The mayors of more than 10 small Arizona cities and towns are scheduled to speak at a forum hosted by a disgraced former state lawmaker who has faced child sex charges and espoused racist views, and whose local news website publishes articles by a known white supremacist.
Mayors from multiple cities in northern Arizona are set to speak at the “Mayor’s Forum for the People” on Feb. 20 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott. The forum is being put on by Prescott eNews and Yavapai Speaks, both of which are owned by former Republican lawmaker David Stringer.
Stringer resigned from the legislature in 2019 after refusing to cooperate with an ethics investigation into child sex crime charges he faced in 1983. Stringer took a plea deal on charges that he had repeated sexual contact with two boys younger than 15 years old, including one who was intellectually disabled.
Prior to that, Stringer had faced pressure to resign after racist comments he’d made became public. Additional comments emerged after the Prescott Republican won re-election in November 2018.
The Mayors of Sedona, Prescott, Lake Havasu, Payson, Winslow, Williams and Cottonwood are listed as attending, along with “four additional Mayors” who are not listed on the site.
After leaving office, Stringer has openly allied with far-right extremists and racists, most notably the white nationalist Jared Taylor. Prescott eNews has published nearly 20 articles by Taylor, including one that pushes the racist trope that white men are the most intelligent people, with non-white people, Jews and women less intelligent to varying degrees.
Taylor has a long history of racism going back to the 1990s, when he created a think tank that aimed to create research proving the superiority of whites.
In 2023, Stringer attended an event at Arizona State University that featured Taylor as a speaker and was put on by a college club that supports white nationalist Nick Fuentes and whose members have been caught sharing racist views. The group also recently gained controversy for a tabling event it planned at ASU encouraging students to report other students to ICE.
The National College Republicans United group, which oversees chapters at ASU and other campuses across the country, recommends one of Taylor’s books under a section titled “First Set of Red Pills.” The college group also suggests antisemitic books and books by other known white nationalists. Stringer has long been an ally of the group and promoted the event on Prescott eNews.
The Mayor’s Forum is being emceed by Lyle Rapacki, who hosts a show on Prescott eNews called Yavapai Speaks, which is also owned by Stringer.
Rapacki has a long history of conspiratorial views and is connected to far-right extremists.
Rapacki is affiliated with the anti-government Oath Keepers militia and is the vice-chairman of an organization that was involved in the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. That organization, the Coalition of Western States, consists of politicians and militia members and is led by former Washington state lawmaker Matt Shea, who was expelled after it was found he helped the militias in their standoffs with federal authorities.
Rapacki is also an online columnist who pens articles about alleged satan worship at naval bases and the QAnon conspiracy theory that liberal elites run a global cabal of pedophiles. He has called himself a “satanism expert.”
After the Mayor’s Forum is a Town Hall Meeting that is also sponsored by Prescott eNews and hosted by Republican Sen. Mark Finchem, who is also tied to the Oath Keepers, COWs and has promoted QAnon conspiracy theories and attended QAnon events.
Mayors react
Don Dent, Mayor of Williams, said he was asked to attend the event by Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow and had “no other knowledge about the event.”
Jablow, as well as another listed speaker, Lake Havasu City Mayor Cal Sheehy, have both done interviews with Rapacki about short-term rentals on Yavapai Speaks before.
“I had no idea that the meeting I am planning to attend on February 20th is being sponsored by individuals who … are espousing philosophies to which I am diametrically opposed since the subject addressed is, on the surface, significant but much more benign, that being the development of affordable housing and limiting short-term rentals,” Cottonwood Mayor Ann Shaw said in an email to the Arizona Mirror, on which she copied Jablow.
“Please forgive me but I am reluctant to simply take your word that the gathering of well-intentioned local mayors who want to address concerns about the aforementioned issues are really being unwittingly corralled into a far-right, politically-damning meeting that undermines the nonpartisan nature of our offices,” Shaw said. “However, if I find that to be the case, I will get up and walk out and refuse to be a party to any further communication with those whose purposes are at odds with my own purpose of promoting the needs of my city.”
After the original publication of this story, Sheehy responded to the Mirror’s questions and said he, too, was invited by Jablow. He said he was unaware of Stringer’s connections to the far-right or the child sex charges that led to his resignation from the legislature.
Sheehy said he still plans to appear at the forum.
“I want to be able to serve my citizens on this important topic of short-term rentals,” he said. When asked if having that discussion in a forum by an individual who has espoused racist views may hamper that discussion Sheehy responded saying, “I don’t know enough about it, I’ll do a little research.”
Jablow also responded after this story was originally published. In an email exchange with the Mirror, he thanked the Mirror for bringing the information to his attention. He also professed ignorance of Stringer’s past and said it would not dissuade him from participating in the forum.
“Yes, I plan on attending the event tomorrow. To be clear, I was not aware of the issues that you raised but those issues have no relation to our topic of (short-term rentals),” Jablow said.
The other mayors listed did not respond to the Mirror’s request for comment.
Short-term rentals have become a major issue for many localities after a 2016 law preempted them from making any sort of regulations on them. Arizona is one of only six states that have enacted local bans on short-term rental regulations. The other states are Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
