Prop 412 Will Create a Taxpayer Supported Slush Fund for Green New Deal Pet Projects in Tucson

Prop 412 Will Create a Taxpayer Supported Slush Fund for Green New Deal Pet Projects in Tucson

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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It’s Time To Hold the City of Phoenix Accountable for Its Handling of The Zone

It’s Time To Hold the City of Phoenix Accountable for Its Handling of The Zone

Democrats like to believe they are the party of compassion and kindness, but the reality in most blue cities says otherwise. For years, homeless encampments have been springing up in liberal-run cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. And in recent years, this trend made its way into Phoenix.

Just blocks from the state capitol, amidst what was once a thriving business district, a sprawling encampment of around 1,000 homeless has come to be known as “The Zone.” It’s a place where drug use, drug deals, defecation, urination, sexual acts, assaults, rape, and murder are frequently committed out in the open—often with little to no consequences. The problem has even gotten so bad that the Phoenix Fire Department won’t respond to calls inside The Zone without assistance from the Phoenix Police Department and assurance that the scene of the incident is secure.

But crime within The Zone is only one part of the problem.

Rotting garbage and human waste have created sanitation issues and turned the area into a biohazardous slum that’s affecting the rest of Arizona. Photographic evidence submitted in court showed that this unmanaged sewage and trash ends up in storm drains which discharges into our rivers, washes, and retention bases. That’s right. It’s polluting our water on a daily basis!

You would think that the Green New Deal activists in Phoenix’s leadership who are so concerned with providing clean water would be horrified. But they’d rather hike water rates and cut allowances on their residents all while using tax dollars to build a $12 million community center. And if you think our statewide leadership cares, Governor Katie Hobbs recently vetoed a bill to ban tents in public places while Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called the situation in The Zone “not great” and recommended his favorite lunch order from a local sandwich shop.

This is the party of compassion?

The only answer to Phoenix’s homeless problem from most Democrat leaders has been to demand more money from taxpayers while they conveniently turn a blind eye to the problem. That’s why several property and business owners located within The Zone took matters into their own hands by filing a lawsuit against the City of Phoenix. Not only have they faced safety issues while operating their businesses in the area, but many of them have dealt with stolen property, exposure to drugs in the air, damage to their buildings, plummeting property values, and more.

Finally, a couple weeks after AZ Free News published its first investigative piece on The Zone, city leaders in Phoenix said they plan to come together to take action on the problem. But just like most of the business owners in The Zone have become accustomed to, it’s been crickets since.

Thankfully, the Maricopa County Superior Court recently ruled that the City of Phoenix was at fault for The Zone, which is a good first step to solving the problem. But it can’t stop there. The local business owners deserve to receive damages. The homeless deserve the treatment they need. And Phoenix’s elected leaders deserve accountability for their flat-out failures. It’s time to vote them out, so that all who reside in this great city can experience true compassion.

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Maricopa County’s Proposal to Comply with the EPA Threatens to Turn Arizona into California

Maricopa County’s Proposal to Comply with the EPA Threatens to Turn Arizona into California

If you enjoy losing your freedom for a goal that is impossible to achieve, the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) has you covered.

MAG recently released its proposed measures to bring Maricopa County into compliance with ozone standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it’s a total disaster. Along with a whole host of regulations on various business activities, the proposed restrictions include banning the internal combustion engine and gas appliances. That’s right, just like in California, they are coming for your cars and your gas stoves. But that’s not all. This proposal would also put limits on things like lawn and garden equipment, motorized boating, and water heaters.

The running narrative for the reason behind all of this is that Maricopa County has become a moderate nonattainment area of ozone limits under the Clean Air Act. This essentially means that, according to the EPA, our ozone levels are too high, and therefore we must adopt certain ozone control measures to get us into compliance. But what they won’t tell you is that the main reason our ozone levels are too high is that the federal government moved the goal posts back in 2015 when the EPA dropped its acceptable ozone levels from 75ppb to 70ppb.

Failure to comply with this EPA mandate could lead to fines, penalties, or the withholding of federal transportation dollars for Arizona. So, MAG contracted with a California-based consulting firm to identify measures to bring us into compliance. And what did they determine in their final report? That we need to cut emissions by 50 percent to achieve the EPA’s standard by the August 3, 2024 deadline. That’s not only impossible, it’s absurd.

An Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) Division Director recently commended Maricopa County for its “fantastic job” in reducing ozone pollution by 12.5 percent since 2000. So, in over 23 years we reduced ozone pollution by 12.5 percent, and now they think we can reduce it by 50 percent in a little more than a year! Keep dreaming, Maricopa County.

We could implement every single one of these destructive measures, and we still won’t come close to achieving the ozone standard—especially by that deadline. After all, look at what happened in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ozone levels increased from 79ppb to 87ppb even though business activity was halted, and we saw a dramatic decrease in cars on our roads. Does MAG really believe that putting more regulations on businesses and banning gas-powered cars to achieve the EPA’s outrageous air quality standards will somehow magically work this time?

The reality is that these higher ozone levels are being caused by natural events and international sources (primarily China). That means the issue is very much out of the control of our citizens. Now, as Maricopa County works with the ADEQ and Pinal County to complete review of this proposal and prepare an implementation plan to be given to the EPA by June, it should go back to the drawing board. Our state shouldn’t be forced to suffer billions of dollars in economic damage and destroy our quality of life to achieve an impossible standard. And the people of Arizona certainly shouldn’t have to sacrifice their freedom just so government bureaucrats can turn us into another California.  

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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