by Matthew Holloway | Jun 26, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
The Goldwater Institute, acting on behalf of Former Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane, local activist Susan Wood, and AZGOP Member-at-Large Yvonne Cahill (CD1) filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court against the city of Scottsdale on June 18. In the complaint, the plaintiffs allege that the city is mischaracterizing a proposed new sales tax set to be voted on by the public in November with “objectively false or misleading information.”
According to court documents, the Goldwater Institute and the plaintiffs allege that the proposed tax’s “titles and tagline text are misleading, obscure the principle provisions of the measure, and constitute a ‘bait and switch.’” They go on to explain, “The Resolution is deceptive and inherently misleading, and fundamentally unfair.”
The controversy has arisen from a 0.2% Land Acquisition Tax that was approved in 1995 which is set to expire no later than June 30, 2025, and another in 2004 at 0.15% which funded the land purchase and construction of trailheads in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve respectively and a newly proposed 0.15% sales tax that would last for 30 years to provide funds for city parks.
In the 2025 Scottsdale 0.15% Sales Tax: Questions and Answers, the new tax description claims, “The ballot proposal would replace and reduce an expiring 0.20% city sales tax with a 0.15% sales tax to provide funds solely for capital replacements and improvements at city parks and recreational facilities and additional maintenance, preservation and protection, including police and fire protection, of city parks and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. This tax would expire after 30 years.”
As the lawsuit notes, “the New Parks & Rec Tax does not, and cannot, ‘replace’ the Land Acquisition Tax that was scheduled to expire already. And likewise, the New Parks & Rec Tax “does not, and cannot, ‘reduce’ the current Land Acquisition Tax,” which without any intervention would already be eliminated as scheduled.
The City wrote that the new tax, which it calls a “replacement tax,” would provide:
- 51% for capital asset replacements and improvements to aged Indian Bend Wash parks and other citywide parks (see further discussion of capital replacements and improvements below)
- 14% for increased citywide park maintenance including additional maintenance workers and contracts to enhance park maintenance
- 7% for the Police Park Ranger program including additional resources for enforcement and education to provide better safety and security for city parks and the Preserve.
- 18% to increase maintenance, protection, and care for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve and its desert plants and wildlife, including trail and trailhead maintenance; protecting wildlife habitat; assessing and protecting archaeological, ecological, and cultural resources; and removing invasive plants to reduce wildfire risk (known as fire fuel mitigation)
- 10% for the Fire Department wildland fire fuel mitigation program with additional resources to remove/reduce overgrown plants and weeds around the Preserve and in city open spaces that pose ongoing wildfire risk during dry summer months, and additional Fire Department resources including technical rescue teams for citywide parks and the Preserve.
Goldwater Institute spokesman Joe Seyton told the Daily Independent, “They are deceiving voters because they are claiming a tax increase is actually a tax reduction, but what they are not saying is that voters will pay a lower sales tax if they vote no than if they vote yes.” He added, “Arizona law prohibits ballot measures from communicating information that is objectively false or misleading. It’s a bait and switch.”
In a statement published by the Goldwater Institute Cahill said, “Our own city leaders are deceiving taxpayers so that we’ll vote to raise taxes on ourselves. We deserve honesty from our local officials—especially when it comes to the money hardworking Arizonans are required to fork over to the government.”
Speaking with The Scottsdale Progress, Mayor David Ortega lashed out at his predecessor saying, “It is sad that former Mayor Jim Lane, who saturated our city with 23,689 apartments during his tenure, now tries to stop citizen-driven renewal of our 48 city parks, the Green Belt and protection of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.” He continued, “Adding new Police, Fire and Park Ranger personnel for our safety is also a key element of the ballot measure. In Scottsdale, we value our treasured open space legacy, and commitment to pass them on in great shape to future generations.”
The mayor continued, “Lane and opponents failed to show up during months of deliberations, so we will see them in court.”
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 | May 23, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The city of Scottsdale unanimously held off on approval of a sustainability plan during Tuesday’s regular council meeting after mass backlash from citizens.
The plan, in the works since 2021, is part of an implementation of the voter-approved General Plan 2035, and the city’s 2022 and 2024 Organization Strategic Plans. Arizona State University (ASU) Walton Sustainability Solutions Service (WSSS) and the Scottsdale Environmental Advisory Commission (SEAC) played roles in getting the sustainability plan together.
Lisa McNeilly, the city’s sustainability director since 2022, gave the presentation on the proposed plan during Tuesday’s meeting. McNeilly was formerly the sustainability director for the city of Baltimore, Maryland from 2017 to 2022, and UC Berkeley from 2008 to 2017. Prior to those roles, McNeilly served as director of international programs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (now the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions), and special assistant for President Bill Clinton’s White House Climate Change Task Force.
McNeilly said that Scottsdale’s sustainability plan — focused on energy, water, waste, air quality, and extreme heat — would not only benefit the environment but afford cost savings, health and safety improvements, and economic vitality.
The five-point framework of the plan focuses on energy, water, waste, air quality, and extreme heat.
Energy targets included reducing citywide and municipal electricity use, citywide and municipal greenhouse gas emissions, and the average energy burden for all households; increasing distributed solar capacity both citywide and municipally, and the percentage of “green” buildings.
Strategies to meet these energy targets focused on reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, improving municipal energy performance, and reducing energy impacts of the built environment through sustainable building practices and policies.
Water targets included reducing residential, municipal, HOA irrigation, and commercial water use; increasing return flow percentage; maximizing annual water banking; and maintaining treated groundwater deliveries to Safe Yield levels.
Strategies to meet these water targets focused on ensuring water system resiliency and reducing municipal water usage.
Waste targets included reducing single-family household, citywide, and municipal landfill refuse; achieving diversion rates ranging from 35 to 90 percent across homes, the city, and municipalities; increasing the percentage of recycling; achieving the diversion rate of brush and bulk waste stream; diverting 30,000 tons annually of citywide organic waste from the landfill; and achieving a recycling contamination rate below five percent.
Strategies to meet these waste targets included increasing diversion rates, strengthening local markets for recycled content, expanding opportunities for diverting organic waste from the landfill, and reducing waste generation.
Air quality targets included reducing unhealthy air days, illnesses for pollution-related health events, and municipal fleet fuel use; and increasing the number of publicly available electric charging ports.
Strategies to meet these air quality targets included “cleaning” the city’s air and supporting adoption of electric and other alternative fuel vehicles.
Extreme heat targets included reducing average July daytime and nighttime temperatures, average surface temperatures, and illnesses for heat-related health events; and increasing tree and shrub canopy.
Strategies to meet these extreme heat targets included expanding heat relief communication and education, protecting people from the health effects of extreme heat, identifying urban design improvements including structured shade and built environment, and planting more trees along with the implementation of other nature-based solutions.
McNeilly emphasized that the plan wouldn’t be enforced through any current or future mandates. It’s unclear to what degree this clarification measures up to a promise: in 2022, the city mandated a “Green Construction Code” for commercial and multifamily buildings that, just a decade earlier, had come into play as a voluntary incentivized option.
The city’s plan didn’t estimate exact costs for the actions and strategies, instead assigning three potential cost ranges to each: up to $50,000, from $50,000 to $250,000, and over $250,000.
During public comment on the proposed plan, Scottsdale residents expressed disdain for the plan.
Austin Fairbanks, a senior research analyst in the State House, said that the plan would have minimal impact on the climate compared to the fiscal and quality of life costs imposed on residents.
Fairbanks said that even if 100 percent of all new Scottsdale buildings went “green” in their construction going forward, the city would only achieve “green” for 8.8 percent of all buildings at the current pace, below the goal of 10 percent — which Fairbanks estimated would come at a cost of $90 million.
“Those are just two examples where logic and fiscal prudence were thrown out the door to accommodate this Green New Deal-style agenda,” said Fairbanks. “We’re told this is an aspirational document, but if you were to adopt this plan, it would be a policy standard for the council and staff that you want to meet these goals. And the easiest ways to achieve those goals is by increasing fees and imposing costs and mandates.”
Fairbanks said that Scottsdale contributed 0.00067 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions: even if the city reached its goal of a 90 percent reduction threshold, it would impact less than seven-millionths of total greenhouse gas emissions. Fairbanks estimated that the cost to nearly eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, though not given by the city in its proposed plan, would amount to $280 million for taxpayers.
“Trying to socially engineer residents to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a total of seven-millionths of the total is the wrong approach,” concluded Fairbanks.
Jim Davis with the Coalition of Greater Scottsdale (COGS) expressed concern that fiscal stability wasn’t prioritized enough by the city in its approach to implementing a sustainability plan. Davis urged the council to focus on boosting tourism, and to back off on high-density residential units due to their low revenue and negative impact on city attractiveness.
“The city is underinvesting in its assets. COGS believes the city is not sustainable,” said Davis.
However, COGS board of directors member Sonnie Kirtley said through a submitted written statement their organization supported the sustainability plan.
Councilman Tom Durham said that the plan was “critical” to Scottsdale’s future. Durham characterized public discontent with the plan as a reticence to pay for the sustainability goals. The councilman said it was “misinformation” that the city would introduce mandates to support its sustainability goals.
“People say we can’t do anything, but we have to: it’s part of our commandment,” said Durham. “Some people thrive on disinformation and finding the government boogeyman behind every door, and we all recognize that’s for political purposes, much of it.”
Councilwoman Betty Janik said that sustainability was nothing to do, and that this new plan was just a continuation of the same direction they’d been heading down. Janik compared the city’s sustainability plan to major invention breakthroughs in history that weren’t preceded by proof of concept: Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, American astronauts walking on the moon for the first time, and AIDS treatments.
“We cannot force [the sustainability plan] on you, it’s something you have to accept and believe in,” said Janik.
Councilman Barry Graham said he didn’t appreciate his fellow council members “casting aspersions” on the residents, such as calling them “keyboard warriors.” Graham said the plan went too far and was both contradictory and vague in its proposals: significant water reduction for residents while planting more trees, and a lack of specificity regarding costs of all goals.
“We’ve gotten hundreds of emails from residents who are confused or find elements of the plan extreme,” said Graham.
Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield expressed concerns about the “unintended consequences” of the actions proposed, namely the greater cost for citizens for less access to utilities and city services, such as water, waste, and power.
“Since when have we as citizens given the city the kind of power or right to monitor our homes and businesses and our lives to this kind of extent?” said Littlefield.
Littlefield noted that she has never seen such a unanimous, overwhelming rejection by the citizens of an issue as the sustainability plan. Out of hundreds of emails, Littlefield said she only received two in support of the plan.
Councilwoman Tammy Caputi said that citizens were missing the “point of the plan.” Caputi insisted that no mandates would come from the plan. She expressed confusion at the community resistance to the plan, saying she felt she hadn’t heard of this mass resistance before in the past two years of the plan’s development.
Mayor David Ortega stressed that the sustainability plan would be important to implement for Scottsdale’s future wellbeing. Ortega said that the city was running out of its resources and bearing a greater cost for them: landfills for waste, water, energy, and clean air.
The city’s presented sustainability timeline, stretching back to 1967, included the major policy changes and actions undertaken in recent years, such as the banning of natural grass in new single-family homes and addition of solar infrastructure last year; the mandate of a Green Construction Code in 2022; and the approval of the 2035 General Plan in 2021; the installation of LED streetlights in 2020.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Apr 20, 2024 | Economy, News
By Staff Reporter |
Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ-01) gave a brief rundown on the state of his constituents’ financial well-being under Biden before Congress on Tuesday.
Schweikert said that his district consists of some of the more well-off, educated, and entrepreneurial constituents in Arizona and the country. Yet, Schweikert says his more “prosperous” district has become poorer even when accounting for factors like wage growth.
“In my district, we’ve had the highest inflation in the continental United States. If you do not make 23.6 percent more money today than you did the day President Biden took office, you are poorer,” said Schweikert.
Schweikert’s district spans a northeast section of Phoenix that encompasses Scottsdale, Paradise Valley Fountain Hills, Cave Creek, the Salt River and Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation reservations, and part of the Tonto National Forest.
The congressman went on to say that his fellow congressmen, dubbed “the clown show,” needed to have “an honest conversation” with constituents to acknowledge that they’ve grown poorer in recent years.
Arizona experienced the highest inflation rates since February 2021, only returning to a lower rate of 2.7 percent earlier this year, last seen March 2021.
Both Arizona State University business professor and Carey School director Mark Stapp and University of Arizona economics center director George Hammond told Cronkite News last year that the reason for Arizona having the highest inflation — mainly Phoenix — has to do with shelter costs.
Arizona’s high growth rate, coupled with the lack of supply, prompted a rapid rise in housing and rent prices.
In 2022, the state boasted the highest inflation rate in the nation. At the time, the Phoenix area had a 13 percent inflation, much higher than the nationwide inflation rate at the time of 8 percent.
Schweikert has repeatedly urged his colleagues to curb inflation, last month pointing out the effects of the record levels of spending under the Biden administration. Schweikert projected that the total deficit spending for the 2024 fiscal year will be higher than both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have projected.
Over the past three years, Arizona’s food banks have reported an unprecedented increase in the number of clientele they’re serving. The Arizona Food Bank Network reported earlier this year that it and its member food banks have served 14 percent more individuals in 2023 than in 2022 (a total of nearly 570,000 people a month), and 20 percent more than before the pandemic.
Conversely, the census reported that 12.5 percent of Arizonans were living in poverty in 2023 — the lowest rate in the past decade.
Schweikert hasn’t been the only one of Arizona’s congressmen to criticize federal leaders’ approach to handling inflation. Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) remarked during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union last month that the overall inflation rate had hit nearly 20 percent since 2021, costing Arizonans nearly $13,000 in 2023 according to the Joint Economic Committee.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Apr 11, 2024 | News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Scottsdale Mayor David Ortega said he opposes an Arizona ice hockey team’s efforts to buy state land for a new rink in North Phoenix.
In an open letter, Ortega said the Arizona Coyotes’ plans for a new entertainment complex and arena “was presented without mention of market demand for a new entertainment venue disguised as a hockey arena, or congested highway access, or questionable arena zoning entitlement.”
“The glitzy proposal was portrayed as the last gasp to keep hockey in Arizona,” Ortega said.
The team has previously said the proposed complex would generate more than 10,000 jobs and $15.5 billion in spending over 30 years without costing taxpayers. The Coyotes currently play their home games at Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena. A proposal for a new arena in Tempe was voted down last year.
Ortega said the hundred acres that would be used for the complex near Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road would jeopardize industry in the city. He argued that water and sewer infrastructure does not exist for such a venue, saying Scottsdale’s “water assets are absolutely not available.”
He called the proposal a “fantasy” due to the team’s lagging attendance.
“I admire the hockey sport, Arizona Coyotes community involvement and phenomenal youth clubs at the Scottsdale Ice Den,” Ortega wrote. “But I along with City of Scottsdale staff will continue to monitor any actions that occur, and negative repercussions for Scottsdale. As it stands today, the fantasy hockey project must move west, away from Scottsdale.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Mar 5, 2024 | Economy, News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Four Arizona cities made it onto a list of America’s least financially distressed cities.
Last month, WalletHub released the results of their comparison of the 100 largest cities without data limitations across nine key metrics. The personal-finance website determined cities are the most and least financially distressed in light of inflation making it more difficult for Americans to keep up with payments on their loans and lines of credit.
Glendale was 92nd on the list, followed by Chandler at 97, Gilbert at 98, and Scottsdale at 99.
“Getting out of the downward spiral of financial distress is no easy feat,” WalletHub Analyst Cassandra Happe said in a news release. “You may get temporary relief from your lenders by not having to make payments, but all the while interest will keep building up, making the debt even harder to pay off.”
“People who find themselves in financial distress should budget carefully, cut non-essential expenses, and pursue strategies like debt consolidation or debt management to get their situation under control,” she continued.
Chicago, Illinois was the city with the most financial stress.
“It seems that in the Windy City, people’s financial security is also blowing away,” Happe said. “The share of Chicago residents who are allowed to skip debt payments due to financial difficulties went up by nearly 30% between Q4 2022 and Q4 2023.”
Additionally, Chicago residents had the third-most accounts in distress per person, according to Happe.
“Financial distress may increase further, too, as Chicago has some of the highest Google search interest in the country for terms like ‘debt’ and ‘loans,’ which indicates that people need to borrow even more,” she said.
After Chicago, Houston, Texas had the second most financial stress, followed by New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Atlanta, Riverside, and Jacksonville.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
