Best Activist 2022 | Laila Dalton | Megalopolitan Life | Phoenix
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Best Activist

Laila Dalton

When Laila Dalton tried to start a union at the north Phoenix Starbucks on Scottsdale Road and Mayo Boulevard in January, Starbucks fought back. Hard. The coffee giant targeted the then-19-year-old for months, giving her frivolous disciplinary writeups while interrogating other employees at the store about the union drive (all of which the National Labor Relations Board documented in a hefty complaint against Starbucks). Ultimately, within days of the election, Dalton was fired. If Starbucks thought that would make her go away, it was very wrong. Not only was the union election successful at that store (though it's still being contested by Starbucks), Dalton has since become one of the faces of a young, newly empowered labor movement — in Phoenix and beyond. She was out in the streets protesting against Starbucks this spring, and spoke before massive crowds about the power of young people rising up at the abortion rights protests at the state Capitol this summer. Now, she's working on union campaigns around Phoenix. We're rooting for her.

Best Public Information Officer

Scott Davis

Scott Davis, the public information officer for the Maricopa County Justice Courts, is thoughtful, responsive, and always happy to pick up the phone and chat with reporters about arcane data questions. These are fantastic qualities in a PIO — and we're always grateful to encounter PIOs who don't stonewall. But the stakes are particularly high right now in the justice courts. It's in this court system that most eviction cases across the Valley are handled. Davis' monthly updates and analysis of eviction data — and constant willingness to work with reporters on stories about evictions and the Valley's housing crisis — have been essential to helping the public understand evictions through the pandemic. Without Davis' work to get reporters (and the public) eviction numbers, case information, and other stats, we might have a far less detailed picture of a mounting problem here in Maricopa County.

Best Newsletter

Arizona Agenda

Veteran Phoenix journalists Rachel Leingang and Hank Stephenson launched the Arizona Agenda — a daily political newsletter on Substack — in August 2021. In the year since the Agenda began arriving in subscribers' inboxes, it's become a new fixture of political journalism in the state. The newsletter offers a fast-paced but thorough morning read, with a sharp breakdown of the most important stories of the moment. And the Agenda has broken big stories of its own. It's easy to get lost in the bureaucratic weeds of Arizona politics, but Leingang and Stephenson cut through to the key stories of the day, and keep a close eye on the constant antics down at the state house. Local news in the state is better for it.

Best Twitter Account

AZ Right Wing Watch

It wasn't detectives who found Luka Magnotta, a murderer on Interpol's most wanted list, 10 years ago. It was social media users with a little free time and a penchant for amateur sleuthing. AZ Right Wing Watch has pledged to do the same here in the Grand Canyon State. The 2020 presidential election was the most-followed American election in history, and Arizona was at the center of the political paradigm shift that ensued. As the alt-right drifted further toward radicalism, AZ Right Wing Watch wasn't the hero Arizona asked for, but it became the hero we needed. With the entire world abuzz about American politics, the anonymous tweeter established their successful watchdog operation on Twitter, an account that has now amassed more than 15,000 followers. The self-styed "unprofessional" and "random local" claims to be from "The Fiery Infernos of Hell, Arizona." Apparently, said fiery infernos are rife with great tips about right-wing corruption for journalists across Arizona. Keep doing God's work, soldier.

Best Instagram

Arizona Highways

Our fair state is a wonderland of stunning natural beauty, from the red rocks of Sedona and the epic Grand Canyon to the brown-hued Grand Falls and the simple joys of wildflower season in the desert. Not that we get to see much of it in person, what with metro Phoenix being the concrete jungle it is. But when we get tired of setting our sights on buildings and freeways, we check in with the Instagram account of the Arizona Highways, the venerable magazine that's been showing our best features off to the world since 1925. There, we can feast our eyes on everything from storm photography to snow-dusted images of the high desert in winter. It not only gives us inspiration for our next weekend getaway, it makes us truly appreciative of all Arizona has to offer.

Best TikTok

Leftover Gains

TikTok, like any social media platform, can be used for good, for evil, or simply as a distraction. Scroll on the app long enough, and you'll run across countless local influencers (legit and wannabe) just dying to tell you about Scottsdale's hottest new restaurant. That's fine, we suppose, but when we think about a local TikToker who we truly respect and want to keep up with, we think of the woman behind the Leftover Gains account. She goes by Lefty, she's a veteran, and her content is part accountability, part call to action about local police and the ongoing challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness in metro Phoenix. Whether she's filming the sweeps that Phoenix Police routinely do in the Zone (a homeless encampment downtown), or chronicling her frequent trips around town to stock free community refrigerators, she advocates for some of the city's most vulnerable citizens with passion and intelligence. We can find the next cool bar on our own, thank you very much. We'd much rather have our FYP filled with people trying to make Phoenix a better place.

Best Cultural Phenomenon

Invasion of the Bachelorettes

Head to Old Town Scottsdale any night of the week, and you can't miss them: roving packs of young women, often identifiable as a bride-to-be and her friends by matching sashes, themed T-shirts, and/or coordinating cowboy hats. The uptick in bachelorette getaways held in Scottsdale was noticed by no less than the New York Times, which published an article in June about the phenomenon. As of 2021, Scottsdale was the second-most-popular destination for brides and their bridesmaids (just behind Nashville), sparking a cottage industry of people who decorate the incoming women's Airbnbs with wedding-themed decor and bachelorette-specific events companies. Though we've heard some longtime Old Town barflies complain about the bachelorettes, we don't mind when we see a group walk through the door of our watering hole du jour: They pump money into the local economy, they bring good energy to even the emptiest bars, and if nothing else, the people-watching is epic.

Best Hometown Hero

Troy Kotsur

Arizona has produced its fair share of celebrities, but not many can say they've won the highest honor in the world of cinema. The latest is Mesa native Troy Kotsur, whose revelatory performance as a struggling fisherman in the 2021 film CODA earned him the 2022 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Kotsur is the second Arizona native to win an acting Oscar (the first was Emma Stone for La La Land in 2017), and more importantly, he's the first deaf man to win one. In his signed acceptance speech, Kotsur thanked his "hometown of Mesa, Arizona," and declared, "This is dedicated to the deaf community, the CODA community [besides being the name of the film, CODA stands for children of deaf adults], and the disabled community. This is our moment!" Since his win, Kotsur's face has appeared on banners in downtown Mesa and Mayor John Giles gave him the key to the city, solidifying his status as the east Valley city's favorite son.

Best Promotion

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson Heads the NEA

We who live in metro Phoenix already knew the good work that Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson was doing in the field of the arts. Until late last year, she was an Institute Professor in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where she founded the Studio for Creativity, Place, and Equitable Communities, where students learn how to integrate arts, culture, and design into community planning. Then, in December 2021, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 13th chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency that grants money to arts and culture programs across the country. Jackson is the first African-American and first Mexican-American to serve in the role, and credits her parents for instilling in her a love for the arts. "I'm definitely going to tap into that sense of the arts being critical to healthy communities and to a healthy society," she told the Washington Post in her first interview after being confirmed. She added, "There is a power of the arts that allows us to, encourages us to, be curious, to hold nuance, to have the kinds of thoughtful deliberations and a view on humanity that I think is so critically important." We couldn't agree more, and we can't wait to see what Jackson does in her new role.

Best Museum

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art stands out for consistently delivering the unexpected, whether it's the replica of an artist's living room or a mobile home trailer purchased by an artist at a local swap meet. The museum excels at introducing metro Phoenix audiences to creatives working in other cultural hubs while also spotlighting works by artists with Arizona roots or artists working in Arizona. Curators strike a delightful balance of showing works by emerging and established creatives, and the museum has demonstrated by its exhibitions a commitment to elevating the voices of women artists and BIPOC artists. The museum also creates and hosts fun community experiences, such as trivia nights, screenings of films by ASU students, and artist talks, fostering a sense that the museum is a community space for learning, growth, and creativity rather than a building designed to merely house and show works of art.

Best Of Phoenix®

Best of Phoenix 2022

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