After months spent filing complaints and demanding resignations, a controversial, “antagonistic” figure has officially joined the city payroll.

And yet, strolling around Scottsdale City Hall, where Rial L. Whitmer now has an office, can you hear that?

It’s the sound … of silence.

This was hardly the case for the first two thirds of 2025, when all the world of Scottsdale politics was a stage, filled with raucous, playing-to-the-crowd Shakespearean drama.

There was even an “e tu, Council?” scene, with Mayor Lisa Borowsky accusing three fellow elected officials of stabbing her in the back – via “Parkingate” complaints to county detectives.

Behind the scenes, some say an Iago was whispering in the mayor’s ear.

That would be Whitmer, who goes by his middle name of Lamar. With the mayor sh

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