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Councilmen Fund Challenge: Incumbents Step into Fray Over Nesvig?S Petitions

Posted on: Thursday, 5 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Ryan Gabrielson, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Jan. 5--The effort to block Nan Nesvig from the ballot for Scottsdale City Council is being funded by three incumbent councilmen campaigning to keep their seats, their attorney disclosed Wednesday.

Tom Irvine, a Phoenix attorney and election law expert, represents a legal challenge filed on Dec.

23 with the Maricopa County Superior Court against Nesvig, a 43-year-old legal consultant.

The complaint alleges Nesvig's nominating petitions lack the required number of voter signatures to make her an official candidate.

In a written statement to the Tribune, Irvine said the campaigns of councilmen Wayne Ecton, Bob Littlefield and Kevin Osterman "will be paying for the investigation into the obviously insufficient signatures of Nesvig." Asked last week by the Tribune whether they were involved in the complaint -- or if they knew who is -- all three denied having any details about the challenge.

Irvine's statement answers part of the question concerning who has lined up against Nesvig, which has turned into a sort of mystery for Scottsdale's political observers.

The political season's first battle has grown dramatically in recent days, and has spawned a city inquiry into whether campaign finance laws have been violated.

Election day is March 14.

Nesvig is new to city politics, emerging as a candidate in the fall after locking horns with Scottsdale officials over construction of water tanks beside the Arizona Canal.

Osterman said he and the other incumbents met Wednesday to discuss the complaint, which they had never discussed previously.

The reason they spoke, he said, is because they learned some of their supporters had spearheaded the challenge to Nesvig's candidacy on their own.

Only after their meeting Wednesday did the councilmen agree to pay the cost of the complaint, he said.

"We said, 'Hey, what the heck is going on?' " Osterman said, describing the meeting.

"We started comparing notes and we came to the realization that we needed to step in and get involved in this." Ecton and Littlefield did not return calls for comment Wednesday.

Osterman said volunteers from all three campaigns worked together to conduct an initial check of Nesvig's petitions and hired Irvine without knowledge of the candidates.

Irvine did not respond to calls after providing his statement, which does not indicate when the incumbents joined the challenge.

"It appears to be a united front," Nesvig said. "My question is, had this been planned prior to my submission of the petitions? And if so, why?" Her campaign has not conducted a full review of her petitions, some of which were gathered by paid signature gatherers, she said.

But the campaign is already fighting back: Last week, a Nesvig supporter requested that the city open an investigation into who is responsible for the complaint, and whether it was initiated by a group that is illegally operating as a political action committee without publicly disclosing its role.

City Clerk Carolyn Jagger has requested that Irvine provide details concerning who is involved in the complaint, with a response required by Jan. 13.

Any payments made to Irvine by the councilmen's campaigns would have to be logged on finance reports.

The first reports of this election cycle are not due until Jan. 31.

Despite the fact that the incumbents' campaigns are paying Irvine's legal bills, the complaint was filed under the name of a south Scottsdale resident, Karl Kulick. The councilmen's names are listed on the court filing, but as defendants.

Kulick, a senior deacon at Good Shepherd Metropolitan Community Church in Phoenix, was largely unknown in the city's political circles before the complaint. He has repeatedly declined comment during the past two weeks.

Initially, Irvine told the Tribune that Kulick came to him with the complaint. On Tuesday, the attorney acknowledged that it was not Kulick who checked the petitions.

The incumbents have said they do not know Kulick or what role he plays in the Nesvig challenge.

When Ecton heard about the complaint, the incumbent said last week he searched Kulick's name through Google, the Internet search engine.

On Dec. 14, the deadline to file the petitions, Nesvig turned in petitions carrying 1,899 signatures just minutes before the city clerk's office closed. To be placed on the ballot, a candidate must collect 1,652 signatures from valid Scottsdale voters.

The incumbents were the only people who requested copies of the candidate petitions. Osterman said he reviewed Nesvig's signatures, doubted that enough of them were valid and passed the electronic copies to one of his campaign volunteers, who he declined to name.

Osterman said his campaign workers, along with those from Littlefield and Ecton's campaigns, began checking Nesvig's petitions and found problems with many of the signatures.

At a court hearing Tuesday on the complaint, the Maricopa County Recorder's Office was ordered to check Nesvig's contested petitions against voter registration rolls. That review is expected to be finished Friday, with a second hearing scheduled for Tuesday to determine if Nesvig has earned a spot on the ballot.

While he officially represents Kulick, Irvine has said he is being paid by another group.

Osterman said that, prior to Wednesday, the group did not include the incumbents.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

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Source: The Tribune

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