The Daily Agenda: The post-election breakdown

Vote like killing your hospital depends on it ... There's a law for that ... And they went with "Have you seen him?"

Voters across Arizona headed to the polls yesterday, or at least, a tiny fraction of them did. 

The off-year local elections, mostly comprised of bond and override questions for school districts and cities, didn’t garner the kind of hype that the election one year from now will. But in many ways, the outcome of the election you probably didn’t vote in (statistically speaking) has more direct implications on your life than the presidential election. 

Voters had to grapple with choices like whether to build a new hospital, how much to pay their politicians, whether they wanted to live in a city at all, and a whole lot of school and city funding questions.

Arizona school districts asked voters to approve a collective $3.5 billion worth of bonds, breaking records for most bonds sought in a single election year, per the Arizona Tax Research Association.¹

Of those 26 bond requests, most passed pretty handily, meaning schools will see an influx of cash, mostly to support educational programs, school construction and additional school safety. But the heavier-than-usual opposition to school bonds tanked at least a few of the bonds and budget overrides that school districts wanted. To check if your local school district in Maricopa County approved its bonds, click here. 

In Flagstaff, the local ballot was packed with questions, mostly about technical changes to the city charter (voters approved 12 of the 19 questions plus all school district bonds, but not the city’s bond proposal). 

But the big question, whether to ratify the city council’s decision to rezone land to build a new hospital, went down in flames after local advocates mounted a low-budget grassroots campaign to kill the new hospital plan. 

The whole affair was reminiscent of the Tempe City Council’s attempt to create an entertainment district for the Arizona Coyotes, or the Tucson City Council’s attempt to let Tucson Electric Power charge a new fee to cover the cost of putting utility bills to more power lines underground. 

The takeaway for all you city councilmembers is that when you’re crafting backroom deals with the local power brokers, maybe check in with your constituents before they decide to run a referendum against those backroom deals.

Speaking of city leaders, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, along with three Democrats on the city council, all won their re-election bids with predictably huge margins.² That’s thanks in part to the city’s screwed-up election system that ensures Republicans have little to no chance of winning, even in districts where Democrats are outnumbered, as our sister newsletter, the Tucson Agenda, details.  Unfortunately, our Tucson friends won’t get to cover the birth of a brand new city, as the Southern Arizona community of Vail shot down its incorporation question.

And although the Tucson politicians got to keep their jobs, voters were narrowly split on paying them more, so it’s too soon to tell whether Tucson’s Prop 413 will become the eighth consecutive failed attempt since 2000 at getting city council members a raise. The measure, which was leading by about 600 votes Tuesday night, would basically quadruple council members’ pay to $96,000 in the next few years and triple the mayor’s pay to about $120,000. 

But Yuma voters appeared less ready to support a pay raise for their city council and mayor, who currently earn $300 and $1,000 per month, respectively. Prop 420, which was failing by about 400 votes last time we checked, would boost that up to $25,000 and $50,000 per year respectively. 

Arizona Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun faces an ethics complaint at the Legislature for — among other things — her bizarre attempt to stop a child custody transfer while claiming she was acting on behalf of Attorney General Kris Mayes. (She was not.)

But she doesn’t face any criminal charges, as far as we can tell, even though Arizona has several criminal laws that seem to speak to this exact scenario, as multiple people have told us since the news broke last week. 

If a non-elected person pulled what she did, do you think we would walk away from that scene not in handcuffs? 

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment about any potential charges. But as our sources noted, if someone were to bring charges, they might be looking at:

• Custodial interference — A.R.S. 13-1302: “A person commits custodial interference if, knowing or having reason to know that the person has no legal right to do so, the person … (t)akes, entices or keeps from lawful custody any child.”

• Impersonating a public servant — A.R.S. 13-2406: “A person commits impersonating a public servant if such person pretends to be a public servant and engages in any conduct with the intent to induce another to submit to his pretended official authority or to rely on his pretended official acts.”

• Criminal impersonation — A.R.S. 13-2006: “A person commits criminal impersonation by … (p)retending to be a representative of some person or organization with the intent to defraud.” 

They may also want to look to A.R.S. 38-291, which defines how political offices may become “vacant” including upon the “conviction of the person holding the office of a felony or an offense involving a violation of the person’s official duties.”

It’s worth noting that this whole scene went down in June and nobody filed an ethics complaint until reporters started sniffing around.

Moving to Mesa: The Mesa City Council approved a plan to turn the Grand Hotel into transitional housing, the Republic’s Maritza Dominguez reports. The city wants to close on the purchase agreement in the controversial development by the end of the month with plans to expand its “Off the Streets” program to move homeless people into city-sponsored shelters. Phoenix met its deadline of Saturday to clear out “The Zone” downtown, Cronkite News’ Jacob Snelgrove reports, leaving behind debris in a stretch of road where more than 1,000 people used to camp. The city said 585 people accepted placement at an indoor shelter. Meanwhile, State health officials are investigating a man who provided medical care, while live streaming on TikTok, to campers at The Zone, Nicole Grigg from ABC15 reports. The station dug up several outstanding warrants for the crusading caregiver along the East Coast and accounts of malpractice. 

“I find Shane (Benson) in somebody's makeshift tent starting an IV or attempting to start an IV on a gentleman...he is proceeding to stab this gentleman's hand, his wife is screaming, I'm just taken aback,” Jill Dillon, who filed a complaint against him with the Arizona Department of Health Services, said.

Poo water everywhere: The National Park Service is shutting down three Lake Mead hot springs after finding fecal bacteria in the water Monday, the Republic’s Rey Covarrubias Jr. reports. Karen Peters, head of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, explained on 12News’ “Sunday Square Off” how the utilities will keep poop out of your drinking water as the state anticipates relying on more recycled wastewater in the future. And Hank joined the show after Peters’ interview to discuss Republicans’ threats to sue Gov. Katie Hobbs over tax rebates, but the water commentary trickled into his Twitter replies. 

Giddyup: The Attorney General’s Office is arguing state lawmakers didn’t violate the gift clause by giving the Prescott Rodeo $15.3 million, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Two Prescott residents took the state to court arguing the government funding doled out by state representatives Quang Nguyen and Selina Bliss serves no public benefit, but state lawyers are trying to resolve the lawsuit and distribute the funds anyway. And former Prescott judge Celé Hancock probably won’t be driving to the rodeo. She resigned and agreed to no longer serve as a judicial officer in Arizona after she was charged with an extreme DUI earlier this year, the Associated Press reports. 

DIY governing: Some Navajo Nation delegates want voters to weigh in on recognizing same-sex marriages after the final committee tabled the discussion last month, the Republic’s Arlyssa D. Becenti reports. The Council prohibited same-sex marriage in 2005, but the Nation now hosts tribal Pride events and signed a proclamation this year declaring Navajo Nation Pride Week. Delegates, still, are reluctant to make the decision themselves.  

“The people can decide on this legislation that is before the council,” said council delegate Danny Simpson. “I believe we are caught in the middle as delegates to make that decision. It's time for the people to decide on this legislation.” 

Kings of chaos: The Kingman City Council fired its public works director, Greg Froslie, and replaced him with someone who was recently fired by neighbor city Lake Havasu, former City Manager Ron Foggin, the Today News-Herald’s Taylor Schwartz-Olson reports. The Lake Havasu council voted Foggin out in August over transparency concerns. 

Good Luck!: Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers is hoping to become the “deputy undersecretary of garbage collection” in a second Trump presidency, she said on a podcast owned by a guy who believes that Jews sunk the Titanic, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy notes.

Headline writing is a delicate art. 

1. ATRA was also quick to note that many of the school districts asking for the new bonds misleadingly promised “no tax increase.” Even if the tax rate doesn’t increase, new bonding extends the life of the property tax used to support it. 

2. Yes, Tucson holds city council elections in odd-numbered years, despite the best efforts of former Republican lawmaker Michelle Ugenti-Rita.