Last week, Tucson residents exercised common sense by overwhelmingly rejecting Prop 412 in a special election. And whether you live in the city or not, this is a significant win for our future.
Disguised as a new agreement between the City of Tucson and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) to renew the Franchise Agreement for another 25 years using the current 2.25% fee, the proposal included a number of Green New Deal pet projects. Had it passed, it would have added a 0.75% “Community Resilience Fee” to fund the costs associated with building underground transmission facilities—and “projects that support the City’s implementation of the City’s approved Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.”
That would have meant:
Lengthy construction projects removing driving lanes from roads (Road Diets)
Permanently inhibiting access to small businesses
Reducing personal vehicles by 40% by 2050
Establishing Tucson as a 15-minute city with local travel restrictions removing personal choice
Now, the citizens of Tucson have spoken. And it’s clear that they don’t want Green New Deal mandates that take money from their wallet and freedom from their lives.
But make no mistake about it. TEP and its leftist ally Mayor Regina Romero are committed to their “climate change” agenda. Following the resounding defeat of Prop 412, TEP put out a statement that it still plans to move forward on adopting the Green New Deal by phasing out fossil fuels. This is the same utility company that is currently seeking a 12% rate hike from the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) before the end of the year! They have a monopoly and are assuming that the ACC will simply rubber stamp whatever rate hike they request.
That’s why it also shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that right before the defeat of Prop 412, the Tucson City Council voted to make public transit free indefinitely despite not having funding secured beyond December. That’s right, after three years of not charging for transportation services, the government failed to listen to the people again.
Community members have complained that this three-year experiment has led to a rise in crime and public nuisances. Bus driver unions have complained that free busing threatens public safety and forces drivers to act as transit police. And other public safety activists have claimed that free busing facilitates drug sales, trafficking, and even usage.
But liberals like Mayor Romero and other members of the Tucson City Council just don’t care. The Left is committed to its agenda, but when you stay informed, when you make passionate arguments based on facts, and when you hit the streets and fight back, you can defeat them. Prop 412 is the perfect example of that. Now, we need to be prepared for the next battle.
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A special election is taking place right now in Tucson, and even if you’re not from the city, you should pay attention. At first glance, Prop 412 appears to be nothing more than a new agreement between the City of Tucson and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) to renew the Franchise Agreement for another 25 years using the current 2.25% fee. But just like anything government bureaucrats put out there nowadays, you need to keep reading.
Along with the renewed agreement, Prop 412 would add a 0.75% “Community Resilience Fee” to fund the costs associated with building underground transmission facilities—and projects that support the City’s implementation of its Climate Action Plan. Ahhh, there it is. The agenda behind Prop 412 finally comes out. This isn’t about renewing a franchise agreement. It’s about forcing hardworking taxpayers to start funding the estimated $326 million it’s going to need to address Mayor Regina Romero’s so-called “climate emergency.”
According to TEP, it plans to use this “Resiliency” Slush Fund to:
decarbonize city-owned and operated buildings and facilities.
promote distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar to provide local renewable energy and enhance energy resilience.
pursue additional local sources of renewable energy, including resource recovery and heat exchange.
promote electric vehicles via charging infrastructure expansion.
transition public agency fleets to zero-emission and net-zero-emission vehicles.
establish accessible resilience hubs across all City Wards to provide information and resources related to climate preparedness and response.
bolster City-owned and community-wide heat mitigation resources to reduce urban heat island effect and protect vulnerable individuals and communities.
deploy and maintain equitable nature-based solutions that reduce or sequester emissions, improve ecosystem health, and bolster climate resilience.
bolster community and regional networks to improve community-wide emergency response and resource-sharing.
That’s right. It’s just another long list of Green New Deal pet projects all at the expense of taxpayers who are already overburdened by Bidenflation and exorbitant gas prices.
But there has to be some kind of benefit, right? Nope.
If Prop 412 passes, Tucson residents can expect to be on road diets through lengthy construction projects that remove driving lanes from roads. This will cause small businesses—many of which are still recovering from ill-advised COVID shutdowns—to suffer as lane reductions create a permanent inconvenience for customers. On top of that, it will reduce personal vehicles by 40% by 2050, and ultimately lead to what Mayor Romero really wants: establishing Tucson as a 15-minute city with local travel restrictions that remove personal choice.
Even if you don’t live in Tucson, that last one should concern you. Liberals around the world are pushing the 15-minute city concept more and more. In Barcelona, the city is limiting personal car vehicles only to residents or delivery services. And speed limits are a maximum of 6 miles per hour. In Oxford in the UK, the government has adopted an $86 fee for driving past the 15-minute filter in a personal vehicle.
But perhaps the biggest question of all is why does TEP even need more taxpayer dollars to begin with? Its reported profits from the last three years are:
2020 – $191 million
2021 – $201 million
2022 – $217 million
In addition to these profits and the 0.75% Community Resilience Fee, TEP has already requested that the Arizona Corporation Commission approve a 12% rate increase before the end of the year. That would bring the total average impact between Prop 412 and the proposed rate increases to be about $180 per year for customers. This is outrageous! TEP and the City of Tucson don’t care about residents. They are just looking for another money grab to push a Green New Deal agenda that restricts freedom with no real positive impact on the environment. Now, it’s up to the citizens of Tucson to push back and vote NO on Prop 412.
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Arizona’s executive branch has been defined by dysfunction, delay, and confusion. And Katie Hobbs has led that chaos from the front. When it came to tax conformity, Arizona had a clear choice: conform to the federal tax code and provide relief to working-class Arizonans or refuse conformity and raise taxes at the exact moment families could least afford it.
Instead of choosing relief, or even choosing clarity, Katie Hobbs created a third option:
Complete and utter chaos.
The Hobbs Chaos Conformity Plan
Sensing the urgency of the situation, Republican lawmakers called on Hobbs to convene a special legislative session in December, well before tax season, to address tax conformity and provide certainty for Arizona taxpayers.
Hobbs refused.
Then, during her State of the State address, Hobbs demanded that lawmakers adopt her own conformity plan, a package that would result in a $200 million tax hike on Arizonans.
There was just one problem: not a single lawmaker—Democrat or Republican–had introduced her plan as an actual bill.
The Hobbs “plan” didn’t even exist.
Then the dysfunction within her administration spiraled out of control. The Arizona Department of Revenue, a state agency operated by Governor Hobbs, issued tax forms in January that didn’t match the conformity plan proposed by Governor Hobbs. In fact, the DOR forms are more closely aligned with what Republicans wanted that what Hobbs had asked for.
Hobbs can’t even get on the same page with her own office.
So, in an attempt to end the chaos and confusion being created by Hobbs, the GOP-led legislature passed HB 2785, a tax conformity package that aligned Arizona law with the tax forms issued by Hobbs’ Department of revenue.
What did Hobbs do? She Vetoed it.
A Completely Avoidable Tax Disaster
The result of this failed and chaotic leadership?
More than 1 million Arizonans may now be forced to refile their taxes and potentially pay hundreds of millions of dollars more.
1. Republicans offered solutions.
2. Republicans passed legislation.
3. Republicans tried to provide certainty.
Katie Hobbs blocked every single attempt.
Arizona Deserves Competent Leadership
Arizonans expect their Governor to solve problems, not create them. But Katie Hobbs has shown a pattern of doing exactly the opposite. This tax season fiasco isn’t just another policy disagreement. It’s proof of something far more serious: Katie Hobbs is simply not capable of governing effectively.
Arizona Taxpayers Should Be Furious
Arizonans should be absolutely outraged.
No family should ever be forced to file their taxes twice because their Governor failed to do her job. No small business should face new tax confusion because the Governor vetoed common-sense solutions. And no taxpayer should be asked to pay more simply because the Governor chose political games over responsible leadership.
Yet that is exactly what Katie Hobbs has done. Her incompetence has created a completely unnecessary tax crisis for Arizona families. That’s why Arizonans are speaking out and demanding accountability.
Learn the truth about Governor Hobbs’ failed leadership at:
Call Governor Hobbs
Arizona taxpayers deserve certainty, not chaos.
Call Governor Katie Hobbs’ office at (602) 542-4331
Tell her: Arizona taxpayers should not have to file their taxes twice because of her incompetence.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
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Don’t you want to live in a crime-free utopia? Wouldn’t allowing the government to track our every move, solve all our problems? Local authorities seem to think so, and they have the perfect tool to usher in mass surveillance in your city: Flock cameras. Flock Safety is one of the main manufacturers of Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) that have been quietly taking over cities and have already infiltrated nearly every state. These cameras monitor cars and even pedestrians constantly, logging minute details about every vehicle that passes, storing the data in Flock’s database, and feeding it into an AI platform with the capability of stitching together elaborate travel patterns. No court-issued warrant is required – not even public consent – creating massive privacy concerns for residents who often don’t know they are being watched until these cameras have saturated their community.
According to Flock’s own website, they cover 49 states, over 5,000 communities, partner with more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies, and read upwards of 20 billion license plates per month. Though law enforcement agencies are one of the primary users of these devices stated to reduce crime, cities, businesses, and even HOAs are also deploying them in residential areas.
You might think, “We don’t have these in our town.” But sometimes these cameras show up without public approval. That was the case in Sedona where the police department partnered with Flock and quietly set up 11 cameras around the city without notifying the city council. Once the council found out, they held a public meeting, heard residents’ concerns, and ultimately terminated the contract and removed every camera.
City of Flagstaff too has seen controversy over whether to renew their Flock contract for 36 ALPRs. Their council recently delayed a vote until they could get more public feedback and revisit their contract terms with Flock. The Town of Prescott Valley, AZ has 101 cameras. Tolleson, AZ has 77. Scottsdale, AZ uses dozens of Flock cameras and recently voted to remove specific references to license plate readers, photo radar, and AI technologies from its 2026 Legislative Agenda. The fight is ongoing across the state.
Casa Grande, Arizona in Pinal County, recently approved a 10-year contract with Flock totaling $10 million for 100 ALPRs, 100 pan-tilt-zoom cameras, 10 video cameras, a gunshot detection system, and additional surveillance devices. With 22 ALPRs already operating and 100 more on the way, no one will be cruising around Casa Grande without the government’s careful observation. Yet the Casa Grande police chief brushes off privacy concerns, saying: “I know people are worried about Big Brother… But if they’re calling or emailing with these concerns on their phone, that phone is capturing a thousand times more information than Flock will.” In other words, you’re already being tracked, so what’s a little more?
While Arizona is home to some of the most Flock-saturated cities in the country, the problem stretches far beyond our borders.
In Norfolk, Virginia, for example, 176 Flock cameras blanket the city. In a recent lawsuit, two Norfolk residents discovered their locations had been logged hundreds of times in less than five months: one was tracked 526 times, the other 849. These are ordinary citizens whose movements were recorded and stored for 30 days.
Oakland, CA owns 293 cameras. Denver, CO has over 100. McDonough, GA has 60. And the list keeps growing. If you want to know whether your city already uses Flock cameras, the website deflock.me shows a map of nearly 55,000 ALPRs worldwide and is growing every day, though this only lists a fraction of what is out there (Flock has over 84,000 ALPRs in the United States alone). Turns out it is harder to track the tracker, and there is no legal requirement that these governments provide a transparent database of when and where you are being surveilled.
If your city doesn’t have them yet, the city next door does. Because Flock freely shares data across jurisdictions, your information can cross state lines and land in the hands of any law enforcement agency or private company connected to the network. Many jurisdictions (including the Town of Prescott Valley) have actively sought private residences and businesses to connect their camera systems into their Flock surveillance systems – which given enough participation by private surveillance systems and Flock’s emerging use of drones would leave few places outside of government’s voyeurism. Flock boasts this integrated network as “coverage that never sleeps,” an eerie and disquieting promise.
Which is probably why people and groups that span the political spectrum oppose these ALPRs en masse. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) oppose the surveillance of “immigrants, transgender people, Black and Brown people” while Institute for Justice points out having a government log every trip to church and the gun store is likely to make conservatives squeamish. IJ has been involved in multiple lawsuits (including the above-mentioned in Norfolk) to protect against the threat these cameras pose to “people’s privacy, security, and freedom of movement.”
Maybe you’re like the Casa Grande police chief who insists these license plate readers are no different from tech companies tracking your cellphone. But the difference is, Flock monitors your movement constantly, often without your knowledge, and always without your consent. You can turn off your phone. You can’t turn off a camera mounted on a pole. Every car you drive and every route you take is automatically logged, creating a permanent record you never agreed to.
If Flock isn’t in your city yet, they’re probably on their way. Remind your council members that these cameras don’t belong anywhere near your neighborhood and that you didn’t sign up for 24/7 government monitoring.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
This November, Tucson voters will decide whether they would like to continue doubling down on Tucson’s failed policies that have invited rampant crime, made it impossible to navigate the city without extreme frustration, and drain its wealth and livability to pursue virtue-signaling but poverty-inducing policies. Or if they would rather get off the merry-go-round of insanity.
Prop 417 is the city’s updated 10-year general plan, and a ‘Yes’ vote continues the madness. A ‘No’ vote on Prop 417 is the only reasonable choice for anyone who wants to save Tucson from itself.
Take for example the city’s climate action plan published in 2023 which set the delusional goal of having 40% of Tucson residents to be walking, biking, taking public transit or “rolling” around the city by 2050. The plan includes a commitment to “net zero” by 2030 for government operations and by 2045 city-wide—including private residents and businesses.
To achieve this fantasy, the city plans to build out a massive transit agency that if they meet their targets of hiring 900 new people every year will eventually eclipse Raytheon as the largest employer in Tucson by more than double (despite collapsing ridership and a 100% taxpayer subsidy since fares were permanently eliminated in 2020.)
The plan requires residents to hold to a “Zero Waste” commitment to empty out the landfills, imposes new road diets, and even pays city employees to not use their cars. This list of insane ideas is also very very expensive, with a price tag of roughly $365 million.
Transportation Tyranny
The “Move Tucson” plan, as the foundation of transportation initiatives in Prop 417, is a shocking $13B cost over 20 years with the express purpose of building out “infrastructure” that serves everyone but drivers. Perhaps the most expensive element of the plan is their Complete Streets initiative which they adopted as an ordinance in 2021 (as an “emergency” order.) “Complete streets” is a cute way of saying narrowing or reducing road lanes to provide “mobility equity,” starving space for drivers to give equal space to all the other types of “transportation” that the vast majority of people don’t use and will never use unless coerced. Every new road must now be “remodeled” to serve the few at the expense of the many, worsening congestion and safety alike. They have even added another layer of intrusive oversight, making an already costly initiative of ripping out decent infrastructure even more cumbersome and bureaucratic.
Unaffordable Housing
And then there’s housing and development – guided by the same anti-driving, wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived in a 15-minute city – vision. Tucson’s Transit Oriented Development Handbook promote designs that “eliminate the need for personal vehicle use.” Its “best practice” for parking? Don’t provide it—or else put it somewhere inconvenient. The plan claims that done “right” mixed-use and transit-oriented development throughout the city will lead to “eliminating the need for personal vehicle use”.
Meanwhile, Tucson’s real housing problem is affordability: in 2023 only 38% of homes in the region were considered affordable to a family earning the area median income. Tucson’s idea of addressing the problem is more socialized housing schemes (paid by other Tucson residents who can barely afford their homes) and forced densification, waiving fees only for developers that commit to the city’s “equitable transit-oriented development” standards that force home buyers to submit to living in these carless communities.
The likely outcome? Artificial housing scarcity, higher prices, and more government control.
It’s All About Equity
Finally, the underpinning of the entire Tucson Plan is the city’s obsession with “equity.” Every initiative answers to the “Equity Index,” a bureaucratic checklist that prioritizes racial and demographic quotas over everything else. But like all communist utopian visions – Tucson’s ideological engineering has only made everyone in the city worse off.
The Bill Always Comes Due
If Prop 417passes, it will cost Tucson voters billions- as every utopian experiment does. But this won’t be new for the city despite voters’ opposition. Tucson has tried this before: Prop 414, a proposed sales tax hike for climate spending—rejected by voters. Prop 412, a “franchise agreement” turned climate slush fund—rejected again.
Just Say No, Tucson
So maybe there is hope that Tucson residents will reject another one of Tucson’s logrolled propositions. Voters should ‘Vote No’ on Prop 417 and send another message to city leadership that Tucson doesn’t want another climate-crusading, anti-driver, equity-obsessed bureaucratic plan to ruin Tucson.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
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