Manross needs to explain gambling votes switch

Forgive me for bringing this up again; I thought this issue was settled last May.

It's an issue that, given Scottsdale city staff predictions of an up to $35 million city budget shortfall next fiscal year, doesn't amount to much at all.

It's about off-track betting at one Scottsdale bar. (See? Not a big deal.)

It's about how Mayor Mary Manross doesn't approve of gambling. (This is not news; most people who follow city government know that.)

And it's about why she opposed recommending that the state give the Upper Deck Sports Grill a license to conduct horse-race wagering in 2007 (the lone no vote on the City Council), then voted for renewal of that license in May of this year without providing an explanation.

And then, last Tuesday, she voted again against off-track betting, this time with two other council members to force a 3-3 tie, which defeated owner Tom Anderson's attempt to add dog-race wagering to its betting windows on the second floor of his bar on Craftsman Court.

Politicians are permitted to change their minds, but when they don't explain why satisfactorily, they get into trouble.

As I watched the council meeting on television Tuesday night, there was Manross saying publicly what she said to me more than five months ago in a phone message a few days after that May 6 council meeting.

She left the message after I had written a column that week pointing out how she didn't explain her change of mind when she voted with the unanimous majority to renew Upper Deck's horse-race wagering license for another year.

From my blog of May 9, Scarpsdale (go to http://scarpsdale.freedomblogging.com and go to "Advice and consent"), here's me describing that phone message:

"Manross said in her phone message to me that the reason she did not speak about the renewal was because the item was on the council's consent agenda. The consent agenda is where several items (sometimes they number in the dozens) that council members have no questions about or members of the public wish to be heard on, are voted on in one motion. ....

"(A) review of the archived video of the meeting on the city's Web site clearly shows that the off-track-betting application renewal was on the regular agenda, not the consent agenda as the mayor said in her message to me."

The archived video of the meeting is still there today on the city Web site, www.scottsdaleaz.gov (click on "Mayor, Council and Government" then go to the sub-menu to find and click on "Watch Archived City Council Meetings Online" to find the May 6 meeting).

At 30 minutes, 58 seconds into that meeting, the mayor introduces the first item on the regular agenda:

"OK, let's move on to our regular agenda tonight, which starts with item number 22, Upper Deck Sports Grill Teletrack License Renewal."

About four minutes later (35:04), Councilwoman Betty Drake reinforces that the item is not on the consent agenda by wondering aloud why it is not on it: "My only question on this was, why isn't this on consent?" Then Drake makes the motion to approve the recommendation for renewal. It is seconded, and the mayor provides yet another confirmation herself that this is not a consent-agenda item, as she directs a brief comment (35:24) to acting City Manager John Little:

"I believe it is, Mr. Little, required to be on the regular agenda. I think it is required because of the use," Manross said.

Last Tuesday, if the mayor's memory of her actions May 6 was faulty, so might have Drake's. Drake said nothing as Manross reiterated that vote then was because it was a consent-agenda item, and so the mayor didn't explain why she switched from her 2007 vote.

Maybe Drake will explain why she was silent on Tuesday in the near future.

Again, other than another example of council moralizing about a use of a downtown bar that has had virtually no public disapproval, the off-track betting issue doesn't amount to much in the wake of bigger concerns among Scottsdale voters.

But what I said in that May column is still true today: There's an accountability gap at Scottsdale City Hall whose existence the mayor has traditionally had trouble recognizing.

The point is made clearly here that her yes-to-no-to-yes votes on off-track betting do not amount to much by themselves. But it is part of the explanation why the well-known, two-term mayor came up with fewer votes than her opponent in September.

She often has difficulty recognizing that residents deserve to hear elected officials explain three things: Why they have done what they have done. Why they are doing what they are doing.

And why they plan to do what they intend to do next.