by Corinne Murdock | Jan 26, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The city of Phoenix plans to establish single-stall, 24/7 street restrooms for the homeless. The first will appear midway this year as part of a pilot launch at a new homeless shelter established in Bradley Ranch in South Phoenix.
Each restroom costs about $135,000 to $150,000 to start, with installation costs ranging up to $50,000. Another potential future site would be at University Park.
The city announced its initiative several weeks before the Maricopa County Superior Court rejected the city’s petition to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that they’d failed to manage the homeless crisis.
These toilets won’t look like porta-potties; rather, these restrooms will each be contained in a steel, oval building called a “Portland Loo.” These restrooms were contrived by a city of their namesake: Portland, Oregon. The hope was to prevent the homeless from relieving themselves on public streets.
These restrooms are partially open-air: they have grating at the top and bottom to discourage illegal activity, and the steel type is graffiti-proof. They also have blue lighting to prevent occupants from locating a vein to shoot up drugs.
However, the intent of the Portland Loo doesn’t appear to match up with its reality. In its hometown, residents view Portland Loos with contempt for their unsanitary quality. Non-promotional pictures taken by journalists and city dwellers reveal that these restrooms aren’t as graffiti-proof or resistant to drug use as marketed.
Early champions of the Portland Loo outside of Oregon have also run into unforeseen problems. San Diego, California had to remove one of these restrooms in 2016 due to resident complaints. Though the Portland Loos were easier to clean and usually thwarted illicit activity inside its walls, their presence attracted a whole host of undesirables for San Diego locals: criminals, drug users, and general transients.
Deputy City Managers Gina Montes and Inger Erickson, along with the Office of Homeless Solutions (OHS) and Parks and Recreation Department (PRD), submitted the proposed pilot program. They noted that a brick-and-mortar, two-stall public restroom would cost more: around $400,000 to $500,000.
OHS explained during a Community and Cultural Investment Subcommittee meeting earlier this month that it would weigh the pilot restroom’s success against cost of installation, cleaning and maintenance, temperature control in the summers, and utility hookups to determine if future Portland Loos will be installed throughout the city.
Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari urged OHS to install another Portland Loo immediately at University Park. Ansari said that constituents notify her constantly of sanitary issues, such as drug use and backups, as well as availability issues at current public restrooms.
“I think we need to be innovative with these issues. That’s why the typical stuff isn’t working,” said Ansari. “I think as opposed to losing another year during the summer heat, let’s pilot one in a park where we do constantly have people reaching out about, ‘Why do we have limited bathroom access from 4 to 8, inside a recreation center? It’s very challenging actually to use the bathroom currently at University Park.”
There are 89 Portland Loos throughout the U.S., and one in New Zealand. The Phoenix installation would be the first of its kind in Arizona.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | Jan 25, 2023 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The Arizona Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion Tuesday finding that the Town of Marana violated state law by assigning the entire cost of upgraded and expanded wastewater treatment facilities to future homeowners through development impact fees.
The fees were challenged by the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association (SAHBA) under Arizona Revised Statute 9-463.05 due to the fact that existing Marana residents also benefited from the improved facilities.
The opinion authored by Justice Clint Bolick reverses a Pima County Superior Court decision and sets aside an Arizona Court of Appeals decision, both of which sided with Marana.
According to Bolick’s opinion, town officials violated state law by requiring new residents to bear the entire cost of the expanded and improved services and facilities. Instead, the statute required a proper allocation of costs be conducted through a “discrete, evidence-based findings of fact” that took into consideration the benefit to existing residents.
The case now goes back to a Pima County judge for further proceedings, at which SAHBA will be free to argue that certain expenses should not be included in development fees at all, while Marana officials may argue that certain expenses pertain exclusively to new development.
This could lead to no change to the development fees or an order for recalculation of those fees.
Court records show that until 2012, Pima County provided sewer and water service to residents of the Town of Marana. That year, after five years of effort, the town obtained operational control over a wastewater reclamation facility (WRF) from Pima County, assuming the facility’s roughly $16.4 million in outstanding debt.
In 2013, Marana acquired legal title to the WRF, including the infrastructure, land, and exclusive rights to the facility’s effluent. Owning the effluent contributes to the 100-year assured water supply required for new development, as it can be used to recharge the aquifer.
Town officials then voted to issue 20-year bonds with an annual debt service of $1.8 million to finance the acquisition of the WRF. The Town also commissioned two infrastructure improvement plans, which assigned half of the acquisition costs to future water customers and the other half to future sewer customers.
Those costs would be paid in the form of development impact fees.
The WRF’s output was initially limited to 380,000 gallons per day (gpd) but the capacity was up to 500,000 gpd by 2017 when town officials approved a Capital Improvement Project encompassing “multi-phase expansion and upgrades” to the water and sewer systems.
Phase 1, which was the subject of SAHBA’s litigation, was undertaken to increase the WRF’s capacity to 1.5 million gpd to serve both existing residents and anticipated development. It also brought Marana into compliance with the Class B+ water quality standard required by its Aquifer Protection Permit.
New water and sewer impact fees were also adopted by Town officials in 2017, still assigning 100 percent of the debt service to future water and sewer customers via development impact fees.
As previously reported by AZ Free News, SAHBA initiated its lawsuit in 2018 seeking a declaratory judgment that the development fees violated ARS 9-463.05 by disproportionately imposing the WRF and Phase 1 expenses on future developers even though current residents were also benefitting from the improvements.
In response, the Town’s attorneys argued the development fees were valid because the expansion and improvements were undertaken to serve future development. A Pima County judge agreed and granted summary judgment in favor of the Town.
According to the judge, “the Town’s chief goal in acquiring the WRF was to obtain its effluent as a water resource in order to secure recharge credits towards water rights as a means for sustaining growth by having access to a 100-year designated water supply.”
The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court decision, ruling it was irrelevant that any upgrades and modernization to the WRF would also benefit existing residents.
The Town’s attorneys then went on to oppose having the Arizona Supreme Court consider the case, calling such review “unwarranted.” But the justices announced in April 2022 it would hear the matter, noting the case presented unresolved issues of statewide importance.
Tuesday’s opinion notes the court of appeals “committed two principal errors” in upholding the lower court’s decision in favor of Marana. First was applying a presumption that the Town’s assessment of development fees was valid. Second, the appellate court took the position that the WRF project was “entirely” for purposes of new development, even though Marana officials conceded some costs would benefit existing residents.
“In sum, we conclude that the Town violated § 9-463.05 by making future development bear 100% of the cost of acquiring the WRF; by making future development bear nearly all the cost of upgrading, modernizing, and improving the facility; and by failing to determine what could or could not be included in development fees or to make any proportionate allocation of costs between existing and future development,” the opinion states.
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
by Corinne Murdock | Jan 25, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Former Arizona Senate President Karen Fann said Rep. Ruben Gallego’s (D-AZ-03) support for abortion was a crime.
Gallego lamented that Arizona could limit abortions on Monday, which marked 50 years since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision legalizing abortion.
“Today, we should have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Instead, extremist officials ripped away the right to choose, leaving women in Arizona and too many other states without basic reproductive freedom,” wrote Gallego. “But make no mistake: this fight isn’t over.”
SCOTUS determined that the Roe v. Wade decision invented a constitutional right based on the “right to privacy”: a legal theory created by the late SCOTUS Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1890s. Brandeis’ invention informed the landmark decision Griswold v. Connecticut, the precursor to Roe v. Wade.
The state currently has a ban on abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation in place, enacted last year. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled last month that the state may not prosecute doctors under the pre-statehood ban on abortion. However, the court didn’t repeal the law. Instead, the appeals court clarified that the later laws, including the 15-week ban enacted last year, were the standard to follow.
State abortion laws also limit abortion access in other ways. Telemedicine health care may not be used to obtain abortion pills. However, the state doesn’t have bans on funding travel and procedure costs for women obtaining abortions outside the state past the 15-week period.
The SCOTUS decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked early last May. SCOTUS announced last week in a 20-page report that they were unable to identify the source of the leak. Politico published the draft opinion; it appears they’re unwilling to reveal their source.
Gov. Katie Hobbs, at the time the Secretary of State, responded to the draft leak last year with an expletive railing against those she perceived to be ruling the state.
“F**k the patriarchy,” tweeted Hobbs.
The draft leak incited mass protests and riots at the Arizona Capitol and nationwide. An activist group with the University of Arizona (UArizona) and Planned Parenthood ties petitioned to make abortion a constitutional right in the state — an effort which ultimately failed.
In a Sunday statement, President Joe Biden called on Congress to codify the legalization of abortion. Biden characterized abortion as a “constitutional right.” The president also promised a Presidential Memorandum ensuring a right to abortive medications, which Vice President Kamala Harris announced during a visit to Florida. Ahead of the announcement, Harris declared that those opposed to abortion were “extremist,” and in violation of women’s constitutional and reproductive rights.
“We are looking at a situation where extremist so-called leaders in states around our country are depriving women of the right to have access to reproductive health care,” stated Harris.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Jan 25, 2023 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
Arizona’s three public universities have this to say to potential employees: those opposed to modern diversity ideology need not apply.
As of last fall, Arizona State University (ASU) required diversity statements from approximately 81 percent of job applicants; Northern Arizona University (NAU) required diversity statements from 73 percent of job applicants; and the University of Arizona (UArizona) required diversity statements from 28 percent of job applicants. This data comes from a report issued earlier this month by the Goldwater Institute, a right-leaning public policy think tank.
The Goldwater Institute noted that universities both in Arizona and nationwide have even gone so far as to swap the traditional cover letter requirement with a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statement. The universities also encouraged applicants to incorporate critical race theory (CRT) terminology in written portions of their applications.
Though diversity efforts were long underway at these universities, the death of George Floyd in 2020 accelerated their progress at the urging of students, activists, and community members.
For UArizona and NAU, these diversity commitment disclosures are part of their Diversity Strategic Plan (DSP); ASU also implements a diversity plan, though they don’t refer to it as a “DSP.” These diversity plans are executed through independent administrative offices. For UArizona, it’s the Office of Diversity & Inclusion (ODI). For NAU, it’s the Center for University Access and Inclusion; they also have a dedicated “Diversity Fellow” or “Diversity Commission” to oversee various units at the university, which they call a larger effort to make NAU a “True Diversity University.” For ASU, it’s the Office of Inclusive Excellence.
UArizona asked applicants to issue a 500-word minimum personal statement describing their personal philosophy and future commitment to inclusivity.
Last September, NAU advanced its DEI efforts by requiring applicants to issue a “diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice” (DEIJ) statement. As part of this statement, applicants had to express comprehension of intersectionality, a commitment incorporating diversity ideology in the classroom and in research, and diversity-related community service and activities.
In one example given concerning ASU, the university asked postdoctoral fellow applicants to write a “diversity statement”: how their past or potential contributions to DEI efforts would advance the university’s diversity plan.
The universities’ push for commitment to diversity ideology extends beyond faculty. As AZ Free News reported earlier this month, the UArizona College of Medicine requires students to complete diversity training, in addition to faculty and staff. UArizona is also attempting to make law school admissions more equitable by pushing for an alternative to the LSAT.
UArizona has consistently ranked high for most DEI staff.
Last May, NAU proposed that students take a 12-credit general studies program focused on diversity. Backlash prompted the university to hide the proposal behind a login page.
“The 12 credits of diversity requirements are unprecedented and puts [sic] NAU at the forefront of higher education,” stated NAU.
In 2021, ASU launched a DEI curriculum for K-5 students through its K-12 online school, ASU Prep Digital.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | Jan 24, 2023 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The public relations and legal fallout continues after the nonprofit which accepted donations for Gov. Katie Hobbs’ public inauguration ceremony released the names of donors and the amount of each donation.
Hobbs was officially sworn in Jan. 2 during a private ceremony. She then held a public inauguration ceremony on Jan. 5. The information about who paid for that ceremony via the Katie Hobbs Inaugural Fund was finally released several days later, after attorney Tim La Sota threatened to sue Hobbs for violating public records laws.
The Katie Hobbs Inaugural Fund was registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission on Dec. 13 by Hobbs’ campaign manager Nicole DeMont as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare organization. DeMont is currently listed as the only director on ACC records.
DeMont and Hobbs have come under scrutiny for accepting $1.5 million from roughly 120 donors, including $250,000 from utility giant Pinnacle West Capital Corp., the owner of Arizona Public Service Co. (APS). But the event cost less than $210,000, according to public records.
Government transparency watchdogs are calling for an investigation into whether Hobbs’ inauguration team had a pre-event budget worked out and whether more money was intentionally accepted than needed. But La Sota says there also remains a question of whether Hobbs violated another Arizona law by using the state’s website to solicit money for her inauguration.
“That’s definitely a no-no,” La Sota told KFYI’s James T. Harris this week. “That’s no different hardly than just putting a link on the governor’s official state website to her campaign account and saying, ‘hey you know do you want to support me politically, go to my campaign.’”
La Sota also told Harris that donations to DeMont’s nonprofit reportedly entitled donors to preferred access and seating at Hobbs’ inauguration event held on public property.
Questions surrounding the inaugural fund have also led some Democrats across Arizona to express dismay, behind the scenes, that Hobbs put them in the position of having to publicly ignore the $1.5 million controversy, just years after leaders of the Democratic Party called for an investigation into the funding of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
There is also growing pushback to utility companies like APS getting so heavily involved in politics; public records show APS donated $850,000 to the failed gubernatorial campaign of Kari Lake.
APS responded to criticisms about its donation to the Katie Hobbs Inaugural Fund with a statement that the money came from shareholder funds and not from customer payments. However, the company’s image has taken a hit in the court of public opinion given the fact APS is currently seeking a rate increase.
Another large donor to the inauguration was Blue Cross Blue Shield, which anted up $100,000, as did the lobby arm of the National Association of Realtors along with Arizona Realtors. There was also $100,000 donated by Sunshine Residential Homes Inc., a for-profit company that contracts with the State of Arizona to provide some child welfare services.
The rest of the donations ranged from $10 to $50,000; several were from entities like Union Pacific, the Arizona Dispensary Association, and Salt River Project which have dealing with various state agencies.
So what happens to the $1 million plus left on the books of the nonprofit created for Hobbs inauguration?
According to the IRS, the money can be spent on anything DeMont desires, provided it falls under the very broad category of promoting social welfare within the IRS code for a 501(c)(4).
“To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (such as by bringing about civic betterment and social improvements),” according to the IRS.
In addition, seeking legislation germane to the nonprofits programs is a permissible means of attaining social welfare purposes.
“Thus, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may further its exempt purposes through lobbying as its primary activity without jeopardizing its exempt status,” the IRS rules state.
There has been much public consternation that DeMont will use some of the inaugural fund donations for political activities. This is permissible under IRS rules provided engaging in politics is not the “primary activity” of 501(c)(4).
The only other stated restriction under IRS Code is that the political activity cannot involve “direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”
The code makes no mention of restrictions to referendum or initiative measures that might come before voters.
Therefore, it is possible that donors to the Hobbs’ inauguration could end up seeing DeMont use their money against own their political interests.
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
by Corinne Murdock | Jan 24, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Attorneys siding with embattled GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake are insisting that Maricopa County’s mass Election Day failures were purposeful.
Mark Sonnenklar, a roving attorney with the Republican National Committee (RNC), told AZ Free News that the county experienced few of the issues during the primary election that suddenly metastasized on Election Day: faulty printer settings and incorrect ballot paper size.
Sonnenklar said that out of the 11 vote centers he visited on the primary election day, only one had major problems with tabulation: the North Phoenix Baptist Church location.
“My theory is that the county was on a trial run for the general. I believe in my heart, my gut tells me, that they planned to create this chaos on general Election Day,” said Sonnenklar. “They were testing methods to create that kind of chaos during the primary. That’s when they were figuring out how to do that.”
None have produced evidence that the Election Day failures were intentional.
Although tabulators were the initial suspect for the mass Election Day failures across the county, it turned out to be administrative errors prior to tabulation. Sonnenklar pointed out that it wouldn’t make sense for these issues to multiply due to the sheer amount of in-person voters, since printer settings and paper size wouldn’t be affected.
On Election Day, Sonnenklar said he witnessed mass tabulator issues at six of the 10 vote centers. The widespread failures were so pervasive that Sonnenklar, alarmed, reached out to other roving attorneys across the county to gather their experiences while fresh. Many reported witnessing the same failures, which lasted around eight hours and forced thousands of affected voters to cast ballots into a “door 3” slot to be manually tabulated later.
Maricopa County largely dismissed voter concerns, assuring that door 3 ballots would be tabulated properly and opting to push off a review of the chaos for a post-certification investigation. An estimated 71 sites (44 percent) out of the 211 vote centers were impacted (Lake’s attorneys claim that 132 sites were impacted, or 59 percent).
“I was receiving calls from everyone I knew in the Valley,” said Sonnenklar. “I knew there was a massive problem.”
Poll worker testimonies of election machine issues leading up to Election Day, given during the election certification in late November, aligned with Sonnenklar’s evidence gathered. Similar testimonies were also given during the Maricopa County Superior Court hearing in Lake’s lawsuit challenging the 2022 election results.
Sonnenklar stated that there were at least three primary causes of the tabulator malfunctions: timing marks and small white specks, which were uncovered before Lake’s trial, and incorrect ballot paper size, which was revealed during the trial.
Sonnenklar claimed that he spoke with election officials at various vote centers about the tabulator issue. He cited one example from a Mountain View vote center inspector who reportedly showed him that the timing marks weren’t printing correctly. The inspector backed up her claim with nearly 200 ballots fed into box 3 with faulty timing marks.
“She was definitive. She said that the problem was the timing marks on the ballot not printing dark enough,” said Sonnenklar. “She had 175 ballots that she had taken out of box 3. She showed me every one of those ballots and they were gray, they weren’t black. They hadn’t printed dark enough. All 175 of the ballots rejected by the tabulators had gray timing marks instead of black timing marks.”
As for the white specks: Sonnenklar said that another poll worker noticed that the bubbles indicating the chosen candidates weren’t filled in completely. They appeared to have little white specks where the printer failed to fill them in.
“He asked the voter if they would be willing to color in the white spec with the felt-tipped Pentel pens,” said Sonnenklar. “Every single time that the voter did that, it went through the tabulator just fine.”
The third issue, the ballot paper size, was discussed by Lake’s witness Clay Parikh, an information security officer, during the trial. Parikh testified that ballots from six of the six vote centers he inspected the day before Election Day printed 20-inch ballots on 19-inch paper. Sonnenklar noted that these six vote centers were selected randomly, and expressed concern that this represented a rate of 100 percent of vote centers being problematic.
Maricopa County didn’t dispute the erroneous ballot paper size, noting that it was a recurring issue over the last few years. However, they did dispute the number of affected vote centers (three versus Parikh’s sworn six) and pressed Parikh to admit that these ballots could be duplicated and counted. Parikh noted that those reprinted ballots could be counted, if done correctly. Sonnenklar questioned why the county didn’t solve the problem completely.
“The county maintained that the 19-inch paper on 20-inch ballots only occurred at three vote centers and that they knew about that problem from three prior elections,” said Sonnenklar. “Bottom line is, we think there were multiple reasons why the tabulators failed. In one case it was printers not printed properly. And in another case it was 19-inch paper printing 20-inch ballots.”
Sonnenklar insisted that the court wrongly dismissed Lake’s case because the judge, Peter Thompson, failed to consider whether the affected voters could’ve changed the outcome of the election. He said the judge only considered one legal standard, whether fraud occurred, but didn’t address if there was enough misconduct to render the election outcome “uncertain.” Sonnenklar contended that the judge created a high legal standard inconsistent with legal precedent.
Lake lost by over 17,100 votes, around the same number of voters affected by mass Election Day failures. Though this margin may seem slim, another race was even closer. Hamadeh, also contesting his election, lost by just over 500 votes.
“We just had to prove that the number of votes in the election could have changed the outcome of the election. I don’t think the defendants ever countered that,” said Sonnenklar. “On the legal front, I think we have a very strong grounds for appeal here. I think we made a pretty good case for overturning the decision of the trial court.”
Sonnenklar will be filing a reply brief to the county and Hobbs’ responsive briefs.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
