Maricopa County’s recorder has turned over potential noncitizens on the voting rolls to the AG’s office. Our Friday NewsCap panelists analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, we’ll meet the Heard Museum’s first chief programming and engagement officer.
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Amber Victoria Singer/KJZZTo talk about the latest debate involving Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, Gov. Katie Hobbs releasing her first 2026 campaign ads and more, The Show sat down with Doug Cole and Gaelle Esposito. -
Getty ImagesThe Valley’s largest suburb has deficit of $36 million. Mesa City Manager Scott Butler told The Show more about it — and what his city is doing to fill the gap. -
Heather Cabot/HandoutPatty Talahongva is an Arizona native and a longtime journalist; she’s also directed and produced documentaries, among other roles. -
Kristy Velesko/HandoutKJZZ contributor Robrt Pela headed to Space 55 Theatre last weekend, to look at a play about, among other things, the gentrification of downtown Phoenix. He’s got some thoughts.
Transcript
MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.
MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, how Mesa is trying to close a big budget deficit. And how the Heard Museum is trying to boost community engagement. But first, it is time for the Friday news cap and some voices from the news this week.
KRIS MAYES: We’re in good communication with each other about it, and I think we’ll probably be in communication, hopefully before we both release results.
ADELITA GRIJALVA: What happened? Why did they enter her home without a warrant? All of those are things that we need to understand because I don’t want people that are here legally in this country to be afraid to go out of their homes.
MITZI EPSTEIN: How are we going to enforce it? How are we going to know where the retailers are to go check and see what products they’re selling? The enforcement on this is so ridiculously soft on Big Tobacco, I can’t stand it.
BROOKE ROLLINS: We found 200,000 dead people — actually live people using dead people’s social security numbers — but 200,000 dead people getting assistance. We found 500,000 people getting more than one benefit when they should only get one.
RODNEY GLASSMAN: If Republicans nominate someone to run against Kris Mayes this November with zero experience, all we’re going to get is four more years of Kris Mayes. And Arizonans cannot afford that.
WARREN PETERSEN: I cannot support a criminal. So I may be put in a situation where I’d have to leave my ballot blank.
MARK BRODIE: And with me to talk about the latest debate involving Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, Gov. Hobbs releasing her first ads of the 2026 campaign and more are Doug Cole of High Ground. Doug, good morning.
DOUG COLE: Good morning, Mark.
MARK BRODIE: And Gaelle Esposito of Creosote Partners. Gaelle, good morning to you.
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Good to be here.
MARK BRODIE: So Doug, let me start with you with this latest thing with Justin Heap. He turned over, recently, some names of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
He had already turned them over to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, and it basically took some strongly worded letters from the AG’s office to Heap to get him to turn them over to them.
DOUG COLE: That’s correct. He had to get, I think it was two rounds of letters from the head of the criminal division in the AG’s office to get him to refer those 137 — and then that number grew to 207, I think, at one point. And there’s still no explanation for that 70 there in the middle.
But the point being from the Attorney General’s office was, look Recorder Heap, statute says you must remove these people. You give them 35 days to correct the record. And if they don’t, then they must be, by state law, removed from the voter rolls and then criminally referred to the Attorney General’s office.
It appeared that Recorder Heap was relying on a statute dealing with voters that were newly registered. And so that’s the difference. And so now these have been referred, and hopefully they have been removed from the active voter rolls. And we’ll see what the attorney general does from here on out with that group of people. Remember, this is all coming from the motor vehicle problem of two years ago with the 61,000 voters.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, this was was discovered a couple of years ago. It happened a long time ago.
DOUG COLE: Happened a long time ago, in 1996, yeah.
MARK BRODIE: Right. So Gaelle, any significance, do you think — and I hate to ask a cynical question, but it is politics — so any significance do you think to the fact that Recorder Heap did turn those names over to the county attorney, who is a Republican, and not the attorney general, who is a Democrat?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, I think, you know, what we see here is once again, Attorney General Mayes had to force Recorder Heap to do his job. And this guy is full of something I can’t say on public radio and clearly not very good at his job.
And you would expect that he would understand what his role is and what his responsibility is here. But luckily we have AG Mayes, who was able to make him do his role. And I think we’re going to see that he was maybe a little ahead of his skis here at the end of the day.
MARK BRODIE: Doug, for these for these voters — obviously, you know, 207 voters, not a huge number in the overall scheme of voters — but for those people, there’s an election coming up not that long from now. What are the implications for them of potentially being in this limbo?
DOUG COLE: Well remember, let’s put this in context. Maricopa County is, at least from the elections administration standpoint, the second largest jurisdiction behind LA County for administering votes. It’s 2.6 million voters. We’re talking 137. That’s really a drop in the bucket.
There’s always been these allegations about there’s people on the voter rolls that shouldn’t be and they’re voting. And it really has not been proven to be true.
MARK BRODIE: And even these 200-some-odd people, not all of them are alleged to have actually voted.
DOUG COLE: Correct. I think 60 of them at one point in the last 10 years may have voted. But again, they’ve been removed now by state statute because the next step is the criminal referral. And then the attorney general goes through and investigates to see if any charges will be filed.
I’ll be shocked if they get one out of that group.
MARK BRODIE: One prosecution, you mean.
DOUG COLE: Charges being filed against one person. I don’t know if they’ll be at the end of the day found guilty, but yeah. Yeah, go through the court process and be prosecuted, and we’ll see what that looks like.
MARK BRODIE: Interesting. Gaelle, speaking of elections coming up, we saw this week Gov. Katie Hobbs, who’s of course running for reelection, released her first ads of the season and they focus sort of on her backstory, right? Her, you know, having driven for Uber, growing up not with a lot of money. What does that tell you about the kind of campaign that we might expect from her between now and November?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, I think everybody knows that this is going to be an election about affordability with rising prices, particularly on things like gas and food. Folks are are going to be looking for the candidate who understands their struggles and who has a plan to address them.
And I think they’re going to find that in Gov. Hobbs, and I think she knows if she tells her story that people are going to resonate with it. I think she was highlighting the issues including affordable housing and cutting red tape for building more housing that really matter to people and I think that we’re going to see a campaign focused around that.
And I don’t even know what Andy Biggs has, right? He’s a guy that voted against the right to contraceptive access. He’s a very extreme person. He’s not focused on these issues. So I think she’s trying to highlight that contrast.
MARK BRODIE: So you think it’s a good strategy for the Governor?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: I think it is.
MARK BRODIE: Doug, do you think it’s a good strategy for her?
DOUG COLE: Absolutely. This is all, as George W. Bush used to say, all about “strategery.”
MARK BRODIE: Or at least Will Ferrell as George W. Bush.
DOUG COLE: Exactly. Exactly. In 2006, we had Janet Napolitano running. She came out early to define the field. In 2018, we had Doug Ducey running for reelection, did the same thing. They both had a bunch of money. Katie Hobbs has a bunch of money.
She has no primary. She has cleared the field. So she needs to define who she is and what she stands for. And then the next ad set will be defining him, OK, because he’s the presumptive nominee.
And she has, I think, very artfully positioned herself as, “I grew up working class. I worked at a fast food restaurant. I drove an Uber to put food on the table. My opponent is a lifelong” — this is her messaging, OK? This is what she’s saying.
“My opponent,” she’ll contrast him with being a lawyer, being a Senate President, lifelong politician, and early on he won the Publishers Clearing House and he’s a millionaire. “And I drove Uber, millionaire politician.” And this is what she’s going to say about herself.
Now, Andy Biggs will have his opportunity, which his spokesman has artfully done so far, and say she’s a do-nothing Governor, is in over her head, doesn’t know what she’s doing, all she does is veto bills.
And so, we’re going to see that contrast play out. Each team, Nicole DeMont on the on the Hobbs side and Drew Sexton on the Biggs side. These guys — Nicole, Drew and the Hobbs Hobbs team and the Biggs team — they’re really good, OK? They all have a good, experienced team behind them. This is the opening act of what’s going to be a very close race.
MARK BRODIE: Gaelle, given the fact that Gov. Hobbs has been governor now for almost four years — she was Secretary of State before that, she was in the state Legislature — how much defining of herself does she need to do? Like, do voters not really have a good sense of her?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: I think voters do have a good sense, but there’s always those group of voters who aren’t as tuned into politics as we are here talking about it on a radio show. And so you want to be able to reintroduce yourself to those voters and to be able to define yourself and tell your story again.
I know this is a story she’s told before, but I think it is one, as Doug mentioned, that helps to define her in the race and draw that contrast between a guy who won his fortune gambling on the Publishers Clearing House versus someone who was a social worker and who drove Uber. And so who’s going to really understand the struggles that voters are facing there.
DOUG COLE: And we have a history of this in Arizona. Let’s go back to the to the very, very wonderful ads that former Sen. Jon Kyl used to run, of driving around in the Navajo Nation, through Monument Valley in an old beat-up Suburban. And we’re still talking about it 20-some years later.
They work. The people remember those things, and I agree with my colleague here. You have to remind people because — especially in today’s environment — there’s so much noise, not only with TV ads but social media.
Again, this is a big social media buy she’s doing also. And you got to reach people where they are. What screen they have in front of their hand.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, it’s not just TV anymore.
DOUG COLE: Exactly. Exactly, right. And so you need to re- reintroduce. And running unopposed, she has a lot of time and and resources to do that right now, while Biggs has an opponent with David Schweikert.
MARK BRODIE: Well Gaelle, that seems to be a key, that Gov. Hobbs kind of has the lane, as Doug referenced, the lane clear right now, at least on the primary side.
So yes, the polls have shown Andy Biggs up pretty big on David Schweikert. Who knows how accurate they are? But there is still an election for Biggs to go through, assuming that he is the nominee before he gets there.
How significant could that be for Hobbs that, if all else being equal — in what Doug is going to be a close race — that she has these couple months where she doesn’t have to worry about anything other than defining herself?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, I mean, we’re already seeing David Schweikert throw punches. And this is a guy who has won a lot of competitive campaigns. He’s a brawler. He doesn’t hold back in the campaigns that he runs. So I think you’re going to see that primary become even more aggressive even though Andy Biggs may be leading it significantly right now.
And so I think Gov. Hobbs, just having that ability to once again define herself on her own terms, to be the one who’s out there running these ads, telling her story as she wants to tell it is going to make a huge difference.
DOUG COLE: And, and, you mentioned I think at the start of this segment here that she released ads in English and in Spanish. So, as we all know, the Hispanic vote gave Trump his victory and others because they turned out in greater numbers — they’re still not in majority numbers, but in greater numbers.
And I think that a poll that came out this week shows that support for the Republican ticket is very soft. Yeah. And I think that they’re shopping. Those voters will be shopping. So I think that her being up early on Hispanic media is very smart because she’s going to have to win over — because as we all know, there’s more Republicans by about two two and a half three hundred thousand more Republicans. But the independents are the swings, and the Hispanic male vote especially can go either which way. So, sure, very smart strategy.
MARK BRODIE: Gaelle, I want to ask you both briefly … the Arizona primary is in July, but there have been some other primaries around the country the last couple weeks. Texas this week, we’ve seen Indiana and some other states. Any lessons that you’re seeing on either the Democratic or Republican side that maybe give some clues about what to expect in a couple months here?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, I think what you see on the Republican side is something that everybody notices, that even though Donald Trump right now is at Nixon resignation level approval rating ratings, he’s still king of the Republican Party, and his endorsement matters most in those races.
And so those Trump-backed candidates are are going to be the ones that that win those Republican primaries, and that’s just the world we live in now. And I think the interesting thing on the Democratic side is that you’re seeing this push towards fresh voices and new blood. And I think there is a generational change that’s happening.
You mentioned Texas, I think, with James Talarico there. You know, we’re seeing younger, newer candidates with a different perspective and hopefully a new message that brings people into the Democratic Party, and we secure some unexpected victories there.
MARK BRODIE: Doug, what do you think about lessons from primaries that have happened already?
DOUG COLE: Well, I think my colleague just concluded her comments by saying, “hopefully a new messaging.” Because there’s been a dearth of new messaging on the Democratic side across the country. And if they’re if they’re going to want to be victorious in these races that look like they’re going to be MAGA heavy coming out of the primary, you still have to have a message that voters want to vote for. Otherwise, they don’t vote or they just pass over that race because that person’s not offering anything that resonates with them.
Kind of goes back to what we’re just talking about with the governor’s message right now. So the Democrats really need some new messaging. They’re going to get some new messengers, it looks like, but they need some new messaging.
And as I think many have stated, with the primary this week in Texas, there there were two groups really happy about that: the MAGA Republicans and the Democrats with Talarico is now going to be facing (Attorney General Ken) Paxton, which they view as the weakest candidate.
They probably wouldn’t have had a chance against John Cornyn, the incumbent Senator that got defeated. So we got to have some new messaging, we’ve got to be — people want to be for something. Most people vote for something.
MARK BRODIE: It can’t just be “We’re not Trump, we’re not Trump.”
DOUG COLE: Yeah, we’re not Trump, and I’m not him, and I’m not MAGA, so vote for me. That does not work. That has proven time and again not to work.
MARK BRODIE: So Doug, let me stick with you about one of the, one of those primaries coming up in Arizona. There was a debate last night between the two candidates for attorney general on the Republican side: Warren Petersen and Rodney Glassman.
Seemed like they spent an awful lot of time talking about each other’s credentials and backgrounds and not so much talking about necessarily what they would do if they were elected attorney general.
DOUG COLE: Yeah, that was an unusual event last night because, one, they actually showed up for the debate. We’re seeing so many of these debates that the Clean Elections, which, by law, they are to hold. A lot of these candidates on both sides — usually the Republican side — just don’t show up. So I’m sure it was very, very good for the Clean Elections organization to say, “We have a real debate.” And that was a real debate.
MARK BRODIE: There were some differences for sure.
DOUG COLE: There are some differences there between the two, and there’s no love lost between those two individuals. And they really had to spend the time focusing on themselves. Even though Kris, the incumbent, was mentioned many times.
MARK BRODIE: Kris Mayes.
DOUG COLE: Kris Mayes, yeah. They really contrasted their personalities, their professional and political experience, because it’s very divergent. You have Rodney Glassman, who was the Democrat vice mayor of Tucson, ran against John McCain as a Democrat.
MARK BRODIE: Many years ago, we should say.
DOUG COLE: Many years ago, yeah, but it’s part of his political history. And then you have Warren Petersen, longtime creature of the Legislature. Glassman is a current JAG in the Air Force out of Luke Air Force Base, and we have a Senate President who has been in the political process for a long time and is a is a very good politician and runs the Senate very well.
So it’s going to be interesting how Republican voters come out of that, because they’re gonna — again, like the governor (candidates) — going to have a tough race to defeat an incumbent attorney general who’s been very good on consumer protection issues.
MARK BRODIE: Gaelle, when you talk about who’s going to come out of that, we heard from Warren Petersen at the beginning of the NewsCap, basically saying if he does not win the primary, he’s not sure he can vote for Rodney Glassman.
Do you get the sense that — regardless of who wins the primary — that there’s going to be some percentage of Republican voters who can’t stomach voting for the other?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, I mean, if I’m Kris Mayes, I’m feeling real good about my chances right now. You have one guy in Rodney Glassman who believes in nothing and will run for everything. I don’t think there’s been a cycle since he ran against John McCain where he hasn’t run for one office or another, on whatever party. He has no moral center.
And then you have Warren Petersen, who’s been a lawyer maybe less than a year or a year, barely any experience, not a guy who’s ready to take on this office, who’s a lifetime politician with some incredibly extreme views.
I think if I’m Kris Mayes and I have this record, as Doug said, to run on of consumer protection, of taking on these big corporations who are taking advantage of consumers and voters, I’m feeling really good.
MARK BRODIE: Do you think the consumer aspect is what Mayes will ultimately be highlighting when she starts advertising and such?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, if I’m her, I would, right? Both on water, on on fighting these big corporations who are just predators, on Arizonans, she has been there standing up and fighting, and I think that she’s going to have a record that’s really going to resonate.
DOUG COLE: And I think whoever comes out of this Republican primary — and there’s been no really good polling, so who knows — they’re going to go after Kris Mayes, and I think this will be a mistake on their part. They will attack her that she has filed 50 lawsuits or whatever the number is now against the Trump administration, and I think that would be a mistake on their part because they’re going to need independents to pull support to their side to cross the finish race.
Remember, Kris won by 280 —
MARK BRODIE: Less than 300 votes.
DOUG COLE: Against now-Congressman Abe Hamadeh. And so she’s going to have a tight race on her hands, but I think that that would be a mistake for the Republicans to focus on that.
MARK BRODIE: You think Republicans are going to need independents more than Mayes is going to?
DOUG COLE: Oh, she’s going to need them too, but you got to bring them over your side because this is going to be a close race, right? Just do the numbers. Remember Republicans biggest, independents right behind and then a drop-off into the Democrats. So everyone needs the independents. They got to go somewhere.
MARK BRODIE: Do you think, Doug, Republicans should be concerned that there will be some number of people, of Republican voters — like Warren Petersen said last night — who if their person doesn’t win the primary, they’re just not going to vote in that race?
DOUG COLE: Yeah, and we’ve seen that, especially in these. I know it’s the attorney general and it’s important, but it’s a — I’m air-quote — “downballet race” here. A lot of people just vote. Again, let’s remind voters for the first time since I think 2010, 2012, we have not had a U.S. Senator on the ballot. Which is highly unusual.
So top of the ballot is the governor. And a lot of people just vote that and then maybe some local races that they know of, their school districts or something, something they know, and some proposition on page four that we might have … and then of course leave the whole judges page blank, unfortunately.
But, you know, that’s how it’s going to roll. And of course that’s called an undervote, and there will be an undervote.
MARK BRODIE: So Gaelle, when you talk about Attorney General Mayes talking about consumer issues, do you see that as part of a strategy to win over those independents, maybe even some moderate Republicans?
GAELLE ESPOSITO: Yeah, and I think even as Doug said, it it would be a mistake for Republicans to focus on her fighting the Trump administration, because once again, Donald Trump is at like bottom of the barrel numbers in his approval ratings right now. People want somebody that’s going to fight back against the excesses of this administration, and I think the ways in which she has are are things that she can stand proudly behind.
So hopefully they make that attack and that she’s able to to lean into it, because I think both that and the consumer protection angle show that she is a fighter and she’s a fighter for Arizonans.
MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right, we’ll have to leave it there. Gaelle Esposito, Doug Cole, thanks to you both for coming in, and thanks for the conversation. I appreciate it.
DOUG COLE: Thanks, Mark.
MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, what the Heard Museum’s first Chief Programming and Engagement Officer role entails.
But first, in 2024, renters in Arizona got a little bit of a break when the Governor signed a bill that repealed a tax on their monthly rent. But when it was passed, cities around the state and the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, which lobbies for them, warned it would mean a major hit to cities’ budgets. And now, we’re starting to see those numbers roll in. Tempe announced a $24 million hole in its budget left largely by the repeal of the rental tax. They’re now eyeing a sales tax increase. In Mesa, the valley’s largest suburb, that deficit is up to $36 million. My co-host, Lauren Gilger, spoke with Mesa City Manager Scott Butler more about it and what his city is doing to fill the gap.
SCOTT BUTLER: The city’s looking at about a $30-$36 million deficit for this coming year.
LAUREN GILGER: Wow, yeah.
SCOTT BUTLER: Fortunately, we’ve been able to have reserve funds that we can use to cover this and and in our five-year forecast, we’re back into the black in a few years, but it’s because we’ve had to tighten our belts and we’ve had to cut programs and look for efficiencies to save money within the organization.
And it’s been frustrating, I think, for our elected officials and our staff and our residents, too, because this wasn’t something of our own making. This wasn’t city overspending, financial mismanagement. This was literally things that were done to us by the mostly by the state and federal government that had a ripple effect throughout our budget.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. And those ripple effects are being felt, I think, across the state in in various cities. Is this just because of the repeal of the residential rental tax or is this more than that?
SCOTT BUTLER: It it’s more than that, Lauren. We really, as we talk about in around the community, it has been the perfect storm that we’ve seen. The residential rental repeal represented about $20 million a year to ongoing revenue, but the implementation of the state flat tax was about $6 million a year, the incorporation of San Tan Valley, which we think was a good thing — but as a city now, they’re able to get a portion of shared revenue, which lowers everyone else’s, because it’s one pie and now it’s sliced a few different ways — and that was a $3 million a year impact to the city of Mesa ongoing.
And so, when you add all that up, that’s what leads us to where we are today. The biggest of which, as you alluded to though, was the residential rental repeal.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, $20 million in itself there. OK, So, as I said, cities across the Valley are facing deficits because of this repeal. The League of Cities and Towns at the time when this was passed sort of said this was going to happen. Cities all across the Valley said this is going to happen.
Are you frustrated that it happened anyway?
SCOTT BUTLER: We are. We know the proponents of the repeal were really talking about housing affordability, and and that’s a real problem, of course. I mean, we’re all grappling with the ripple effects of what high housing costs have throughout the economy and and throughout our residents.
But the the real issue is though that this doesn’t even really move the needle in that case. And the the proponents wanted to characterize this that you repeal the residential rental tax, great, everyone will be all apartments, all multi-family will be more affordable, or residential single-family homes are going to be more affordable, and that’s just not the case.
The League and and the individual cities said all along, you’re not going to get the desired result, you’re not going to have a dramatic impact on housing affordability in this region, while at the same time, you’re going to really limit the services and opportunities that cities have with very limited other resources to come back in and backfill that money.
And that’s certainly the situation in Mesa. We don’t have a primary property tax, we don’t have a tax on food, so losing $20 million a year from the residential rental tax really backed us into a corner without different levers to pull. We’re, we’re really having to tighten our belt and look for savings, but that has meant um eliminating programs, slashing programs, finding those efficiencies because that’s really the the hand we were dealt.
LAUREN GILGER: And and I want to talk about what those programs are in just a moment. But I mean, is this sort of a piece of a bigger pie? What is the challenge with affordable housing, particularly in Mesa, where I know there is a very diverse population, lots of low-income renters there.
And yeah, like you said, the idea here was to sort of give renters a break in a in a high inflation economy and an economy where a lot of people are paying much more in rent than they used to be in. These were costs that were generally passed on to the renter.
You say you don’t think that this will end up helping them, but, you know, what might?
SCOTT BUTLER: Well, I mean, if we can crack that mystery of what’s going to be the real root of housing affordability in this state, Lauren, you and I, we’d be millionaires after this, right?
LAUREN GILGER: Complicated problem. But is this one small piece of a bigger pie? Like, can you chip away at this and help people out a little bit here and there?
SCOTT BUTLER: Yeah, I think it is, and that’s what the proponents said, and I don’t disagree. Did renters see some short-term relief from this? I’m sure most renters did.
It also seems that multi-family reached a saturation point where they were talking about we overbuilt the market over the last few years, and that has brought prices down, rental rates down as well, which is all good because that means our residents are able to have a more affordable option.
But it is a trade-off because these are these are dollars that were going to essential city services, and every community, not just Mesa, still has to provide for all of this new growth and those new residents add a burden to the system. And and that is something that you have to balance out, that we need people, as new residents move into a community and they have an impact on public safety, and they have an impact on our parks, someone’s got to pay for that.
So that’s the trade-off that the League and other cities were telling the Legislature that these these new residents, it might be more affordable, but at the same time, it’s putting an additional burden on our services.
LAUREN GILGER: Are those programs that you mentioned had to be cut because of this, are those programs that might have helped people on the low-income end of the spectrum in some ways?
SCOTT BUTLER: Yeah, I think so. When, when we look at the different programs, and they differ throughout our entire organization because the last three years, with, with all of these different revenue sources being taken away, we asked each of our departments to do 2% budget cuts each of the last three fiscal years. And that added up to over $56 million in programs and savings that were experienced by the general fund.
But you’re right, those were community service programs, those were fire prevention programs, you name it. Across the spectrum of all the services that the city provided, we had to make some tough choices about what were nice to haves and what were need to have.
And and, of course, essential services, public safety, we didn’t put anything in jeopardy, but that means a lot of the programs that help those most vulnerable in our community were also subject to the elimination of these programs.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, so you said five years out, this is looking more sustainable, but this is not like money that’s coming back, I would assume. How do you make that happen?
SCOTT BUTLER: Sure, just natural growth and inflation that we see and the revenue that the city experiences, and so we’ve just allowed the natural growth that we see over new residents coming in, more shopping, more sales tax, consumption will grow us out of this hole.
The problem we run into is that just gets us back to level. But we’re still experiencing rapid growth, as most cities are in the Valley, we’re still adding thousands of residents a year who need services. And that’s going to be our big challenge moving forward, and that’s where we’re going to have to have some tough discussions in the future about do we need additional revenue and what would that look like?
LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, I mean, additional revenue in city speak, right? Like, this is, you’re talking about maybe a sales tax. I know Tempe is considering that. What else can you do other than tax people a little bit more here and there?
SCOTT BUTLER: And and that might be the reality of what we face. We’re not entertaining that this year. And and I think it’s really important that we’re demonstrating to our residents and to to all of our taxpayers that we are doing everything we can to tighten our belts and be efficient.
And I think we will have that credibility if and when we need to go to our voters to say we need additional revenue. They will see that the first option wasn’t just to ask for more revenue. We actually really did do everything we can to tighten our belts.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. Scott Butler, Mesa city manager, joining us. Appreciate you coming in.
SCOTT BUTLER: Yeah, Lauren, great to talk to you today. Thank you for having me.
MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.
The Heard Museum recently created a new position: Chief Programming and Engagement Officer. And the person they hired to fill that job is no stranger to the museum or to telling stories.
Patty Talahongva is an Arizona native and a longtime journalist. She’s also directed and produced documentaries, among other roles. And when she came by the studio to talk about her new position, I asked what exactly it entails since she’s the first person to have it.
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Well, I feel very much a part of the Heard Museum because I’ve worked with them on various projects through the years, and so I’m not a stranger to the Heard. Plus, a lot of my family are artists and they have art in the collections, they sell it in the shop, and so I see art on campus and I love being in that environment and seeing family and their artwork, and so it feels very much like home.
So, in my capacity, I oversee all of the public programs at the Heard Museum. So, everything from First Friday events to our Family Fun Summer Saturdays in the summertime, our Holidays at the Heard during the winter break. I also oversee the Heard Indian Fair and Market, and then right before that in in February, we hold the Hoop Dance, the Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Contest, and so I also oversee that. So, it’s a lot of public programming.
MARK BRODIE: What do you see as your main goal with the programming, the kinds of events you’re putting on, and what do you hope to achieve with these?
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Well, we work with the curatorial department. So, all of our programs tie back to our exhibits. Tie back to the latest, greatest exhibit or a theme that’s come up, so we work with the curatorial department in that regard. So, our effort is to take the the museum guest through the exhibit and then give them another level of experience with our programming so that they have a deeper understanding of the art, maybe think about it in a different way, and again, for all levels, all ages.
So it’s very much in a focus to educate people, to entertain people, and to have them have an appreciation of American Indian art.
MARK BRODIE: I want to go back to what you said about maybe having people think about things a little differently, see the art a little differently, think about maybe Indigenous art a little differently. Because I know that that’s something that the Heard Museum tries to do and get people to really maybe rethink even their conception of what Native American art is. How big of a part of the thought process is that for you?
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Well, it is because we are, again, we work with curation, and we’re looking at that Native artist and then how do they define art as well? So, talking to them.
We had a recent exhibit with Bob Haozous, and that man is so prolific with his art, and not just one medium. And so what is Native art? And how and I loved his thesis on, you know, who is an Indian, who, you know, how do I identify and how do people identify for me? So, looking at that from a creative perspective and and sharing that with the public.
MARK BRODIE: I’m curious about your background, because you’ve done a lot of different things, but at heart, you’re a journalist, right? You tell stories, which I suppose to an extent is what museums do as well.
But it seems like kind of an unusual career path to go from being a journalist to working at a museum. Like, it’s just not something you hear about every day.
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Well, but you know, it it’s telling that story, right? So, as a journalist, and that’s one of the things that I really, I really try to focus on is educating the public about Indian Country. And that’s a, that’s a legal definition, Indian Country.
So, who are we? Getting above and beyond the stereotypes, taking a deeper dive into our very complex cultural — I don’t know — just our cultures and educating people to have them understand that we are very distinct groups of people. You want to go deeper and you want to understand a little bit more about the people and our languages and our religions, everything.
So it’s telling that story, it’s educating people, it’s helping to break down some barriers so people aren’t afraid to learn more or come and see and be a part of. So, yeah, it, it sounds kind of crazy, but also in my journalism career, I worked with several museums in helping put together exhibits on Native American people.
MARK BRODIE: I want to go back to what you said about how you come from a family of artists and you know, you have family members who sell art in the in the gift shop and there’s art around the around the museum.
What is that like for you walking around and — I don’t know if you’re artistic or not at all — but what is it like walking around and seeing people that you care about and that are related to you in a space like that?
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Oh, it’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. So, I grew up making pottery, and that means helping get the clay in its original form, soaking it for days, helping my mother break that down, strain it. I mean, everything. You make the clay before you actually start to make the pottery. So, going through that whole process.
I can’t say I’m an artist because I have not kept that up. It’s a lot of work.
MARK BRODIE: I would think so, yeah.
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Oh my gosh. But I come from, you know, so many artists, so many people in my family continue to create art, and functional art because we use a lot of things that they create. And they sell some as well, of course.
But it’s, it’s great, it’s wonderful to be in an environment where you can turn the corner and I see my uncle Michael Kabotie’s security door, and I smile every time I see that. I bring people over, "This is what my uncle made!" I’m so happy and so proud.
And to go around and and see other Hopi artists and what, you know, the beautiful work that they’re doing and to tell people my personal connection to some of these, you know, wonderful, outstanding artists. And so it’s very welcoming.
MARK BRODIE: So, in addition to your work at the Heard Museum, as I mentioned, you’ve done a lot of other things. One of them is documentaries, and you have one that was done about climate change for Alaska Natives, which is now up for a big award.
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Yes. So, a year ago, it aired on a, it was a film for Frontline, and the title is called "Alaska’s Vanishing Native Villages." And I spent about three years working on that, researching and then actually going out to the Alaska Native villages. So we looked at at how climate change has been impacting the Alaska Native villages and their subsistence way of life.
So it was very interesting. It’s a horrible situation that they’re facing because they know that they will have to move their villages and within 20-30 years, their villages will be underwater. There are, gosh, dozens of Alaska Native villages that are in dire straits right now and are being told, "You need to relocate." But the process of relocation is so difficult.
MARK BRODIE: These are pretty remote places.
PATTY TALAHONGVA: They’re remote places, and you got to think about probably five months out of the year, you can’t get barges in, big ships to move people and structures and all that, and then also bring supplies in to a new village location so that they can start building a new village.
So, yeah, so, we just got notified that our film, "Alaska’s Vanishing Native Villages," is up for a National Emmy.
MARK BRODIE: All right. Well, have to leave it there. That is Patty Talahongva, the Heard Museum’s chief programming and engagement officer. Patty, nice to talk to you. Thank you so much.
PATTY TALAHONGVA: Thank you so much, Mark.
MARK BRODIE: KJZZ contributor Robert Pela headed to Space 55 Theater Lab last weekend to look at a play about, among other things, the gentrification of downtown Phoenix. He’s got some thoughts.
ROBRT PELA: Last weekend, I attended a play in a downtown basement theater — a play called "Peppermint Beehive" that was about, in part, the gentrification of downtown Phoenix. After what felt like a very long while, it occurred to me that the play was itself a kind of gentrification. Not the glossy, mixed‑use, rooftop‑pool kind, but the other kind, where something earnest and handmade gets bulldozed by people who don’t understand the neighborhood they’re trying to “improve.” In this case, the neighborhood was storytelling.
The story in question follows a young woman who’s unhappy in her corporate job, hates her apartment, and is looking for romance. She meets someone with a tall, red updo who hangs out among the creatives and the unhoused in a downtown Phoenix artist enclave, and they fall for one another.
By the way, this isn’t a theater review. I left the play at intermission, so I can’t tell you what I thought of the acting or the writing or the set design. That’s against the rules of theater criticism. I’m here to talk about the strange sensation of watching a piece of art attempt to indict a city for losing its soul.
I’ve had a few days to think about this, and I’ve decided that "Peppermint Beehive," written by Ashley Naftule and presented by Space 55 Theatre, was deliberately meandering and vulgar, just like both gentrification itself and, sometimes, our response to it. Naftule’s genius was in forcing a couple dozen people — one of whom fell asleep during the first 10 minutes — to endure something as painful as watching the gritty artistic underbelly of a city get beaten to a pulp. This was, I’ve decided, irony as low art with a purpose. Brilliant.
The play had a lot to say about a lot of different things besides gentrification, including romance in the 21st century and the evils of corporate America. Its gentrification storyline was clearly a commentary on Roosevelt Row, the artist community that once was. Many of us have watched Roosevelt Row go from a scrappy, paint‑splattered strip of studios and pop‑up galleries to a corridor of luxury apartments with names that sound like antidepressants. We’ve watched artists get priced out of buildings they themselves made interesting, and developers talk about “activating” neighborhoods that were already plenty activated before they showed up with their renderings and their artisanal concrete.
Public commentary on gentrification — including some of my own — is often handled with the subtlety of a zoning‑board meeting. And this play, bless its heart, is no exception. Its villains are corporate-world monsters who speak in slogans; its heroes are artists who appear to have no interior lives. Everyone is a symbol. "This is how we see the people behind gentrification," I thought, as I watched a giant bird-shaped pillow squawk about the importance of downtown art galleries. No one is a person.
Especially not the puppets. Did I mention that there are puppets in this play? Sort of puppets. One of them is a sweat sock; another is a cardboard cutout of a banana. I think you should go see "Peppermint Beehive" if only so that you can lie on your deathbed one day, thinking, “Well, at least I got to see a paper mache teapot complain about urban renewal.”
But again, this isn’t a review.
What struck me, sitting there in the dark, was how the play managed to mirror the very thing it was trying to condemn. Just as gentrification can flatten the texture of a city, this nearly-three-hour-long two-act deliberately told a morality tale that was complicated and hard to watch, just like witnessing our own downtown get flattened! Bull’s eye!
As I sat there, politely waiting for a policeman puppet made of rubber and felt to remember its next line, I kept thinking about how the real soul of the city was outside. There, in the alley behind the theater, someone had tagged a wall with a message that was, like the play I was watching, both profane and oddly poetic. I thought about the taco truck parked up the street, where the line for empanadas held more people than the playhouse. I thought about the old brick building across the street that will probably be gone in a year, replaced by something with a rooftop dog park.
Meanwhile, here before me was a play that wanted to warn us about what we’re losing. And if the play was big and messy and full of well-intentioned actors trying to tell a complicated story, wasn’t that also the story of downtown gentrification?
And so I’ve decided that everything about "Peppermint Beehive" was deliberate. I believe that director Dennis Frederick instructed his cast to stare at one another for long minutes, speechless as if they couldn’t recall their next line of dialogue. That he’d told the puppet master to construct lifeless objects to tell parts of the story, and the puppeteers to forget to move the mouths of the puppets while they were speaking.
These storytellers were, I became convinced, bearing witness to the catastrophe of a city that’s messy and alive and, for now at least, still telling its own story.
I crawled out of the theater basement into the warm night, grateful to be back in the real downtown Phoenix, the one that doesn’t need a play to explain it. The one that for decades had been home to big, out-there, amateur creations like the one I’d just seen. Maybe, I thought as I headed toward home, downtown Phoenix is still here.
MARK BRODIE: Space 55’s Peppermint Beehive continues through May 31st at Metropolitan Arts Institute.
MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativia Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram at @kjzztheshow.
