Az Federation Of Taxpayers Tom Jenney Questions Governor's "Deal" With Home Builders

We recently did a post noting that the Home Builders Assoc. of Central Az agreed to not lobby against the potential State Lands Initiative. That article alluded to a deal with Gov. Napolitano. Tom Jenney, Az Federation of Taxpayers questions the merits of this deal.

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The following msg is from Tom Jenney.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, May 14^th), from 11:00 a.m. to noon, the local NPR radio affiliate KJZZ (91.5 FM) will broadcast some of my remarks during its live interview with Gov. Janet Napolitano. http://www.kjzz.org/

In addition to covering the state’s budget deficit crisis (to which Napolitano was the #1 contributor), the interview will get the Governor’s comments on the recently-uncovered scandal concerning a secret deal between Napolitano, the TIME Coalition, and the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.

In that deal, the HBACA, a developers’ association, agreed to donate $100,000 to the TIME Coalition’s ballot initiative campaign for a new one-cent state sales tax... in return for Napolitano removing a threatened developer impact fee from the TIME ballot initiative.

In my remarks to KJZZ, I referred to Napolitano’s actions as “extortion.” That’s the right word for it. Some have defended her actions by saying that they’re just politics-as-usual. If so, then it’s clear that something is desperately wrong with Arizona politics.

The story was broken in a Tribune piece by reporter Dennis Welch, titled, “Governor makes secret deal with developers.” http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/115945

The letter from HBACA to Napolitano is available here:

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/images/photos/2008/05/09/uotb8ilw.jpg

Greg Patterson at Espresso Pundit commented on the “Chicago-style” agreement between HBACA and the Governor:

http://coaching.typepad.com/espresso_pundit/2008/05/chicago-style.html

For information about alternatives to the TIME Coalition’s proposed transportation sales tax, see Goldwater Institute chairman Tom Patterson’s recent analysis:

http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/AboutUs/ArticleView.aspx?id=2189

For Liberty,

--Tom

Tom Jenney
Arizona Director
Americans for Prosperity

(Arizona Federation of Taxpayers)

www.aztaxpayers.org

tjenney@afphq.org

(602) 478-0146