by Matthew Holloway | Jul 19, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
A quiet battle has been raging over the groundwater of the Hualapai Basin between Arizona State Representative John Gillette (R-LD30) and Mohave County Board of Supervisors Chairman Travis Lingenfelter.
Gillette has alleged that Lingenfelter enjoys the support of Governor Katie Hobbs, and High Ground, LLC., a firm “closely tied to the Walton Family Foundation and Environmental Defense Fund.”
In an email to AZ Free News, Rep. Gillette stated that Lingenfelter “has ‘cozied up’ with Governor Hobbs and High Ground, LLC., not by joining their party, but by aligning on a policy platform that places rural water in the hands of the Governor. He has advocated for several of the leftists’ water bills that trample the rights of property owners.”
The controversy appears to have arisen around the Final Assessment of the Hualapai Basin Water Data Integrity issued by Gillette to fellow legislators and third-party reviewers, which was allegedly made public by Lingenfelter in a May 8, 2025, formal rebuttal.
In his final assessment, Gillette wrote, “After continued research, legislative engagement, and review of both historical and current data, my original 2021 assessment of the Hualapai Basin water situation remains valid. The data presented by the City of Kingman and Mohave County remains suspect, with indications of overstatement used to drive political narratives and policy agendas.”
In the assessment, which Rep. Gillette asserted was reviewed by “three independent scientific and policy bodies prior to publication,” he found:
- The Hualapai Basin has enough groundwater storage to supply the region for 100–300+ years, even under heavy usage.
- Forecast models were based on worst-case pumping assumptions and should not be used to justify alarmist policy actions.
- Recharge estimates, storage volumes, and historical withdrawal rates all point to significant long-term water availability.
- The City of Kingman and Mohave County appear to have overstated risks—possibly to justify control over water rights or block agricultural competitors.
In the formal rebuttal dated May 8th, Lingenfelter addressed Gillette and claimed, “Your letter unfortunately contains a series of flawed assumptions, technical inaccuracies, and mischaracterizations that misinform rather than advance the public dialogue around long-term rural groundwater sustainability in Mohave County.”
He added, “Your letter asserts that data presented by Mohave County and the City of Kingman remains ‘suspect’ and ‘politically compromised.’ Such a characterization is categorically false and impugns the reputations of Mohave County, City of Kingman, and credentialed hydrologists at the ADWR and USGS and the public they serve.”
Responding to Lingenfelter’s rebuke in a formal response on May 16th, Gillette wrote, “While I welcome constructive dialogue, your letter reflects a degree of emotional overreach rather than a calm, scientific response to the concerns raised. Unfortunately, it reveals more about political defensiveness than about data transparency or hydrological best practice.”
Responding to critiques of the assessment’s findings Gillette wrote, “The assessment I authored was reviewed by three independent scientific and policy bodies prior to publication. All concluded that the findings were as accurate as possible given available data. I welcome peer review. What I reject is politically motivated resistance to scrutiny. As further evidence of bias, it should be noted that the ‘comparison document’ you reference—submitted by your team only days after my final assessment—contains several confirmations of my position.”
Rep. Gillette pushed back on Lingenfelter’s assertions based on the MODFLOW-NWT model from the U.S. Geological Survey and its 75,586 adjustable parameters writing, “As any trained analyst knows, such complexity magnifies sensitivity. Even small changes in assumptions—especially politically influenced assumptions—can result in dramatic shifts in outcome. Your confidence in the model would carry more weight if you supported my proposal to recalibrate baseline figures using 15 new field test sites with controlled, non manipulated measurement inputs. This is the kind of ground-truth methodology science demands. Strangely, your rebuttal ignores this recommendation entirely.”
He further strongly criticized the veto of a bill to cap irrigation on an irrigation non-expansion area (INA) by Governor Katie Hobbs, saying the veto “executed without explanation—is further evidence that political goals are outweighing scientific governance.”
AZ Free News reached out to Supervisor Lingenfelter for a comment and received the following reply:
Thank you for reaching out. I am not aware of any dispute or controversy between the Mohave County District 1 Office and Representative Gillette’s Office as you phrase it. As Mohave County Supervisor for District 1, I have served as Mohave County’s lead on water issues for the past five years, and was actively involved in our local water policy advocacy during my prior four years on the Kingman City Council.
My responsibility is to represent the shared, official position of both Mohave County and the City of Kingman, guided by the most accurate and credible data and hydrological modeling available, based on a multi-year, science-based partnership between Mohave County, the City of Kingman, and the United States Geological Survey (USGS)—an independent agency with a long-standing reputation for being the gold standard of scientific water modeling.
The ‘Final Assessment of the Hualapai Basin Water Data Integrity’ issued by Rep. Gillette is his office’s interpretation. The County and City remain firmly grounded and unified in the professional peer-reviewed science and long-term hydrological data and modeling that have guided our efforts to protect rural groundwater and ensure sustainable water use for future generations.
As always, Mohave County, City of Kingman, and USGS look forward to jointly collaborating with all legislators on our water issues on behalf of our rural communities.”
Based upon his team’s findings, Rep. Gillette has announced his intention to pursue “a stand-alone Hualapai Basin bill—developed outside of executive influence—that reflects the data as it exists, not as it is manipulated.”
Editor’s Note: Following the filing of this report, AZ Free News was contacted by Nick Ponder, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs of HighGround Public Affairs. Mr. Ponder provided the ’Analysis of Water Constraints and Economic Growth,’ a report prepared for Mohave County by Rounds Consulting Group, and the formal rebuttal issued on May 8th by Chairman Lingenfelter to Rep. Gillette with the note: “The County, City, and USGS have been very transparent in the processes and data used in determining the water situation in the Hualapai Valley Basin. The letter and the attached analysis should reflect that robust and transparent process.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jul 18, 2025 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Following President Trump’s directive to scrub divisive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, practices, and language from public institutions, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to the Arizona Department of Education (DOE) to ensure that schools comply with these requirements.
The Arizona DOE notified every school district and charter public school that they must submit a completed certification confirming compliance with the federal civil rights law. A public website was developed to track which districts and schools have completed the certification and which have not. Though the majority of schools are listed as “in compliance,” the question remains: have they all truly purged their websites and learning environments of DEI practices? A quick review and some basic research suggest that not all these schools are fully committed to the removal of this woke material.
Alhambra Elementary School District in Phoenix has a subcommittee titled “Culture, Conditions, & Climate” with a stated need to “increase its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion capacity to ensure it is an inclusive environment.” The district plans to achieve this by subjecting staff to DEI trainings designed to establish that these adults teaching your children become anti-racist activists.
Recently, Scottsdale Unified School District has been the center of controversy surrounding their adoption of new textbooks that teach about George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and anti-law enforcement rhetoric. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has spoken out against this anti-American, DEI-infested curriculum, emphasizing that schools must steer clear of promoting an “unbalanced political agenda.”
In Glendale, the Washington Elementary School District has published a “Statement of Commitment to Educational Equity,” in which it outlines how DEI principles are integrated into its educational framework.
In an application for federal charter school start-up grants for 2024-2028, Desert Sage High School in Tucson declares its commitment to “diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-bias education, and social justice.” Among its goals is increasing the percentage of Hispanic and Native American students—an effort aimed more at virtue signaling just to demonstrate how unbiased they really are.
Several other schools maintain overreaching non-discrimination statements that include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” and some keep DEI in their mission statements.
And these are just the districts and schools that claim to comply with the federal civil rights law…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by Matthew Holloway | Jul 18, 2025 | News
By Mathew Holloway |
Municipal Affairs Liaison at the Goldwater Institute William Beard sat for an interview with AZ Free News to expand on an op-ed published Saturday, “Regional Transit In Tucson: Bigger Tax Bill, Worse Results?”
Beard warned in his column that as we approach 20 years of the 2006 vintage Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), only 18 of the 35 projects promised to the taxpayers of Pima County have been completed.
He wrote, “The mismanagement is staggering. Tucson’s unfinished Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) projects are estimated to be $400–$600 million short. At the current pace—roughly $50 million in spending per year—completing the work would take at least eight more years. There’s one big problem, however: the sales tax that funds the RTA is set to expire in 2026, and time is running out. Tucson officials have responded by throwing up their hands and admitting defeat, postponing four projects for inclusion in a future ‘RTA Next’ plan.”
Beard directly attributes the RTA’s financial woes and lack of productivity to a series of economic factors, exacerbated by the City of Tucson’s project mismanagement, delays, and unwillingness to shoulder the added cost burden. He explained, “Every infrastructure plan faces risks, and Pima County’s strategy was no exception. The 2008 recession slowed tax collections, and inflation has since driven construction costs well beyond the 10% buffer allowed by law. Tucson, however, made matters worse by repeatedly altering project scopes to appease neighborhood groups, further delaying timelines and driving up costs. Each time, Tucson failed to take responsibility by allocating more supplemental resources. Instead, city leaders appeared to hope the problem would simply go away.”
He added, “Tucson’s leaders clearly misunderstand the purpose of the RTA, viewing it more as a construction manager responsible for overruns than a basic funding mechanism distributing tax dollars. Each city was responsible for designing and building its own projects. Any change in scope—additional lanes, neighborhood preferences, unforeseen costs—was theirs to fund, not the RTA’s.“
Speaking with AZ Free News, Beard elaborated:
“I’m from Tucson. I grew up there, so this is a little personal for me. But there’s a history of kicking the can down the road by the community writ large, leadership, etc. A ‘Why deal with it today when we can postpone to tomorrow’ attitude. And it’s only when things truly reach a critical point that something happens politically.
“The powers that be down there would prefer to kind of maintain the status quo. They don’t want their boat rocked. They don’t want anybody coming in and potentially undermining their political power, so let’s maintain things as they are.
“To the point of the article, the problem fundamentally is two things. One, was it a failure to plan or a plan to fail? And number two, remember when voters vote on these long-term things, you always end up with a situation where the compromises politically that were made in order to get the thing past the voters that were approved in the beginning, political leadership that are elected further on into the cycle, they don’t believe that they are obligated to follow the wishes of whatever compromises were made in the first place.”
As for the political fallout, Beard predicted that an attempt from Tucson Mayor Regina Romero to extricate the city from the RTA, as she threatened in 2022, might not “end well for her politically speaking.”
He noted, “The problem is she is basically telling all of the voters across Pima County, not just the other communities, but the voters throughout Pima County, including her own voters, ‘eff you’. And I don’t think, given what happened with (Proposition) 414 a few months ago in the city of Tucson, I don’t think that will end well for her politically speaking.”
City voters soundly rejected Prop 414 or the “Safe & Vibrant City” proposition, which would have enacted a half-cent sales tax increase for the next 10 years to fund various city projects. City Manager Tim Thomure told AZCentral that the Proposition’s rejections sent city planners “back to the drawing board [to] sharpen our pencils and work it out so that we live within the budget that will be available to us.”
Beard continued saying that Romero, “is, of the opinion, and there are other people, including Supervisor Hines on the Board of Supervisors, of the opinion that the City can basically go its own way and make its own sales tax. They’re forgetting, of course, that if that happens, roughly… a third of the total revenue that would come to the region would disappear because it would revert back to the state legislature to determine whether or not those funds get distributed based on the regional planning that southern Arizona currently enjoys.”
He added that Tucson’s deviation from the RTA planning adopted in 2006 could leave the city open to legal consequences. He observed, “I’m not an attorney, so I don’t give legal advice, but I spent 30 years in the contracting world and I’ve read enough of the documents, the intergovernmental agreements, the procedures, policy procedures of the RTA that was adopted in 2006, all of them keep referring to voter language, you know, the amount of money that was set aside by the voters that could go to these projects.
“Under state law, you can vary that up to 10 % overrun, because it’s the vagaries of construction, that happens. But anything above and beyond that, you’ve got to go back to the voters in order to get their approval to make that kind of scope change. Again, I’m not an attorney, but I can read what’s in the language and it’s pretty clear.”
According to Beard, the RTA board did send its new legal counsel a question with the hope of getting an answer by the end of July at their next formal board meeting, asking: “What is the legal obligation of the RTA board to complete all of the projects if the revenue has not come in to satisfy all of the needs that the voters … determined 20 years ago?”
He concluded: “To be blunt, the city of Tucson’s got nobody to blame but themselves. You can point fingers at the RTA all you want to. You can point fingers to the leadership. The reality is in the numbers; the math is the math. And for all of these projects the City of Tucson kept postponing, it only dramatically increased the amount of money they would have to bring to the table, even assuming the RTA never had a revenue shortfall.
“Because the City of Tucson kept postponing these projects, the costs were going through the roof and there was no way legally for the RTA to step forward and say, oh yeah, we’ll cover those extra costs. That’s not possible.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Matthew Holloway | Jul 18, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
Robert Warshaw, the court-appointed monitor over the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), found himself challenged by Republican state and county-elected officials and over 100 attendees at a community forum with Sheriff Jerry Sheridan on Wednesday night.
GOP leaders, including Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin, Supervisor Debbie Lesko, gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, and Maricopa County Republican Committee First Vice Chair Shelby Busch, joined the meeting with a large group of supporters of the Sheriff’s Office. The group demanded an accounting from Warshaw for the $311 million in taxpayer dollars spent over the past 11 years on the court-mandated monitoring in the racial profiling case Melendres v. Arpaio.
Supervisor Galvin shared a series of posts to X, laying out the case presented by Lesko and himself. He wrote, “Last night Supervisor @DebbieLesko gave eloquent speech at Maricopa County’s west valley meeting on federal oversight of MCSO[:] *$350 million in costs since 2007[,] *Compliance goalposts keep moving[,] *Monitor paid $2.9M last year[,] *4 sheriffs have served since lawsuit filed[.]”
“Maricopa County pays for these meetings, with taxpayer dollars, and thanks to all who showed up to participate in the public process. High turnout at any public meeting is always a good thing!”
Supervisor Mark Stewart shared video of Galvin’s remarks, initially posted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, suggesting a concerted effort by the Board of Supervisors and County Attorney’s Office to pushback against the Melendres ruling.
Stewart wrote, “The time to end this decade long oversight. The men and women of the @mcsoaz Sheriffs office deserve recognition as a top tier law enforcement organization. The taxpayers expect their hard earned tax dollars to be invested in their safety. Thank you @Rachel1Mitchell for speaking out and to Chairman @ThomasGalvin for leading this effort.”
During his remarks Galvin quipped, “Mr. Warshaw, you’re a tough man to find! In fact, this is the first time we’ve met.”
Mitchell described the scene in a post writing, “@ThomasGalvin speaking truth to the federal monitor—oversight of our elected sheriff has cost Maricopa taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Brandon Hiller, Chief of Staff to the Maricopa County Attorney, shared an image of Warshaw resting his head on his hand during the proceedings, which reportedly became raucous at times. He wrote, “The federal monitor was not pleased with all the support for @JerrySheridan24 and @mcsoaz. Time to end the court orders. 350 million dollars later… 30 million to the federal monitor alone…”
According to KJZZ, the overall cost to the Maricopa County taxpayers to meet the ruling’s 360 requirements for the agency, related to traffic stops and internal affairs, is projected to reach $350 million this year. Warshaw told the audience that the reforms ordered by Judge Snow are not complete yet.
“This agency has made a lot of progress. A lot of progress. We’ll get to the money in a second,” Warshaw told the forum. “Is this thing going to go on forever? No, no, no.”
The monitor told attendees that an independent firm recently did a traffic-stop study of the Sheriff’s Office and found that the bias alleged in Melandres has continued and that oversight will only end after the Sheriff’s Office complies. Warshaw said that the MCSO is still facing a major backlog of internal misconduct investigations, required to be resolved within 180 days with many exceeding that timeline. Warshaw’s most recent report indicated that the department is in “full and effective compliance” with 92% of the 360 requirements in Judge Snow’s order while the misconduct investigation backlog “remains one of the biggest hurdles affecting MCSO’s ability to reach overall completion.”
Lesko was unconvinced however, and said, “I ask the judge, the federal monitor, (and) all the stakeholders to please end this madness.”
Many critics cited the cost of the federal monitoring as their chief concern. Court records show that of the $311 million cost of the lawsuit to date, $31 million has covered the monitoring fees. Warshaw defended the cost, stating that he has 13 full-time staffers monitoring the department.
Galvin was incredulous, referring to the monitoring effort’s 2025 year to date cost of $2.9 million. “We have to spend $2.9 million—you have to spend $2.9 million on Mr. Warshaw. You have to pay for this meeting tonight,” Galvin said. “Debbie and I cut the check, but you, the taxpayers, are paying for this meeting.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Peggy McClain | Jul 17, 2025 | Opinion
By Peggy McClain |
Recently, the Peoria Unified Governing Board made a necessary correction: They removed the superintendent from the dais, restoring a clear boundary between the elected and the employed. While some saw this as dramatic, the only real surprise was that the line had been blurred for so long.
Unfortunately, the Higley Unified School District went the opposite direction, and they did it quietly.
At what should have been a routine meeting last week, Superintendent David Loutzenheiser, attending his very first meeting as head of Higley Schools, took a seat on the dais without any board vote or public discussion. And unfortunately, his first moves were not in line with what he promised when interviewed.
Immediately after the meeting began, Board Member Anna Van Hoek read a detailed statement opposing the new seating arrangement. Her opposition was not just personal, it was procedural. According to Van Hoek, she learned about the change via email, without any discussion or vote among the five board members. She stated: “The dais represents the authority entrusted to us directly by the voters.”
Van Hoek is absolutely correct.
Per Arizona Statute §15-503, governing boards in Arizona are responsible for hiring and evaluating the superintendent. When an employee sits on the dais as if equal to the officials tasked with his oversight, it blurs the lines of authority. That distinction may be lost on those with long careers in education, but in the private sector, these boundaries are well understood. There is a reason the CEO does not share the boardroom table with the board of directors. It is not about ego, it is about structure, accountability, and ensuring each role is properly respected.
Employees, even highly paid ones, are assigned responsibilities, expectations, and standards of behavior. If a superintendent is perceived as a peer rather than an employee, will board members evaluate him objectively when the time comes? That is not a rhetorical question as it became reality just minutes into the meeting when Board Member Scott Glover asked the superintendent if it was “okay” to table the vote on his dais placement. That single moment flipped the chain of command upside down.
Superintendent Loutzenheiser oversees a district with a budget exceeding $100 million and is responsible for hundreds of employees. He will hold meetings with principals, department heads, and administrators to carry out the board’s direction. Will any of them be invited to sit beside him at his desk? Of course not. And yet, some expect him to sit shoulder to shoulder with his bosses. It is not just improper, it is dysfunctional.
According to Van Hoek’s statement, the superintendent requested to move to the dais, and Board President Amanda Wade approved the request entirely on her own. When Van Hoek received the email, she immediately requested the seating change be added as an action item for the July 8 board meeting. Had she not spoken up, the change would have gone forward without any transparency, just Wade’s quiet approval. That would have set a dangerous precedent.
While Loutzenheiser initiated the request, the greater failure lies with President Wade, who acted without board consensus. Tiffany Shultz, another board member, responded to Van Hoek’s concerns by claiming the new arrangement promotes collaboration and a “united front.” Yet collaboration was not on display in that email from the superintendent to board members. And the role of an elected official is not to present uniformity, but to represent the full range of community concerns, especially when those views differ.
There is no legal or ethical requirement for a school board to look united. In fact, the opposite is true. Voters should expect to see board members raise concerns, challenge decisions, and vote independently. When votes are unanimous and debate is absent, the public should worry, not applaud. Disagreement is not dysfunction. It is how oversight works.
Sadly, the obsession with unity and harmony is a symptom of a broader trend in public education, one fueled by Social Emotional Learning (SEL). SEL prioritizes emotional well-being and interpersonal bonding over academic rigor and role clarity. This focus has blurred the lines between teachers and parents, students and staff, and now board members and the superintendent. Meanwhile, test scores fall and academic achievement stalls.
The confusion SEL has introduced into the system is precisely why the Arizona Legislature passed laws like the Parents Bill of Rights, to restore proper authority to parents. In the same way, this dais debacle exposes a need to restore proper authority and boundaries at the board level.
President Wade claims she values her fellow board members. If that is true, why didn’t she involve them in the decision? Her words and actions while sitting on the dais say otherwise.
It is important that the public can identify district staff in their designated spaces. I have attended many board meetings and am shocked at the whispers and private conversations happening on the dais between board members. Now, the same thing can happen between the superintendent and whichever board member is seated beside him. That is a problem.
Superintendent Loutzenheiser is under a three-year contract with a base salary of $210,000, not including perks and bonuses. With that kind of compensation comes an obligation to honor the governance structure. If he wants to begin his tenure with integrity, he should respectfully return to his proper seat off the dais at the next board meeting.
It may seem like a small gesture. But it would speak volumes.
Because the dais is for the elected, and it must stay that way.
Peggy McClain is a concerned citizen who advocates for accountability in Arizona’s schools. You can follower her on Twitter here.
