Dear Editor,
On Sept. 16, 2025, the Kingman City Council voted 7-0 to overturn an initiative passed by the people that required a ballot measure and vote to raise certain taxes. This decision was based on a court ruling for a case brought against the Town of Payson which stated that the Arizona Constitution and the Arizona Voter Protection Act does not apply to local initiatives.
This decision stands in stark contrast to a similar case brought against the City of Sedona which came to the opposite conclusion. So there remains a conflict in the law whether local initiatives passed by the voters are protected from modification or revocation by city councils.
The point in this is that our city council was under no legal obligation to overturn City Ordinance 2-24 which codified the initiative. In short, they did this because they could and did so with a 7-0 vote. It is hard to believe that all seven of our council members would vote for such a controversial action without some dissent … or is it?
I thought it might be interesting to review how the Kingman City Council votes to see if there is a pattern. To keep things simple I went back one year starting in July 2025. I counted every vote taken by the council regardless of subject.
Approximately 364 items were voted on by the council during this year. Of these 364 items only five ‘no’ votes were recorded. All of these “no” votes were on separate council vote items so there was never more than one “no” vote on any item throughout the year. Which pens out to a 1.37% chance that an item brought to vote by this council would have a “no” vote and a 98.63% chance of passing with no opposition!
This is NOT a measurement of chances to pass a measure just the likelihood someone would object. The chance of approving council items was 100%. Counting individual votes paints an even darker picture of lockstep voting.
During the year, 2,364 individual council member votes were cast and again only five were a “no” vote for a 0.211% opposition rate. This is a 99.8% “yes” vote rate! Obviously, the voting norm for this city council is the number of council members present voting “yes” with no one opposing.
This voting pattern should raise alarms. The big question, just who is providing oversight over our city government?
While this is being submitted during an election cycle the authors in no way represent or endorse any candidate.
George Cook
Charles Iffland
