Greetings …
Happy Easter and welcome to another Baja Arizona Kos Open Thread. Click through for news and views from Tucson and Southern Arizona. The BAK Open Thread is weekly now, appearing every Sunday at 5. Readers from around the state are encouraged to check in and add news items and opinions from their town, even if it’s Phoenix.
High Profile Visitors
Lots of big-name visitors to Arizona last week, mostly here because of last Tuesday’s Presidential Preference Election. The presumptive First Gentleman was in town campaigning for his wife last Sunday. He spoke at Sunnyside High to a crowd of around 1,400. Photos here ☛ AZ Daily Star. Bill has lost a lot of weight and changed his diet, so I don’t suppose he ate at Mi Nidito on south 4th where they still have a humongous combination plate on the menu called “The President’s Plate.” Bernie Sanders and his wife were all over the state in the days leading up to the vote. In Flagstaff Bernie surprised an NAU student at a coffee house, ☛ AZ Daily Sun, and had lunch at Elvira's in Tubac after his visit to Nogales, ☛ AZ Daily Star. Old-timers will remember Elvira’s from when it was in Nogales, about a half block south of the line. They used to give every patron a free shot of tequila. When tourism slowed down they moved north to Tubac and there’s been talk for some time about them opening another one downtown, ☛ Tucson Weekly. Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden were at the UofA for A Conversation on Privacy Friday night. You can see that here if you’ve got a couple of hours ☛ The Intercept. No word on where they had dinner. Finally, while we’re on restaurants, Drinking Liberally is being revived. They’ll meet at Casa Vincente every Wednesday night starting on April 20 ☛ Blog for Arizona, Political Calendar. Casa Vincente was the scene of a lovely BAK Meet-Up back in November of 2012. I would link to my write-up of that event but it didn’t survive the switch to DK5 very well. All the photos are gone, as is the Gypsy Kings vid. I love this song.
Education News
Back in February, State Sen. Debbie Lesko (R-ALEC) introduced a bill, SB1279, that would make vouchers available to all Arizona families, ☛ AZ Daily Star. At that time Sen. Steve Farley (D- Tucson) called the bill an abomination and said it was, “the end of public education in Arizona.” Sen. Lesko has modified the bill for the House. As passed by the Appropriations Committee, the new bill would only offer vouchers to a little over half of the state’s students, ☛ AZ Daily Star. I guess that’s progress.
On the right is the cover of the current issue of the Arizona Education Association’s magazine. The association recommends a Yes vote on Proposition 123 which will take more money from the state land trust and give it to the schools. I was a little leery of this measure when I first heard about it, eating the seed corn and all that. Here’s what the AEA says:
Won’t Prop.123 eat into the corpus of the permanent fund (State Trust Land sale proceeds) because the draw is greater than the investment proceeds?
The truth is that there are no multiple funds (one which constitutes proceeds from investments and another that constitutes the “corpus” of the Trust.) There is only one fund. Prop.123 proposes to increase the annual draw from that fund from 2.5% to 6.9%, an increase of 4.4% which will be used — in part, along with an on-going General Fund obligation — to pay for the inflationary increases. The 6.9% is limited to ten years, and it is based on a five-year average to smooth out fluctuations occurring in the investment of the trust land proceeds. It can be decreased if the trust does not produce the expected return. It is important to note that the value of the land trust has increased exponentially from $1 billion to its current value of $5.2 billion over the last 16 years — a period of stagnated, and then dramatically decreased funding for K-12 education. The state land trust is still projected to have over $6 billion in it after 10 years with the increased distribution.
I’m still a little bit confused, but we’ve got plenty of time to research Prop.123 before the election.
And finally …
Jim Nintzel did an interview with Raúl Grijalva for his Zona Politics show last week, video and transcript here ☛ Tucson Weekly. He had this to say on our CD-2 primary:
(Nintzel) You also endorsed Victoria Steele in her primary race against Matt Heinz, both former state lawmakers seeking to unseat Martha McSally in November. You weighed in on Victoria's side in the Democratic primary in November. Why?
(Grijalva) I've gotten to know Victoria. I like the positions that she's taken, and not to belittle anything that Matt's done in the past, both as a legislator and a friend, but I thought that Victoria kind of represented the best opportunity for us to push back, both as a woman, and having some good solid progressive credentials to go along with that initiative. Hopefully, the national party will put some attention into this race, but at this point, it seems that's not one of their top tier races coming up.
OK, that’s all I got this Sunday …
Is anybody out there ? Talk to me.