by Terri Jo Neff | Jan 31, 2023 | Education, News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) is violating state and federal law by making it too difficult for its employees to leave a labor union, according to a Jan. 18 letter sent to district officials by the Goldwater Institute.
Parker Jackson, staff attorney with the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, advised TUSD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo that a review of five collective bargaining agreements revealed “alarming restrictions” which infringe on the rights of district employees.
“We request that the District immediately act to bring these agreements and policies and practices made pursuant to them into compliance with federal and state law,” Jackson wrote to Trujillo and the district’s governing board.
At issue are memoranda of understanding (MOU) which TUSD has entered into with four labor organizations: the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 449, AFL-CIO (“AFSCME”); the Communications Workers of America (“CWA”); Educational Leaders, Inc. (“ELI”); and the Tucson Education Association (“TEA”) with which there are two agreements.
TUSD employees may freely join a union at any time, but an employee covered by one of the five agreements must receive authorization from union bosses before district officials will process a request to resign from the union. This is unlawful, Jackson wrote, as it restricts when an employee may terminate their union membership and halt union dues deductions from their paychecks.
And then there is the issue of deduction revocation windows and/or deadlines which Jackson’s letter says do not comport with federal or state law. District policies and practices further exacerbate the unconstitutional activity.
For instance, the MOU with AFSCME—which Jackson calls “the worst of the five agreements”—restricts membership cancellation and dues deduction revocations to only two weeks per year, from May 1 to May 15. Similarly, the CWA agreement only permits cancellation of membership and dues deductions in July, while the other MOUs have comparable revocation restrictions.
This often results in an employee revoking their consent to union membership, only to have TUSD continue to deduct dues from each paycheck until the next opt-out period commences or the current membership year ends.
“This is not only unfair and predatory—it is also unconstitutional,” Jackson contends. “An employee revocation is obviously evidence that an employee does not affirmatively consent to pay union dues.”
Jackson’s letter to Trujillo cites Arizona’s Right to Work laws, the U.S. and Arizona constitutions, and various court cases in making its arguments.
“In order to prevent ongoing and future unconstitutional activity, the District must immediately revoke or revise any MOU provision that includes a union dues opt-out period and any requirement that a labor union must approve an employee’s request to stop the deduction of union dues,” Parker wrote. “The District must also revise any policy and procedure that imposes these unconstitutional conditions.”
The Goldwater Institute, which is dedicated to upholding the constitutional rights of all citizens, is a public policy and public interest litigation organization. It frequently initiates lawsuits when government entities do not voluntarily change conduct.
“The Goldwater Institute will always defend the constitutional right of all citizens to associate—or not associate—with whatever private organizations they choose,” Parker said after making the TUSD letter public. “Restrictive dues deduction revocation windows and deadlines, of course, are designed to make it difficult for people to leave powerful labor organizations. Fortunately, the U.S. and Arizona constitutions protect workers and prohibit the school district and the unions’ money grab.”
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 28, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Wednesday, the city of Phoenix rescinded the NFL’s authority to regulate free speech via signage throughout the Super Bowl season. The city’s resolution, issued Wednesday, followed their court loss last week in Paulin v. Gallego, in which a resident challenged the city’s resolution granting the NFL authority to approve or deny residents’ signage.
The change comes with less than one month left to go before the Super Bowl.
The city has a significant financial incentive to cater to the NFL’s requests. When the city last hosted an NFL game in 2015, they experienced a $700 million boost. Gallego told Scripps News this month that they anticipate over one million visitors to the downtown area.
“These events and activities will bring significant revenue and media exposure to the City of Phoenix during the event period,” stated the city’s original resolution.
In anticipation of this lucrative opportunity for exposure, the city enacted a resolution in October granting the NFL and Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee the authority to reject signage within a “clean zone” constituting two square miles in downtown Phoenix.
Direction on whether existing signage had to remain was unclear: the city issued contradictory instructions on its website, in one post declaring that temporary signage had to be removed by last Halloween, while another post declared that the signage rule didn’t take effect until Jan. 15.
Additionally, the city’s signage rule applied to all types of signage: menus, political yard signs, and trespassing warnings. The ordinance only left alone any permitted permanent signs — not temporary ones.
Local business owner Bramley Paulin challenged the city’s initial resolution; the rule prevented him from advertising on his property. Paulin wanted to advertise to the upwards of 1.5 million people anticipated to attend a nearby music festival in the week leading up to the Super Bowl. Yet, any potential business partners told Paulin they could not advertise on his property since he was in the city’s “clean zone,” and they were considered non-NFL partners.
In an email exchange, Coca-Cola informed Paulin that they would receive a cease-and-desist letter if they attempted to advertise within the “clean zone.”
Any business seen as competition to the NFL couldn’t advertise — effectively giving the NFL a monopoly over their allotted downtown area.
In response, Paulin sued the city with the help of the Goldwater Institute. In the lawsuit, the Goldwater Institute asserted that the city’s ordinance gave power to unaccountable private actors and stripped Paulin of his right to limited, accountable, and transparent government.
“The [city’s] resolution further violates the separation of powers by giving the NFL and the Hosting Committee unchecked power to make decisions about Arizonans’ constitutional rights, without the panoply of safeguards by which citizens can hold their governments accountable, such as public hearings, record requests, and elections,” stated the lawsuit.
READ PAULIN V. GALLEGO HERE
A trial court judge issued a temporary injunction on the city’s ordinance; a more permanent block of the rule was contingent on the city removing it completely in Wednesday’s meeting.
The Goldwater Institute noted on its online profile of the lawsuit that cities in recent years have begun enacting similar, restrictive “clean zone” ordinances to cater to mega-events like the Super Bowl.
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 19, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Monday, the Maricopa County Superior Court agreed that the city of Phoenix has failed to mitigate its burgeoning homeless crisis. In fact, the court declared that the city ending enforcement of criminal, health, and other statutes and ordinances concerning homelessness in 2019 worsened the crisis.
The court rejected Phoenix’s motion to dismiss in Brown v. Phoenix, citing 11 findings of fact proving that homelessness has only worsened under the city’s watch over the past four years. The court specifically cited the sprawling, growing homeless encampment in central Phoenix: “The Zone.”
“The situation inside the Zone has gotten progressively worse, not better, since 2019 and has become dire since November of 2021,” stated the court.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego became the mayor in 2019.
The court specifically stated that The Zone has resulted in dramatic increases in violent crime, public drug use, break-ins, vandalisms, fires, trespassing, loitering, risk of violent crime, public urination and defecation, trash and human excrement in the streets and along business properties, prostitution, public nudity, lewd acts, tents and encampments blocking property and business access, and deaths of homeless.
Rather than attempting to work out a solution for the increasing homeless, the court said the city ignored plans to ease the burden of The Zone. Residents proposed outdoor camping shelter spaces on city lots to prevent public nuisance. However, the court stated that the city failed to act. The city confirmed during oral argument that it wasn’t considering that proposed solution because the lots wouldn’t come with air conditioning and heat for the homeless. The court rejected that rationale, noting that homeless residents of The Zone live without air conditioning and start bonfires to keep warm.
The lawsuit was brought forth by 19 plaintiffs last August: Phoenix business owners and property owners. Judge Alison Bachus is hearing the case.
One of those businesses is the Arizona Rock Products Association (ARPA), located near The Zone. According to ARPA, the homeless have wreaked havoc on their business: started fires, left used needles and condoms, defecated and urinated, broken into cars, trespassed, and stolen food from a refrigerator on ARPA property.
The lawsuit accuses the city of purposefully concentrating the homeless population into The Zone. The plaintiffs claimed that a “substantial portion” of these homeless were mentally ill, addicted to drugs, and constantly violating the city’s quality-of-life ordinances on loitering, disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly conduct, drug use, domestic violence, and obstruction of public right-of-ways.
“In short, instead of seeking to solve the homelessness crisis, the City has effectively invited this population to construct semi-permanent tent dwellings on the public sidewalks and rights of way in Plaintiffs’ neighborhood, and to make the Zone their home,” stated the lawsuit. “The City has not only permitted this illegal conduct and maintained it on public lands within its control, but it has also encouraged it through a policy of directing other homeless persons from around the city to the Zone.”
The city’s homeless crisis has only worsened despite spending hundreds of millions in local, state, and federal funds over the last three years to solve the issue.
The city’s attempts to mitigate its growing homelessness problem preceded the pandemic. Weeks before a national emergency was declared nearly three years ago, Gallego was announcing plans on expanding the city’s shelter beds. The mayor told KJZZ that the city’s goal was to get those camping on the streets into shelters.
“I believe strongly that the best solutions are smaller facilities that are more distributed, where people can get more individual attention. But I understand that creating that network of facilities is going to take a long time,” said Gallego.
Throughout 2019, Gallego attempted to mitigate homelessness through billboard campaigns and repurposed parking meters to accept donations, dubbed “giving meters.”
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 13, 2023 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
A judge has been asked to put an end to a City of Phoenix ordinance which grants the NFL and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee authority over how and where residents and property owners can exercise their free speech rights before and after the Feb. 12 Super Bowl.
Although Super Bowl LVII is being played at Glendale’s State Farm Stadium, many of the NFL’s pregame festivities will be held in Phoenix. As a result, the Phoenix City Council quietly approved an ordinance establishing a nearly two-square-mile Special Promotional and Civic Event Area which encompasses most of downtown.
Anyone in the event area, also known as the “Clean Zone” is barred for the three weeks before the big game and one week after from displaying any temporary signage without the approval of the city as well as the NFL and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee.
The Goldwater Institute warned city officials weeks ago to put an end to the prohibitive ordinance or face legal action. There was hope the matter would be resolved Tuesday when council members met in a non-public Executive Session on Tuesday.
But when the ordinance was not repealed, the Goldwater Institute followed through on its pledge to defend those whose constitutional rights are being infringed by the ordinance. Its lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks an injunction blocking enforcement of the ordinance.
Phoenix resident Bramley Paulin is the plaintiff represented by the Goldwater Institute, while Mayor Kate Gallego and City Manager Jeff Barton are defendants in their official capacity along with the city as a municipal corporation.
“The Phoenix signage restrictions are just the latest instance in a disturbing, years-long nationwide trend of local governments forcing their own citizens to beg the NFL’s permission to speak freely. But Goldwater intends to stop this trend,” according to John Thorpe, an attorney for the Goldwater Institute.
READ MORE
Thorpe says Paulin, who is also a local business owner, has suffered firsthand the effects of city’s special deal with the NFL.
“While Bramley would like to lease his property for temporary signage placements, businesses won’t even talk to him because they’re afraid to do anything – even on private property, in compliance with all the regular city ordinances – without the express approval of the NFL.”
Thorpe argues that the signage restrictions violate the Arizona Constitution’s free speech protections while also flouting the Constitution’s due process of law guarantee by infringing on residents’ rights without providing any of the minimum procedural safeguards the Constitution requires.
“Moreover, the restrictions violate the Arizona Constitution’s principles of separation of powers, giving two unaccountable private entities—the NFL and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee—a blank check to wield government power against private citizens,” Thorpe says.
It is estimated the ordinance encroaches on the rights of hundreds of businesses and thousands of residents.
Paulin issued a statement after the lawsuit was filed on his behalf. He said it is not right that Phoenix city officials are letting the NFL decide what he can and cannot say on his own property.
“The government shouldn’t censor business owners like me, or any residents of the downtown area, when we communicate with the public—and it certainly shouldn’t let private companies decide what we can say,” Paulin said.
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
by Terri Jo Neff | Dec 19, 2022 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
Although Super Bowl LVII will be played in Glendale, the residents, property owners, and business owners in downtown Phoenix must obtain permission from the NFL to place temporary signage on their own property before and after the big game.
Phoenix city officials passed Resolution 22073 earlier this year to designate nearly all of downtown as a Special Promotional and Civic Event Area in connection with the Super Bowl game being played at State Farm Stadium on Feb. 12.
The NFL has planned several pregame events at venues across the area, including downtown Phoenix. As a result, a little publicized provision of the city’s resolution restricts “all temporary signage” unless approved by city staff, the NFL, and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee.
“In other words, the city has banned hundreds of businesses, and thousands of residents, from speaking freely without permission from the government and two of the government’s handpicked entities,” explains John Thorpe, an attorney for the Goldwater Institute which is fighting back on the constitutional restriction.
Thorpe sent a letter on behalf of a Phoenix property owner to City Attorney Julie Kriegh last week demanding an end to the unconstitutional free speech restrictions.
“The ordinance also violates constitutional guarantees regarding due process and improper delegation of government power by broadly authorizing two private entities—the NFL and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee—to regulate private citizens’ speech with unfettered discretion and no procedural safeguards,” Thorpe wrote.
The signage restriction went into effect Nov. 1 with no fanfare from city officials. It remains in effect until Feb. 19, 2023, a full week after the Super Bowl. The Goldwater Institute became involved after Bramley Paulin sought to work with city officials so he could post temporary signage to advertise that his property is available to be leased.
Instead, Paulin was informed the property is within the “Clean Zone” covered by the Special Promotional and Civic Event Area. As a result, he cannot utilize the signage without authorization from the NFL and the host committee.
The city’s actions have already imposed substantial harm on Paulin, Thorpe told the city attorney. The letter seeks assurance that Paulin or his representatives may advertise on his property “without unreasonable restriction and without any input or review by the NFL or the Super Bowl Host Committee.”
It is unclear how city officials believe such an overreaching censorship deal is legal, let alone in the best interest of its residents. It does not appear that such restrictions were implemented in Inglewood, California during this year’s Super Bowl.
And there is no record of such restrictions back in 2015 when the Super Bowl was last played in Arizona, also in Glendale at what is now known as State Farm Stadium.
Thorpe acknowledges that hosting Super Bowl festivities is an exciting opportunity for many Arizonans, but he argues no benefits of any sporting event should come at the cost of forcing Arizonans to surrender their constitutional rights.
“And decisions about the free expression rights of downtown residents should not be delegated to unaccountable private parties,” he added.
AZ Free News has reached out for a comment about the free speech restrictions from Fox Sports and the Westwood One radio network, which are broadcasting Super Bowl LVII. A similar request was sent to Apple Music, the sponsor of the halftime show, as well as Roc Nation Management which represents Super Bowl halftime performer Rihanna.
No responses were received by press time.
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
