The Arizona Legislature may wrap up work today after finally passing a budget last night. We’ll be digging into it for details soon, but here are some reports from the Arizona Republic and the Arizona Daily Star.
As we predicted in this week’s Skinny, the budget that finally passed did not have much in the way of Republican support. Guess being the majority doesn’t always mean you get your way.
Can we just say that it seems completely nuts that lawmakers dicked around for months to produce a budget that they could have come up with back in April? What kind of leadership are we seeing up there? And let us add that it also seems nuts to give the rank-and-file lawmakers a matter of hours to review what they’re voting on.
Looks like one key element is the use of more photo-radar on the state’s highways. Sen. Ron Gould offered an amendment to name the system “JanetCam,” but that didn’t go anywhere.
Once lawmakers decide what to allow us to tax to keep spring training baseball alive in Pima County, Sine Die will not be far behind. From what we’re hearing, the Senate will not have the votes to put a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the November ballot.
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2008.
I sent the following attachments to the Senate and the House of the Arizona State Legislature for their budget consideration and if to see if citizens had a cause and effect on state policy that hasn’t been seen since 1919 when citizens demanded the Arizona Rangers, the law enforces at that time, be shut down. Since this is a comment line, no attachments here…Dear Mr. President/ Speaker, my name is Dherrera Tapia, I write to you, before the budget gets passed, as a citizen of Arizona to deny all budget requests for A.P.S. in order to disband it. Our tax dollars are used to hire thugs. To be used to threaten and intimidate the elderly and. relatives, with false allegations and testimony by persons who intent ill-will, by eluding to retirement homes or prosecution and conviction so as to keep us walking on eggshells if we didn’t comply, while the ill-intent walk freely among us. I know because it happened to my MOM, who threatened to be taken to a retirement home against her will, would tell APS worker she wanted to stay home where she felt safe, relaxed and comfortable. Did they listen to her and honor her rights, no, and with their heavy handed tactics told us to comply. The pictures attached show my mom as a healthy ACTIVE person, hanging up laundry, and would water her plants days before APS’s order, and who also walked into the Governors office a fellow democrate asking for their assistance and intervention, to no avail. For most of the time she was away from her home, months at a time, she was in the hospitals or a rehab laying in bed inactive. She would tell the doctors when can she go home and as soon as APS name was mentioned it’s as if the SS had walked in and the atmosphere had changed. Everybody was intimidated not to do anything APS may disapprove of including us. The picture of her in bed was a month before she passed two days after Mother’s Day, her name was Adeline Tapia. I know this has happened to other people as well because it happened to my Uncle and his relatives. We share a disdain of an agency we are paying for and are powerless to do anything about it. Disband this agency…. the attachments included pictures of my mom on Oct 21, walking to and fro to hang here laundry and 6months later laying in her bed frail with a broken spirit and heart, 4 pictures.