Neely Makes Desperate Attack on Wes Gullett
July 6, 2011
Phoenix, AZ – Peggy Neely, whose campaign for Mayor is stalling amidst allegations of bloated office spending, criticism for championing the plan to build a $40 million “road to nowhere,” voting to double the city’s water rate during the 10 years she was on the City Council, giving away millions of dollars in failed subsidies for CityNorth, and for leading the effort to build a day labor center in her district with taxpayer money, which contributed to Phoenix being labeled as a sanctuary city, has now attacked Wes Gullett for “Union” ties.
“Through a surrogate (who was supported by public employee unions), Mrs. Neely is trying to negatively link me to labor unions. This is a ridiculous charge and only illustrates the desperation of her campaign,” Gullett said. “My company did work for the Service Employee International Union in 2005 in a specific case of trying to provide employees in Pima County, who were already unionized, the ability to choose competitively who would represent them. That holds true with my consistent position of being an advocate for competition, whether in the business market place or in a union hall. Since that time, Mrs. Neely has taken thousands of dollars of union contributions that she is now using in her current campaign for Mayor. It is utter hypocrisy for Peggy Neely to pretend she has a history of being anti-union or even promoting competition in the free marketplace. Her history has been about picking winners and losers and we can’t afford to have those policies in the Mayor’s office,” stated Gullett.
“To accuse me of being sympathetic to Union bosses is a joke. As Mayor, I will be a firm and forceful negotiator with the City’s public employee unions. I will promote policies that are in the best interest of the taxpayer, focus on creating jobs by implementing my Seven Point Jobs Plan, reform government by cutting the cost through finding efficiencies and labor cost savings. I have consistently called for the elimination of the food tax, fought against the water rate increase and proposed lowering permitting costs for new, expanding small businesses and opposed providing merit and longevity pay increases to 90% of city employees,” said Gullett.
“For Mrs. Neely to now attack unions, after she lined her campaign coffers with their contributions, shows that she will go to any length to win this election. It is the epitome of hypocrisy and desperation for a candidate who has actively pursued public employee union support for more than a decade to now say that any connection to unions is somehow negative. Mrs. Neely should wipe off the mud she has splashed on herself and talk about the issues. The reason for her attempted smear of my campaign comes directly from the fact that Phoenix’s largest business organization, the Phoenix Realtor’s Association, has endorsed my campaign which is embarrassing to Mrs. Neely, who is a realtor,” concluded Gullett.
Gullett’s company, FirstStrategic, has worked for hundreds of clients during the past nine years. Mr. Gullett’s principal job at the firm has been as a strategic planner. He has advocated for Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), Northern Arizona University and the Salt River Project.
