Sign of the Times
Can initiative efforts survive the new rules created by the Arizona Legislature to hamstring ballot props?
On deadline day last week, a number of groups turned in signatures to put initiatives on the November ballot. Among them:
• The Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona Committee, which will ask voters to require the state’s utility companies to get half of their power from renewable sources by 2030.
• The Invest in Education Committee, which would increase taxes on single Arizonans earning more than $250,000 or couples earning more than $500,000 a year and use the new revenue to increase education spending.
• The Outlaw Dirty Money Committee, which would require major contributors to political campaigns in Arizona to reveal the sources of their funding. Any group spending more than $10,000 would have to reveal the names of funders who gave more than $2,500 to the effort, with violators subject to fines.
It will be a few weeks before we know if the various groups turned in enough valid signatures to make the ballot; all the groups turned in at least 270,000 signatures, which is well above the roughly required 150,000. Now the Arizona Secretary of State and various county recorders will start checking their validity. That process takes about a month.
But this is the first year that the state requires “strict compliance” with the signatures rules rather than “substantial compliance.” This was a change made by the Arizona Legislature to derail initiative efforts by making it easier to toss signatures based on minor technicalities. (It’s certainly telling that lawmakers made the new requirements for initiative efforts but not for candidates, as they didn’t want to risk their own hides.)
So you can bet that opponents of the initiatives will carefully review the petitions to find reasons to challenge any signatures they can and we may see court battles on the horizon.
If the initiative efforts make it to the ballot, it will be a testament to the organizers’ work—and a demonstration that no matter how hard lawmakers try to stop people from making law, they don’t win every battle.
Same Boss, Different Job
ADI honcho Lori Hunnicutt joins staff of Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller
Lori Hunnicutt, the woman behind the online Arizona Daily Independent blog, is going to work for Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller.
Hunnicutt, who regularly publishes glowing puff pieces about Miller and screwball hit pieces on Miller’s political enemies, will be joining the District 1 staff on a part-time basis, although her exact role remained sketchy as of press time. County staff did not provide information about Hunnicutt’s hire as of deadline and Hunnicutt herself did not respond to an email from The Skinny about her new role as a government employee. Given the Arizona Daily Independent’s general editorial thrust, however, we’d advise that she’s not the right fit for the job of intergovernmental relations.
Hunnicutt also did not respond to our query asking if she would continue in her role as an editor and publisher of ADI (which has been called the “Ally Defense Initiative” around county offices for some time) while drawing a county paycheck. It would seem to set up something of a conflict of interest, but ADI has been less a traditional journalism outfit and more a place where Miller and her various allies could find some sort of validation.
A collection of emails from former staffers originally unearthed by the Tucson Sentinel a few years back showed that Hunnicutt would run stories by Miller’s office before publishing them. One sterling example: Hunnicutt sent former Miller chief of staff Jeannie Davis a draft of a story, which Davis edited and sent back. Hunnicutt responded: “Thank you! If there’s anything you think I should add, let me know. [I]f Ally needs more kudos in it, etc.” Yes, nothing says independent and trustworthy news source than asking if an elected official needs more kudos.
Miller has employed a long line of staffers in her six years in office, as her management style often drives away workers. As one of them told us after leaving the office: “She’s a horrible manager. She doesn’t know how to ask people to do things in a professional manner. It’s just kind of bark, bark, bark.”
We’ll see how Lori fares in a closer partnership with Miller, but it’s hard to see this ending well.
The televised edition of Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel airs 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Creative Tucson network, Cox Channel 20 and Comcast/Xfinity Channel 74. The TV show repeats Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. The radio edition of Zona Politics airs at 5 p.m. Sundays on community radio KXCI, 91.3 FM.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2018.
Context: that’s what we were supposed to learn in Journalism 101, but it looks like Jim Nintzel forgot that. Knowing that Lori Hunnicutt was suddenly widowed less than a month ago and is trying to cobble together enough work to stay afloat, Jim Nintzel’s continuing public attacks smack of bullying.
In his anti-Hunnicutt post last Friday Jim got his Sentinel story wrong, as the provided link showed, so he trots out a new one this time without the link to check it out for ourselves. And if you want to start comparing emails, consider this December 5, 2015, email from Pima County Communications Director Mark Evans to County Administrator Charles Huckelberry about Supervisor Ally Millers opposition to paying hundreds of thousands more for a property purchase than an independent appraisal showed it was worth:
‘Ive held off posting replies on Millers Facebook page until this page was ready to go. Want to hit her with both at the same time since its sure to cause a reaction. (BTW, I told McNamara what were up to and he thinks its a story. So does Nintzel.)’
“Huckelberry said, ‘Proceed.’
So it seems there’s a local history of journalists and bureaucrats and politicians checking each other out, and that Jim was actually helping The Pima County Power Structure trying to damage an elected official, one of the County Administrator’s immediate supervisors whether you like her or not..
Because I believe in transparency, even if the Tucson Weakly doesn’t anymore, I will note that I occasionally write for the Arizona Daily Independent. I wrote for the Tucson Local Media papers for over a decade until they decided to cuddle up closer to the Pima Power Structure. Perhaps that’s really what’s at issue here.
The Weakly has never mentioned the World View Spaceport hydrogen balloon explosion last December although it has given the company, established with $15 million of Pima taxpayer money (plus $5 million interest on the loan), a lot of space. ADI broke that story, with video of the blast which broke windows a mile away. There is an “independent” Accident Investigation Report that may have been completed months ago but is being kept secret from the public and from the Board of Supervisors. According to an Assistant County Administrator the “draft report” will be kept secret for another month or two as part of a “slow moving ball game.” That implies that the language of the Report is being negotiated — in other words, a possible cover-up. The head of the investigation, NASA retiree Wayne Hale, and World View officials have refused to comment.
I have written several recent stories on this, well-researched and uncontradicted, for the ADI, and am now pursuing a Freedom of Information Act request of the County to see the original report, and any correspondence trying to revise the original report, so that the public — and our elected officials — will know what is going on. I would hate to think that the Tucson Weakly and its editor are part of a County Administrator cover-up of dangerous activity on county-owned property, using a newly bereaved widow’s need to earn a living as their diversionary tactic.
Albert Vetere Lannon
^^^ Poor dear doesnt realize its not about him.
#LyingAlly has finally formalized her special relationship with the person responsible for the junk news blog known as the ADI by putting her on the Pima County payroll.
No amount of bloviation can hijack attention from that action.
Hey Albert,
It’s hardly news that a PIO would try to sell me on a story, but if what you’re referencing is the St. Demetrios Church purchase by the county, please direct me to where I wrote about it. Because I’m pretty sure I never did, so your BS assertion pretty much falls apart right there–as is typical of many ADI “stories.”
Hey Jim — Just quoting PC Communications Director Mark Evens e-mail to the County Administrator. If he maligned you, take it up with him.
And She’sGottaGo: While I may disagree with Supervisor Miller on a lot of things, she is the only one on the BOS demanding transparency and accountability, and it’s only because of her questions that we know what we do about the World View explosion damage. The Weakly certainly hasn’t been telling us anything. Please check out this ADI story — no editorializing, no junk news — just the facts that the Pima County Power Structure would rather you not know:
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2018/0…
Cereally, I dont do junk food or junk news.
Move along.