Letters: Your actions against Massie were in poor taste, Mr. Mayor

Skip Hall, you made the news. Unfortunately, it was not for a very commendable action ... and so close to your exit, too.

I am fairly certain you are getting some flack, and I am fully aware that the media in general is run by algorithms and slighted opinions, but to me, this is a clear abuse of power.

Thirty-seven more seconds and this wouldn’t have been an issue, right or wrong.

I do not know you. I do not know your relationship with the City Council or its lawyer. I’m not even a Surprise resident. What I know of you can only be summarized by your own webpage, and now what I saw in video.

You tout your extensive military service and fiscal responsibility, then use your elected powers to squash American free speech while simultaneously enriching the rich, citing a “law” to enforce your opinion. Its content, subjective, and void for ambiguity.

Ambiguous because your reason for an awarded raise and contract was for “exemplary service,” yet you arrested a woman for simply having an opinion not your own and speaking about how you came to that opinion. All of politics is opinion. So rather than engage in the debate/dialect, you chose force.

When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail right?

She has the bruises on her arm, and now her psyche from something you ordered, as a steward of the people. A little dictator that couldn’t tolerate a challenge for just three minutes.

Just a reminder, in case you forgot, she and all taxpayers, quite literally, fund the stroke of your pen and they are guaranteed through the doctrines you once defended, a voice and representation.

Perhaps it’s a bit more triggering because we saw these abuses in plenty during the COVID era. Mothers were arrested for speaking their mind to the school councils, and much of the nation rejected these councils and kept them quite busy with lawsuits, mostly won by the citizens that brought them. They organized, and changed the politics on local levels and in a big way.

I guess we will not be able to see the exemplary skills of your lawyer friend after all, as there is a clear conflict of interest, yet it still costs taxpayers $600 an hour to defend your disregard.

You owe her a public apology and yourself an examination of to whom/what you have taken your oaths — and more importantly — why you have done so in the first place.

Brian Keitsch is a resident of Tempe. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.