Let Scottsdale voters decide Phillips’ future
Scottsdale City Councilman Guy Phillips deserves a lot of grief for his political theatrics on face masks last month.
Rebuke and disdain, certainly. And he got those in spades.
But what his critics aren’t entitled to — not that Phillips entertained it — is his resignation from office.
He got plenty of calls for that, too. From no fewer than five of his colleagues on the city council, including the mayor, and thousands of Scottsdale residents who signed a petition calling for him to step down.
You’d think that Phillips had committed a crime. Or failed to carry out the duties of the office. Cheated taxpayers or some such.
Instead, he uttered some awful, demeaning words, for which he apologized — admittedly, unsatisfactorily so.
Phillips has only himself to blame.
The councilman, as politicians are prone to do, held an "Unmask Us" rally to perform for partisans over their shared opposition to a government mandate on face masks.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” Phillips said before taking off his face mask to cheers.
He said days later that it was a misunderstanding and that he had no intention of mocking George Floyd, who died at the hands of Minneapolis police and whose pleas of “I can’t breathe” went ignored by officers for minutes.
I cannot know the councilman’s state of mind, but I also cannot believe he was unaware of Floyd’s case or of those three words in the context of a national movement against systemic racial discrimination. If not the moment the words left his mouth, then at least in the immediate aftermath.
Phillips seems vulnerable to reckless pandering to partisans. Earlier in the year, he reposted on Facebook a story that erroneously said COVID-19 was an abbreviation for "Chinese Originating Viral Infectious Disease," for which he apologized and even penned a mea culpa in The Arizona Republic op-ed section.
On the wearing of masks, he is simply wrong and irresponsible. But he’s entitled to his opinion, however flawed it is. Lord knows he’s not the only officeholder who spouts such a belief.
Regardless, if politicians were to summarily offer up their resignation over offensive words, we might as well be queuing up replacements daily.
None of this is to say Phillips pays no political price. Or that voters have no recourse.
Phillips is up for reelection Aug. 4. He joins eight other candidates vying for three seats. Early balloting begins on July 8.
Those who find Phillips’ June 24 rally and accompanying comments disqualifying can vote against him.
Those who believe he should be judged by his actual record can vote according to their political values.
Phillips is a two-term councilman with more than just an anti-mandatory face mask stance and offensive remarks to his tenure.
He was instrumental in helping Scottsdale shape and shepherd through a $319 million bond election last year, including for parks and recreation, and public safety and technology.
He also was a key force behind the creation of a commission on veterans events and veterans-related services.
His decisions played well to some neighborhood advocates. He was in the minority in opposing the Southbridge II project near Fifth Avenue in Old Town, which a citizen-led petition to force a public vote prompted the council to repeal the development. He also was against Desert EDGE, an attraction in the city's McDowell Sonoran Preserve that some city council members and officials long supported.
But Phillips, a Republican (the council is nonpartisan), also opposed progressive policies, including adoption of a non-discrimination ordinance to protect the LGBT community in Scottsdale and the idea of rescinding the city’s food tax.
And for those who believe policy weighs more than words, the “Unmask Us” debacle should be, rightfully, a tiny consideration in determining whether Phillips gets a third term.