by Staff Reporter | Aug 22, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
81 school board races were recommended for cancellation this year by the Maricopa County School Superintendent due to a lack of candidates.
35 districts were impacted. Maricopa County has 58 districts in total, meaning 60 percent of the districts either had no candidates or only one candidate running for a seat.
All but a handful of the races had one individual in the race poised for appointment by default. 72 of those seats were recommended to have the sole candidate appointed to them, with the remaining 9 seats declared vacant due to having no candidates at all.
The following districts have races impacted by the lack of candidates:
- Aguila Elementary School District: three appointments, two vacancies
- Alhambra Elementary School District: three appointments
- Arlington Elementary School District: three appointments
- Avondale Elementary School District: one appointment
- Balsz Elementary School District: one vacancy
- Buckeye Elementary School District: two appointments, one vacancy
- Cave Creek Unified School District: one appointment
- East Valley Institute of Technology – 4: one vacancy
- East Valley Institute of Technology – 6: one appointment
- East Valley Institute of Technology – 8: one appointment
- Fountain Hills Unified School District: one appointment
- Gila Bend Unified School District: one appointment, one vacancy
- Litchfield Elementary School District: three appointments
- Littleton Elementary School District: three appointments
- Madison Elementary School District: three appointments
- Mobile Elementary School District: three appointments
- Morristown Elementary School District: one appointment, one vacancy
- Murphy Elementary School District: three appointments, one vacancy
- Nadaburg Elementary School District: three appointments
- Osborn Elementary School District: three appointments
- Paloma Elementary School District: three appointments
- Palo Verde Elementary School District: four appointments
- Pendergast Elementary School District: three appointments
- Phoenix Elementary School District: three appointments
- Riverside Elementary School District: one appointment
- Saddle Mountain Unified School District: three appointments
- Sentinel Elementary School District: three appointments
- Tempe Union High School District: three appointments
- Union Elementary School District: two appointments, one vacancy
- West MEC – 3: one appointment
- West MEC – 4: one appointment
- West MEC – 5: one appointment
- West MEC – 6: one appointment
- Wickenburg Unified School District: three appointments
- Wilson Elementary School District: one appointment
Of the recommended appointments, 12 were write-in candidates: three for Aguila Elementary School District, three for Paloma Elementary School District, two for Union Elementary School District, one for Alhambra Elementary School District, one for East Valley Institute of Technology – 6, one for Gila Bend Unified School District, and one for Morristown Elementary School District.
The filing deadline for write-in candidates occurred at the end of July, with the filing period opening at the start of June.
State law authorizes the county school superintendent to either appoint a qualified elector or call a special election to fill the vacant seat.
As part of the former option consisting of an appointment process, the office of county superintendent receives up to three names from the relevant district governing board as well as a full list of candidates who applied with the district. Individuals not on those lists who are interested in being appointed may also apply directly to the office of county superintendent to be considered for appointment.
The office of county superintendent will then filter out applicants through interviews.
Only those who are registered voters in the state and residents of the school district for at least one year immediately preceding the day of the election are considered eligible to serve on a school governing board.
The county superintendent’s recommendations were submitted to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for final approval.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Aug 21, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
A new ad from incumbent Congressman Juan Ciscomani against Democratic opponent Kirsten Engel features clips of her denying the ongoing border crisis and issuing support for police defunding.
The ad featured several flashbacks from Engel on her positions ranging from her time as a state lawmaker through her first run for Congress against Ciscomani in 2022.
The former state lawmaker and University of Arizona law professor denied that Arizona had an immigration crisis during that first run for Congress. Engel said that physical barriers like walls weren’t a solution for her, and that the greater focus should be on providing greater aid to those arriving at our border rather than detainment.
“We do not need help at our border. We do need to secure the border. We have issues of drug trafficking and human smuggling that need to be addressed, but certainly not walls,” said Engel. “What we need from Washington is having an orderly asylum process. That’s national law, that’s international law. We need comprehensive immigration reform. We have to help our Dreamers.”
As a remedy to the border, Engel has advocated for border policy approaches favoring those who arrive in the nation outside the legal avenues for entry: an end to Title 42, legal pathways to citizenship, and deprioritizing illegal migration outside legal ports of entry.
Engel maintains these positions as defining her vision for securing the southern border. She has also criticized Ciscomani for not supporting a proposed bill to provide $20 billion for the border out of $118 billion in expenditures. That bill was mainly designed to ensure an additional provision of aid to Ukraine, $60 billion, and the remainder of the $38 billion given in aid to other foreign countries.
While Engel has been outspoken in recent years about border policy, she has distanced herself from conversations on policing since the BLM fallout after George Floyd’s death in 2020 and the conviction of responding officer Derek Chauvin less than a year later.
Engel advocated for police defunding during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, arguing that there needed to be less police available for responding to emergency calls and more alternatives.
“What we need to do is shift where the money [for police] is going,” said Engel. “Not every 911 call requires a police officer to show up at your door.”
In that same interview, Engel affirmed when she was asked whether she supported a reduction in police budgets.
“Yeah, the way you’ve asked that question, I agree with it,” said Engel.
Instead, Engel proposed that social workers should take over for police officers.
It was also during the peak point of BLM upheaval in the summer of 2020 that Engel publicly backed a claim by Tucson Councilwoman Lane Santa Cruz that Tucson police officers were to blame for the death of a man in their custody in April of that year.
Santa Cruz’s public accusations of wrongdoing prompted the officers to resign out of fear for their families’ safety.
The man, Carlos Ingram-Lopez, died from cardiac arrest due to acute levels of cocaine in his system and an enlarged heart.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Aug 21, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
A Monday report revealed that at least three attorneys associated with the Republican party and identified by the Associated Press as Arizona’s Amanda Reeve and Brett Johnson of the law firm Snell & Wilmer, and Paul Hamrick an Alabama-based attorney, have been working hard to ensure independent presidential candidate Cornel West is placed on the ballot in Arizona.
According to the AP reporting, the two Arizona lawyers, Reeve and Johnson, were working with Hamrick to reach two of the alleged Electoral College electors for West after learning that they were no longer interested in serving as electors, in what the outlet described as a “barrage” of text messages and phone calls culminating in visits to their homes.
Under Arizona election law, independent candidates for president must present a slate of electors committed to casting Electoral College votes for them. Without these electors, the effort to put West on the ballot was doomed to fail.
In text messages obtained by the reporters, one of the electors, Jerry Judie, 62, of Phoenix, told an operative working for the campaign via text, “I am officially no longer interested in being elector.” The unnamed operative had been trying to convince him to meet and sign documentation.
Judie had reportedly been an avid West supporter for at least three decades and was excited to be a part of the campaign, but when President Joe Biden stepped aside, it “changed the game.”
He told the AP, “When she was in the driver’s seat, that changed the game. That changed everything for me, my family, and the people that I know. It was like magic.”
In a voicemail to Judie given to the AP, Alabama attorney Paul Hamrick is heard to say, “I am sorry … we have been calling the crap out of you, the reason we have been trying to get in touch with you is we found out in the last 24 hours we have got to have everybody sign a letter that Dr. West has also signed.” The outlet noted that Hamrick stated he knew that Judie was no longer interested in being an elector. Hamrick is reported to have asked “Is there anything you can tell me about that or has anyone encouraged you not to be?”
Judie later told the reporters that two people came to his home looking for him after the voicemail. A person who knows Judie spoke to them on his behalf, and they identified themselves as Reeve and Johnson. Both work for Snell & Wilmer, a firm known to represent the Republican National Committee as well as Republican candidates.
The second elector, Denisha Mitchell, was also contacted by phone by Reeve, according to the AP, after a story from the outlet broke Friday with Mitchell saying she signed an affidavit testifying she never agreed to be a West elector to begin with nor signed her name to a filing. She told the reporters that she “didn’t even know what an elector was,” and the filing was “forged,” and full of errors.
Reeve reportedly told Mitchell in a voicemail, “We need to get this information in as soon as possible.” He added that his firm is representing, “the Cornel West Campaign.”
Mitchell said that she missed a call but returned it and spoke with Hamrick. The Alabama attorney refuted this to the AP and refused to comment.
Speaking to reporters Judie reflected on the odd happenings of the week and said it left him uneasy. “They had only one reason they were doing it,” he said. “Just to get him on the ballot so some votes would go to him and not go to other people.”
West for his part seemed ambivalent to the situation in Arizona. He told the AP, “So much of American politics is highly gangster-like activity. I have no knowledge of who they are or anything — none whatsoever. We just want to get on that ballot. And that’s the difficult thing.”
Per the outlet, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office said that the West campaign did not file the paperwork necessary to get on the ballot by Saturday’s deadline.
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 Staff Reporter | Aug 21, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
An Arizona appellate court has kicked a sales tax proposal for the city of Scottsdale off the November ballot.
The Arizona Court of Appeals sided with a challenge by three city residents (represented by the Goldwater Institute) that the city’s ballot descriptions inaccurately characterized the sales tax as a decrease rather than a pitch for a new tax.
“The City’s description of the measure fails to properly disclose the proposition’s principal provision — that it creates a new tax,” said the court.
The city of Scottsdale characterized the sales tax proposal as a decrease of the current sales tax expiring next June from .20 percent to .15 percent over 30 years.
“Shall Scottsdale’s current 0.20% transaction privilege and use tax rate, expiring June 30, 2025, be replaced and reduced to 0.15% for 30 years to fund improvements, maintenance, and increased police and fire protection of citywide parks, recreational facilities, and the preserve as determined by city ordinance?”
The Arizona Superior Court had previously disagreed the ballot proposal language was false or misleading, and had granted the city’s motion to dismiss the residents’ complaint. However, in their Monday ruling, the Arizona Court of Appeals took issue with the city’s promise that the new sales tax was a replacement and reduction to the current one.
“This new tax would neither reduce the current tax rate (because the tax will remain at .2 percent until it expires), nor reduce the current tax rate after its expiration (because it would create a new tax),” stated the court. “The proposition’s description that a ‘YES’ vote would reduce the “transaction privilege and use tax rate” — which in total is 1.75% and made up of multiple different taxes including the 0.20% at issue here — to 0.15% is misleading because a ‘YES’ vote, in fact, would implement a brand-new tax.”
The court went on to say that the city’s explanation of the implication of a “no” vote was misleading because it could prompt voters to believe that their voting had an effect on the inevitable end of the current tax.
“[T]he ‘NO’ language in both the full text and Tagline text fails to communicate the essential change that a ‘NO’ vote would effectuate,” said the court. “Namely, that the current tax would terminate as scheduled and no longer exist. A ‘NO’ vote does not, somehow, result in a reduction as the language states; a ‘NO’ vote results in the current tax terminating on June 30, 2025, as currently scheduled.”
In its order, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the superior court order and enjoined the city and Maricopa County from including the measure on the November ballot.
Although the court offered some explanation for its ruling, the appeals court promised a full opinion would come out as well.
The Goldwater Institute said in a press release announcing the court win that the ruling would ensure more honest representation for taxpayers in the future.
“Local leaders in Scottsdale and across Arizona should consider themselves warned: public officials should not be in the business of deceiving taxpayers so they’ll vote to raise taxes on themselves,” said the think tank.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Aug 20, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
President Donald J. Trump will be visiting Arizona on Friday according to an announcement from Turning Point Action. Trump will be visiting the border with Mexico on Thursday and holding a rally at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Friday. After Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz tread water in Chicago at the DNC with radical leftists breaking down barricades, their opponent, resurgent in the polls, will be touching down in the Arizona battleground and playing to a 20,000 seat arena.
Turning Point Action touted the visit on their website writing, “In his first scheduled rally following the conclusion of the DNC in Chicago; the rally will provide President Trump, Turning Point PAC and Turning Point Action speakers their first opportunity to react to updates and news from the convention, as well as take direct aim at Kamala Harris’ economic proposals that have been widely-criticized by mainstream, and even left-leaning news media as ‘communist’ policies that have ‘failed’ in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, and Argentina.
Harris and Walz rallied in the same arena on August 9. Doubtlessly both campaigns will seek to compare audience sizes and enthusiasm. The Harris event allegedly drew a crowd of 15,000 or 75% occupancy according to the outlet. Based on a study from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the event on Friday will be telling with a unique opportunity for an apples to apples comparison. On average in 2024, Trump events have drawn about 5,000 attendees cross 28 rallies so far. Biden, before dropping out, only drew about 1,300 average across the four rallies he held. Meanwhile Harris and Walz have capitalized on post-Biden enthusiasm and played exclusively to larger venues with an average across the six venues so far of about 13,400 attendees.
Trump last played in Arizona to a packed house at the Phoenix Dream City Church, and the 3,000 seat venue was easily overwhelmed by the response. Trump’s rallies routinely have crowd responses that pack houses and overrun venue capacities.
The Trump campaign said in a press release,
“President Donald Trump and JD Vance are heartbroken to see the path of death and destruction left behind by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Hard-working Arizona families are paying a steep price for Kamala’s dangerously liberal agenda that is devastating American cities with skyrocketing costs and crime ridden streets.
Kamala’s open border policies are fueling a drug crisis in the state. In Maricopa County, more than three people die every day on average due to fentanyl. Over half of the total fentanyl pills entering the country originate from the Arizona border. Fentanyl has overtaken meth as the deadliest drug in Arizona. Enough Fentanyl was seized last year to kill every Arizonan 14 times over.
President Donald Trump and JD Vance will fight to ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in Arizona! We can Make America Great Again by tackling lawlessness head-on, ceasing the endless flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border, and reversing the detrimental effects of inflation by restoring people’s wealth.“
Republican Senate nominee Kari Lake is expected to speak at the rally as well according to her post to X on Monday.
Since President Joe Biden stood down from the 2024 election, Arizona’s battleground status was entrenched with Harris enjoying a bump from 2 to 5 percent in polls according to RealClearPolling. However, in the past two weeks the race has narrowed to within a single percentage point per the RCP average. Prior to Biden’s withdrawal, Trump enjoyed a firm 5-6 point advantage over the former Democrat incumbent that only grew as concerns over Biden’s viability grew.
In Glendale the event’s doors are set to open at 11:00 a.m. and President Trump is expected to deliver his remarks at 4:00 p.m., although other speakers will be presenting starting at 2 p.m.
General admission tickets are available on DonaldJTrump.com.
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 Staff Reporter | Aug 20, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) is proposing to put a strict limit on childcare enrollment, but a policy group says that’s illegal.
The Goldwater Institute advised ADHS in a letter that such a cap on childcare facilities (preschools, daycares, and day camps, for example) would violate statutory requirements on agency rulemaking.
Arizona law restricts agencies from making any rules that exceed authorized subject matter areas, that supplement a more specific grant of rulemaking authority, and that aren’t specifically authorized by statute.
The Goldwater Institute argued that the proposal to impose a maximum group size on childcare facilities constitutes an authority that ADHS doesn’t possess within their regulatory powers.
“[A]n across-the-board cap on ‘group size,’ independent of any relevant considerations such as child-adult ratio, is not a regulation of ‘staffing per number and age groups of children’ [per their regulatory authority] and it is not justified by any other provision in the statute,” said the Goldwater Institute.
The organization also predicted in its letter that such a proposal would result in a greater burden on childcare facilities and a greater cost for families, in addition to reducing overall childcare availability.
The proposal concerns amendments to two rules pertaining to staff-to-children ratios: 9-5-404 and 9-5-726. The amendment adds on limitations of group size per age group.
Group size limitations begin small with younger children and expand as the ages rise: infants are limited to 10 in a group; one-year-old children are limited to 12 in a group; two-year-old children are limited to 16 in a group; three-year-old children are limited to 26 in a group; four-year-old children are limited to 30 in a group; and both five-year-old children and school-age children are limited to 40 in a group.
The amendments also struck provisions allowing volunteers to be counted as staff in staff-to-children ratios and restricting student aides or qualified teacher caregiver aides from being counted as staff. Also replaced were any instances of staff as “caregivers,” instead renaming them as “child educators.”
In a press release, Goldwater Institute staff attorney John Thorpe said the group size restrictions would not only be an exercise of authority beyond ADHS’ scope, it would serve to restrict families’ critical access to childcare facilities. Thorpe marked the proposal as another example of “ill-informed, heavy-handed bureaucratic regulation” within the state and nationwide.
“Imposing an arbitrary cap on the number of children allowed in a space — regardless of the size of the space, nature of the activity, or number of adults supervising — makes no sense,” stated Thorpe. “It’s especially pernicious during a childcare shortage, as it will force good preschools and childcare facilities to turn away families they’re perfectly equipped to serve for no other reason than an irrational bureaucratic requirement.”
Last December, a report by the Council for Strong America estimated that Arizona lost close to $5 billion annually in earnings, productivity, and revenue due to lack of adequate childcare. Over half of responding parents said they were late for work, leaving work early, missing days of work, or low in their productivity at work due to their childcare struggles.
Nearly 20 percent reported having been let go or fired from their work related to those struggles.
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