City & Local Reform
It turns out that you can fight town hall. Here’s how we’re standing up for local citizens and winning.
Natasha Nimer had a simple question: As a trustee in a local labor union representing City of Phoenix employees, did she have a duty to check the books of a taxpayer-funded insurance account it managed?
So she asked the executive board of AFSCME Local 2960. The response was an emphatic “no.”
She dropped the matter and thought it would end there.
She was wrong.
Phoenix taxpayers spend millions of dollars to pay full salary and benefits for city employees to work exclusively for labor unions, a Goldwater Institute investigation found.
Collective bargaining agreements with seven labor organizations require the city to pay union officers and provide members with thousands of additional hours to conduct union business instead of doing their government jobs.
Mesa pitched a softball to the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and the Cubs hit it out of the park – but taxpayers should cry foul. Under a new contract, the city will shell out $84 million to build a sparkling new stadium for Cubs spring training. The city promised an additional $15 million for parking, power lines, and other infrastructure, on top of costs for maintenance and capital improvements for 30 years.
It rarely snows in the Valley — especially in October. But the Goodyear city council is about to get snowed by United Goodyear Fire Department Local 4005.
From Phoenix to Pima County, politicians and public-sector unions routinely agree to put union representatives on the government payroll, paying them millions of taxpayer dollars exclusively for union work, renewing these agreements year after year.
There are almost 90,000 local governments in America, with an average of one new local government born every day. Many are unaccountable to taxpayers and special interest-driven, and the Goldwater Institute’s “New Charter for American Cities” gives citizens the tools they need to fight City Hall and hold their local governments accountable.
The Home Builders Association of Central Arizona and the Goldwater Institute are suing the city of Mesa over fees it is charging developers and home builders to fund public museums and arts programs.
The real estate industry group and the Phoenix think tank filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court arguing that Mesa's "cultural facilities" impact fees on new construction violate state laws and legal precedents.
A home builder's association is challenging Mesa for imposing a fee on new developments in an effort to raise revenue for museums and to preserve the city's archeological finds.
The Home Builders Association for Central Arizona is the plaintiff in a suit filed Wednesday in Maricopa County Superior Court that challenges Mesas cultural impact fees.
On Tuesday, the city raised the impact fees it tacks onto new homes. The goal was to use the extra money to support a range of city services from new sewage-treatment plants to parks and museums.
Read Sunday Square Off transcripts referenced in article below.
We are entering the sweaty tumult of an election season, and the records of office-holders are fair game for their opponents.
All the votes of incumbents, their spending habits and their pet issues - they're all legitimate grist for the rough, grinding mill of politics and campaigning.
But since when did the serial attackers preying on Phoenix become a political issue?