Arizona’s top prosecutor is getting close to finishing its yearlong investigation into whether Scottsdale leaders broke anti-secrecy laws.
The probe is expected to wrap up “in the next 60 days or so,” Arizona Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Richie Taylor said on Sept. 29.
Since last October, Assistant Attorney General Marc Harris has been investigating a handful of residents’ open meeting law complaints, which alleged that Scottsdale councilmembers violated state rules against government secrecy.
Most, namely the council’s conservative caucus, are accused of meeting or emailing each other privately to discuss policies and coordinate decisions ahead of public meetings. Others are facing scrutiny for negotiating a controversial deal with Axon,
the Scottsdale-based Taser maker.
Arizona law states that a majority, or quorum, of elected officials who gather to “discuss, propose or take legal action, including any deliberation,” is a meeting. Such a gathering, either in person or virtually, must be agendized and announced, or noticed, to the public.
If a city leader is found to have violated the open meeting law — and it’s their first offense — the official must complete training on the rules and be monitored for future compliance, Taylor said.
Those caught repeatedly violating the law would face fines, starting at $500 and up to $2,500, according to the law.
City Attorney Luis Santaella has denied any wrongdoing occurred.
With the case against Scottsdale leaders still open, the Attorney General’s Office has not publicly released any findings nor made any determination on whether violations occurred.
Despite being forthcoming with a litany of files related to the investigation, it recently denied The Arizona Republic's request for a formal update that Harris gave the city in August.
Residents claim Scottsdale leaders meet privately
Harris is investigating six citizen complaints the Attorney General’s Office received last year.
Councilmember Barry Graham, who’s running for reelection in the Nov. 3 runoff race, is at the center of all but one of them.
Half alleged that Graham used his and the personal email accounts of Councilmembers Kathy Littlefield, Jan Dubauskas, Adam Kwasman and Mayor Lisa Borowsky to collectively strategize talking points before voting to repeal Scottsdale’s sustainability plan in January 2025.
Another accused the first-term official of privately directing city staff to begin the process of canceling a roundabout project in north Scottsdale before the matter could be considered at a public meeting in April 2025.
And one claims that Graham created an unlawful quorum that same month, when he asked the city clerk to poll his colleagues via email about rescheduling a council meeting that Borowsky had cancelled.
In a letter to Harris last December, Santaella disputed those assertions.
He argued that the strategy email didn't constitute a quorum because most of the city leaders weren’t officially in office yet. At the time, Borowsky, Dubauskas and Kwasman were newly elected and were sworn in to office roughly a week earlier.
Defending Graham on the roundabout issue, Santaella said it was city staff who “took it upon themselves” to update the plans based on city leaders’ public comments on the matter.
While noting that Graham only contacted the city clerk to conduct the poll, not other council members, Santaella acknowledged that Scottsdale’s longstanding use of polling is “not the best practice.”
Scottsdale leaders voted to rescind the policy last December.
That same month, Harris notified Santaella that an additional complaint had been filed, this time against Borowsky and Kwasman, along with Councilmembers Solange Whitehead and Maryann McAllen.
The filing alleges the officials held secret negotiations, engaged in backroom deals and suppressed public participation before inking a new deal with Axon last November so it could develop its new headquarters and apartment project in north Scottsdale.
Santaella refuted those accusations in a separate letter to Harris in February. In part, the City Attorney called the claims “largely unsubstantiated” and “essentially grievances” with the council’s decision, rather than open meeting law violations.
Scottsdale, Attorney General's Office shielding public record
While Harris’s investigation is expected to wrap up soon, he recently provided a letter to the city with a formal update, emails between him and Santaella showed.
The exact contents of his letter detailing the latest in the case have remained confidential, however.
City and state officials withheld the document from The Republic, citing the ongoing investigation and a legal doctrine allowing agencies to keep certain records confidential if it’s in the “best interests of the state.”
“Public disclosure of communications directly related to the investigation could chill the investigation or seek to alter how the investigation proceeds,” Taylor said.
Peter Limperis is a Tucson-based attorney for the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona, which provides professional and student journalists advice on obtaining public records and accessing public meetings.
He argued that governments must demonstrate a specific harm they would endure from sharing a public record.
“Generalized claims from an agency that the disclosure would harm an investigation is not enough,” he said, adding, “What you’re seeing here is kind of lazy.”
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Shawn Raymundo covers Scottsdale and Maricopa County. Reach him at sraymundo@gannett.com or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: State ethics probe of Scottsdale secretly wrapping up | Exclusive
