Rookie council members call for vote of no confidence in Gilbert mayor

By Tom Blodgett
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Twitter: @sp_blodgett

Gilbert’s three rookie council members have requested a special meeting for Tuesday to discuss a vote of no confidence in Mayor Brigette Peterson, an act the mayor called “political theater.” 

The special meeting — scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1, at council chambers in Town Hall but likely not to start till after the 6:30 p.m. regular meeting has concluded — was requested by council members Chuck Bongiovanni, Jim Torgeson and Bobbi Buchli.  

Bongiovanni confirmed he requested the meeting and Torgeson and Buchli agreed to support the request. When they were elected last fall, the three agreed to support the addition to the agenda of any item that any one of them wanted to discuss. The mayor or three council members can make such a request. 

“This really isn’t a time for headlines,” Bongiovanni said by text. “We’re just doing what we believe we need to do to create an environment of unity and trust on the council.” 

But Peterson said there is nothing that will come out of a vote of no confidence.  

“I think we have a lot more business to be doing in the town of Gilbert than to be wasting time on something that has no effect on our community,” she said. “I think it’s a political statement.” 

Gilbert spokesperson Jennifer Harrison said nothing in town code or Roberts’ Rules of Order allows for a vote of no confidence. 

“We’re not seeking any penalties,” Bongiovanni said by text. “We’re hoping for an outcome that will put the council in a better place. It might take a while, but I believe we can get there if ALL of us are honest and willing to do the work. This isn’t a proud moment for Gilbert, but I believe we’ll get there.” 

The special meeting caught the other council members off guard. Council Member Scott Anderson was unaware of the meeting, which was posted at 6 p.m. Monday, when first contacted Monday evening. 

"You have to weigh  whether it benefits the community more to go forward with that (a special meeting) or let it lie," said Anderson, who has been a critic of the way the code of ethics has been used as a political weapon. "It's not going to foster much in the way of good feelings in the community. It's going to be more contention is all it is going to be."

Vice Mayor Kathy Tilque said she did not know how to react to the item, which she learned about when it was posted.

"I don't know what they're presenting," she said, adding the agenda only showed a discussion. "I guess I'm going to have to wait and see what's going on."

Council Member Yung Koprowski also had just seen the item when contacted and declined comment. 

Buchli could not be reached for comment. Torgeson also declined to comment beyond saying Bongiovanni was driving the item. 

Peterson said Bongiovanni recently had filed an ethics complaint against her, which would be a sixth ethics complaint against a council member filed this month. 

Gilbert resident Maureen Hoppe filed a complaint July 10 against Torgeson and Buchli, claiming they had spread misinformation and failed to correct it when shown it was wrong, leading to harassment of Hoppe. Hoppe had challenged the council members’ stances on the District at Cooley Station mixed-use development and a possible pay raise for council members. 

Peterson filed an ethics complaint July 13 against Torgeson based on a voicemail included in Hoppe’s complaint wherein Torgeson insulted the mayor. 

Maricopa County island resident Terri Naddy filed two complaints July 13 against Yung Koprowski for her firm, Y2K Engineering, having done two projects for the town. Naddy has since asked the town to hold the complaints from further action until after an Aug. 1 council study session on conflicts of interest. 

Gilbert resident and former Council Member Bill Spence filed a complaint July 27 against all the members of council for various possible infractions, including failure to meet obligations to report when they have reason to believe something that should be reported. Spence also noted two instances wherein town residents felt threatened or harassed by council members. 

Bongiovanni confirmed he had filed a complaint against Peterson, saying it is about the timing and instruments of Peterson’s complaint against Torgeson. He otherwise did not share the complaint. 

Peterson noted the three members were asking for this meeting as the investigation on the previous complaints from this month were just being initiated. 

“I’m disheartened to learn that before these investigations have even been completed and findings are made public that this latest effort and coordinated distraction is the focus of three council members’ energies,” she said. 

Peterson was the subject of at least nine ethics complaints in 2021, two of which came from Torgeson before he was a council member. But she was cleared on all of them by an independent investigator or council declined to take them up. 

The ongoing series of complaints led council to make for a way to administratively handle complaints it considered frivolous and then to the formation of a council subcommittee to rewrite the code of ethics and rework the complaint process. 

Council adopted the subcommittee’s changes in June, but they do not take effect until Aug. 20. All of the latest ethics complaints will follow the old ethics procedures.  

Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on Twitter.  We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. 

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert
@sp_blodgett

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).