appointment to the new board.  It is ultimately the preference of the Council. Here's the link to the application.The deadline will be sometime near the beginning of the new year:  http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/Assets/documents/boards/application.pdf

*Discussions were held on proposed projects--Solis/Waterview, SRP substation relocation, Toscana, 6th Avenue Lofts and Epicenter.....*Mayor-Elect Jim Lane listened and responded to questions and input from COGS members and guests. [You will recall that the COGS Political Action Committee was the first to endorse Jim Lane for Mayor]......*Evaluations by recent Southern Area and Airpark "forums" and "cafe-style" sessions were quite vocal.  Members expressed continued concern for HOW the staff/consultant summaries are compiled.  The internet input is an unseen/unknown quantity that could easily skew the comments and suggestions from those residents ATTENDING the forums.

The Solis (aka Waterview) community discussion that took place on Saturday morning, November 15, 2008, at the 4301 Theatre, is exactly the kind of discussion that needs to take place between all neighborhoods, potential developers and representatives of the City of Scottsdale.

Thanks to Interim City Manager, John Little, a constructive meeting was called and carried out and all who participated should be congratulated on their efforts.

Problem? Yep, this should have been done long ago before the developer presented their project to the City.

Next Problem? There is no requirement for the developers or the City to create such outreach. The fact is that while developers are required to do outreach the directions on what that encompasses are extremely vague when looking at infill development in mature neighborhoods.

On top of that the guidelines for the City’s Neighborhood Notification process for projects in the hearing stage require residents to "sign-up" to receive a post card notice in the mail.

In order to fulfill the requirements of the Neighborhood Element of the General Plan that we are updating presently, we need to first figure out how to implement that Neighborhood Element and then include language that will allow for better communications (particularly as to redevelopment/infill projects).

Many things were called into the discussion on Saturday from infrastructure projections whether those developed by SRP and APS, to where is the City’s planning for infrastructure as part of the Downtown Plan Update and the South Scottsdale Community Planning Area, to where is the long range plan guiding development of the Canal Banks.

Watching the discussion unfold it is clearly a problem that the City has so many job vacancies in the Planning Department. Gone is the knowledge of the community, including the important history of development city wide. Our City Council needs to fix this and do it promptly, election results or not.

Speaking of elections, it was good to see Council members Drake, Littlefield and Nelssen present in the audience to hear the discussion.

Unfortunately, there was not evidence of Klapp, Borowsky, or McCullagh who in all probability, after make serious decisions in voting on this project. Ah-h well, guess you get what you pay for.

The two hours of discussion emphasized problems with the Planning Commission and the Development Review Board. They don’t ask important questions about the pre-project work that developers do and more importantly, they simply do not include residential "neighborhoods" in their thought process or in the conclusions they reach to approve projects.

It is quite evident that they have total disregard for the "Neighborhood Element" of the General Plan and it is doubtful they even realize that it exists.

Whether Solis/Waterview is a good project in and of itself is not a question. When the Planning Commission, especially member Kevin O’Neill, who also sits on the Development Review Board, gushes and falls all over himself "thanking developers" for coming to Scottsdale, without so much as a nod to the concerns of residents it is time to check the whole process and make sure the "goals and objectives" of the Planning Commission are truly being met in the best interest of all residents.

For far too long Scottsdale has functioned on project by project development without a comprehensive plan for growth and redevelopment, that includes the Downtown, the Canal Bank, all of South Scottsdale (Indian Bend Road south to the Tempe border and now the aging Airpark.

We can only hope that Saturday’s meeting is a sign that the City staff is beginning to understand what is needed and can bring the Council and Mayor along, too.

A developer's plans to build a $600 million hotel and condo project on Camelback Road east of Scottsdale Road requires moving a Salt River Project substation. The developer wants to move it to a triangular piece of ground at Indian School Road and 68th Street near the Hotel Valley Ho. Neighbors north of the Arizona Canal are fighting this plan, saying the substation will lower their home values and mar a key entrance into the city. The Scottsdale City Council will decide the issue next month.

We spoke with Dick Hayslip, an associate general manager at SRP, about the substation.

No, it doesn't. That substation is working great right where it is. But we recognize and the city recognizes that's not the highest and best use for those acres. At some point, we'll have to relocate that substation. This developer had indicated they have the wherewithal to do it, so that's why we have participated in this process, and that is to accommodate the city's interest in starting to earn some sales tax revenues on that property.

There are two transformer bays at the existing site. We'll have to add a third, whether we leave it where it is or we move it, because of the build-out on Safari Drive, at the Optima and Fashion Square, and the hotel near the Nordstrom parking garage.

The last time we updated our annual plan, we showed the third bay coming in in 2014. If construction were to slow down, it could be delayed by a year. If something dramatic were to happen, it could be moved up.

There will also need to be an additional circuit into the Scottsdale substation sometime after the third bay is added. It could be three years, it could be five years, but at some point in the not-too-distant future, not 20 years, probably not 10 years, there will be a need for that additional circuit.

The third bay is being added strictly in response to load growth in that specific area. The line, coming from 64th Street and Thomas Road, does more for our system reliability. It's providing stability and it strengthens our distribution grid in that whole region.

There are any number of options. It's just a question of the best way to get from Point A to Point B. If this were 40 years ago and there were no significant development around there, we would probably take the line straight up 64th and use our canal right of way to get to that substation. But Scottsdale spent a lot of money on the beautification of the canal. There's a lot of intense development around there. We'll just have to work with the city to find out what works best. What if we just took it overhead? What if we went due east out of Thomas or down Indian School?

Yes, it would be some disruption to normal processes in the city. We've committed to the city, recognizing what they did with all of the landscaping, particularly on the south side of the canal, that when it comes time for that line to be built that we will work with them to find the most acceptable route through the city.

It would require more engineering for me to give you a definitive answer. There is a lot of stuff in the street at Camelback and Scottsdale roads. There's a lot of cables and sewer lines and what have you. It would be a daunting task to do it underground. That's where this notion came from of taking it underground until you get to Scottsdale Road, then you have a riser pole and then a line over Scottsdale Road, and then another riser pole to take it back underground.

No. It really wouldn't work in terms of maintaining the canal and providing the necessary access to it in the event there was some kind of cable problem.

It's not an impossibility, but it would be very costly. It would be up to the developer, how much of an appetite he has for that additional cost.

Other sites were looked at and for various reasons they were dismissed. We commissioned a study that the developer paid for. We used a firm from Boise, Idaho, called Power Engineers, and they looked primarily at the cost of relocating the substation in generic terms. We also asked them to see what site alternatives existed in the area.

They did a survey looking at vacant land. They looked at the hotel site behind the Nordstrom garage, they looked at the property at Camelback and 68th, and there may have been a couple other ones. For different reasons they concluded they wouldn't work. The 68th and Indian School site was not originally included because it had structures on it.

The developer on his own nickel found that site and purchased it. A gas station used to be there. It's kind of an oddball site. Before the developer bought that property, he came to us and asked if the substation would work on that site. We had our people do a very simple footprint analysis to see if a three-bay substation would fit. They determined that with the addition of an alley abandonment between the property and the canal, the site was workable. It's not ideal, but it will work on that site just fine.

Yes, getting the third line there is the major advantage, avoiding the need to take that final increment to Camelback and Scottsdale roads. What we were trying to do by pointing that out to the neighbors and to the city is not be seen as an advocate. We just want the city to make its decisions based on complete knowledge of the implications. Our objective in talking about that line was not to raise the specter of future issues for the city but just to make people aware that this is something that would need to be dealt with.

We haven't because normally we're well out in front on substation locations. The nearest resident is across the canal. Given that substation site the way it exists today, if the city, developer and SRP put in a beautification program, I would doubt seriously it would impact real estate values.

 As reported in the Scottsdale Tribune http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/130569 Word has it that the notorious and infamous Rick Kidder is trying very hard to get the city to abandon the current sign ordinance (which is rarely enforced on major developers anyway) in favor of a far less strict ordinance which would clutter our streets and sidewalks, just like Anytown USA.

You might want to check further into this one.

DO NOT TRUST THIS CITY to the current council, or the new one for that matter, until they have totally opened the government so we all know what is REALLY going on inside city hall and staff offices.

As John Davidson used to say on a TV Game Show: Mary Manross PACK YOUR BAGS, the gig is over, you lost fair and square to Jim Lane TWICE, and you are no longer needed or wanted in Scottsdale!! Concede already!!! You are toast and we don’t want to see your candy butt anywhere near city hall ever again, and take Larry with you... Please!!!

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~ Information You Can Use

Just click on the logos below to go to these websites.

Send our Brave Troops "Something from Home", Click on  Links below.

Gathering of  Eagles Website was launched 2/9/07. Click on the Logo above for more information on how they are protecting America's Memorials.

~ UPDATE!! A "Must See" for All Americans

Every American should check out all of these websites to learn more about what the American population is about to have to deal with.

This is NOT for Children.

I don't normally allow anything but Scottsdale information in the Scottsdale Activist but after receiving many emails about this and viewing it, I think that it's imperative that every adult at least look at what's offered here if for  nothing more than their own education and to have everyone stop and think about the future of our country. Click on the link below,

 www.obsessionthemovie.com

If you don't have Adobe Flash, install it from the bottom of the page that comes up after you click on the link above. You should be able to view all available links within the main page.

The website below is of great interest as seen from a Lebanese point of view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8fa9yKQeTY

The website below gives some history of Terrorist attacks:

http://patriotfiles.org/civilizationcalls.htm

This website tell you what REALLY happened:

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened

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~ View Past City Council Meetings

We can now access the city council meetings by clicking on the following link:

If you have any problems, check your firewall and other safety features which could block access to the city site.

~Continuing Light Rail Information

The Scottsdale Citizens Transportation Study Committee invites you to view their website for more questions and answers at  www.norailforscottsdale.com .

================================================================

Simply click on the links below to get all the information you'll ever need concerning Light Rail.

     Goldwater Institute Report

     American Dream Coalition

    The Public Purpose

If you have any questions about light rail, send them to editor@scottsdaleactivist.com and we'll get the answers to you as soon as we can.

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~ For Continuing Information on Photo Radar,
Click on the Logo below.

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 ~Are Red-Light Cameras Fair to Drivers?

These modern-day robocops make ticketing easier and can be huge moneymakers for local governments. But critics question their accuracy and fret over privacy issues.

Click on the link below , then scroll down to read the article:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourCar/AreRedLightCamerasFairToDrivers.aspx

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