Kozachik’s gun buyback costs taxpayers

Kozachik_City_CouncilBy Sergio Arellano-Oros

As if pothole neglect, and closing businesses weren’t enough of Tucsonans, Steve Kozachik’s Gun Buyback event appears to have cost Tucson taxpayers approximately $10,000 according to Ken Rineer, president of Gun Owners of Arizona.

After weeks emailing and calling requesting the disclosure of public information, Rineer was able to get the Ward 6 gun buyback special operations plan. The plan summarizes requests by Councilman Kozachik, a statement to other officers about the public risk of hosting a gun buyback event, and a strategy on how to implement traffic control and other tactics in order to have a successful event.

Taxpayers say the number of personnel used for the event is the most intriguing part of the event. More than 40 officers were used. Their time, when broken down to hourly cost per officer per position, totaled $9,910.

Ken Rineer says, Staffing the event cost the taxpayers over $10,000. The Tucson Police Department would not put a cost on the operation of the Command Post, the Tucson Fire response to an injury, the travel to and from the destruction facility and the cost to the taxpayer for their destruction. In fact, they refused to disclose the facilities name so that Gun Owners of Arizona could follow up.”

“Councilman Kozachik still hasn’t come clean on the funds he solicited, collected and spent on gift cards for his event. He claims he did not account for it,” added Rineer. “ We trust Councilman Kozachik with hundreds of millions of dollars a year and he cannot keep track of $10,000? This raises serious questions about his ability to conduct the business of the City in a transparent and accountable manner.”

Kozachik denied Rineer’s finding in an interview with KOLD News, “He’s just flat wrong. It didn’t cost the tax payers anything,” Kozachik claims that all the officers were on straight time, there was no overtime involved.

Kozachik also claims that all the money used in the gun buyback was donated “by private individuals. I went to Safeway, gave them cash, they gave me the cards, end of story.”

But that isn’t the end of the story to one taxpayer who noted that “if officers were manning the event, instead of doing their normal daily tasks, or patrolling, then taxpayer money was wasted on this event. They didn’t volunteer their time, for free, so taxpayer money was used to fund their presence at this event.”

Taxpayers argue that the weapons should have been resold, in an attempt to recoup the costs involved.

As this debate goes on, the fate of HB2455 is still not known at the State Legislature. The bill would eliminate the kind of gun buy backs sponsored by Kozachik. Now, the House leaders need to decide when to send it to the Governor for her signature, veto, or inaction.

Kozachik says that it is the Governor not Rineer who will determine whether Tucson holds another buy back. However, many Tucsonans disagree. There is a City of Tucson election in the fall and there are two republican challengers who will finally represent all Tucsonans and a large portion of the community did not support Kozachik’s gun buyback stunt or the use of public funds for it.

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