Letters: Surprise mayor-elect has responsibility to lead arrest mess

Thank you for the coverage of the Aug. 20 Surprise City Council meeting.

As a 15-year resident of Surprise, I have never been more embarrassed to call Surprise home than I was the evening of Aug. 20. The actions of our mayor-elect, Kevin Sartor, in escorting Rebekah Massie to this meeting knowing full well her agenda has set a confrontational tone that I do hope becomes more professional once he officially takes office.

Massie appears to be a confrontational troublemaker who looks for opportunities to manipulate the system for her own exposure and agendas. She has shown her style on several occasions, all of which have cost the city thousands of dollars and hours of wasted time.

Her theatrics at the Aug. 20 meeting were no exception. Arriving in a T-shirt that had “Cyberbully the Government” was typical of the attention she wanted to draw to herself. She was well aware of what were acceptable speaking points at the meeting. Mayor Skip Hall showed her the form that she had agreed to and she still kept on talking.

The city has rules and avenues for addressing the issues she chose to address. She was clearly out of order.

She now has some East Coast firm (FIRE) suing the city, once again costing us taxpayers thousands more that the few thousand she was trying to prohibit our city attorney from seeing in an annual raise. She deserves to be charged and required to appear in court.

I hope the city will do all in its power to prosecute her. Of course, if the court filings extend into the new mayor’s term it will be interesting to see if he chooses to escort her into court, as he did to the meeting. Time will tell if Sartor will enforce the law when it affects his friends.

Surprise has been a wonderful blended city of cultures, generational expanses and growth. We have grown, not without some growing pains, but in a way that looks forward to bringing good jobs, safe streets and a community that everyone can be proud to call home. We have learned to compromise and show compassion.

I do hope that Mayor-elect Sartor realizes that tearing apart the city of Surprise in rants and rebellion and/or supporting those who unlawfully respond in that manner, is not what he was elected to do.

Keeping Surprise moving forward and managing the caring and compassionate city we have become, while steering forward growth in a positive, peaceful direction, is his job No. 1.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.