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Parks need a shovel, lawmakers bring a broom

There are 30 state parks around Arizona. Eight of them feature historic buildings. These places are falling apart because Arizona lawmakers have routinely stripped funds from state parks budgets to help shore up the state’s budget deficit. Parks may not be the only victims in these "sweeps," but they surely are the most visible. TZR correspondent John Collins Rudolf discusses the inside story.

Court ruling backs independents, paid circulators

PHOENIX — A recent court decision gives non-residents the right to gather petition signatures for political candidates and ballot initiatives.

While guaranteeing Constitutional rights to signature gatherers who are not Arizona residents, some are concerned the ruling may end up spoiling local contests by allowing rich, out-of-state interests to pay circulators who don’t have ties here and hijack the ballot.

Rick Heumann, a Chandler City Council candidate, is one of those concerned voices. He says he has worked on several campaigns advocating initiatives in the past and has seen how “big money” can change the dynamics of voting.

“I have a concern about the whole process,” Heumann says. “It shouldn’t be influenced through money.”

Brewer’s state elections director, Joe Kanefield, says his office intends to appeal the ruling.

FIRST AMENDMENT AT ISSUE

The hubbub stems from a June 9 ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges were responding to a 2004 complaint filed against Arizona elections officials by third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who claimed the 90-day deadline that independent candidates faced for submitting petitions was unfair.

The court agreed. As a result, the state Legislature will have to come up with a new deadline that could improve independent candidates’ chances of getting on the ballot.

But perhaps more importantly, the court also ruled that it is illegal to restrict non-Arizona residents from circulating petitions for presidential candidates and initiatives.

“The residency requirement nevertheless excludes from eligibility all persons who support the candidate but who, like Nader, live outside the state,” Judge Mary Schroeder writes for the court in her summary opinion. “Such a restriction creates a severe burden on Nader and his out-of-state supporters’ speech, voting and associational rights.”

The case could, however, raise questions for Republicans and Democrats because the inclusion of a third-party candidate could take away votes form either party’s candidate. It would also allow non-Arizona residents to circulate petitions, so paid signature-gathering companies will still be permitted to send employees from other states and hire non-residents.

Special interest groups frequently use signature-gathering firms. The court’s decision could effect the upcoming elections because groups with more monetary support will be able to get the required signatures faster and more efficiently, says Patrick Kenney, chair and professor of political science studies at Arizona State University.

“Interest groups have been pushing legislation for years and this [the use of signature gathering firms] is just another venue they use, and it is legal,” Kenney says.

It’s a First Amendment issue. The U.S. Constitution gives the people the right to organize, so there is virtually no way to regulate groups with alternative interests, Kenney says.

Still, Heumann says he prefers organic signature-gathering. He cites his experience with the successful ballot initiative that banned smoking in most restaurants in 2004.

He says the campaign, which was also backed by the American Heart and Lung Association, was a grassroots-type campaign where individuals volunteered to get signatures. “People came and helped out because they wanted to,” he says.

Heumann says he does not support the Ninth Circuit court’s decision because it opposes the original design of initiatives themselves. For everyday people to get something on the ballot takes time and effort, he says.

VOTERS COMPLAIN OF DECEPTION

The issue of paid signature gatherers is a sticky one for state elections officials. Although the court has asserted their Constitutional rights, these circulators are the root of numerous voter complaints come election time, Kanefield says.

He says the majority of complaints are from people who say they were lied to by petitioners. They claim petitioners told them they were signing to support one thing when in reality they were signing something completely different.

“Most people are upset because they feel misled, or that the petitioners are too aggressive,” Kanefield says. “There have also been complaints that petitioners are not disclosing information on whether or not they are being paid.”

In response to those complaints, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office has supported a new law that will require all petitioners to be truthful, Kanefield says. The law sponsored by Peoria Republican Bob Stump Jr. makes misleading voters about what petitions they are signing a class 1 misdemeanor. Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano signed the bill into law this summer.
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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Arizona trash empire draws ire of Waste Management

ST. JOHNS — Lawyers for the state’s largest waste company are asking an Apache County judge to grant them access to public records that show the size and scope of the region’s highly successful, publicly funded trash-hauling consortium.

Waste Management’s lawyer, Brian Campbell, says the company wants more details about Blue Hills Environmental Association after receiving reports that Blue Hills workers were hauling out-of-county trash — including medical waste and contaminated soils — into local landfills.

Campbell says the company also wants more information on the history of Blue Hills’ employees, which include relatives of government officials who created the consortium.

He says Waste Management, a publicly traded company with trash-hauling contracts all over Arizona, wants to make sure everything at Blue Hills is on the up-and-up.

Apache County Manager Delwin Wengert, however, says the lawsuit seeking public records is nothing more than a fishing expedition by a powerful, deep-pocketed competitor.

"It’s all about money of course," Wengert says. "It’s all about territory. That’s the bottom line."

RURAL GROWTH CREATES NEW TRASH SERVICE

Apache County is one of Arizona’s most storied regions. Originally formed in 1879, it was one of the state’s four original counties. The county hosts Arizona’s first military outpost, Fort Defiance, and several other attractions including the Hubbell Trading Post, Window Rock, Sunrise Ski Resort and the White Mountains.

Today, Apache County covers an area 20 percent larger than Maricopa County. About two-thirds of the area is comprised of Native American lands.

Over the years, the Arizona Legislature designated all of Apache County as an "enterprise zone" to spur business across its rural expanse. State laws encouraged and protected startups here — private or otherwise. That’s where Blue Hills Environmental Association got its start, Campbell says.

In 1990, Apache County’s population had grown to about 62,000 residents. As state and federal environmental regulations got tougher, local officials banded together to form an entity that would take out the trash because private enterprise wasn’t filling the void.

When it came to commercial trash services, the rural job was a tough sell. It was difficult for large-scale companies to justify driving dozens of miles out of their way to empty that one lonesome trash can out on the prairie. Rural Arizona’s needs took the back seat to red-hot growth areas around Phoenix.

So local governments in northeastern Arizona formed Blue Hills Environmental Association in March 1991. Over the next 15 years, the coffers of this tiny nonprofit filled up as Apache County added almost 13,000 more residents and second homes popped up in the White Mountains.

TRASH GARNERS CASH

Arizona’s latest housing cycle was a boon for Blue Hills. In June 2004, the nonprofit made $1.3 million, of which $99,605 were government funds and the rest came from "tipping" fees and other trash-hauling charges. It finished that summer with a fund balance of $583,069, according to tax documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

By 2006, IRS records show its revenues had jumped to almost $2.1 million — even though government subsidies of Blue Hills had remained relatively unchanged.

Today, Blue Hills is quite healthy, says Wengert, who has been a member of its board of directors. The organization handles the majority of waste in Apache County and also accepts waste from some parts of Navajo County, which is handled largely by Waste Management.

BLUE HILLS A ‘UNIQUE CREATURE’

Growth in Phoenix may have helped Blue Hills too, Campbell says. He claims Waste Management has evidence that it was hauling trash — such as untreated medical waste from Phoenix and oil-contaminated soils from construction along Interstate 40 — to local landfills in Apache County.

"That’s when we got concerned," says Campbell, who represents Waste Management. "It’s one thing to have a circumstance where you are trying to provide waste services through the advantage of being a nonprofit and not paying taxes. But it’s another thing when you have such tremendous advantages that you can afford to haul waste hundreds of miles."

Its nonprofit status and government involvement make it kind of an "unusual creature," Campbell says. So he went fishing.

Starting in October 2007, Campbell sent the same public records request to the major stakeholders of Blue Hills: Eagar, Springerville, St. Johns and Apache County. It requested records on everything from financial statements and nonprofit status to director information and environmental compliance going back as far as 1991.

As their responses trickled in over the next nine months, Campbell noticed a strange thing: None of the officials he approached had the same records. Eagar officials sent him 64 pages, Springerville officials sent him four pages, Apache County officials sent him 90 pages and St. Johns sent Campbell eight pages. [When Campbell followed up, Springerville sent him 63 more pages; the others insisted that was everything they had on Blue Hills.]

Now Campbell is asking an Apache County judge to intervene.

"We’re familiar with these rural challenges," Campbell says, referring to Waste Management’s presence in Navajo and Mohave counties. "But by the same token, we think there needs to be a level playing field."

Blue Hills is now 100 percent self-sufficient on trash-hauling charges, Wengert says, and it has plenty of room to grow in a sprawling, rural county. A state audit from 2003 showed that the landfill was about 5 percent full, and that officials were saving up to cover the costs of closing it in 2040.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.