A GoFundMe account set up for Scottsdale City Councilman Guy Phillips has ended up being a “go-figure” moment as the council accepted a report and decision of an outside ethics panel finding no fault with the councilman in question.
You must be a member to read this story.
Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.
Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
A GoFundMe account set up for Scottsdale City Councilman Guy Phillips has ended up being a “go-figure” moment as the council accepted a report and decision of an outside ethics panel finding no fault with the councilman in question.
Mr. Phillips was exonerated of ethics violations at the regular May 19 meeting, which was held at City Hall, 3939 N. Drinkwater Blvd.
The agenda item addressed, with Councilwoman Virginia Korte as the dissenting vote, was to accept the Independent Ethics Panel’s “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,” which reported that no ethical violations arose out of a complaint filed by resident, Mike Norton, against Mr. Phillips on Jan. 21.
Mr. Phillips, elected in 2017, was accused of conflicts of interest involving crowdfunding for personal and business gains from anonymous donors; and allowing his wife, Cora Phillips, to be recruited and paid a total of $4,512 as a petition signature-gatherer for “The Committee for the Preservation of Old Town Scottsdale.”
Recusing himself from current conflict-of-interest concerns, Mr. Phillips, as did other members who the city is representing in allegations against them in separate suits, excused himself for the discussion and vote by leaving the dais while Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane opened the floor for dialogue on Mr. Phillips’ perceived indiscretions.
Based on the May 5 report of “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,” from the “factual and legal determinations” of retired judges comprised of the Independent Ethics Panel--- Kenneth Mangum (presiding), Cecil Patterson and Larry Fleischman, who were represented by their own private counsel, Robert Ellman --- Mayor Lane implored council members to accept or reject the ethics panel report as submitted, with or without qualifications.
He noted that the ethics panel report also recommended that the city’s ethics code should be amended for clarification and he suggested considering amendments at a future meeting.
“This is a flawed ethics code and it was not clear. They [retired judges] worked with what they had there. They may have used the word ‘benign,’ which isn’t defined or otherwise, but I think what they were trying to say is that under the circumstances of the lack of clarity as well as the circumstances of the entire thing, they found Councilman Phillips to be innocent of any unethical behavior,” he said.
Mr. Lane spoke of the importance of making an exception to accept it.
“We are in the process of looking at a document that could have been abused before, but these set of circumstances hadn’t come up. So, I don’t think that we are giving any license and I don’t think that any license was taken. I think that these three retired judges did the best they could with the document they had --- given the circumstances,” Mr. Lane said.
“This is not particularly a positive kind of thing that this council wants to be involved with in any case.”
He added that the final determination was left to interpretations. The city’s code of ethics was remiss of certain verbiage prohibiting such things that could be considered a conflict of interest.
“The recent decision by the independent ethics panel allowed several practices with which I disagree and which I believe need to be fixed. And, I promise that as member of this City Council, I will work quickly to fix those problems.
My intentions tonight is to uphold the ethics panel’s decision as it relates to Councilman Phillips in finding no violations. My concern tonight is with the panel’s interpretation of anonymous and personal gifts,” said Ms. Korte.
She disagreed with the panel’s conclusion that the identity of the donors “makes no difference due to benign GoFundMe accounts,” that stemmed from a Scottsdale resident, Susan Wood, who took the liberty to set up a GoFundMe account after Mr. Phillips broke his leg on Sept. 17, 2019 and the injury prevented him from running his air conditioning business.
“Ms. Wood knew Mr. Phillips was self-employed and she believed his inability to work would cause him financial hardship. In order to help provide financial assistance to Mr. Phillips, she set up a crowdfunding page on GoFundMe.com in an effort to raise up to $20,000.00,” cited the staff report.
Although Ms. Wood was concerned that Mr. Phillips’s status as a council member “might place limitations on raising money for his personal benefit” by GoFundMe.com crowdfunding, before setting up the GoFundMe page, she sought input from former council member, Bob Littlefield, with whom she is acquainted, the report detailed of him, in-turn consulting with Scottsdale City Clerk Carolyn Jagger.
Meanwhile, Ms. Wood eventually changed the account settings for contributors to be anonymous, made no references to Mr. Phillips’ Scottsdale City Council membership and arranged for proceeds from the account to pay bills for him directly, the report said.
Although she did not, according to the report, have a personal financial interest in the Southbridge II zoning amendment vote on Dec. 4, 2019 that Mr. Phillips participated in, despite his wife’s involvement with soliciting signatures for a committee regarding the contentious issue, she did not reportedly sway his vote in any way.
“This reasoning opens the floodgates for unscrupulous elected officials and their benefactors to disguise quid pro quo vote bind as personal gifts,” Ms. Korte said, quoting the three-judges’ panel findings.
Noting that “benign purposes” are undefined in the city’s ethics code and personal gifts was not a term used in the ethics code either, she disagreed on the panel’s interpretation and analysis on deciding that the GoFundMe accounts can be used to collect contributions by anonymous donors in unlimited amounts without disclosing contributors’ names, paying for personal and business expenses of council members and members of city boards, commissions, committees, task forces, etc.
“Our ethics code provides that gifts shall not be accepted if acceptance could be reasonably construed as an attempt to exert improper influence,” she said while quoting the ethics code that stated anything over $25 must be disclosed to the city clerk, with the exception of familial gifts.
She maintained that donations should not be anonymous and citizen trust was at stake as public officials should be held above reproach and held to high standards since public service is a trust and should not be abused, she said, encouraging transparency.
Ms. Korte motioned to direct the City’s Attorney’s Office to return to the council with a revision to the ethics code, excluding anonymous gifts, at the next meeting.
Councilwoman Linda Milhaven seconded the motion, which carried 7-0, with all in agreement and the mayor saying that he would “ultimately hope that we have a good ethics code that is clear that people can strive and comply and have provision with.
Starting my media career in 1994, rumor had it that newspapers would not exist much longer. Years later, the newspaper is still around and so is my passion for storytelling and capturing life’s moments for the community.
By 
