A recent article in The Daily Courier outlining total donations at the end of the second quarter of spending in the Prescott mayoral and City Council races was eye-opening. A large number of supporters of Mayor Greg Mengarelli’s re-election campaign are developers, builders, and others who could benefit from business as usual at City Hall: continued expansion of water rights and approvals of development plans for new cookie-cutter subdivisions.
Of the total of $265,794 contributions among eight candidates, a whopping $110,048 went to Mengarelli’s campaign for a job that pays $9,000 per year. Donors involved in the building and housing-related industries included an electrician, two roofing company owners, four landscape companies, several engineering and surveying consultants, numerous real estate companies and realtors, two door and window companies, an architect, two rental management companies, and at least 4 developers or people working for them, including Fain Signature Group. Many of the donations were for $1,000 or more.
A glaring omission in the article, however, was it did not include independent expenditures, or dark money, which was used to pay for mailers that smeared other candidates who aren’t pro-development. The targets include mayor candidate Phil Goode and City Council candidates Brandon Montoya and Eric Moore.
What will be most telling are the names and number of contributions Mengarelli rakes in during the third quarter spending period. This will present a clearer picture of who and from what industry his big contributors are. Unfortunately, this information won’t be released to the public until long after this election.
Phil Goode, the candidate who raised the second-highest amount of funds in response to the Mengarelli campaign’s onslaught of TV and radio ads, mailers, newspaper inserts, and ads, raised $57,276 from 223 contributions ranging from $50 to $2,500. None of them were developers.
In other news last week, the City Council postponed reviewing the 50-year lease between the city and Prescott Frontier Days (PFD), which employs Mengarelli as a marketing director. The concern is the contract greatly favors the nonprofit group’s priorities over the city’s benefits. Phil Goode raised the issue of the contract’s wording that would give PFD the right to do whatever it wanted on the land, within the law. He noted this kind of leeway could impact the neighboring residents and wouldn’t allow the city to have any control over what PFD chose to do on the site.
Others noted that a 50-year lease is highly unusual in that the term is inordinately long with little to no scheduled rent increases. Basically, with current Mayor Mengarelli involved, the lease is not an arms-length agreement.
Some have asked Mengarelli to release his contract with PFD so the public can see for themselves how he could benefit from the lease. Reportedly, and only after public scrutiny, he and PFD are rewriting the terms now. That’s a sign that Mengarelli was likely to financially benefit from the city’s lease with PFD.
There are many signs that Mengarelli could be using his elected city position to enrich himself, and this is just the latest near travesty that was stopped by the public in the name of transparency and fairness.