Connecting the dots between Mayor Greg Mengarelli’s re-election campaign and AED’s Jason Gisi is indisputable thanks to writer Tom Cantlon’s excellent in-depth research and the assistance of some concerned citizens. Not only did Mengarelli accept donations from two principals of the development group in his first election, he also uses a campaign treasurer who works directly with Jason Gisi in a business partnership the two formed together.
Usually, Prescott’s “backroom,” and under-the-table coordination between candidate campaigns and donors is not so obvious, but this is a clear-cut case of a campaign staff member being closely connected with a donor. Pamela Jones, Mengarelli’s treasurer, has made it easy to track the conflict of interest in the fact that she works with both Gisi and Mengarelli. Could it be that her proximity makes her job much easier to coordinate how to spend the money donated to Mengarelli’s campaign by the developer and his Britain-based partner?
As Cantlon reports:
“A connection has become apparent between Mengarelli and Pam Jones, his campaign person, and Gisi the Dells developer. She has been in business with Gisi for years in a side business. And he was sending her early city business (when Billie Orr was leaving) well before even some on council knew it.”
Here is a link to the documents he uncovered.
Cantlon talked to City Council candidates, who all reported normal activity in donations, mostly small amounts from a large group of people. In Mengarelli’s case, however, the hostility towards Cantlon is apparent. Here’s what he reported.
“After three attempts in various ways to contact Mr. Mengarelli he had a campaign volunteer, Pamela Jones, email me. The response was that funding issues had been asked about in various forums and they felt that should be enough. Also that the first required financial report would be out soon. I responded that some of the funding specifics I was asking about I had not seen reported elsewhere. Also that financial reports can still leave some things unknown, as described at the top of this piece.
Her second response stated the campaign, “will not be responding to any questions from you concerning campaign funding.” She did qualify that with, “until the Second Quarter Report is filed with the City of Prescott on July 15.” That’s part of the problem with the report system. July 15th is over a week after the start of early voting.
She continued that they consider me a biased journalist because I’d written on what is public knowledge, that the mayor is wearing two conflicting hats at once, as mayor and as business developer for the rodeo grounds events efforts. And she stated that as far as finances might be covered at least by the Daily Courier, that they hoped they would only report on the official financial reports.
It is true that I especially wanted to ask Mr. Mengarelli about funding for a couple of reasons. It was during his first mayoral campaign that an independent organization played a role and I wanted to ask him if he was aware of any similar efforts coming up, if he would approve of them, and how he felt about such a possibility in the current campaign. Second, his campaigns each try to make a bigger, splashier impression than previous mayoral races or other candidates. Currently, he has an entire semi-trailer sign on highway 89 North, has sent out a large, glossy postcard against his opponent, and has a lot of TV and radio advertising. All fine, but all disproportionate to other mayoral races and candidates and likely makes some voters curious. So, are any organizations contributing to this? Between now and the final report would he be accepting donations from organizations with business with the city, or outside organizations? And the rest of these questions asked of all of the candidates? To all of that, they don’t want to answer for this report.
Here’s a link to more details.
You cannot hide the facts about Mengarelli’s campaign donations from developers and the extremely odd “coincidence” that two Scottsdale developers are bankrolling a PAC mailing hit pieces on two City Council candidates who are for smart growth—Brandon Montoya and Eric Moore. It screams that Mengarelli is trying to hide his ties to developers. It’s not working.
An old proverb states that “if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.” Taking developer money for a campaign and then negotiating on behalf of the city is a clear conflict of interest which leaves Mengarelli covered with the stench of compromise. Phil Goode has no such conflicts. He is not taking developer money for his campaign.
If ethics and integrity and matter to them, citizens should vote for Phil Goode for Prescott Mayor.