By Arizona Representative Mark Finchem, Legislative District 11
When the City of Tucson’s elected and appointed leadership made a choice to destroy public property, specifically serviceable firearms that should have been converted to cash, they did so knowing that Arizona statutes prohibit the act. Through the legal transfer process, the property would have been transferred to licensed, qualified dealers.
How ironic it is that a city driven to the brink of bankruptcy by ideologically driven agendas would destroy property? Property that would have contributed to paying for law enforcement equipment, and crime prevention programs.
These same i ideologically driven politicians expect other taxpayers around Arizona to pay for their generous largess. On March 4, 2014 the Tucson Council voted unanimously in favor adding Cesar Chavez Day to the list of paid time off holidays for city employees, “and considered it to be an investment in the city’s image.” (KVOA, 2014). The economic impact was pegged at about a half a million dollars.
Another prime example of the hypocrisy is the call to plant 10,000 trees, (MayorRothchild.com, 2014) by the Mayor and Council, while ignoring ecologists’ concerns that we face a water shortage in the region. Arizona could lose as much as 13percent of its CAP allotment by 2017, and that is because of a near critical stage water level at Lake Meade, (tucson.com, 6/4/2016).
The term, “local control” means different things to different people. Substitute the word “power” for “control” and we better understand what the argument is really about – the power to push an agenda supported by a few people, upon many more who disagree with it.
Choices have consequences. The City chose to forward an agenda over responsible management of resources and how they are allocated. Making a choice means owning a consequence. The waste of a resource will undoubtedly have to be made up by someone else, and that is one component of their action that makes this a statewide matter.
If this is critical thinking at work, we should all be very concerned. Every political body surrenders some amount of local control when it accepts taxpayer money from another, because there are always consequences. In this case, the State only asks one thing, observe the rule of law and we will share the revenue that is collected from all who live in and visit Arizona.
When the State of Arizona accepts federal taxpayer money it cedes some local control to the federal government, so it happens with in-state political subdivisions. Definitions have consequences, they carry with them accountability. Lawmakers at the federal and state level are policy setting bodies, which are organized to provide for the general welfare of their area of responsibility. The tension that exists between these various bodies is there to ensure that power is not accumulated and misused.
I suspect that in the not-to-distant future we will see the same argument and misuse of power, under the label of local control, applied to the claim of a sanctuary city, another political agenda that the City pursues. Should Arizona taxpayers, who don’t live in the City, who didn’t elect its officials, and who disagree with their political agenda, be obliged to pay for the consequences brought on by their choices?
In conclusion, there is a reason that Charter City status provides boundaries that limit the scope of authority. The accumulation of power by every political body and thus control, should be challenged with checks and balances when the rule of law is impacted, and that is what we are seeing play out with the case between the State and the City now. Making choices means owning consequences.