CHANDLER, AZ — Chandler’s top elected officials didn’t want to say much about multiple allegations facing city councilmember Jane Poston.
ABC15 approached Mayor Kevin Hartke and several councilmembers at a recent public meeting to ask about a potential FBI investigation against Poston and another claim about her personal business doing work for the local police union.
"I honestly don’t know anything about it other than what’s been perceived. I don’t really have a statement because there’s just not much to say,” said Mayor Kevin Hartke. “You know if there’s any malfeasance, it will come out. I know our police unions are good people, I know Councilmember Poston as a person of integrity. So again, I don’t know enough to make any statements because it would be reckless for me because I know they’re all good folks.”
ABC15 also discovered several of Poston’s fellow councilmembers were aware of her business work with the union but dismissed concerns about impropriety and conflicts of interest.
That’s concerning, according to a leading government ethics expert.
“The appearance of it is not good,” said John Pelissero, Director of the Markkula Center of Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “It’s never a good idea for a sitting public official to be doing business with someone who’s associated with some aspect of city government.”
Last week, ABC15 obtained an internal email sent from then-police chief Sean Duggan to the Chandler city manager stating that he was aware of an ongoing public corruption investigation. Duggan wrote the FBI was looking at Poston and the Chandler Law Enforcement Association’s former president Michael Collins.
Collins declined to comment.
The FBI does not typically confirm the existence of ongoing investigations and has not responded to a request for comment.
In a written statement last week, Poston referred to the allegation of an FBI probe as an “unsubstantiated rumor.”
Duggan’s email did not specify the scope and focus of the FBI’s investigation.
But Poston and her husband, Jason, own a company called J2 Media.
J2 Media has done video and public relations work for the Chandler Law Enforcement Association going back several years, according to content posted on the business’s various web pages and social media sites.
Some of those videos include other councilmembers, including Matt Orlando and Angel Encinas.
ABC15 asked both councilmembers about their participation in J2 Media’s videos with the union.
ABC15: I want to ask you about a video you did for CLEA, do you remember?
COUNCILMEMBER ORLANDO: Yeah.
ABC15: Do you remember where this video was shot?
ORLANDO: I’m trying to remember where it was shot at, um, drawing a blank on it. It might have been…
ABC15: Was it at J2 studios?
ORLANDO: Yeah, I think it was there, yeah.
ABC15: So, you were aware of Councilmember Poston’s relationship with them and making videos with the police union?
ORLANDO: I don’t know that what means.
ABC15: So, Councilmember Poston owns J2 Media…
ORLANDO: Right. And it was her husband that was doing the filming.
ABC15: But they’re co-owners of the business?
ORLANDO: But her husband was the one doing the filming. It wasn’t Poston involved in it at all. It was her husband doing the filming.
ABC15: But she was in one of them.
ORLANDO: Well, I don’t know about that. You asked me about me. So, I’ll talk about me. Jason was the one who did the videos.
ABC15: Do you have any concerns about her husband getting money from the union?
ORLANDO: I’m not going to answer unsubstantiated rumors.
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ABC15: Did you know at that point that the Postons were working with CLEA, taking money from them, to do videos for them as like PR kinds of things?
COUNCILMEMBER ENCINAS: I know J2 Media works with various people throughout the community, from the school district, to private companies. So the point, yes, they were working together, I believe, yeah.
ABC15: What’s your expectation though, if they’re taking money from the union for their private business on whether your fellow councilmember should be voting on things related to police personnel matters that the union would have a vested interest in?
ENCINAS: Those are two private businesses outside of this arena. So, they conduct their own business outside of that.
ABC15: Certainly the union is very interested in happening at city council. And a vote from a city councilmember can make their membership very happy or not happy. They have business before this council.
ENCINAS: l don’t know if that’s decision that are made between the owners of J2 Media. There are various owners on there. So, I’m not sure how that’s split between there.
Poston has not yet addressed multiple questions from ABC15 about her business ties to the police union.
She said she’s recovering from surgery done late last month and will respond to those specific issues when she’s back in the office.
“I think the appearance of this improper set of relationships and conflict of interest is going to erode the public’s trust in the city council and in city government in general,” Pelissero said. “And that’s the thing the city councilmembers and the mayor should be concerned about.”
The Chandler Law Enforcement Association has spent more than $150,000 in recent years on advertising and promotion expenses, according to publicly-filed tax forms in 2021 and 2022.
Filings for last year are not yet available, and the public forms do not include an itemized breakdown for those expenditures.
In past years, the union spent little or no money on advertising and promotion, tax records show.
Contact ABC15 Chief Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@ABC15.com.
