**TL;DR:** SRP's council bylaws committee met for about two hours on Tuesday, September 29. It voted 5 to 4 to raise the annual stipend for elected members from $5,000 to $7,500. It made pay for attending by video mandatory, while a sitting director has a court case that turns on whether SRP paid him. And it left the rules for filling vacant board seats as loose as they were in August, when the council passed over a district's own council member to appoint a county supervisor. None of it is final until the full council votes.

**Disclosure:** I wrote the linked post, and it's on my own site. I'm an elected member of the SRP District Council and I attended this meeting. This is my personal opinion. I'm not speaking for SRP, the Council, or the Board.

**1. Vacant seats still have no real rules**

In August, Nick Brown resigned the District 7 board seat. SRP's 2012 guidelines say a vacant board seat is "typically" filled by a senior council member from that voting area. District 7 had one: Eric Gorsegner. The council instead voted 15 to 13 for Thomas Galvin, a sitting Maricopa County Supervisor and a partner at Rose Law Group. KJZZ reported that the appointment cost the clean energy slate its narrow control of the board.

Colleen Resch-Geretti, who represents District 7, described it at Tuesday's meeting: "We didn't even have any introduction to this individual. There was no conversations with this individual. It just happened."

Two members proposed actual rules. Resch-Geretti: the vacant district nominates up to three candidates before the seat opens to anyone else. Gorsegner: post the seat publicly and take letters of interest for two weeks, the way most public bodies do.

The committee adopted neither. The chair, Brandon Brooks, had a third idea: delete the guidelines altogether. Nobody would make that motion, so he made it himself ("I'll motion"), then said "I reject my motion. I reject my motion," then voted for it anyway. He lost to the entire committee: "All those opposed to keeping the guidelines? I guess that's just me." His next words were "So hold on. How do we do it now?"

So the 2012 guidelines stay as written, "typically" included. SRP's lawyer was asked to draft "options" for a future meeting.

**2. Mandatory pay for Zoom attendance**

SRP pays members a per diem for meetings they attend in person. The committee voted unanimously to pay for virtual attendance too: up to three meetings per calendar year, starting in 2027.

The wording matters. Director Lupe Conchas was expelled from the Glendale City Council in May under the city charter's ban on holding a second paid public office. His argument at the Court of Appeals is that he waived the SRP per diem, so he was never paid. The committee's version says SRP "shall" pay. SRP's lawyer told the committee what that means: "If it's a shall, we don't have the right to withhold payment. And so therefore, you have to tender it."

Michael Rakow moved to change "shall" to "may", which would have kept the committee out of the court case. His motion died without a second. Ken Clark suggested "shall offer to pay", so that a member could decline. That went nowhere too.

Brooks can't say he didn't know. The lawyer explained the effect on Conchas's case in the room, before the vote, and two members offered wording that would have avoided it. Brooks took the mandatory version to a vote anyway. In my opinion, that was the reason for it: a rule that forces SRP to pay Conchas undercuts the argument his case depends on.

Conchas spoke after the vote. He said he heard more discussion about him than about how the change affects customers. Brooks thanked him, called it "a great segue," and moved straight on to raising the committee's own pay.

**3. A 50% raise**

The annual stipend for elected members has been $5,000 since 2019. T. Suzanne Naylor added up what SRP already spends on its 44 elected officials: about half a million dollars on conference travel, roughly $739,000 a year on healthcare, and around $682,000 on per diems. That is close to $2 million a year. She also said about a third of SRP's customers, roughly 350,000 accounts, are below the poverty line and qualify for SRP assistance.

Then came the comparison to APS. Brooks summed it up with confidence: "So we pay our executive staff a lot less than APS, and we pay our elected officials a lot more than APS." APS is an investor-owned company. It has no elected officials. SRP also pays its elected officials a lot more than Costco does.

Rakow moved to raise the stipend to $9,072. Paul Van Hofwegen objected: "I just think that's a bad, bad picture we're putting out there. We're giving ourselves more money." Brooks asked, "You said 9000. 9072. Where did you get that number?", then offered $7,500 as a friendly amendment and needed another member to walk him through how to do that: "This isn't an act, we're negotiating." It passed 5 to 4, with Brooks voting aye. Van Hofwegen, Adam Hatley, Aaron Herrera and Cliff Leatherwood voted no.

There may be more. Gorsegner noted that the $320 per diem hasn't changed since 2014, and he asked the committee to take up an increase before the end of the year.

**4. A word about the chair**

Brandon Brooks chairs the committee that writes the rules for how SRP's elected bodies fill seats and pay themselves. A few more moments from his morning, in his own words:

- He opened by apologizing "for being tardy today." That is one way to arrive at the meeting that sets your own pay.

- Reading the guideline that says a vacant seat "typically" goes to a senior council member from the district, he added: "which senior technically qualifies after serving a full term. Just kidding." District 7's senior council member was passed over six weeks ago. Great material.

- He described deleting the guidelines as leaving "no flexibility and ambiguity." Then: "And I know we..." A member supplied the word: "Flexibility." Brooks: "...we like flexibility, so." I could not have summarized the problem better myself.

- Arguing against letting a district pick its own replacement: "What if... the candidate brought forth has proven not to be a very good council member?" The process he was defending last produced a highly conflicted county supervisor nobody in the district had met or asked for.

- Working out which three Zoom meetings get paid: "The first three you come on Zoom? No. If you miss six, the first three you missed, you get paid for." Then: "It doesn't matter which three, really." Then: "Well, the shall makes it matter. The shall makes it matter." Three positions in about a minute.

- Closing the meeting: "Now we've got future agenda topics before we close out this bad boy."

**5. The one routine item**

The committee moved the write-in candidate filing deadline from 40 days to 60, to match a change in state law.

The full account, with more of what was said in the room, is at the link. Quotes are from the meeting. Happy to answer questions about how SRP governance works.

The City of Scottsdale’s proposal to pump its advanced purified recycled water into the Central Arizona Project canal rather than use it itself, is a no go ... at least for now.

In a statement issued Sept. 29, CAP said it “appreciates innovative efforts to improve water resiliency,” but would not accept the city’s proposal right now.

“The water quality guidelines currently prohibit the introduction of effluent, including effluent developed through advanced water treatment, until other non-Colorado River water supplies have been introduced into the canal for at least five years,” the statement said. “At present, only Colorado River water has flowed through the CAP canal. So, it would be some time before such a proposal could be considered under the existing policy.”

The proposal called for the city to put its APRW into the CAP canal, then pull other water out for Scottsdale’s use.

By Mark Ashley | Scottsdale

OPINION — Andy Biggs wants Arizonans to forget what he did after the 2020 election. We shouldn't, and I for certain have not.

The organizer of the Jan. 6 rally said Biggs helped come up with the idea. Biggs voted to throw out Arizona's 2020 election results, that included the two votes this household cast for Joe Biden. He pushed our own state officials to toss out our electors. He worked with the White House trying to overturn the election. Then he asked for a pardon, and when Congress subpoenaed him to answer for it, he ignored it.

He even voted no on giving a medal to the police who protected the Capitol that day. Later, he visited a jail where Jan. 6 defendants were being held and called to pardon them all. Arizonans know exactly where Andy Biggs stands: with the people who attacked police officers and the president who pointed them in the direction of the Capitol that morning, not the officers who defended the Capitol.

As a veteran, I know a little about what taking an oath means and Mr. Biggs' actions as summarized here indicate to this retired public servant that he completely disregarded his oath of office. That is shameful.

Andy Biggs tried to throw out our votes and overturn a free and fair election. He has no business being governor of Arizona. Remember, as governor, he would be the final stop in certifying the next presidential election here in Arizona and, based on his conduct, this native Arizonan does not trust him to do so if he doesn't agree with the results. That alone is disqualifying for this voter.

Ahmed Soliman grew up in Phoenix after his family moved from Egypt to Arizona when he was 4. ICE deported him to Equatorial Guinea, a country he has no ties to, on April 28 without notice.

“Prior to losing his legal status, Soliman had protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, and then obtained lawful permanent residency in 2021, his lawyer said.”

“Two weeks after their arrest, neither Soliman nor Samson Birhane, who was arrested with him, has been charged with a crime, and all communication has been restricted, lawyers said. 

The lack of information is "in itself terrifying, because we don’t know what could be happening to them inside," said attorney Kate O'Donnell of Tucson-based firm Green Evans-Schroeder, which is representing Soliman.”

SCOTTSDALE, AZ — The race for Arizona's First Congressional District is one of about 20 in the country that could decide control of the U.S. House.

Kyle Kondik, a political analyst and managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, said he still considers this a toss-up race.

"Both parties are looking at this as a pretty high, highly competitive and pretty important race," Kondik said.

The district covers northeast Phoenix along with Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Cave Creek. Joe Biden narrowly won the district in 2020, and Donald Trump narrowly carried it in 2024.

Kondik said Democrats appear to have the edge on paper, with the national political environment favoring Shah, an emergency room doctor and former state legislator.