The city of Phoenix decided Wednesday to spend $10 million every year until they achieve zero traffic-related fatalities — likely ad infinitum. The council passed the Vision Zero Road Safety Action Plan (RSAP) by a unanimous vote.
Approval of the RSAP wasn’t anticipated this soon. Mayor Kate Gallego disclosed during the Wednesday meeting that the council expedited the plan in order to qualify for federal funds. Those funds would come from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s Safe Streets for All (SS4A) grants, established under President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) with an application deadline of September 15.
The $10 million comes from several different avenues: $3 million from the general fund, $2 million from Transportation 2050 Fund, and $5 million from the Arizona Highway User Revenue Fund (AHERF). It’s part of a national network of 53 Democratic cities: the Vision Zero Network. Tempe joined as well. The network supports Buttigieg’s SS4A initiative.
The Vision Zero Network is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives, a left-leaning grantmaking institution whose funding comes from a variety of left-leaning nonprofits such as the Grove Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the NoVo Foundation.
The city council approved the incorporation of the Vision Zero goals in January.
According to the city’s data, less than 200 traffic-related fatalities occur on average in Phoenix every year. The deaths are generally disparate in nature.
In a statement to AZ Free News, Phoenix City Council candidate Sam Stone claimed that Gallego and the council were purposefully worsening the roadways through RSAP in order to increase demand for public transportation. Ridership for buses, light rail, and other forms of public transit have decreased steadily over the years, likely due to sanitation and crime concerns.
“It doesn’t matter what Mayor Gallego and the Council majority call it, this is still Vision Zero — taking away driving lanes, reducing speeds to 25 mph, and loading the city with automated ticket machines,” warned Stone. “It’s the left’s plan to make driving so inconvenient that everyone (except themselves, of course) is forced to ride the bus. And it’s a gridlock-inducing failure everywhere it’s been tried.”
That $10 million expenditure is flexible. The plan is subject to change, or will function as a “living document,” as confirmed during Wednesday’s meeting by Kini Knudson, director of the Streets Transportation Department. Gallego was visibly excited about the plan’s passage, as were the other council members.
“It’ll be an important year for traffic safety in Phoenix,” said Gallego.
11 citizens will assist with the development of the RSAP through a Vision Zero Community Advisory Committee.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
On Monday, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) busted a vehicle smuggling 233,000 fentanyl pills through a Nogales port of entry. 47,000 of those pills were “rainbow fentanyl,” a new marketing tactic by drug traffickers to entice children and young adults. The remainder were the traditional blue pills usually associated with fentanyl.
NEW: @CBP agents at the port of entry in Nogales, AZ have made another major bust of “rainbow” fentanyl, which they began seeing last month. 47,000 colored fentanyl pills & 186,000 blue fentanyl pills found hidden the floor compartment of a vehicle. @CBPPortDirNOG@FoxNewspic.twitter.com/rkP21Ajd78
According to the DEA, even as little as two milligrams of fentanyl may be lethal — equivalent in size to 10-15 grains of table salt. It’s 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Approximately 42 percent of pills contained at least two milligrams. By those estimates, the 233,000 pills recovered on Monday could contain a minimum of 97,800 deadly doses. The troopers’ bust last week contained enough fentanyl to kill over 10.4 million people.
The amount of fentanyl that fits in the ear of Lincoln on the penny is LETHAL.
11,201 pounds of fentanyl were seized by @CBP from Oct '20 – Sept. '21. Since minuscule doses of fentanyl create intense effects, it’s easier to illegally smuggle small batches across the border. pic.twitter.com/okuBEJ3kkL
In a warning about rainbow fentanyl issued last week, the DEA noted that rainbow fentanyl was also being trafficked as powder and blocks resembling sidewalk chalk.
During the White House’s daily briefing last Wednesday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre evaded questions about President Joe Biden’s plans to address rainbow fentanyl and the larger fentanyl crisis. Instead, Jean-Pierre focused on the fact that it was Overdose Awareness Day and that the administration bolstered DHS with $80 million for general drug prevention. Jean-Pierre didn’t identify the root cause of the fentanyl crisis.
Instead, Jean-Pierre claimed that the increased number of drug seizures meant that their administration’s policies were working. She ignored Fox News reporter Peter Doocy’s counterpoint that fentanyl overdoses have increased as well, occurring by several hundred every day. Jean-Pierre also claimed that the Biden administration is successfully securing the border, despite overseeing a historic all-time high of illegal entries into the country.
“We see those same numbers as well. But the fact that we are securing the border, the fact that we are securing record levels of funding for DHS so they can stop illicit drugs from entering the country, the fact that it’s not just drug traffickers we’re dealing with as well, we’re stopping finance shares, this is happening under this administration,” said Jean-Pierre.
The primary suppliers of fentanyl in the U.S. are the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels. However, Mexico isn’t America’s sole or primary source of fentanyl; China is the primary source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the country.
Jaw-dropping and infuriating.
"Fentanyl overdose is now the leading cause of death among American adults under the age of 45"
China is the #1 source of fentanyl into the United States. Chinese relationships with Mexican cartel at unprecedented levels also. pic.twitter.com/Mfe4d18W37
Health experts warned the Arizona legislature in January that fentanyl traffickers were targeting children. Prior to the rise of the rainbow fentanyl, drug traffickers made fentanyl that looked exactly like prescription oxycodone. These counterfeits are nicknamed “Mexican Blues,” “Blues,” or “M-Boxes.”
Traffickers also disguise other drugs as prescription drugs: methamphetamine as Adderall and fentanyl as Xanax. These counterfeits have disproportionately harmed youth, prompting the DEA to launch an awareness campaign, “One Pill Can Kill.”
Over 71,000 of over 107,600 fatal drug overdoses last year involved fentanyl.
The DEA advises those who encounter fentanyl to call 911 immediately.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In an attempt to set voter expectations ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer shared that initial results would favor Democrats heavily.
Richer based his prediction on the voting patterns from November 2020 and last month’s primary election. Both elections first tabulated early ballots received the week beforehand, most of which voted for Democratic candidates. Then, the county tabulates early ballots dropped off the day before and on Election Day, as well as in-person ballots, most of which voted for Republican candidates.
“First moral of the story: in Arizona, initial results will likely be much bluer than eventual final results,” said Richer. “Second moral: if you want your ballot to be part of results released at 8:00 pm on Election Night, return it before the weekend before Election Day.”
🧵A blue night.
Let's start setting expectations now.
If voting patterns mirror Nov. 2020 and Aug. 2022, the initial results released in Maricopa County on Nov. 8 will be much bluer than the final results.
This is because the order in which ballots are tabulated.
Cont.
— Stephen Richer—Maricopa Cnty Recorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) September 5, 2022
Less than two weeks after last month’s primary election, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors released their canvas of the election results. Over 866,000 voters (35 percent of the 2.47 million registered voters) cast ballots in the primary election, over 87 percent of which were early voters.
According to the canvas, Republicans had a higher turnout than Democrats in Maricopa County: over 59 percent to just over 47 percent, respectively.
While Richer predicted the county’s potential initial outcomes for the midterms, the primary’s voter turnout and the county’s voter registration numbers hint at the potential final outcomes.
According to the county’s latest voter registration statistics in July, most voters identified as Republican. Over 854,000 voters were Republican (34.5 percent), while over 851,000 voters were “other” (34.4 percent) and over 748,000 were Democrats (30.2 percent).
For months, party switches have trended in the following order from least to greatest: other, Republican, Democrat, than Libertarian. In July, over 5,500 voters switched to “other,” over 4,500 switched to “Republican,” over 3,500 switched to Democrat, and over 400 switched to Libertarian.
— Maricopa County Recorder's Office (@RecordersOffice) August 9, 2022
Maricopa County’s pattern of voter registrations aligns with the state’s. According to the secretary of state’s latest voter registration statistics, there are over 1.4 million Republicans (34.5 percent), over 1.4 million “other” voters (33.7 percent), and nearly 1.3 million Democrats (30.9 percent). Less than one percent, or 32,600 voters, were Libertarian.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
While gathering signatures for a ballot initiative overturning Arizona’s universal school choice, Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) activists informed passersby erroneously that the state doesn’t review school choice expenditures until participants leave the program. These claims were exposed by one of those passersby, Stewardship Pro founder Grant Botma, who later posted an audio recording of the activists’ remarks online.
The signature gatherers also claimed that the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program gives participants a “debit card” with $20,000. Under the universal expansion, children likely receive about $6,500 each: less than a third of the amount SOSAZ was claiming.
“They give you a debit card with $20,000 for you to use. They do have you do, like, an expense report, but they don’t really review it until you leave the program,” stated the SOSAZ woman.
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) requires program members to submit expense reports on a quarterly basis in order to maintain eligibility. If ADE wasn’t reviewing these expenditure reports until the program member leaves, that would be due to Superintendent Kathy Hoffman’s oversight.
Hoffman is a vocal opponent of the ESA Program and supporter of the SOSAZ ballot initiative. Hoffman, who is up for reelection this November, echoed SOSAZ’s claim in a July tweet that the ESA Program she oversees has “zero accountability.”
Although Hoffman and SOSAZ call Arizona’s school choice funds “vouchers,” they are actually education scholarship accounts. Vouchers are education funds for use at private schools only. The ESA Program universal funds may be applied to a variety of education-related things on top of private schooling, such as: tutoring, supplemental curriculum, online learning programs or courses, standardized testing fees, and community college.
Yesterday my friend @NicholasAyers & I talked to Save Our Schools representatives trying to collect petition signatures to stop a school choice bill in AZ. We got video & audio clips that I am going to share with you.
In other clips, SOSAZ signature gatherers expanded on their claim that the state exerted no oversight of the school choice funds. They also issued the outdated claim that the ESA Program issues Bank of America prepaid debit cards. The ESA Program transitioned to ClassWallet in 2019.
“No transparency,” said a woman. “They give you a card from Bank of America[.]”
One of the signature gatherers then asserted that the main reason to defund the universal school choice program was to ensure that private schools don’t benefit from funds formerly slated for public education.
“Basically it will keep a billion dollars in public education and away from the private schools,” stated one of the women.
The $1 billion estimate wasn’t an official estimate discussed by the state legislature. Rather, it came from SOSAZ.
In advancing the narrative that the ESA Program recipients lack oversight, the activists claimed that they could run a Prenda home microschool out of their house with multiple dangers present, like an unfenced pool and a child molester. Prenda is a tuition-free K-8 microschool program, comparable to outsourced homeschooling or the old one-room schoolhouses.
“Not hypothetical. True. Prenda home microschools: they do not do any investigations on the facilities, the people involved,” said a woman. “It’s in my living room. I’ve got a pool that isn’t fenced, and I’ve got a creepy uncle that’s a child molester.”
The women also claimed that private school families who applied for ESA Program funds didn’t actually need the funds. Approximately 75 percent of the first 6,500 universal ESA Program applicants had no prior enrollment in public schools.
“It’s just putting the money into their pockets when they don’t super need it,” said one of the women.
They also believe that all families that go to private schools are rich and “don’t super need” money. As if they know the finances of private school families. They believe public schools should be funded for educating children that they don’t actually educate. Listen to this pic.twitter.com/QcevJ1vDx0
School choice proponents criticized the SOSAZ claims as lies, and asked for an official investigation into the legality of their speech. One Scottsdale father, Kevin Gemeroy, tweeted his concerns.
“When you lie about money to induce payments, that’s fraud. When you lie about money in exchange for signatures, what crime is that, exactly?” wrote Gemeroy.
When you lie about money to induce payments, that’s fraud. When you lie about money in exchange for signatures, what crime is that, exactly?
Arizona families have filed nearly 6,500 applications to join the state’s universal school choice program since enrollment launched two weeks ago. The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) estimated that about 75 percent of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program applicants, about 4,870, had no prior record of public school enrollment.
Universal ESAs award students up to $7,000 in funding. ADE disclosed that the figure usually falls around $6,500 for grades 1-12 and $4,000 for kindergarteners.
As of Aug 29th, @azedschools has received 6773 total ESA applications since opening the universal expansion application on Aug 16th. 6494 applied under universal eligibility.
— Arizona Department of Education (@azedschools) August 30, 2022
ESA Program universalization takes effect on September 24.
In an effort to reverse the ESA Program universalization, public school activists with Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) launched a referendum for a 2024 ballot initiative, “Stop Voucher Expansion.”
In response to the 6,500 applications, SOSAZ claimed that the state was handing over $47.4 million in taxpayer dollars to private schools “with no transparency or oversight.” Their calculation included the several hundred students who applied to the original ESA Program for students with special needs, not the universalized version.
SOSAZ said that they would have the 118,823 signatures required to qualify for the November 2024 ballot by September 23.
“Should [universal school choice] go into effect, these numbers will certainly balloon as special interests promote vouchers for for-profit schemes,” wrote SOSAZ.
ADE Superintendent Kathy Hoffman signed onto the SOSAZ ballot initiative. Hoffman, who is up for reelection this November, echoed SOSAZ’s claim that the ESA Program she oversees has “zero accountability.”
Although the ballot initiative and Hoffman describe the ESA Program funds as “vouchers,” they are actually education scholarship accounts. Vouchers are education funds for use at private schools only. The ESA Program universal funds may be applied to a variety of education-related things on top of private schooling, such as: tutoring, supplemental curriculum, online learning programs or courses, standardized testing fees, and community college.
Pro-school choice activists have launched a counter-initiative to the AZSOS campaign, “AZ Decline to Sign.”
— ESAforALL – Decline to Sign Campaign (@AzDeclineToSign) August 24, 2022
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey expressed total support for universalization of the ESA Program.
Arizona community leaders have been a vital part of the push for educational freedom. Pastor Drew Anderson spoke at last week’s universal ESA bill signing about his work with kids in South Phoenix to achieve academic success. pic.twitter.com/THdiMzoYCp
In an email to school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis, ADE shared that it would post the total number of universal ESA Program applications every week on social media.
"Between 8/16/22 and 8/29/22 ADE has received 6773 total ESA applications, 6494 of which were under the universal expansion category." pic.twitter.com/MoIgHLjt6H
A new law prohibiting restrictions to parental access of children’s records will take effect at the end of this month, on September 23. Even so, health care facilities are maintaining policies upholding their minor patients’ confidentiality. HB2161 will upend decades of common practice for Arizona health care providers.
The history of confidentiality in health care for minors leads back to the inception of the Title X family planning program in 1970 and the ensuing controversy over confidential reproductive health care services for minors. Beginning with the Clinton administration in 2000, the federal government issued privacy protections for medical records that extended to minors.
For many minors, getting permission from their parents to get an abortion is simply not an option. So why do 44 states require parental involvement in a minor's abortion? Instead of restricting their rights, we need to trust & provide support to minors seeking reproductive care.
— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) May 1, 2019
Since then, federal precedent has informed and shaped Arizona’s health care system. One of the most recent examples of this occurred in late June, when HonorHealth implemented a policy allowing its 12 to 17-year-old patients to shield their medical records from parental view. According to the Arizona Daily Independent, parents don’t have full access to their child’s online medical records.
Meanwhile, Banner Health precludes parental access to all of their 12- to 17-year old child’s records without the child’s consent. One Arizona mother, Jacquie Wedding, felt the effects of this policy recently. In a viral Tiktok video, Wedding shared the following email sent to her by Banner Health shortly after her children’s 12th birthday:
“Please be informed that access to your child’s account has been revoked. The reason for this is because the child is now between the ages of 12 and 17. Based on state law, a minor child may consent to certain treatments without parental consent. Records of those treatments are protected and may not be released to a parent without the minor patient’s consent. As Banner Health is not able to separate those records, we do not provide proxy access to MyBanner for minor patients between the ages of 12 and 17.”
Banner Health and HonorHealth are both part of the Health System Alliance of Arizona (HSAA), an advocacy organization that also includes Dignity Health and Tenet Healthcare Corporation.
These HSAA members align with Arizona Medical Association (AMA) standards on confidentiality for adolescent treatment. AMA advised health care providers to limit parental access to their child’s records.
“Providing confidential care to teenagers for certain personal issues is essential to providing appropriate health care and helping them develop autonomy by encouraging them to be responsible for their own health care,” stated the guide. “In addition, by providing confidential care, the clinician can develop a trusting relationship with the teen.”
One of the AMA guide authors was Veenod Chulani: the doctor who founded and currently leads the Phoenix Children’s Hospital (PCH) Gender Support Program, one of the only comprehensive gender transition programs for minors in the state.
PCH allows minors aged 12 to 17 to grant or prohibit parental access to their records.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
