The city of Phoenix set aside $2.8 million for its new Heat Response and Mitigation Office, an initiative to reduce temperatures in the metro area. The city set aside the exact same amount to address its homeless population and offer affordable housing in this year’s budget, as well as similar amounts for various community building enterprises and administrative accountability.
On Monday, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego appeared on PBS’s Arizona Horizonto discuss the city’s Heat Response and Mitigation Office, a newly-launched local government sector to tackle dangers posed by urban heat, a phenomenon in which urbanization causes higher temperatures. Gallego explained that a major complaint from her constituents concerned the extreme temperatures in cities within the valley.
“When you’re mayor in the summer people are like, ‘When are you going to do something about the heat?’ And all my colleagues [in] city council got that [question] as well, so now we’re finally doing something,” said Gallego.
Gallego also mentioned the urban heat mitigation efforts would assist the most vulnerable, likely alluding to the homeless populations. Phoenix has an estimated 7,500 homeless people. According to the latest U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report on homelessness published in January, however, Arizona has nearly 11,000 homeless people. HUD also reported that between 2019 and 2020, Arizona experienced one of the largest increases in the homeless population.
Leading Phoenix’s new Heat Response and Mitigation Office will be Arizona State University (ASU) Associate Professor David Hondula. Hondula teaches in the same School of Sustainability that was attended by Sarra Tekola, the PhD student who targeted and harassed two white male students over occupation of a multicultural center last month.
In the Arizona Horizon interview, Hondula explained that inner cities experience higher temperatures than the surrounding areas.
“The urban heat island is a process that leads to temperatures in the center of cities being higher than in the surrounding areas because of the way we build our cities and the types of activities that are concentrated in them, like driving lots of vehicles and operating lots of air conditioners,” explained Hondula.
Gallego explained that several pilot programs preceded the Heat Response and Mitigation Office, such as an initiative to introduce lighter-colored pavements.
According to the mayor, initiatives will include the addition of vegetation into the city, modifying building codes to allow for more sustainable and heat-resistant materials, and even redesigning the city to make it more heat-resistant.
Hondula expressed hope that they could create a cooler metro area, even with climate change.
Arizona summers reach regular highs between 110 to 120 degrees. The hottest day in recent history occurred on June 26, 1990, when temperatures reached 122 degrees.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A longtime Phoenix city politico calls Monday’s arrest of nearly 40 people -including Reverend Jesse Jackson and State Sen. Martin Quezada- outside U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s office “performance art,” as it was arranged ahead of time by protest organizers.
Sam Stone, chief of staff for Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio, told KFYI’s James T. Harris on Tuesday that the protesters’ sit-in at Simena’s office on East Camelback was “an optical joke” intended to garner local and national media headlines “screaming up and down that Rev. Jackson was arrested” for not following police commands.
The truth, Stone told Harris, was that “Rev. Jackson arranged to be put in handcuffs for a few minutes for the photo.”
Stone also said police officers were forced by city officials to standby outside Sinema’s office until the protesters “were ready to leave on their own.” Only then were officers allowed to issue citations to the protestors and instruct them to disperse, he said.
“They actually went and communicated with our police department and were like ‘we going to come out there and protest and we would like you to arrest us cuz we’re going to break the law, but we don’t actually want to go to jail,’” Stone told Harris.
Those arrested were cited on suspicion of criminal trespassing, a Class 1 misdemeanor, the lowest level of criminal conduct in Arizona. Stone predicted all charges “will be thrown out before they ever see any type of court or fee or fines or anything of the sort.”
More than 200 people started the protect event by rallying at a local city park. Many of the protesters then marched several blocks to Sinema’s office, where about 40 engaged in the sit-in. Their purpose, according to protesters, was to draw attention to Sinema’s position on the filibuster, a Senate rule which requires at least 60 votes from the 100 senators to cut off debate on most non-budgetary measures in order to bring a matter to vote.
With 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, getting partisan legislation to a vote is nearly impossible, so there is a growing push to change the filibuster rule. Sinema, a Democrat, has held firm on her belief that the rule should stay as is, at least for now.
Stone, a Republican, also used the interview to praise Sinema for “holding the line” on the filibuster.
“We have these norms for a reason to provide some balance, some moderation, so that D.C. doesn’t go completely off the rails every time you have a different party take control of the Senate,” Stone told Harris. “I applaud her for that.”
It is unknown how much Monday’s three-hour event cost taxpayers in terms of manpower. Eight city blocks of Camelback were closed at various times, leading to restricted access to businesses and residences.
And that did not set well with Stone, who noted the impact on emergency responders and residents alike. “People don’t understand the reason we have laws on not blocking streets is not to stifle protest – it’s to protect people,” he said.
Stone is the founder and managing partner of Caim Consulting, a political consulting firm with offices in Phoenix and Washington, DC. One of his clients is Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a former Phoenix-area news anchor.
Thousands of people came from across the state to hear from President Donald Trump on Saturday. The former president delivered a fiery speech at the Turning Point Action conference in Phoenix.
During the rally dedicated to election integrity, Trump introduced many members of the Arizona State Senate and thanked them for agreeing to pursue an audit of the Maricopa County 2020 General Election.
“We will fight for truth, transparency and accountability, and we will not stop until we have restored out American birthright of honest, free and fair elections,” said Trump. “We’re gathered here in Phoenix to show our support for election integrity and for the brave and unyielding conservative warriors in the Arizona state Senate.”
“Why wouldn’t somebody want election integrity? Why wouldn’t they want to know? And I would be very happy – won’t happen – but I would be very happy if they did it and everything was perfect. But you’re not going to find that,” said the former president.
Trump got around to the subject of the Democrats, who he said are moving the country in a socialist direction through their spending, support for Critical Race Theory, and “Marxists” like Black Lives Matter who “are seizing power and destroying everything we hold dear as Americans. It’s happening, and I said it was going to happen.”
“They dismantled the rule of law, censor speech, take over the free press, imprison political opponents,” said Trump pivoting back to the 2020 election. “You see that’s happening all over; look at what I’ve been through for years – and, of course, hold fake phony elections.”
Attorneys for the Goldwater Institute and the City of Phoenix will be in court Wednesday to argue over whether government workers subjected to a collective bargaining agreement can be forced to finance union activities, including a union’s political endeavors.
The issue before Judge Daniel Martin of the Maricopa County Superior Court is a legal challenge brought on behalf of two city employees over a practice known as “release time” approved by the Phoenix City Council in 2019. Release time allows some city employees to be paid to work for their private union instead of working for the public.
Employees utilizing release time are allowed to engage in activities such as lobbying, union membership drives, filing grievances against the employer, and wage and benefit negotiations. Release time activities of city employees are subject to the discretion and control of the union, not the city which pays the employees.
In May 2019, the City of Phoenix signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 2384, Field Unit II (AFSCME) which serves as the exclusive bargaining unit for a wide range of public workers, including but not limited to electricians, mechanics, security guards, street technicians, and maintenance workers.
AFSCME is the nation’s largest public services employees union with more than 1.3 million working and retired members. The MOU applied to all City of Phoenix employees assigned under Field Unit II whether union members or not, and it provides for myriad release time benefits, including four full-time release positions.
“That means that four city employees are released full-time to work exclusively for the union at the public’s expense,” according to the Goldwater Institute, which also noted nearly 3,200 additional paid work hours are available to other union representatives. That is roughly equivalent to 80 weeks of full-time work.
The MOU between Phoenix and AFSCME also guarantees compensatory time for high-ranking union officials using release time, as well as additional hours and payment for AFSCME members who attend union seminars, lectures, conventions, and workshops.
In October 2019, attorneys with the Goldwater Institute sued the City of Phoenix on behalf of two Field Unit II city employees who contend the release time salaries and benefits in the MOU are funded by all government employees of a specific bargaining unit.
The result, the lawsuit argues, is that non-union members are forced to fund union activities in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, along with Arizona’s Right to Work laws and other state constitutional provisions, the employees contend. The lawsuit also contends the four full-time release time employees “are not contractually required to provide an accounting to the City for how they use release time.”
Judge Martin will hear oral arguments Wednesday and Friday in dueling motions for summary judgment filed by the parties. Court records show AFSCME has been granted intervenor status in the case.
Among the organizations also opposed to release time policies is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which has developed draft legislation that lawmakers across the country can use in an effort to ban paid union activity by public employees.
Under the ALEC draft legislation, it would be “against public policy” for a public employer like the City of Phoenix to enter into a deal with any private union to compensate a public employee for union activities.
“While public employees should not be prohibited from freely associating outside of their employment duties, including hiring individuals to help represent their interests, this should occur at public employee, not taxpayer, expense,” according to the ALEC website.
On Wednesday, the Phoenix City Council approved in a 5-4 vote, the creation of a police oversight office. Last November the Council considered the same plan, which is described as “radical” by City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, but rejected it in a 5-4 vote.
BREAKING: Disgraceful OAT Vote
“What Phoenix did today, was approve the most radical, extremist, and anti-police plan in the entire country. Today’s vote was not about acting for accountability or transparency, but handing over unlimited power to hate groups. pic.twitter.com/SikqW72YAh
DiCiccio and other opponents believe the creation of the office is the end of well-funded police force as the money will be shifted away from policing and to projects and activists determined to reduced policing.
Councilmembers Laura Pastor, Betty Guardado and Yassamin Ansari and Mayor Kate Gallego joined Garcia in voting yes on the plan. Councilmembers Ann O’Brien, Jim Waring, Debra Stark and Sal DiCiccio voted no on the measure.
