Ah, the City of Frisco elections, where candidates pop up like mischievous moles in a game of whack-a-mole.  The battle in the whack-a-mole arena begins and the candidates are ready to take their swing at the other.  It starts with the Whack-a-mole Forums, where they take a stance and tightly grip their mallet waiting for the right opportunity to smack down the opposing candidate.  To everyone’s surprise, candidates just keep popping up somewhere else.  It is a constant battle through the political season as you whack and jostle for position, each promising to fix the potholes, and lower property taxes while dodging the inevitable accusations of shady dealings.  As early voting begins, you wonder if you’ve nailed down your opponent enough that they will surrender and retreat to the darkness of their hole.  They surprise you and pop back up and are ready to battle to the very end.  As election day draws to a close so does the delightful game of whack-a-politician and soon a winner will be given the gold mallet.  If only it were that easy!

Now that the recent election is over, we want to look at the “Election Playbook” or tactics used because you may be surprised by some of the underhanded measures that involved active and former city officials. Then again maybe not!  The first tool in the election playbook is the power of social media.  The Safety-First PAC, run by an ACTIVE SITTING CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BILL WOODARD, took the “take no prisoners” rhetoric approach which means victory or supremacy at all costs without any regard to consequences.

One post talked about how when there’s a fire in the city, they don’t want to see the Frisco Firefighters sitting on the sidelines campaigning and playing politics. “Don’t claim the department is understaffed when 6-7 firefighters are sitting at each of the polls every day doing the Union’s bidding” the post said.

Residents were quick to respond that the post was appalling, arrogant, and ignorant.  City Councilman, Brian Livingston responded to the post and said he was pretty sure firefighters get days off and if called upon would have been happy to assist.  He specifically pointed out we can disagree on the props without personally attacking them.  Sapp, President of the Frisco Firefighters Assoc was also quick to respond.  He said, “to insinuate that our OFF-DUTY engagement in exercising our First Amendment rights suggests we don’t care about our department or our brother and sister firefighters facing a fire is GARBAGE!  He continued, if the city had called for help, he could guarantee the polls would have been empty and every OFF-DUTY firefighter would have shown up.” 

We quickly noticed each time a negative comment was made, the PAC just hid or deleted it, and then they swiftly blocked residents from the page to control negative opposition.  These were the actions of councilman, Bill Woodard, and his city sidekicks.  Wait, are you telling me the Safety-First Frisco PAC (aka the city) which fought so hard and nasty against the firefighters don’t believe in FREE SPEECH? You know your FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT!   Ultimately the post was removed from the page probably because burning down the house (figure of speech) was not the best idea.

Another post called the firefighters association “soldiers without a war, and they follow a playbook of confusion, fear, and intimidation.” After talking to residents, we are sure the VOTE NO PAC put out the confusion, created fear, and used intimidation tactics with the DEVELOPER MONEY they had in their pockets.  Over the next several posts they released several takeaways from Mayor Jeff Cheney’s conversation with Sheryl Sculley regarding the “big bad Unions!”  

In the first video Mayor Jeff Cheney called his “BIG AHA MOMENT” related to the playbook of unions and how they operate.  The first was that Associations/Unions try to pit citizens against their elected officials, city manager, and city government.  

Then he goes on to say they intentionally put out misleading information.  For example, the signs across town say Frisco Firefighters “really big,” and the “association” is very small. What we find interesting is that Mayor Cheney had no issue with the Frisco Firefighters’ signs when they endorsed him and put it on a billboard.  We found this on social media, that says Frisco Fighters REALLY BIG, and where is the word association?  Ouch, it hurts to look like a crybaby!

The next post was about the Cockroach Theory.  We must assume since the video was posted that the Safety-First Frisco Vote No PAC agreed or endorsed Sculley’s comments.  It starts with her claiming that the San Antonio unions during elections would tell candidates to give them what they want, or they won’t support them and will run someone against you.  

What we find humorous is that Bill Woodard, Jeff Cheney, Laura Rummell, Brian Livingston, and John Keating have all WILLING APPLIED AND ACCEPTED the endorsements from the Association (OH SORRY, UNION), over the years.  Since they supported another candidate other than the incumbent, we are now we are supposed to believe they are in a power struggle and blackmailing people.

She then goes on to say the machine of the Union has to keep the “PRESSURE ON” the council members, and once they have them under their shoe like a cockroach, they had to apply pressure and change their tactics to keep them reeling until the Union’s goal is achieved. 

We see this very differently because it was the city’s Vote No PAC that sent multiple mailers with different messages, multiple text messages with different verbiage, and talked about higher taxes and outsiders. At one point we felt like if we voted FOR the proposition “outsiders” being Aliens might abduct us in our sleep and take us to their leader to brainwash us and intimidate us into voting NO.

The next post was a video of Sculley and Cheney talking about how you can love your firefighters and disagree about having a union in your community.  We could not agree more with Mr. Cheney. You can disagree civilly, however, that is not what you, the council, city and former city officials, and the Vote NO PAC funded by your friends choose to do.  

Would you like examples? Angelia Pelham personally attacked the Frisco Firefighters Association board members at a forum and threatened to oust the firefighters who spoke to her in private. Then the Chamber did not allow the firefighters to present at an educational community forum. Lorie Medina, your former Chief of Staff, and campaign manager repeatedly shouted that our firefighters were liars at the polls.  Mr. Dick Peasley verbally berated them saying they were overpaid and underworked.  Friends of the council in a large social media group then accused firefighters of setting the fire in Chappel Creek to help their cause for the propositions. The Vote No PAC constantly attacked the character, integrity, and qualifications of the Frisco Firefighters.  It was “NASTY” Mr. Cheney but it was one sided and the choice was yours, the councils and the Vote No PAC on how that played out. 

In closing, social media has serious fire power when it comes to getting out a message. Maybe that is why the social media appears to be scrubbed and cleaned up. We could not find any of the previous posts from Safety First Pac who deleted their page, or photos of the council holding the VOTE NO signs at the polls.

While residents were shocked by some of the posts, employees and former employees of the city were not, according to insiders who emailed us.  One said, “That type of behavior is standard operating procedure for the city from the departments to the king of the hill better known as City Manager, Wes Pierson.”  Another insider email said, “The only difference is now the residents are seeing what happens behind closed doors at all levels of the city.”  They concluded by asking us not to use their name for fear of losing our jobs at city hall.  Fear of losing their jobs is something we hear often from City of Frisco employees.