Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has reportedly pulled today's City Council's agenda his recommendation to appoint his girlfriend, Elissa Mullany, to the Phoenix Aviation Advisory Board.
Gordon wanted to appoint her to the aviation board to replace Art Hamilton, whose four-year term is expiring in December.
The recommendation -- as with all appointments to city boards and commissions -- would have had to make it past the rest of the Phoenix City Council.
Common sense prevailed and it was yanked from the agenda.
There
was a collective head-shaking through City Hall when that item appeared
on the council agenda. While it is widely rumored that the first couple
of City Hall are broken up for good, there has been no official word
from Gordon's office.
Gordon has come under intense scrutiny by New Times
and other media outlets because while the two were romantically
involved he used his office to hire Mullany, her business partner and
her business partner's relatives for various political and city-related
jobs, to pay Mullany hefty sums of money (more than $300,000 over five
years) out of his political campaign funds and money donated by local
businesses for downtown revitalization, to give special access to at
least two companies that put Mullany on their payroll, to travel around
the world on private jets with Mullany in tow, purportedly on city
business, without disclosing how the trips are being funded.
On
one occasion, he even left city staff behind to take Mullany on an
excursions to stir global economic development in Phoenix.
She
was appointed to boards and commissions in the past, but after the two
started dating, she relinquished all those spots. But, with Gordon's
help, she was working, still managing his political funds, and apparently
building a "global connections" company.
And now, with about three month remaining on the end of his term, he wanted to get her back into the game?
What chutzpah!
