Just yesterday, this article written by Walter Olson, appeared with the following headline [image inserted from another source]
Council candidate menaced for using city’s logo on yard signs
"The city of Mesa, Arizona, has threatened suit against a local businessman, Jeremy Whittaker, who is running for city council in opposition to a longtime city employee who enjoys endorsements from several current elected city officials. His offense? His lawn signs and campaign literature include a single-color version of the city’s logo …as a handy way of identifying the office for which he is running.” It has demanded he surrender all his campaign materials bearing the logo, but he’s not planning to give in."
[Paul Alan Levy, CL&P via Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
Readers of this blog will note that this episode is more than just about "yard signs".
Reporter Walter Olson uses the words "threatened" and "menaced" in his headline for a very brief article supposedly about yard signs - if you, dear readers, choose to dig a little deeper, it's more about how politics are run by a political machine here in Mesa where incumbents recruit and choose who they want to assume their seats on the Mesa City Council - it's a way to hold onto power and control municipal government by a majority-minority 6% who have dominated City Hall for over a hundred years whether they get elected, get appointed or get hired.
Interestingly enough, local media has shied away from any mention at all of either this episode or any angle on this episode whatsoever, while a respected national news organization The Washington Post joined by two tech industry publications, Ars Technica and Techdirt have chosen to focus on rights to free speech and using trademark law to suppress participation in the political process. [see previous posts on this blog site]
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| image from mesaaz.gov |
In the election campaign mentioned, Jeremy Whittaker is seeking to represent District 2 where Alex Finter, the incumbent, has held sway for two terms - the maximum time permitted to serve.
The way it has gone here in Mesa for years with incumbents attempting to control who gets their seat on the city council is that those who have held office call and recruit who they want to succeed them. With Alex Finter, he is also running the election campaign for his chosen candidate in a field of three that Jeremy Whittaker has entered.
With Mesa mayor John Giles, who was called to fill in for ex-mayor Scott Smith who resigned from office to run a failed election bid governor, both those guys called and recruited Jerry Lewis to campaign for a city council seat for District 3 available with the retirement of long-popular Dennis Kavanagh. On the same day Lewis announced his candidacy, both politicians immediately and simultaneously endorsed who they selected . . . if that's not a political fix your MesaZona blogger doesn't know what is!
Some people might remember Jerry Lewis as the guy who had fellow Mormon Russell Pearce removed from office by launching a recall election for the blatant bigotry, prejudice and discrimination against Mexicans contained in SB1070. There seemed to be a fissure among Mormons about the embarrassment caused by one practitioner of their LDS faith. Jerry Lewis ran a single-issue campaign to get elected to a two-year term in the Arizona State Legislature.
The person who ran his campaign for re-election [that he lost] none other than John Giles who was co-chairman of that campaign.
With that being said, it may be a good thing that Jeremy Whittaker has chosen to enter the wonderful world of politics here in Mesa.
He knows exactly what he's up against.
We will see how this develops - whether it's people power who get a candidate elected or that old and tired Political Machine that has a history to turn out the votes for who they want.
. . . here's wishing everyone well
Members of the City Council, the mayor and six guys, are "part-time employees" - in a city of over 465,000 people. They all also hold "outside jobs" at the same time.
