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Speaker 1: Col Zone Media. On February eleventh, twenty twenty five, the

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Speaker 1: City Council in Scottsdale, Arizona wrote an epilogue to an

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Speaker 1: episode of this show that I thought was already over.

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Speaker 1: On February twenty sixth, two thousand and four, a bomb

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Speaker 1: went off in Scottsdale. A pipe bomb concealed an inconspicuous

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Speaker 1: looking brown box exploded in the hands of the man.

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Speaker 1: The package was addressed to Don Logan. Inside the box

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Speaker 1: was a note one he didn't get a chance to

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Speaker 1: read that day. The bomber demanded that Logan, the director

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Speaker 1: of the city's Office of Diversity and Dialogue, cease and

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Speaker 1: desist his corrupt activities, but he didn't. Don Logan carried

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Speaker 1: on the work of trying to make the city of

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Speaker 1: Scottsdale lay safe and welcoming place for people of all races, genders,

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Speaker 1: and sexual orientations, and after he retired in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and seven, the office continued that work under a new director.

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Speaker 1: A poster printed last year for their Scottsdale for All

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Speaker 1: campaign showed Scottsdale residence of all backgrounds smiling under the

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Speaker 1: hot desert sun. A sek in his turban A woman

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Speaker 1: in her hijab, a man in a wheelchair, black and

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Speaker 1: Hispanic residence, visibly queer and gender nonconforming people, all working

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Speaker 1: together to make their home and more inclusive place. With

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Speaker 1: a shoestring budget of a fraction of a percent of

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Speaker 1: the city's overall operating expenses, the office put on community programming,

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Speaker 1: did outreach to underserved communities, and provided trainings to city employees.

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Speaker 1: Until last week, just two weeks shy of the twenty

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Speaker 1: first anniversary of the bombing that nearly killed Don Logan,

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Speaker 1: the Scottsdale City Council voted five to two to finish

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Speaker 1: the job, closing the Diversity Office and ending all city

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Speaker 1: funding for programming and training related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

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Speaker 1: The weird little guys of decades past may be in

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Speaker 1: federal prison for their crimes, but their ideas are alive

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Speaker 1: and well. And you don't need to don a pointy

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Speaker 1: white hood or a swastika armband to force hateful ideas

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Speaker 1: on a city. A smart pantsuit will do just fine.

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Speaker 1: I'm Molly Conger and this is Weird Blue Guys. This

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Speaker 1: episode is not about a new weird Blue guy. We

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Speaker 1: are unfortunately revisiting the aftermath of the actions of a

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Speaker 1: guy we've already spent a few episodes discussing. Back in October,

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Speaker 1: when the show was still pretty new, there was a

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Speaker 1: week where I didn't quite get it together to have

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Speaker 1: a full episode ready to go in time. I was

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Speaker 1: in court for a trial for a couple of days,

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Speaker 1: I had a death in the family, I had to

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Speaker 1: travel out of state for a wedding, and the sixty

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Speaker 1: plus hours it takes to put an episode together just

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Speaker 1: weren't there. So one of the episodes that month was

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Speaker 1: a sort of cobbled together collection of personal reflections on

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Speaker 1: the work so far and pat it out with some

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Speaker 1: odds and ends, things that hadn't made it into past

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Speaker 1: episodes that I thought were interesting, and updates on some

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Speaker 1: stories that had come to light after the air. Things

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Speaker 1: like that, and the episode actually came out pretty good,

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Speaker 1: I think, and I decided that the format could be

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Speaker 1: useful for future emergencies. You know, every couple of months,

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Speaker 1: I could revisit past episodes and tie together loose ends.

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Speaker 1: Maybe there were new developments in old cases. It would

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Speaker 1: be a good release valve for me, and I think

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Speaker 1: it's something you all would still enjoy. I keep a

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Speaker 1: document where I add those odds and ends as they

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Speaker 1: occur to me, but I haven't needed to use it.

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Speaker 1: I don't actually need it. This week, I find myself

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Speaker 1: writing an update to an old episode, not because I

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Speaker 1: had to fall back on my emergency plan for a

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Speaker 1: filler episode, but because we all find ourselves in something

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Speaker 1: of an emergency. I prefer to write stories about the past,

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Speaker 1: stories that are over. They don't always have happy endings.

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Speaker 1: In fact, they rarely do. The good guys don't always win.

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Speaker 1: More often than not, there aren't really any good guys

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Speaker 1: at all. Even when the story ends with some federal

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Speaker 1: prosecutor putting a violent white supremacist in prison, there are

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Speaker 1: usually uncomfortable questions about why it took so long, why

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Speaker 1: certain co conspirators weren't charged, how much information law enforcement ignored,

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Speaker 1: or how complicit their informants and undercover agents were in

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Speaker 1: the harm that was done. But at least at the

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Speaker 1: end of the episode, the story is over, a case

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Speaker 1: is solved, someone was held accountable, and maybe we all

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Speaker 1: learned a little bit of history. Lately, though, I've grown

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Speaker 1: increasingly uncomfortable with just how contemporary my stories of the

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Speaker 1: past are starting to feel storylines are recurring. Fringe ideas,

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Speaker 1: ones that I had to dig for hours through decades

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Speaker 1: old forum posts to find are now coming out of

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Speaker 1: the mouths of elected officials in the evening news every day.

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Speaker 1: It feels like I'm reading executive orders that it sound

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Speaker 1: like they were written by a stormfront poster who graduated

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Speaker 1: last in his class at law school. I don't like it.

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Speaker 1: I'm much more comfortable digging through the archives than i

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Speaker 1: am talking about current events. There's another show in the

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Speaker 1: cool Zone media family that does incredible work compiling a

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Speaker 1: weekly roundup of the terrible news coming out of the

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Speaker 1: White House. It could happen here puts that ongoing series

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Speaker 1: out every Friday, But I've been hiding from the calendar.

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Speaker 1: Invite our producer Sens for that. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: talk about the president Unfortunately. I think I have a

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Speaker 1: responsibility to explicitly connect these stories from the past to

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Speaker 1: their present day consequences. So this episode is a sort

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Speaker 1: of coda to a series of six episodes that ran

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Speaker 1: in December and January, beginning with the episode called Ku

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Speaker 1: Klux Cable Access TV that originally ran on December fourth,

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Speaker 1: All the way through the five part series on Dennis

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Speaker 1: Mayhon ending in mid January. I know it's a big

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Speaker 1: ask to expect you to be familiar with the storylines

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Speaker 1: running through nearly six hours of old episodes, so I'll

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Speaker 1: try to jog your memory as we go without repeating

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Speaker 1: myself too much. Last month, Costco shareholders rejected a proposal

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Speaker 1: from the National Center for Public Policy Research, a right

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Speaker 1: wing think tank, that attacked the company's diversity, equity, and

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Speaker 1: inclusion policies. What goes on in corporate boardrooms isn't really

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Speaker 1: my wheelhouse, but I know this kind of shareholder activism

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Speaker 1: isn't exactly novel, and it certainly wasn't the National Center

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Speaker 1: for Public Policy Researches first foray into shareholder activism. Far

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Speaker 1: from it. The think tank founded something called the Free

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Speaker 1: Enterprise Project in two thousand and seven, a nonprofit whose

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Speaker 1: whole mission is filing right wing shareholder resolutions. On their website,

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Speaker 1: they claimed that ninety percent of all right of center

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Speaker 1: shareholder resolutions are brought by their organization, and they've spent

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Speaker 1: nearly twenty years attacking sustainability efforts and diversity initiatives at

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Speaker 1: companies like Apple, Microsoft, target, Progressive Ups, IBM, Ford, Coca Cola,

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Speaker 1: Bank of America, Best Buy. The list goes on, but

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Speaker 1: this particular shareholder proposal felt nauseatingly familiar. The National Center

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Speaker 1: for Public Policy Research was trying to do in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five exactly what the neo Nazi group National Alliance

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Speaker 1: had done in nineteen eighty eight. And that's a strange

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Speaker 1: side story I covered in the episode called Ku Klux

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Speaker 1: Cable Access TV back in December. To refresh your memory

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Speaker 1: a bit on that side plot. After a Nazi terrorist

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Speaker 1: cell stole four million dollars from a rings truck in

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Speaker 1: California in nineteen eighty four, some of that money made

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Speaker 1: its way into the hands of National Alliance leader William

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Speaker 1: Luther Pierce, and with that stolen money, Pierce bought a

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Speaker 1: large tract of undeveloped land in the mountains of West

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Speaker 1: Virginia where he would establish his Nazi compound. But he

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Speaker 1: also bought one hundred shares of stock in AT and

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Speaker 1: T and in nineteen eighty eight, the group made their

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Speaker 1: first of three attempts to force the company to end

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Speaker 1: their affirmative action program. At that meeting. In nineteen eighty eight,

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Speaker 1: Chairman of the board, Robert Allen, denounced the proposal, saying,

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Speaker 1: as a shareholder of a sufficient number of AT and

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Speaker 1: T shares, this organization has a right to offer a

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Speaker 1: shareholder proposal, but we find the intent and wording of

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Speaker 1: this proposal highly objectionable. Especially objectionable is the argument that

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Speaker 1: some of our employees, because of their race, are less

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Speaker 1: qualified than others. This proposal is completely contrary to the policies,

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Speaker 1: the culture, and the character of AT and T. It

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Speaker 1: is in the proxy only because we could not convince

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Speaker 1: the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow us to drop it,

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Speaker 1: and their proposal was voted down by the company's shareholders

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine, and again in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. In a later interview about that nineteen ninety

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Speaker 1: shareholders meeting, National Alliance member and convicted pedophile Kevin Alfred

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Speaker 1: Strom claims that he got a standing ovation after his

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Speaker 1: presentation of the proposal, and he says he gave a

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Speaker 1: rousing speech about the rank injustice and insane business practice

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Speaker 1: of discriminating against whites. Strom complained that despite broad support

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Speaker 1: from a very large portion of the shareholders, the proposal

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Speaker 1: only failed because a handful of establishment hacks who hold

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Speaker 1: the majority of shares, voted against it, and, much like

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Speaker 1: the AT and T board chairman's denunciation of the Nazi

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Speaker 1: proposal in nineteen eighty eight, Costco's board of directors were

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Speaker 1: clear and their rejection of the twenty twenty five version

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Speaker 1: of the same idea, writing, we welcome members from all

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Speaker 1: walks of life and backgrounds. As our membership diversifies, we

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Speaker 1: believe that serving it with a diverse group of employees

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Speaker 1: enhances satisfaction. The board devotes a portion of their statement

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Speaker 1: to discussing the ways in which diverse hiring practices are

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Speaker 1: beneficial to the bottom line. Having employees from diverse backgrounds

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Speaker 1: informs their purchasing choices, allowing them to offer products that

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Speaker 1: appeal to all kinds of customers. And customers quote like

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Speaker 1: to see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses

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Speaker 1: with whom they interact. But the board statement doesn't just

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Speaker 1: hide behind shareholder value. It isn't just about the bottom line.

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Speaker 1: They firmly believe it makes good business sense, of course,

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Speaker 1: but it's also a moral imperative. The board rights, this

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Speaker 1: is our code of ethics, our focus on diversity, equity,

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Speaker 1: and inclusion is not, however, only for the sake of

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Speaker 1: improved financial performance, but to enhance our culture and the

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Speaker 1: well being of the people whose lives we influence.

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Speaker 2: Look.

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Speaker 1: Am I a diehard Costco fan? Yes? Am I wearing

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Speaker 1: my favorite sweatpants as I type this. Yes. I write

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Speaker 1: every episode of this show in my Kirkland signature brand

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Speaker 1: sweats with the Costco logo embroidered on them. Would I

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Speaker 1: be thrilled if Costco offered to sponsor the show, Buddy,

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Speaker 1: I'd be over the moon. But I don't want to

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Speaker 1: get carried away praising any corporation, especially one that doesn't

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Speaker 1: actually have a great track record when it comes to

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Speaker 1: union organizing. I'm not so naive as to think very

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Speaker 1: many truly moral stands have ever been taken in corporate boardrooms.

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Speaker 1: But this statement is a bold one, and it's one

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Speaker 1: I think they can really be proud of. They take

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Speaker 1: aim at the authors of the proposal, calling out their

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Speaker 1: feigned concern for shareholder value that they've couched this policy position.

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Speaker 1: In writing quote, the proponent's broader agenda is not reducing

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Speaker 1: risk for the company, but abolition of diversity initiatives and

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Speaker 1: they make it clear that they are very aware that

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Speaker 1: this think tank has published a document called Balancing the Boardroom,

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Speaker 1: which describes its shareholder activism as fighting back against the

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Speaker 1: evils of woke, politicized capital and companies. And just like

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Speaker 1: the early similar proposal put forward by literal neo Nazis

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Speaker 1: thirty seven years ago, this one failed to except no

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Speaker 1: one's laughing this time. In nineteen eighty eight, the press

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Speaker 1: covered National Alliance's efforts as a side show those Nazi

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Speaker 1: freaks from a compound of the mountains didn't belong in

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Speaker 1: a boardroom. Today, that same idea is taken very seriously.

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Speaker 1: Not long after Costco's shareholders voted down the proposal, the

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Speaker 1: Attorney's General in nineteen States penned a letter to Costco's

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Speaker 1: CEO warning him that he had thirty days to end

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Speaker 1: the company's DEI policies. There is a heavily implied threat

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Speaker 1: that those state attorneys general would do something to the

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Speaker 1: company if they failed to comply, but there's no clear

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Speaker 1: explanation of what, if anything, the company has actually done

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Speaker 1: that would allow any legal action to be taken. The

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Speaker 1: President's avalanche of executive orders attacking civil rights don't have

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Speaker 1: the force of law behind them that would actually outlaw

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Speaker 1: a private company's HR policy. It's not clear yet how

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Speaker 1: this is going to play out, but I'm willing to

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Speaker 1: bet it involve some questionably legal state level enforcement actions

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Speaker 1: and a lot of lawsuits. The story I sat down

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Speaker 1: to write, though, is about Scottsdale, Arizona. When I finished

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Speaker 1: that five part series of episodes about Dennis Mahon, I

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Speaker 1: was ready to be done with him. I never expected

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Speaker 1: his story to spin out in so many directions, but

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Speaker 1: once I started writing it, there was no way to

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Speaker 1: condense his life into anything less. For more than a

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Speaker 1: month on this show, we followed Dennis Mahon all over

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Speaker 1: the country the world, even from his childhood on a

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Speaker 1: farm in Illinois to his rise to prominence as a

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Speaker 1: regional clan leader and his years as Tom Metzger's right

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Speaker 1: hand man in the White Arian Resistance. He won a

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Speaker 1: lawsuit against Kansas City for his right to broadcast a

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Speaker 1: racist public access TV show, and he lost a lawsuit

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Speaker 1: to Fred Rogers. He was deported from Canada, banned from

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Speaker 1: Germany and the United Kingdom. He was investigated as a

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Speaker 1: suspect in a male bombing that killed a federal judge

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Speaker 1: and accused by a federal informant of helping plan the

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma City bombing. After a lifetime as a self professed

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Speaker 1: serial bomber, he was finally caught in two thousand nine,

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Speaker 1: and he'll spend the rest of his life in prison

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Speaker 1: for the two thousand and four bombing of the Scottsdale,

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Speaker 1: Arizona Office of Diversity and Dialog. Through the lens of

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Speaker 1: Dennis's life, I learned some history that I would never

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Speaker 1: have otherwise encountered. In the third episode in that series,

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Speaker 1: I talked about a lawsuit his twin brother, Daniel, filed

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Speaker 1: against American Airlines after he was fired for creating a

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Speaker 1: hostile work environment. Daniel had been involved in the company's

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Speaker 1: Caucasian Employee Resource Group, an employee affinity group for white people.

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Speaker 1: The issue wasn't that employees were organizing around whiteness. The

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Speaker 1: company actually had no problem with that. The problem didn't

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Speaker 1: arise until Daniel wore a Nazi T shirt to a

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Speaker 1: meeting with management about the clan inspired pamphlets he made

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Speaker 1: for the employee Diversity Fair. In my research for that episode,

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Speaker 1: I explored the kind of surprising history of employee Resource Groups.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like corporate hr hot air, but they originated

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy with the National Black Employee Caucus at Xerox.

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Speaker 1: After the Rochester Riots in nineteen sixty four, the president

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Speaker 1: of Xerox invested years and millions of dollars in diversifying

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Speaker 1: his workforce, eventually leading to the creation of the first

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Speaker 1: corporate employee group. I didn't set out to learn about

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Speaker 1: a photocopier company's radical investment in black community development in

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Speaker 1: the sixties, but it's a history I'm grateful to know now,

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Speaker 1: as the modern employee resource group is on the shopping block.

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Speaker 1: Like corporate diversity initiatives, ergs are under attack after Trump's

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Speaker 1: executive orders on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Just last week,

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Speaker 1: the Seattle Times reported that the employee resource groups at

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Speaker 1: the shipyard in Bremerton, Washington had been suspended in response

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Speaker 1: to those executive orders. Mark Layton, the president of the

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Speaker 1: Bremerton Metal Trades Council, said that those orders were demeaning

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Speaker 1: and a little derogatory, and he told the paper quote,

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Speaker 1: we don't have any token people here. You can either

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Speaker 1: turn a wrench or well adjoint do the work. Required

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Speaker 1: or you don't work here. At an event last year,

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Speaker 1: Shipyard Commander Captain J. D. Crinklaw praised the employee resource groups, saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: these groups allow us to build better teams and increase

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Speaker 1: our ability to contribute. They are critical to who we

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Speaker 1: are as an organization, and Mark Layton emphasized to the

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Speaker 1: Seattle Times that those affinity groups don't give their members

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Speaker 1: any special workplace privileges or advantages. They only exist as

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Speaker 1: a way from employees to network and support each other.

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Speaker 1: A recent article published by the Society for Human Resources Management,

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Speaker 1: a professional association for people working in HR, indicates that

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Speaker 1: there is a growing anxiety in corporate America about how

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Speaker 1: to comply with these confusing, questionably legal missives coming out

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Speaker 1: of the White House. Their advice is that ergs that

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Speaker 1: are open to all employees likely do not violate these

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Speaker 1: new White House policies, but some private companies are too

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Speaker 1: using to end these programs out of fear and confusion.

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Speaker 1: For federal employees, those groups are gone, not just the

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Speaker 1: ones centered around race, all of them. Ergs may have

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Speaker 1: started with the Black Employee Caucus, but in the decades since,

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Speaker 1: the idea has grown to encompass a wide variety of

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Speaker 1: shared characteristics and interests. A lot of them are still

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Speaker 1: centered around protected class identities like race, gender, disability, and sexuality,

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Speaker 1: but most companies with ergs also have groups for working parents,

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Speaker 1: groups for veterans, groups for new hires, people with particular hobbies,

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Speaker 1: or things like people who want to get together after

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Speaker 1: work and clean up litter. I hope these affinity groups

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Speaker 1: will continue their work, continue supporting and advocating for one another,

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Speaker 1: even if they aren't allowed to be listed on the

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Speaker 1: company website anymore. And I guess I can't talk around

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Speaker 1: it anymore. I've been avoiding getting to the thing. I

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Speaker 1: sat down to write the story. I spent all those

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Speaker 1: weeks writing all forty some on thousand words of it.

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Speaker 1: It all led up to one thing. The bomb. A

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Speaker 1: lifelong racist, a man who claimed to have bombed abortion

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Speaker 1: clinics and synagogues, a man who ran hotlines and newsletters

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Speaker 1: dedicated to spreading the word of white supremacy, took drastic,

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Speaker 1: violent measures to end the work of diversity, equity and

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Speaker 1: inclusion in Scottsdale, Arizona, in two thousand and four. He failed.

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Speaker 1: The bomb went off. Yes, Don Logan and two other

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Speaker 1: employees in his office were injured. Logan's injuries required multiple

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Speaker 1: surgeries and skin grafts. Rinne de Lnyard would later testify

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Speaker 1: that doctors had been unable to remark a piece of

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Speaker 1: shrapnel that had entered through her eye and lodged itself

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Speaker 1: in her brain. But the people Dennis Mayhon tried to

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Speaker 1: intimidate with that bomb said no, they didn't back down.

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Speaker 1: They wouldn't let a klansman's bomb dictate city policy. They won.

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Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon went to prison, and Scottsdale, Arizona, maintained its

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Speaker 1: commitment to being a more inclusive city. Like I said,

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Speaker 1: most of these stories don't really have happy endings, but

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Speaker 1: that part at least was as close to one as

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Speaker 1: I'm likely to get. So it hit doubly hard when

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Speaker 1: that turned out not to be the end at all.

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Speaker 1: Last week, I was rolling idly past the daily parade

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Speaker 1: of horrors on my social media feed when I saw

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Speaker 1: a post from a friend of mine. I wasn't trying

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Speaker 1: to see the news. I was trying to avoid the news.

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to see silly little posts from my friends.

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Speaker 1: A feudal endeavor, really, because a lot of my friends

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Speaker 1: are people like me, journalists, researchers, collectors of terrible facts

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Speaker 1: about terrible men. And the post that caught my eye

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Speaker 1: was from Nick Martin, a journalist who has spent years

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Speaker 1: researching and writing about right wing extremism. He also happened

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Speaker 1: to work at the East Valley Tribune back in the

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Speaker 1: early two thousands, so at the time of the bombing

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Speaker 1: he was covering news in the Phoenix metro area, and

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Speaker 1: by the time Dennis Mahon was brought to trial, Nick

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Speaker 1: was covering the story for Talking Points Memo, and it

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Speaker 1: was from Nick that I first got this news. His

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Speaker 1: post read. In two thousand and four, white supremacists bombed

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Speaker 1: the city Diversity office in Scottsdale, Arizona, in an attempt

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Speaker 1: to destroy it. Last night as part of the new

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Speaker 1: anti diversity panic, the Republican led city council finished the job.

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Speaker 1: I saw that post on Wednesday night, which is coincidentally

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Speaker 1: usually the part of each week when I realize I

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Speaker 1: do need to figure out what next week's episode is

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Speaker 1: going to be about, so I really had no choice.

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Speaker 1: Twenty one years after that bomb went off, the Scottsdale

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Speaker 1: City Council did exactly what that bomb was meant to do.

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Speaker 1: In a five to two vote, they passed an ordinance

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Speaker 1: stripping all city funding for diversity, equity and inclusion, ending

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Speaker 1: the work that Don Logan nearly died for. So I

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Speaker 1: watched the meeting and I read every email sent by

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Speaker 1: Scottsdale residents to their city council about that agenda item.

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Speaker 1: Fifty one people spoke at the meeting. Only two were

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Speaker 1: in favor of ending the diversity program. Two hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty three emails were sent about the ordinance. Only twenty

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Speaker 1: seven were from people in favor of the proposal. Two

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Speaker 1: of those emails were actually identical messages sent a day

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Speaker 1: apart by one man who also spoke at the meeting.

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Speaker 1: I listened to every one of those comments. I read

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Speaker 1: every one of those emails, and I wept. People from

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Speaker 1: all walks of life showed up to speak out against

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Speaker 1: the ordinance. The CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of

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Speaker 1: Commerce made an economic argument. Former city councilor Betty Janek

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Speaker 1: said the ordinance was unnecessary and mean spirited. The city

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Speaker 1: code already requires merit based hiring. This wouldn't change anything.

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Speaker 1: A rabbi reminded the councilors that loving your neighbors as

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Speaker 1: a mitzvah. The city's LGBTQ liaison, an army veteran practicing

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Speaker 1: attorney and transgender woman, seemed to almost dare them to

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Speaker 1: tell her to her face that she's a dei hire.

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Speaker 1: And then a dozen or so comments in someone mentioned

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Speaker 1: the bomb. Neil Shearer had been the city's human resources

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Speaker 1: manager back in two thousand and four. This was personal

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Speaker 1: for him.

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Speaker 3: Almost twenty one years ago today, a man affiliated with

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Speaker 3: the White Aryan Resistance sent a pipe bomb through the

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Speaker 3: mail addressed to my friend and colleague, Don Logan, the

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Speaker 3: first director of the Office of Diversity. In dialogue, Don

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Speaker 3: was seriously injured when he opened the package, as were

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Speaker 3: two of his coworkers. It strikes me beyond ironic that

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Speaker 3: a convicted felon white supremacist, through hate filled and violent means,

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Speaker 3: could not succeed in silencing the office, Yet the city

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Speaker 3: Council could accomplish the same end by shutting down the

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Speaker 3: office through a simple majority vote of the Council in

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Speaker 3: your first thirty days in office.

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Speaker 1: And then a few minutes later I realized Don Logan

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Speaker 1: was there. He was in the room. He first appeared

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Speaker 1: on camera standing behind Jen Dolan, who'd been the city

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Speaker 1: manager at the time of the bombing. He placed a

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Speaker 1: hand reassuringly on her shoulder as she approached the microphone

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Speaker 1: to speak.

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Speaker 2: Don Logan, who was the diversity director when I was

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Speaker 2: the city manager, who they tried to kill. I ask

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Speaker 2: you do not try to kill diversity and its efforts.

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Speaker 1: Logan flashed a bright smile when she said his name,

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Speaker 1: but it vanished a millisecond leader as Dolan reminded council

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Speaker 1: that he'd nearly died for the office they were killing.

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Speaker 1: Speaker after speaker urged council to rethink this course of action.

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Speaker 1: There had been no study done to evaluate the claims

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Speaker 1: they were making about the negative consequences of the city's

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Speaker 1: diversity program. A pastor who had, in her prior career

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Speaker 1: worked as a corporate employment lawyer, asked where their evidence

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Speaker 1: was that the city had ever hired a sub standard

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Speaker 1: employee simply because of their background. A member of the

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Speaker 1: city's Environmental Advisory Board said that he had called the

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Speaker 1: diversity office himself to ask if any member of city

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Speaker 1: council had even bothered to speak with them about their work,

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Speaker 1: and the only one who had was Marianne McAllan, who

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Speaker 1: voted against the ordinance. Many of the commenters who identified

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Speaker 1: themselves as Jewish had words specifically for Councilman Adam Quasman.

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Speaker 1: Coasman is Scottsdale's first Orthodox Jewish councilor. Last month, he

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Speaker 1: tweeted a photo of the front desk at City Hall,

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Speaker 1: and in the photo he circled the Scottsdale for All

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Speaker 1: pamphlets that are available to visitors. His post read, you

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Speaker 1: can't walk into Scottsdale City Hall without being bombarded with

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Speaker 1: d ei. This poison will be rooted out of our

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Speaker 1: beautiful city. One speaker gently reminded Quasman that the Torah

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Speaker 1: commands them to treat strangers with kindness. Others asked him

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Speaker 1: if he would be sitting up there wearing his kippa

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Speaker 1: if not for the work that had been done to

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Speaker 1: make the city a more inclusive place. Another sharply asked

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Speaker 1: Quasman if he recalled a certain man in Germany who'd

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Speaker 1: used the word poison to describe their people, and then

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Speaker 1: Don Logan himself spoke. Speakers were only given a minute each,

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Speaker 1: cut down by the mare from the usual three, so

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Speaker 1: he didn't have a chance to give the comment he'd prepared.

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Speaker 1: This message was clear.

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Speaker 4: This is personal for me. People have moved on from

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Speaker 4: the bombing of February twenty six, two thousand and four,

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Speaker 4: but every day I'm reminded of what happened that day

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Speaker 4: and why it happened, and it happened because of how

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Speaker 4: I'm packaged an anti diversity extremists who I never talked to,

432
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 4: never knew that attacked me and my colleagues because of

433
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 4: what we represent. Now I read this packet here, there's

434
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 4: nothing in this packet that suggests to me that diversity, equity,

435
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 4: and inclusion is a threat.

436
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: For over an hour, the people of Scottsdale pleaded with

437
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: their city council. Don't do this. There's no reason to

438
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: do this. The proper steps haven't been taken to adopt

439
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: an ordinance like this. Council hasn't thought through what will

440
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: happen next, who will manage the city's compliance with the

441
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: Americans with Disabilities Act? And what about the serious potential

442
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: economic side effects that a decision like this might have.

443
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: Several commenters warned that the city would take a massive

444
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: hit if Major League Baseball were to take this as

445
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: a sign that they should move spring training to a

446
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: more progressive city. Councilwomen Solange Whitehead gave a passionate speech

447
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: laying out the facts. This ordinance was brought before council

448
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: without going through the typical process, avoiding any input from

449
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: the public or city staff before it came up for

450
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: a vote. If it had gone through the usual steps,

451
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: it probably would have been clear that this is a

452
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,719
Speaker 1: solution in search of a problem. The city code already

453
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: requires merit based hiring, and the city already complies with

454
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: laws prohibiting hiring quotas. Council members Maryann McAllan and Solange

455
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: Whitehead fought to defer the ordinance to a work study

456
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: session to do the work that should have been done

457
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: before the ordinance came before council, but they were outvoted.

458
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 2: Well, let me let me speak to that.

459
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 3: I do you all want to do this over again

460
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 3: and do a work study. I don't.

461
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: I don't see the point of that. You've all been here.

462
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: I think that would that would not be a good, good,

463
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: worthy use of your time or the city's resources. Mary

464
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: Lisa Barowski dismissed the Booze and Jeers, saying it wouldn't

465
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: be a good use of city resources to follow that

466
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: standard procedure, which would have included a work study, and

467
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: then with very little discussion, they adopted the ordinance over

468
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:54,719
Speaker 1: the dissenting votes of Councilors McAllen and Whitehead. Councilors Barry Graham,

469
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: Kathy Littlefield, and Jan Duboscis said very little during the meeting,

470
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: but something about the way Mayor Lisa Browski and Councilman

471
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: Adam Quasman spoke made me a little curious about their backgrounds,

472
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: And wouldn't you know it, Adam Coasman is no stranger

473
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: to making loud and wrong assumptions when it comes to

474
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: being kind to our neighbors. In twenty fourteen, when he

475
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: was serving as an Arizona State legislator and running for Congress,

476
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: he attended an anti emigration protest in Oracle, Arizona. The

477
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: Panell County sheriff had whipped up a social media frenzy

478
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: claiming that he had obtained leaked information from the federal

479
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: government that illegal migrant children were going to be bust

480
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: into their small town. Quasman was eager to make a

481
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: scene to exploit the suffering of these children to make

482
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: a political point, but it turned out those children were

483
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: actually just fine.

484
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 5: Adam Quasman was making a speak the reason why Lady

485
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 5: Justice holds a blind fell over, but then the Republican

486
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 5: congressional candidate suddenly stopped. He got wored a bus was

487
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,479
Speaker 5: heading down the road and took off for it. Anything else,

488
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 5: Thank you for listen. It's what Coassman and the Oracle

489
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 5: protesters were waiting for a confrontation with a bus full

490
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 5: of migrant children. Coassman tweeted from the scene, bus coming in.

491
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 5: This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the

492
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 5: rule of law. He included a photo of a yellow

493
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 5: school bus.

494
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 4: I was able to actually see some of the children

495
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 4: in the buses and the fear on their faces.

496
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 5: This is not compassion, that fear on the faces of

497
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,839
Speaker 5: migrant children. Coassman told me he saw an oracle. There's

498
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:49,720
Speaker 5: just one problem. Those weren't migrant children on the yellow

499
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 5: school bus. They were YMCA campers from the Marana School district.

500
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 5: You know that was a bus with YMCA kids.

501
00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 3: They were sad too.

502
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 5: Reporters at the scene saw the child Ldren laughing and

503
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 5: taking pictures on their iPhones.

504
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: As for newly elected mayor Lisa Browski, she's actually served

505
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: on council once before, from two thousand and eight to

506
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and her interest in local politics began shortly

507
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: before her first run for counsel. She was inspired by

508
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:25,320
Speaker 1: the experience of helping her brother Todd, wage a successful

509
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: effort to overturn a city ordinance. The ordinance in question,

510
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: a ban on lap dances, would have destroyed Todd's business,

511
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,919
Speaker 1: a chain of strip clubs in the Scottsdale area. During

512
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: her most recent campaign for office, Barowski assured voters that

513
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 1: she had no business relationship with her brother. The question

514
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 1: was asked not because voters might take issue with the

515
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: nature of Todd's business, but because her brother, Todd Borowski,

516
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: is under investigation after a lawsuit was filed by multiple

517
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: men who claimed they were drugged in the club's VIP

518
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: lounges and they woke up to find that tens of

519
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars for champagne and lap dances had been

520
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: charged to their credit cards. The Meyer's brother seems like

521
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: a real character. This has nothing to do with anything,

522
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: but as I was poking around, I did find that

523
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: Todd Barowski attempted to trademark a logo reading Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yes,

524
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:36,399
Speaker 1: Tampa TMPA, not Tampa. I assume he had some kind

525
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: of plan to sell slightly misspelled Tampa Bay Buccaneers jerseys,

526
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: but it must not have worked out because the trademark

527
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 1: is dead. And despite her protestations that she has no

528
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: involvement in her brother's business dealings, she did fail to

529
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: mention during the campaign that she was employed by the

530
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: same law firm represents her brother in a lot of lawsuits.

531
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: This position doesn't appear on her LinkedIn page, and the

532
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: firm quietly removed her from the website sometime in June

533
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four. But in twenty twenty two, Lisa

534
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 1: Barowski was hired by Dennis Willencik to work in his

535
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: firm's new Scottsdale office, and her name still appeared in

536
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 1: filings for one of the firm's clients at least as

537
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: late as August of twenty twenty four, though I can't

538
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: find any filings that indicate she actively worked on any

539
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: of her brother's cases. Just last month, Dennis Willenchik helped

540
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: Todd Borowski settle a class action lawsuit brought by dancers

541
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: at his clubs alleging a variety of labor law violations,

542
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: and local news reports quote Dennis Willenchik as Borowski's lawyer

543
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: in that suit filed by the men who claimed they

544
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: were drugged and robbed. The only client at Willenchick and

545
00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:00,879
Speaker 1: Bartness whose case I did find Lisa Barrow's name on

546
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: is Ron Gould, a county official in Arizona who claims

547
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: he was threatened over his refusal to certify the results

548
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty presidential election. But the firm's ties

549
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty election hijinks run pretty deep. They also

550
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: represented Alan Dershowitz in his efforts to evade sanctions ordered

551
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 1: by a federal judge after he was involved in a

552
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 1: failed lawsuit brought by Kerry Lake. And before Dennis Willnchik's son,

553
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: Jack passed away last year, he was heavily involved in

554
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: the plan to send fake electors to DC to derail

555
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: the certification of the twenty twenty election. In December of

556
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Jack Willnchik sent this email to the Trump

557
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: campaign team. Quote, we would just be sending in fake

558
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: electoral votes to Pence so that someone in Congress can

559
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: make an objection when they start counting vote and start

560
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 1: arguing that the fake votes should be counted. In a

561
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 1: follow up email, he clarified that alternative votes is probably

562
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: a better term than fake votes, and then he put

563
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: a little smiley face emoji. Jack Willnchik also represented the

564
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: Cyber Ninjas, the private company hired by Arizona Republicans to

565
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: audit the twenty twenty election. They hired Willnchick in their

566
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: battle to withhold company records from a congressional investigation, and

567
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:39,919
Speaker 1: the firm represented Sheriff Joe Arpaio for many years. When

568
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: Trump pardoned our Paio in twenty seventeen, it was Jack

569
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: Wilenchik who accepted the pardon documents on ar Pio's behalf.

570
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 1: Like I said, Lisa Bowski's name only appears on filings

571
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: in the Ron Gould case, at least as far as

572
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:59,240
Speaker 1: I was able to find. But it is worth connecting

573
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,759
Speaker 1: the dots, I think because when Trump fired off a

574
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: half baked executive order banning diversity programs, one of the

575
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: first mayors to jump at the chance to performatively comply

576
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 1: had a history with a law firm that was deeply

577
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: connected to the effort to prevent the certification of the

578
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election. After the city council meeting last week,

579
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 1: Don Logan spoke with reporters. He was disappointed, but not

580
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: surprised at the outcome, telling one reporter that after he

581
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: found out the city had refused to conduct a study session,

582
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:38,319
Speaker 1: he knew how the vote was going to go.

583
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 4: I gave my blood for the work that we did here,

584
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 4: and my message to them is shame on them.

585
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:50,879
Speaker 1: I won't claim to know very much about the inner

586
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: workings in Scottsdale City Hall in the present day. I

587
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: did look over some city budget documents and the city

588
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: web pages related to the work done by the Diversity Office,

589
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,879
Speaker 1: but I couldn't tell you exactly what the Scottsdale City

590
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: Council might have learned from a study session about the

591
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:10,799
Speaker 1: current state of affairs of their diversity office. But I

592
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: suspect they may not actually know why Scottsdale was one

593
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 1: of the first cities in the country to establish a

594
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: full time position of this kind. It wasn't because of wokeness.

595
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 1: This is one of the things that ended up on

596
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 1: the cutting room floor in those five episodes about Dennis Mahon.

597
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: But I did spend some time during my research back

598
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: in December learning a little bit about the political climate

599
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: in Scottsdale in the late nineties, the years leading up

600
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: to the establishment of the Office and Diversity and Dialogue

601
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight. It wasn't great. In nineteen ninety seven,

602
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,280
Speaker 1: the city settled a lawsuit filed by former Scottsdale police

603
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: officer Jesus Torres. Torres claimed he'd been fired for refusing

604
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: to stay silent about racism within the department. In nineteen

605
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 1: ninety five, Torres said he witnessed white officers use excessive

606
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: force against three Hispanic men. One of the men had

607
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: a visible boot print on his back, which he claimed

608
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:16,320
Speaker 1: was from an officer kicking him. Torres didn't witness the incident,

609
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 1: but he refused to cover for his fellow officers, telling them,

610
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 1: I won't lie for you, I won't cover up for you.

611
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 1: I don't believe in the Rodney King mentality. And after

612
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: that night, his performance reviews suddenly turned negative and within

613
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: a few months he was fired. In his lawsuit, Torres

614
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: claimed that it was standard practice within the department to

615
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 1: refer to upscale parts of town as the n n Z,

616
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: which stands for the No N Word Zone. The fact

617
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: that another officer confirmed under oath during the trial, a

618
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,800
Speaker 1: female officer broke down in tears on the stand, sobbing

619
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: as she admitted that the department had a raceis problem.

620
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: The comments made both to the press and in court

621
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: by city employees were kind of shocking. A sergeant testified

622
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: that it was Torres who was racist, that he had

623
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: a chip on his shoulder and he was overly sensitive

624
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 1: about race. The city's own attorney smeared him as quick

625
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:29,720
Speaker 1: to cry discrimination and soft on Hispanics, saying his actions

626
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,800
Speaker 1: drove a wedge between himself and the quote Anglo police

627
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: officers because he was an advocate for Hispanics first and

628
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: police second. In just weeks after the city settled that

629
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: suit with Torres, they were back in hot water again

630
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: after a black woman was paraded through her apartment complex

631
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: and nothing but handcuffs and her underwear after police were

632
00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: called to respond to a domestic dispute when she filed

633
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: against the city. The police department's own spokesman told the

634
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: paper that she was quote taking advantage of recent allegations

635
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: of racism in the department to gain financial advantage. In

636
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: public statements justifying their decision to force this woman to

637
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: walk outside barefoot, with her breasts exposed and menstrual blood

638
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 1: running down her legs, the department claimed it was a

639
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 1: matter of officer safety. This one hundred pound nearly naked

640
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: woman was so frightening to them that it wouldn't have

641
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:39,840
Speaker 1: been safe to allow her to put a shirt on.

642
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: The department does not appear to have commented on the

643
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: decision to dispatch an officer with his own documented history

644
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: of domestic violence on a call for a domestic disturbance.

645
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: And then in December of nineteen ninety seven, so not

646
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: long after Torres settled his lawsuit with the city and

647
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: this new lawsuit was filed, Reverend Oscar Tillman, president of

648
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: the Arizona ANDAACP, was promising to disrupt the Phoenix open,

649
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: the third stop on the PGA tour and a massive

650
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: tourist draw that pumped millions of dollars into the local economy,

651
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: and Tilman said that he wanted proof the city wasn't

652
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: just paying Jesu's Torres that one hundred thousand dollars to

653
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:34,280
Speaker 1: make this problem go away. He wanted them to promise

654
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: an independent investigation into the allegations of widespread racism within

655
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:44,919
Speaker 1: the department. Just before Christmas, Tilman had a closed door

656
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 1: meeting with the mayor. Immediately afterwards, he called off his

657
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: planned protest without explanation, and as the calendar rolled over

658
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: to nineteen ninety eight, Don Logan, an assistant city manager

659
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: at the time, announced that the city staff had put

660
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 1: together a report recommending that the city council establish an

661
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: Office of Diversity to conduct community outreach to minority residents

662
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,799
Speaker 1: and handle internal investigation and mediation of complaints of discrimination.

663
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: The city manager insisted that the report's timing and its

664
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: recommendations had nothing to do with the demands made by

665
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:27,280
Speaker 1: the NAACP, but the timing kind of speaks for itself.

666
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: And when the city settled later that year with the

667
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: woman that cops had purp walked in her underpants, it

668
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: was their new diversity officer who spoke to the press,

669
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 1: not that foul mouthed cop who couldn't help but double

670
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 1: down on maligning the victim. Don Logan told the Arizona

671
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: Republic that the city's internal investigation had determined that the

672
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: officers acted improperly, though not because of her race, and

673
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: during Don Logan's first year as the director of Diversity

674
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: and Dialogue, the Scottsdale Police Department was facing the possibility

675
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: of not just more scandal, but federal indictments. In nineteen

676
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: ninety nine, the City of Scottsdale spent at least a

677
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: quarter of a million dollars on a high price defense

678
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,240
Speaker 1: attorney to guide their police officers through the grand jury

679
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 1: process as the Department of Justice investigated allegations that officers

680
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: were engaged in tax evasion and civil rights violations in

681
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: relation to their off duty shifts working security for a

682
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: nightclub frequented by black patrons. In the late nineties, Club

683
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 1: Tribeca was the only club in the Scottsdale area that

684
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:46,439
Speaker 1: had a hip hop night, which made it the only

685
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: club in the area with a majority non white crowd,

686
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 1: and for several years the club was locked in a

687
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 1: legal battle with the City of Scottsdale. Club owner George

688
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: Delk went public in nineteen ninety seven, not long ebens

689
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: after the Haesus Torres suit was settled, with allegations that

690
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: the offterty cops were demanding to be paid in cash,

691
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: and that they refused to fill out tax forms. Delk

692
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: also claimed that the officers routinely threatened, intimidated, and mazed

693
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 1: the club's black and Hispanic patrons, and that one officer

694
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,759
Speaker 1: he spoke to told him outright that the department considers

695
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 1: any gathering of more than ten black people to be

696
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: a riot. End quote, we don't hesitate to use chemicals

697
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: on them. The department changed their policy on moonlighting after

698
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: these allegations were made public, but the city was determined

699
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: to force the club out of business, unsuccessfully going after

700
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: their live music permit and their liquor license. In the

701
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: city's effort to shut the club down, they cited police

702
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: department claims that the club's activities were generating a disproportionate

703
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: number of calls for police service. A legal battle ensued,

704
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 1: and when the club's lawyer finally got the city to

705
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 1: produce these actual police records that the claims were based on,

706
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: he says the numbers were wildly inflated and that they'd

707
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: padded the figures with a wide variety of unrelated nearby

708
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: incidents like traffic stops and citations that were issued in

709
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. During the daytime when the club wasn't even open.

710
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,799
Speaker 1: In the end, after an eighteen month grand jury investigation,

711
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: no one was charged, but the allegations alone underscored the

712
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 1: need for the kind of public relations boost their new

713
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: Diversity office could provide. The City of Scottsdale was one

714
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: of the first cities in the country to establish a

715
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: full time diversity director because they needed one. Their police

716
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:57,840
Speaker 1: department couldn't go a month without not only violating someone's

717
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 1: civil rights, but running their about it in the paper.

718
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 1: What may have started off as a necessary compromise to

719
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 1: prevent protesters from upsetting golf fans and put a friendlier

720
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,479
Speaker 1: face on the city's constant press releases about settling civil

721
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:18,320
Speaker 1: rights lawsuits really does seem to evolve into something meaningful,

722
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: and for just two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year,

723
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,919
Speaker 1: which is even before you adjust for twenty five years

724
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,280
Speaker 1: of inflation, less than the price tag for the lawyer

725
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: they had to hire to dig their cops out of

726
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: a DOJ investigation. The Office of Diversity oversaw the city's

727
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: federally mandated ADA Transition Plan, addressed complaints about violations of

728
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 1: the Americans with disabilities Act, oversaw the city's compliance with

729
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 1: federal civil rights laws, investigated and mediated complaints of discrimination,

730
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 1: provided staff support to the city's Human Relations Commission, oversaw

731
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,399
Speaker 1: the city's Employee Resource Group. Provided voluntary trainings for city

732
00:50:56,440 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: departments on topics like inclusion and civility, organized community outreach

733
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 1: and cultural celebrations, provided professional development for city staff, and

734
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: secured the grant funding for a scholarship program for students

735
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: with disabilities. They put on Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations and

736
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 1: programming during Black History Month. They didn't hire and fire.

737
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: They didn't force white men to sit through mandatory white

738
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 1: guilt seminars like a clockwork orange Nightmare, or whatever imaginary

739
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 1: horrors the Republican Council members pretend goes on in DEI workshops.

740
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: By all accounts, it seems as that the city councilors

741
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,319
Speaker 1: who voted to abolish the office never actually bothered to

742
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 1: find out what it does, and now city staff will

743
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: be in a bind trying to reassign staff and ensure

744
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,959
Speaker 1: the federally mandated elements of the office's work are still

745
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: getting done because for now, at least someone still has

746
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: to file Title six compliance reports. Some one still has

747
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: to manage the city's eighty A transition plan. The Scottsdale

748
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 1: City Council jumped on the Trump train, and they made

749
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:09,719
Speaker 1: a big symbolic gesture. Those executive orders taking aim at

750
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:14,719
Speaker 1: diversity programs in federal workplaces didn't require the city to

751
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 1: roll back their own diversity programs. They didn't just comply

752
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: in advance. They performed. This was a show. Councilman Couasmon

753
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: tweeted last month, you can't walk into Scottsdale City Hall

754
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:34,320
Speaker 1: without being bombarded with DEI. This poison will be rooted

755
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: out of our beautiful city. The poison they're trying to

756
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: root out isn't DEEI. Diversity, Equity and inclusion is today's branding.

757
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: But they can call it whatever they want, affirmative action, wokeness,

758
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:59,400
Speaker 1: reverse racism, anti white discrimination, whatever. What they mean is

759
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 1: civil rights, and what they want is segregation when every woman,

760
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 1: black person, or trans person they see is a potential

761
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 1: DEI hire. What they're really asking for is a return

762
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: to a world without the Civil Rights Act. Call it

763
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: whatever you want, but I'm begging you to see it

764
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:25,200
Speaker 1: for what it is, an attempt to eradicate whole swaths

765
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 1: of the population from public life to make boardrooms and

766
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: classrooms and legislatures the exclusive domain of white Christian men.

767
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 1: Dennis Mahon didn't build that bomb because of some carefully

768
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 1: considered ideas about municipal hiring practices. He did it because

769
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 1: he saw a flyer for Hispanic Heritage Month, just like

770
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 1: councilmen cousman walking into city Hall and getting worked up

771
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 1: about seeing the Scottsdale for All pamphlets. Six months before

772
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: the bombing, Dennis Mahon called the office. He'd seen an

773
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: advertisement for upcoming events celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and he

774
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:11,320
Speaker 1: couldn't stand it. He left a voicemail mocking the office

775
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: or putting on the events, and he used racial slurs,

776
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 1: and he laughed at the very idea of celebrating Hispanic culture.

777
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: And the message ended with a warning, We've got lots

778
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: of support. The White Arean resistance is growing in Scottsdale.

779
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:35,320
Speaker 1: There's a few white people who are standing up. Dennis

780
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: Mayhon's idea of standing up for the white man in

781
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 1: the face of the poison of diversity was building a bomb.

782
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: And today, twenty one years later, five members of the

783
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 1: Scottsdale City Council finish what he started. They didn't do

784
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:56,720
Speaker 1: it with racial slurs and pipe bombs this time around.

785
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 1: Sitting a medias in city Hall gavel in hand, Scottsdale

786
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 1: Mayor Lisa Barowski presided over a meeting that used city

787
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 1: ordinance to do what Dennis Mahon failed to do with

788
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 1: explosive ordinance. He tried to kill Don Logan, but they

789
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: killed the city's diversity office. Weird Little Guys is a

790
00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It's research, written,

791
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 1: and recorded by me Cally Conger. Our executive producers are

792
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans. The show is edited by

793
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 1: the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The theme music was composed

794
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:50,839
Speaker 1: by Brad Dickert. You can email me at weirdlu Guy's

795
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely read it,

796
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: but I probably will not answer it. It's nothing personal.

797
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: You can exchange conspiracy theories about the show other listeners

798
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: on the Weird Little Guys, Sup, right, head, Just don't

799
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: post anything that's going to make you one of my

800
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:06,360
Speaker 1: Weird Little Guys.