7 June 11th - June 17th, 2026 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | On a Mission Meet Ron Tapscott, the pesky activist determined to hold Tempe leaders to account. BY JONAH MANTHEY O n a mild Sunday afternoon in April, Ron Tapscott stood next to a picnic table at Moeur Park in Tempe. He passed paper plates to volunteers, who then passed food to hungry people. The table was filled with offerings, from watermelon to donuts, and the line was long. Every Sunday for the past several years, many in Tempe’s unhoused community have come here for a guaranteed bite to eat. As long as supplies last, of course. “We’re short on plates, everyone,” Tapscott shouted every few minutes as volunteers distributed food to a crowd of around 40 people. They were getting short on food, too. These picnics are organized by New Deal Meal, which Tapscott started two years ago. A silver-whiskered man who dresses plainly and pauses before he speaks, Tapscott founded the organiza- tion to continue the work of AZ Hugs founder Austin Davis, who’d incurred the city of Tempe’s ire by holding similar weekend feedings in its parks. Tempe police prosecuted Davis for holding the events without a permit, making him a cause célèbre until the parties struck a plea agreement that barred Davis from continuing the events. So Tapscott and Dave Wells, a retired Arizona State University professor who cofounded New Deal Meal, stepped into the void. Tapscott has drawn the city’s scrutiny as well — Tempe also ticketed him for a food distribution event before dismissing the charges. He’s pretty practiced at doing just that. The 79-year-old has been organizing in Tempe for more than a decade, founding a number of organizations dedicated to agitating for change in the quirky suburb. Over the past few years, he’s found himself at odds with the city government. The Tempe Tribune once labeled him the “city gadfly.” It’s a mantle Tapscott wears proudly. “I’m not going to watch people get bullied and pushed down, and I’m not going to watch democracy be eroded by people in power,” he said. Tapscott’s relationship with Tempe’s municipal leaders wasn’t always this tense. It used to even be collegial. Years ago, he and other Tempe activists worked with the city council. Tapscott would gather activists and councilmembers to meet at his home and discuss how to work together to solve problems in Tempe. They’d sit around Tapscott’s living room and discuss the issues, recalled Katherine Kouvelas- Edick. She runs the Aris Foundation, which also serves meals to unhoused people. “He created an excellent collaboration amongst us — until there was none,” she told Phoenix New Times. A testy relationship That spirit of cooperation splintered on the shoals of professional hockey. In 2022, Tapscott created Tempe 1st, an organization designed to oppose a $2 billion proposal to build a new hockey stadium and entertainment district near Tempe Town Lake in an effort to coax the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes away from Glendale. Tapscott and other residents were concerned about what seemed to them like a sellout to wealthy developers, and Tempe 1st campaigned vigorously against a special election referendum to approve the development deal. Much to the Tempe City Council’s dismay, voters rejected the proposal in 2023. The Coyotes eventually moved to Utah. Tapscott’s relationship with city leaders soured after that campaign. He said it was also a turning point in Tempe residents’ relationship with the council — residents lost trust and the council stopped pretending to listen. “Post that, everything has been adversarial, conflicted,” Tapscott said. “Lobbying efforts have suffocated.” That view was later reinforced when, in 2024, reporting by New Times revealed that the council had trashed Tapscott and other activists in an illegal closed-door meeting two years earlier. A consultant hired by the council called those who opposed the hockey arena project “CAVE people,” standing for “citizens against virtually everything.” Tempe Mayor Corey Woods specifically namedropped Tapscott, dubbing him a “crazy uncle” and “self-appointed emperor” of the CAVE people. Tempe disputes the characterization that the meetings were “secret,” though the Arizona Attorney General’s Office ruled that some of what was discussed in the meetings “were not permissible topics.” Tempe was also required to release a recording of the meetings — which is how the “CAVE people” comments came to light — and the city council underwent open records law training as a result. It’s hard to win back trust after that — though Tapscott hopes the recent city elec- tion, which saw two incumbent councilmembers lose their seats to reform- minded challengers, will change that. “Our city has been captivated by the worst instincts and personalities,” Tapscott said. “These seven sitting councilpeople are beyond reform.” Tapscott was more amused than offended when he heard about the secret meetings. “I’ve always stood up to these kind of institutions that abuse people,” he said. Though he never expected he’d become such a thorn in Tempe’s side. A political bent Tapscott grew up in a working-class family in Virginia and attended an inner-city high school. He graduated from Kent State University in 1969 — one year before the Ohio National Guard killed four student protestors on its campus. He’d already left by the time of the shootings, but he witnessed the mass antiwar protests that led up to it. Tapscott went to college to become a psychologist, but this experience shifted his attention elsewhere. “I changed my mind and decided I had to be politically active,” he said. After graduating from college, Tapscott worked for a housing agency in Milwaukee and helped to organize a tenants’ union and rent strike. He then spent 20 years working as a union organizer in factories. But then the deindustrialization period arrived and “completely decimated the blue-collar working class in Milwaukee,” he said. Jobs were moved overseas, factories were shut down and Tapscott was forced into unemployment. “We had little heat in our house,” he recalled. “When I went up to tuck my kids in, I could see my breath in the hallway. And it wasn’t just tucking them in, it was zipping up their snowsuits so they could sleep.” Tempe activist Ron Tapscott. (Jonah Manthey) With Austin Davis unable to participate, community members have continued his Sunday Picnics in his absence. (TJ L’Heureux) >> p8 | NEWS |
