Glendale voters will have one less issue to work through on an upcoming ballot after the City Council took action on some details for the development of an up-and-coming resort.
Last week, the Glendale City Council responded to a forthcoming referendum orchestrated by Worker Power Institute, negating the opportunity for the City’s and VAI Resort and Mattel Adventure Park’s Government Property Lease Excise Tax (GPLET) arrangements to be sent to a future ballot. The Council unanimously repealed its action on June 13, 2023, which had directed the City Manager to enter into the amended and restated development agreement. The June 2023 action from the council led to the efforts by Worker Power Institute to gather referendum signatures.
Michael Bailey, the City Attorney, noted that there were no surprises for the public throughout the entirety of this process with the developers of this resort, adding that the agreement in September 2020 had no public opposition. He specifically highlighted that no public groups spoke out against the Council’s actions when much of the work was done on executing this agreement.
Vice Mayor Joyce Clark agreed with Bailey’s comments and was more direct in her assessment of the situation at hand. Clark expressed suspicion with the motives of Worker Power in bringing this referendum to the doorstep of the Council, while repeatedly endorsing the project. She stated that the arrangement between Glendale and VAI Resorts would bring over 1,200 jobs to the community and infuse $10 million in sale tax revenue for the general fund, which would give much-needed financial support to essential municipal services.
Councilmember Jamie Aldama, however, took issue with some of Bailey’s words, arguing that just because there was no opposition in 2020 to this project or because there was a public meeting, constituents still may not have known about the significance or consequences of this issue. He exhorted the Council to do a better job at getting the word out to people about more of these issues and pleaded with citizens to stay engaged and involved in the process.
Worker Power Institute released the following statement after the Council’s vote: “Today, Glendale City Council repealed their June 13th decision to approve a new development agreement for the VAI Resort project. Worker Power Institute canvassers spoke with thousands of Glendale voters who expressed numerous concerns over the 25-year property tax breaks and significant changes in the updated development agreement. One of these changes, the open-air amphitheater with over 100 live events per year, greatly worried Glendale residents due to the traffic and noise such a venue would bring. Our understanding is that today’s vote to repeal the new development agreement would alleviate this particular concern as the open-air amphitheater is no longer covered. While residents still have many concerns surrounding the project, we feel tonight was a good first step.”
The President and CEO of VAI Global Development, Grant Fischer, addressed the Council’s action in a statement to a local media outlet, saying, “We appreciate the city of Glendale’s continued support for VAI Resort, and we are excited for the project to move forward on track with the city’s partnership. Apart from the financial benefits VAI Resort will bring to the city of Glendale, VAI will be among the largest employers in the state, with hundreds of jobs created for the construction of the project and more than 1,800 full time positions for the resort. As an Arizona native, I am personally so proud to create this legacy in my home state that will positively impact the community and residents.”
The Council’s action last week does not affect the original contract with the developers, but it does repeal the amendment from June 2023. A point was raised during discussion of this action that the original arrangement between the City and the developers could not be affected.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The State of Arizona continues to invest in high-speed internet broadband in many rural communities.
On Thursday, Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, issued a press release, announcing the “completion of $3.6 million in broadband projects to bring Internet fiber connectivity to Santa Cruz County.” With the Santa Cruz effort in the books, “the Arizona Department of Education has brought a total of approximately $160 million in fiber construction projects to schools and libraries in rural areas through the federal E-Rate Program in the past six years.”
Horne championed the latest development in this endeavor, saying, “With access to high-speed broadband, students can take remote classes and take advantage of digital learning opportunities. Educators will be able to dramatically enhance their professional development capabilities and communities will be transformed by the cultural and economic benefits of having a strong connection to the Internet.”
The Department revealed that “the latest project in Santa Cruz County will benefit all 1,000 students of the Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District.” Additionally, “the local Rio Rico Community will benefit from the new fiber infrastructure brought into the area by Valley Telcom.”
Superintendent Horne’s release went on to explain that “E-rate brings high-speed Internet broadband to areas of the country underserved by existing utilities.” The funding of these projects comes “through an assessment on telecommunications providers as required by federal law with the goal of ensuring that communications services such as broadband are accessible for eligible schools and libraries in rural areas.”
These projects are extremely vital for the future of many people around the state, according to the Department, as “many non-metro regions have limited Internet connectivity, and on tribal lands an estimated 95 percent of households have no connectivity.”
The catalyst of Arizona E-rate’s productivity can be traced back two administrations, when Superintendent Diane Douglas led the state’s Department of Education. This week’s announcement included the history of E-rate in Arizona, adding, “in cooperation with other state agencies, ADE’s Erate Director, Milan Eaton, capitalized on the FCC Second order in 2017 allowing states to contribute to construction projects and increasing the eligible amount to the participating school district. To date there are more than 80 projects either complete or in process across the state.”
Other projects highlighted by the Arizona Department of Education included:
County wide fiber build in Pinal County – $33.9 million
Fiber to the Grand Canyon School District – $5.6 million
County wide fiber build in Gila County – $19.4 million
County wide fiber build in LaPaz County – $3.9 million
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
A recent audit from the Arizona Auditor General has bad news for a division within the Arizona Department of Transportation.
On Thursday, the Arizona Auditor General released a report on the Arizona Department of Transportation – Motor Vehicle Division’s (MVD) Oversight of Third Parties. The overview of the report summarized that “MVD failed to ensure authorized third-party companies consistently issued vehicle titles, driver licenses, and identification cards only to qualified and/or authorized individuals/entities, increasing public safety risks such as unsafe drivers, vehicle and identity theft, fraud, and terrorism.” The report was delivered by the Auditor General, Lindsey Perry, who transmitted the findings to Members of the Arizona Legislature, Governor Katie Hobbs, and the Director of the Arizona Department of Transportation.
The purpose of this audit was to “determine whether MVD effectively oversaw third parties to ensure they issued vehicle titles, driver licenses, and identification cards only to qualified and authorized individuals/entities.”
Out of more than 17 million documents (vehicle titles, registrations, driver licenses, and identification cards) issued in Arizona, 36% have been disseminated by third parties. The Arizona Department of Transportation has 96 third parties across 175 locations.
Through a review of a 130-transaction sample from third parties between March and October 2022, the Auditor General discovered that 25 of these records “lacked documentation that confirmed that the individuals/entities who received vehicle titles, driver licenses, and identification cards were qualified and/or authorized to receive them.” Twenty-two of those results were exposed as having “high-risk errors according to MVD guidance.”
The report warned that “fraudulently obtained identification documents may facilitate criminal activity, including fraud, identity theft, and terrorism,” noting that “individuals who fraudulently obtain identification documents may do so to commit other crimes, such as fraud of acts of terrorism.”
The Auditor General made six recommendations to MVD, which Perry told state officials that “the Arizona Department of Transportation agrees with all the findings and plans to implement all the recommendations.” The recommendations for MVD were as follows:
Ensure its third-party contract performance measurement attachment includes clearly defined performance requirements;
Ensure third parties issue vehicle titles, driver licenses, and identification cards only to qualified and/or authorized individuals/entities by developing and implementing written policies, procedures, and guidance for its third-party quality assurance process;
Develop and implement training on its quality assurance policies and procedures for all applicable MVD staff who support the third-party quality assurance process to ensure adherence to established oversight policies, procedures, and guidance;
Develop and implement training for all third parties or their authorized representatives, and verify their completion of the training;
Conduct an initial analysis of transactions the third parties were provided for self-review dating back to February 2022 to assess third-party compliance with statutory minimum quality standards and MVD’s quality assurance process, and continue to complete a monthly analysis thereafter up until MVD implements a revised third-party quality assurance process as described in Recommendation 2;
Identify and implement changes to align its third-party quality assurance process more closely with its quality assurance process for MVD field offices, including conducting a staffing and workload analysis, and taking action as needed to ensure sufficient staffing resources are allocated to third-party oversight.
The State’s Department of Transportation was called out for its inconsistency in upholding the recommendations made by the Auditor General in 2015. The Auditor General highlighted that its office had “recommended MVD ensure any changes to its processes did not weaken its oversight of third parties, with specific recommendations to improve its oversight of third-party transaction accuracy and to take corrective actions against third parties with serious errors or patterns of problems.” The Auditor General followed up with the Department two years after the audit, finding that MVD had successfully implemented the recommendations. However, that adherence apparently came to an end a handful of years later when “MVD established a new quality assurance process in February 2022 that is inconsistent with recommended practices for monitoring and overseeing third parties’ performance.”
According to the Arizona Auditor General, its mission is to “provide independent and impartial information and specific recommendations to improve the operations of State and local government entities.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
A freshman Arizona Senator is alerting her constituents of the laws protecting their freedoms in the event that another round of politicized COVID-19 cases sweeps the nation.
Senator Janae Shamp sent out a press release on Thursday, “reminding Arizonans of the safeguards put in place by Republicans at the Legislature to protect against future outrageous overreach and scientifically baseless restrictions.”
Shamp’s motivation was seeing “fear over mask mandates and the politicization of COVID-19 from the Left once again become a focal point heading into the upcoming 2024 election cycle.”
The Republican Senator issued the following statement: “With election season upon us, we’re once again witnessing COVID-19 fearmongering from the Left as liberal entities in Georgia, New York and California are now once again overstepping their authority in dictating mask mandates. As a registered nurse who has been detrimentally impacted by government infringement not based on scientific evidence, I want you to rest assured that I will fight tooth and nail to make sure you’re protected from this gross overreach. If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. If you don’t want to wear a mask, don’t wear one. This is a personal choice that our citizens are allowed to make. If a business wants to force you to wear a mask and you don’t wish to, you have the right to take your business elsewhere. I will work to provide more guidance for you and your family as needed, and I vow to craft more legislation next session that further protects your God-given freedoms.”
Senator Shamp shared four laws:
In 2021, A.R.S. 44-7951 was enacted to protect businesses in Arizona from being required to enforce a mask mandate established by state, city, county and town governments, or any other jurisdiction within Arizona.
In 2022, A.R.S. 1-611 was enacted to protect students under the age of 18 at public district or charter schools from being required to wear a mask without the express consent of the child’s parent or guardian.
Additionally in 2022, A.R.S 36-681 was enacted to protect the public from forced masking at any government building or premises, except where long-standing workplace safety and infection control measures that are unrelated to COVID-19 may be required.
Furthermore, should the Governor implement a state of emergency for “public health” reasons, last year’s enacted A.R.S 26-303 would require the Governor to first get permission from the Legislature in order to extend the emergency past 120 days.
Reports have surged about an increase in COVID-19 cases with the spread of the EG.5 (“Eris”), FL.1.5.1 (“Fornax”), and BA.2.86 (“Pirola”). These developments have led to the return of some masking requirements around the nation. In Atlanta, Morris Brown College sent an email to its faculty, staff, and students, announcing the reinstatement of its COVID-19 mask mandate because of “reports of positive cases among students in the Atlanta University Center.” The college also reimposed physical distancing and gathering restrictions on campus.
The movie studio Lionsgate in Los Angeles also brought back its mask mandate for the office, as did Kaiser Permanente for its Santa Rosa (California) hospital and medical offices.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned, “This week’s national ensemble predicts that the number of daily COVID-19 hospital admissions will increase, with 1,100 to 7,500 daily COVID-19 hospital admissions likely reported on September 18.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Federal prosecutors are cracking down on human smuggling attempts through social media platforms.
On Tuesday, the United States Attorney’s Office unsealed 13 indictments for 22 individuals. Those indictments charged these people with Conspiracy to Transport Illegal Aliens for Profit.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, “each indictment charges a human smuggling coordinator who utilized social media, including Snapchat, to recruit individuals within Arizona to transport undocumented noncitizens for money. After recruiting the drivers on social media, the coordinators often switched to a messenger application such as WhatsApp to coordinate the logistics. Many of the indicted coordinators were identified through law enforcement contacts, data from cellular phones, and their social media accounts.”
These indictments confirm a concerning epidemic of alleged crimes surrounding the southern border. For years, local law enforcement has warned about the existence of human smuggling efforts taking place over social media.
In May 2022, former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels penned an op-ed for Fox News, detailing these crimes and outlining how the actions affected border communities. They wrote, “Teens are being recruited because of their accessibility to social media platforms, impressionability, and youthful greed. Since October 2021, local law enforcement officials have only one recorded instance of a face-to-face recruitment between a teenager and a smuggler or cartel; the vast majority of encounters occur outside the watchful eyes of parents or guardians over social media.”
The two officials shared a heartbreaking story of how one of these episodes tragically changed the lives of one southern Arizona family forever, adding, “This crisis started to place local law enforcement officials and residents of Cochise County on high alert in October 2021 when law enforcement officials attempted a traffic stop on a 16-year-old from Mesa, who was smuggling migrants in Cochise County in southern Arizona. The teenager suddenly hit the gas, driving over 100 miles per hour through small towns and quiet intersections on a mad dash to avoid apprehension. He eventually ran a red light, smashing into another vehicle and killing Wanda Sitoski, a local grandmother on her way to meet her son for her 65th birthday dinner.”
Brnovich and Dannels called out to social media companies, the traditional media, and government officials “to highlight the escalating crisis and seek assistance.” They also warned American parents that “cartels can reach their children hundreds or thousands of miles away” because of the existence and usage of social media platforms.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona stated that “a conviction for Conspiring to Transport Illegal Aliens for Profit carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and up to three years of supervised release.”
The Homeland Security Investigations – Casa Grande and Customs and Border Protection’s U.S. Border Patrol – Tucson Sector investigated, leading to the 13 indictments. Assistant United States Attorneys Ross Arellano Edwards, John Ballos, Timothy Courchaine, Brett Day, Matthew Doyle, Lisa Jennis, Christine Keller, Marcus Shand, LeighAnn Thomas, and Stuart Zander, District of Arizona, Phoenix, are spearheading the prosecutions.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
