Mayors you should know

With Councilwoman Thelda Williams being a placeholder (for the second time) until a new Phoenix mayor is elected in November, it's a good time to reflect on her predecessors. Here is my admittedly subjective list of the most consequential:

John Alsap was Phoenix's first mayor, serving for a year in 1881 after incorporation. Dying five years later, age 56, Alsap, left, nevertheless compiled impressive accomplishments in the Territory. Kentucky born, Indiana raised, and a physician by training, he came to Prescott as a prospector and saloon operator. He began farming in the Salt River Valley in 1869 and was one of three commissioners who established the Phoenix townsite. In the territorial Legislature, he led the successful effort to create a new county — Maricopa — out of Yavapai County. He's buried in the old Pioneer Cemetery (now the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park, although its historic grass was removed).

Emil Ganz was the young town's first Jewish mayor and a two-term chief, serving from 1885-86 and 1899-1901. Ganz was born in Germany, emigrated to America and training as a tailor, seeing heavy action in the Civil War on the Confederate side, and moving to Phoenix in 1879. He ran the Bank Exchange Hotel, the town's first substantial hostelry. As mayor he pushed to establish a fire department and improve the water supply (his hotel burned in 1885 and the town was hit by a severe blaze a year later). 

George Ulysses Young (1914-1916) was Phoenix's first Republican mayor. In this heavily Democratic state, GOP officeholders would be a rarity for decades. At this time, and for years to come, the mayor was mostly a figurehead and policies were set by the Common Council (later the City Commission).

Nick Udall of the pioneer LDS family was the first mayor (1948-52) under the new Charter Government slate. Udall was the respectable figurehead of a revolution at City Hall engineered by merchant prince and Republican Harry Rosenzweig. A strong city manager was installed. The corrupt City Commission was replaced by a City Council with the mayor as one vote. Among the council members: Barry Goldwater. Under Udall, Phoenix built the Civic Center with a new library, and eventually the art museum and little theater.

Jack Williams, a one-time broadcaster who would claim he lost one eye in a fight, served two terms from 1956 to 1960. This was when Phoenix went on an annexation binge that made a big city of 439,000 at the end of his second term. Williams, a Republican, went on to serve as governor from 1967 to 1975. Williams, who liked to tipple, got into a fender-bender outside Kenilworth School when I was a student. After that, he received a DPS driver, the start of the governor's security detail.

Milt Graham, another Republican, was the popular young mayor during Phoenix's 1960s growth spurt, serving from 1964 to 1970. (Disclosure: Graham's wife, Peg, was a friend of my mother.) Graham did a good job of selling Phoenix as the City of the Future. In 1968, he diffused a riot around Eastlake Park, which was barely covered by the Pulliam newspapers. On the other hand, Graham was committed to a car-based city and was hostile to transit. The city bus system withered under Graham and his successors, even though John Driggs (1970-74) took the bus from home to work. Graham oversaw the development of Phoenix Civic Plaza in the Deuce, but did nothing to protect downtown's historic bones or vitality. He also broke the Charter rule and ran for a third term, beginning the decline of the Charter consensus.

Margaret Hance was Phoenix's first woman mayor and the second female to lead a big city. Although her work in creating the Phoenix Mountain Preserve before she became mayor was a great achievement, her four terms were decidedly mixed in their results. She was a Republican (although city elections were nominally non-partisan). I've written more about Hance in a previous column. She put the dagger in the heart of Charter, but resisted changing "businessman's government." Her policies failed to stop downtown's decline — indeed, they worsened it.

Terry Goddard, a Democrat, upended City Hall, leading a change as profound as Charter before it. The at-large representation system was changed to districts and "urban village" boards established to make city government more democratic. He focused on reviving downtown, including with Arizona Center, and saving the close-in neighborhoods with the historic district safeguards. In office from 1984 to 1990 — four terms, because the mayor still served two years — he presided over a series of ambitious initiatives, including plans for a new central library and City Hall. The mayor also gained broader powers, although was still a "weak mayor" system. Goddard is widely considered Phoenix's best mayor. On the other hand, Goddard was the first mayor to deal with the rise of the supersuburbs, stealing city assets and engaging in the "blood sport" of competition for sales taxes. He pushed annexation to Scottsdale Road, leaving the future Kierland Commons in the city, in an attempt to fight back.

Skip Rimsza, the city's most recent Republican mayor, is perhaps its most underestimated. To his critics, Rimsza was mostly a placeholder, serving two-and-a-half terms from 1994 to 2004. By this time the mayor's power was significantly strengthened and the term lengthened to four years. But especially in his second term, Rimsza became an activist, fighting to bring business downtown, leading the battle to build light rail (WBIYB) and the new Convention Center, and establishing the Downtown Biomedical Campus with T-Gen. The state's corporate center either shifted to north Scottsdale or was eliminated through mergers, a change that would prove profoundly destructive. Rimsza's terms saw more annexation — Phoenix gaining additional in-city suburbs with little allegiance to the core. But more of the city declined, becoming poorer and Hispanic, while affluent Anglos fled to the suburbs.

Phil Gordon, who represented central Phoenix on the Council, was among the best prepared for the job and was probably the city's second-best mayor, especially in his first term. His leadership brought ASU downtown, a transformative event. Gordon was a champion of historic preservation and transit. A canny insider who had served on city staff, Gordon held together a Council majority to enact a series of improvements. But Gordon was also the first mayor to deal with the consequences of the demise of Phoenix's important local headquarters. As a result, he lacked the civic stewards (except for Jerry Colangelo) who had been so important to the city's health.

Greg Stanton served two terms (2012-2018) before resigning to run for Congress. A former Councilman, Stanton was also a savvy operator. He oversaw the boom in center-city infill and ASU's continued growth. But he faced a more contentious Council, especially with the conservative bomb-thrower Sal DiCiccio. Stanton attempted a reset in relations with the suburbs, applauding their achievements. To me, this paid insufficient attention to real competitive issues. I've written about Stanton in this column.

I'll write about the issues facing the next mayor later this summer.

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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Cal Lash]

Hance also had a similar Williams issue.
I was her first driver of what is now a squad of cops for the Mayor.
One eyed Jack was a Downtown YMCA regular. You could usually find him sweating it out in the steam room with many other pols attorneys,some cops and some infamous bad guys and on occasion Olympian Jesse Owens.

[soleri]

I only vaguely remember the city of 30 to 50 years ago as it transitioned from a big small town to a big sprawling nowhere. The mayors were not powerful but they necessarily symbolized their eras. Milt Graham, for example, was Everyman, outraged by the antics of Jim Morrison at Veteran's Memorial Coliseum. There was John Driggs hosting Richard Nixon in a raucous 1972 rally, Margaret Hance greasing the skids for freeways ramps in the Willo neighborhood that never materialized, and Terry Goddard, shifting the elite's attention from "more" to "better".

They were impressive people in their individual ways but secondary players in the main show, Arizona's overarching real-estate hustle. By 2000, I realized, it was hopeless, that Phoenix might be decked out with some nice touches of civic costuming but was otherwise yesterday's starlet staring down middle age. Character is not only destiny, it's unrelenting.

It's heartening to see downtown become livelier even though I would never have predicted this 20 years ago. Apologies to PhxSunsFan in Boston - he saw something in downtown that I didn't. But I'm not sure it's city government, let alone a visionary mayor, deserving credit. It's a complex story in its way but you see it in almost every large city in America: millenials finally breaking the centripetal pull of suburbanization. Terry Goddard was a prophet here but it took two generations before his vision was haphazardly realized. That said, downtown is not a powerhouse in Phoenix like it is in other cities. It's more a niche flavor in a sprawled-out mess of cars and freeways. At long last, Phoenix has a kind of soul with actual geography. It took 50 years and it's far from perfect, but here we are, warts and all.

[Mike Doughty]

I am surprised that you did not mention the power of the Phoenix 40 and their substantial influence on the mayors of Phoenix.As the residents woke up and realized the unfairness of having most of their council coming from the North Central area, they finally put into effect of having council members from their local neighborhoods.As a resident watching Phoenix from a suburb since 1966,I have watched the losing proposition of annexation play out and am glad that Tempe was landlocked and had to concentrate their efforts on growing up and downtown.

[Cal Lash]

Old people needing doctors is growing Downtown Phoenix. And for years i fought with Tempe mayors Neal and Harry. Both downtown's are now uglier than Hell.
T. Malthus

[Cal Lash]

In support of your Mega cities
https://www.economist.com/china/2018/06/23/china-is-trying-to-turn-itself-into-a-country-of-19-super-regions?frsc=dg%7Ce

https://www.metropolismag.com/uncategorized/in-praise-of-gentrification/
Are cars back?
https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2018/05/18/u-s-transit-systems-are-shedding-riders-are-they-under-threat/

[Cal Lash]

Welcome to Zucktown

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/welcome-to-zucktown?mbid=nl_Daily%20070718&CNDID=48614199&spMailingID=13831701&spUserID=MTc5Mjg4MTEyMTI0S0&spJobID=1440577618&spReportId=MTQ0MDU3NzYxOAS2

[Cal Lash]

The revival of Detroit. Will Bill Ford be more successful than Henry Ford II ?
Mayor Mike Duggan supports Fords purchase of Michigan Central Station as he considers "Detroit Dead" without the train station.

[Cal Lash]

Uncle Milty Graham was consider by some to be Phoenix's most liberal mayor. I did find the building of the 7th Avenue overpass interesting.

[Rogue Columnist]

Mike,

Your issues are beyond the brief of this column, but I'll offer a couple of thoughts.

If only we still had a Phoenix 40, stewards who could crack heads and write checks, and saw the good of their companies as twined with the good of the city. The lack of such stewards is one of Phoenix's biggest problems. Did they have blind spots? Sure.

Annexation, as I wrote on that column, worked out differently from what was intended.

[Cal Lash]

to keep mega cities and infrastructure and public transportation, going.
http://www.politico.com/sponsor-content/2018/06/when-public-transit?cid=201806hpms

[Cal Lash]

Jon said,
"And although the old leaders, including the Phoenix 40, lent their weight to many good causes, they lacked any vision commensurate with a city of this size. They failed to set Phoenix on a sustainable, diverse trajectory. One could argue they helped plant the seeds of the destruction and tragedies that followed. By the time city leaders tried to push a rail transit initiative in the 1980s, it was too late — the anti-tax, anti-government rhetoric that came out of the other sides of their mouths had been too effective."

http://www.roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2010/12/phoenix-101-the-phoenix-40.html

And while Charter government changed and rid Phoenix of an old Democrat bureaucracy and "ugly" crime it created a new type of bureaucracy and a cleaner type of crime more acceptable to developers and their $$$$$ buddies.

[Cal Lash]

Charter government moved whore houses from downtown to north of i believe Deer Valley road. A few feet out of Phoenix into the more relaxed Maricopa County jurisdiction. My only vice caper was about 1972 immediately after the city annexed the area.

an interesting table
A Phoenix time line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Phoenix,_Arizona

[Cal Lash]

The election of Thelda (a nice person) Williams will not bring much hope for the city on fire. We passed that mark about 1956.

Plans for Maryvale began to take shape during the 1950s, when developer John F. Long came up with the idea of developing a master-planned community on the western part of Phoenix,[5] with an aim of turning the area into a working class suburb for Caucasians.

And then there was Developers like Del Webb. I learned a couple of days ago that a long time ago Webb drank in a bar in downtown Phoenix owned by the Spaniard Uncle of a friend of mine.

Direct from Spain, Spaniards (Aja, Arechavaleta, Bedia, Caballero, Gorraiz, Pacheco) owned a number of Phoenix downtown business and Arizona rural area ranches.
I am told they ignored the "white" folks referring to them as Mexicans.

[Norm W]

Cal, you're on a roll! Any rain today?

[Cal Lash]

No rain yet and 112 but 100 under my porch canopy and mister, huddle Crissal curved bill Thrashers, Gila Woodpeckers, Cactus wrens, Finches, Tits, Towhees, Inca an White Wing Doves an occassional Riadrunner and once in awhile a Krestal Peregrine and a Feral cat.
I m sittin and watching as i read The Red Caddy by Charles Bowden. A book he wrote about Ed Abbey back in 1994 and discovered after Bowden died. Published in 2018 with a foward by Luis Alberto Urrea. LAU.

[Norm W]

Thanks for the tip, Cal. Just finished Urrea's House of Broken Angels, which was very good.

[Cal Lash]

1028 PM. RAIN comes to the Great Sonoran desert

[Cal Lash]

Not Jon's Martini:
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/mocktails?mbid=nl_Daily%20070918&CNDID=48614199&spMailingID=13839651&spUserID=MTc5Mjg4MTEyMTI0S0&spJobID=1440729206&spReportId=MTQ0MDcyOTIwNgS2

and on my B-day
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/monday-july-9th-burning-bush-epa?mbid=nl_Daily%20070918&CNDID=48614199&spMailingID=13839651&spUserID=MTc5Mjg4MTEyMTI0S0&spJobID=1440729206&spReportId=MTQ0MDcyOTIwNgS2

[Ruben]

Happy belated birthday cal. Were you Mayor Alsap's horse and buggy driver?

[Cal Lash]

In another life