Sun City’s power politics

The retirees don’t want rate hikes … Extremists and Jesus lovers on the rise … And who doesn't enjoy nature?

In a community room in the retirement enclave of Sun City West, Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes broke the ice with a joke underscoring Arizona’s political divide.

“I decided to run for attorney general in 2022, won by 280 votes. They don’t call me landslide Mayes for nothing,” she told the roughly 40-person crowd of mostly retirees.

Mayes knows not all the seniors in the room voted for her, but electric bills aren’t partisan.

The state’s top law enforcement officer kicked off a new series of town halls on Tuesday to talk about Arizona Public Service’s proposal to raise rates. She plans to hold more electric bill town halls across the state, but started in the right-leaning retirement community north of Phoenix, where many residents are captive customers of APS.

After Mayes’ presentation on APS’s 14% rate increase, the crowd’s comments reflected the same political split that defined her race for attorney general — some urging deregulation and less solar, while others pushed for more renewable energy and corporate accountability.

Among all the comments, a consensus: Something has to be done about rising electric bills.

Electricity prices are surging across the U.S. And if you’re among the roughly 3.8 million Arizonans served by the state’s three largest utilities, your electric bill is set to rise again.

APS and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) are asking the Arizona Corporation Commission to raise bills by about 14%. Salt River Project’s (SRP) new 3.4% increase starts on Nov. 1.

Luckily, Arizona is in the unique position of having an independent elected commission that oversees its utilities. In exchange for regional monopolies, electric utilities are subject to oversight and must justify any rate increases to the commission.

Mayes knows the system well — she served on the commission from 2003 to 2010 and later taught energy law at ASU. She’s seen all-Republican commissions turn down rate increases, she told the town hall attendees.

The current all-Republican commission is different.

“I’ve never seen a situation like the one we have now, where the corporation commission is so skewed toward the utilities,” Mayes said. “There’s no question why these utilities keep coming in for rate increases … because they keep getting them.”

The commission is in the process of rolling back the renewable energy standards APS called an “administrative burden.” In February, commissioners rejected Mayes’ request to reconsider their decision to let utilities change rates each year through a formula, rather than waiting for the traditional two- to three-year rate cases.

Mayes intervened in both APS and TEP’s rate cases, which basically means she’s now a party in the cases and can present evidence and cross-examine witnesses.

She told the town hall crowd she’ll add their input to her case before the commission. Everyone got a comment form and the chance to tell Mayes what they think.

“I am a retiree who lives on Social Security and a small pension, and with increases in the Medicare costs that are deducted from Social Security … I strongly am opposed to this type of increase,” the first woman who was handed the microphone said.

One man told Mayes that Sun City West’s property taxes recently went up by nearly 12%, and he’s installed extra insulation and LED lighting to keep his electric bill down. He thinks Arizona could use a new gas pipeline to drive costs down.

Mayes urged caution. Arizona’s utilities are currently investing in a natural gas pipeline project that APS plans to use for gas-fired power plants to support data centers.

“Which is, in turn, going to raise rates,” Mayes warned.

Throughout the town hall, the conversation frequently turned to data centers. One attendee argued that data centers are being used as a scapegoat for the energy demands of unchecked development. Another wanted to know who’s approving the data centers.

Mayes explained that those zoning decisions happen at the city level, and while cities like Phoenix are trying to control data centers’ impact, utilities don’t have the capacity to serve all the data centers that want to set up shop in Arizona.

“What they’re asking for is your money so they can create that (power) generation to serve these data centers,” she said.

Several came prepared with paper copies of their electric bills, their increasing solar charges, and in one case, research on APS’ profits. The company’s earnings are set to decrease this year, one man noted, and “They can’t make enough money for themselves.”

He gave Mayes a copy of his research with his name on it.

Ultimately, the commission has the final say on giving APS authority to charge its customers more. So what power does Mayes — or anyone — really have to stop it?

Mayes told us the purpose of the town halls is to rally support.

“But at the end of the day, people need to vote with their pocketbooks, and the best way you can vote with your pocketbooks in 2026 is to focus on the Corporation Commission race, because these guys are making some really huge, really epically important decisions about our economy and about our pocketbooks,” she said.

For now, the Corporation Commission has an online database where you can find all the materials for rate cases. You can find the docket search here, and the relevant docket numbers are:

• APS rate case: E-01345A-25-0105

• TEP rate case: E-01933A-25-0103

You can file a public comment here. And here’s more information on the consumer complaint process.

Here are the commission’s public comment meeting dates for the APS rate case. The in-person meetings are at 1200 W. Washington St in Phoenix.

And for the TEP rate case:

Love thy neighbor (or don’t): In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, extremist hate groups and Christian churches are both seeing a spike of activity, Lookout’s Tori Gantz and the Republic’s Taylor Seely write. Immediately after Kirk’s death, Arizona extremist anti-government and hate groups that had long been dormant got a second wind and started harassing anyone they deemed not respectful enough of Kirk’s death, including Tucson City Council member Lane Santa Cruz, who had to close their office and leave their home, Gantz writes. And at churches across the Valley, Kirk is being named a martyr. The focus on his death is exciting new worshippers and worrying some old worshippers, Seely writes.

“I was very unhappy with the MAGA-fication of Christianity that we’re seeing in our country,” Christa Bleyle, a longtime Christian and “Reagan Republican” who broke down in tears upon reading her pastor’s announcement that Sunday services would focus on Kirk’s martyrdom, told Seely.

Another headache: A screw-up by state officials won’t jeopardize the voting rights of Maricopa County residents for the November elections, but Pinal County already suspended the voter registration of more than 1,000 people, Gary Grado reports for Votebeat. Last year, state officials announced nearly 100,000 voters in Arizona were listed as having proven U.S. citizenship, when in fact they hadn’t. Verifying citizenship in Maricopa County is ongoing, but officials said they’d keep all affected voters on the rolls for now. In Pinal County, officials are suspending the voter registration of anyone caught up in the glitch who has tried to update their voter registration without providing proof of citizenship.

Siri, which officer will shoot someone today?: After years of discriminatory policing and violence, the Phoenix Police Department is planning to use predictive software to flag officers who are showing signs of burnout or whose behavior is leading to complaints, the Republic’s Shawn Raymundo reports. The Phoenix City Council approved a $3.5 million contract with Benchmark Analytics for the software. That vote came shortly after the city agreed to a $1.2 million settlement in the wrongful death case of a man who was shot and killed by police.

Heavy is the head: If Arizona wants to keep its crown as the semiconductor capital of the country, officials and business leaders are going to have to stay ahead of Texas, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka reports. That means beefing up education, dealing with the extraordinary water demands from data centers and encouraging research and startups that feed the industry.

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The government is winning (second): The federal government shutdown entered its third week and is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history, per 12News’ Andrew Weil and Megan Divers. The longest shutdown in history was during Donald Trump’s first term and lasted 35 days. The shutdown has trickled down to Arizona federal workers as many make backup plans for another week without pay, reports Henry Smardo and Nick Karmia for Cronkite News. The Arizona AFL-CIO reported that around 34,500 federal workers have been furloughed or are working without pay. Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton said the shutdown was a moral failure of leadership and — like other Democrats — has pushed for an end to the shutdown.

“To Arizonans, please stand with these workers who land your planes, keep you safe, protect your homes,” Stanton said. “Those prolonging the shutdown to exert more pain, to punish these federal workers out of spite, shame on you.”

In other, other news

Two Democratic state lawmakers representing Tempe sent ASU President Michael Crow a letter urging him to reject the White House’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” (Marissa Orr / KVOA) … ASU’s future medical school will be named the John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering and received preliminary accreditation (Jessica Boehm / Axios Phoenix) … The town of Wenden in La Paz County is literally sinking due to the overpumping of groundwater — a phenomenon called subsidence (Heidi Hommel / KTAR) … And a judge overruled a previous court’s decision, which would have allowed UNS Electric to expand its Black Mountain Generating Station without an environmental review (Wayne Schutsky / KJZZ).

There are lots of reasons that Flock Safety cameras might freak you out — mainly, they can allow the government — including ICE — to track anyone they want.

So it’s no surprise that Tempe residents want their city council to end its contract with Flock Safety.

While we understand no one likes the idea of their license plate being uploaded into a massive database, at least they are pretty bad at desert camouflage.

The engineer/designer who has only seen a cactus online isn’t fooling anyone. We wonder what color it will look like when the paint fades.

Plus, we should all know at this point that if the government wants to stalk you, they’ll just look through your phone, computer, tablet, gaming console, doorbell cam, personal robots, etc etc.