Heritage Fund

Viewpoint: Arizona Legislature’s passes a budget that slashes education, healthcare, state parks, and so much more

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[Source: Jim Nintzel, Tucson Weekly, 3-18-2010] — In an effort to avoid raising taxes in the face of a budget deficit of more than $2 billion, Republicans in the Arizona Legislature cut more than a billion dollars in state spending last week.  Allowing only one day for testimony regarding the budget bills in both the House and the Senate appropriation committees, GOP lawmakers eliminated state support for all-day kindergarten, took away health insurance from more than 300,000 Arizonans below the federal poverty level, and eliminated the KidsCare program that provided health-care coverage for children.

State support for people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses has been cut back, with an estimated 14,600 seriously mentally ill adults and 4,200 children losing their assistance.  The state’s GED and adult-education programs have been eliminated, as have dropout-prevention programs and AIMS intervention tutoring.  [Note: To read the full article, click here.]

Viewpoint: Don’t tolerate the closing of state parks

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[Source: Roxanne Cary Cheney, Eastern Arizona Courier, 3-17-2010] — I want to commend Diane Saunders for her March 7 article about the potential closure of Roper Lake.  However, I need to clarify some of the data.  Roper Lake is budgeted for four full-time employees.  If Roper Lake closes, it will cost Graham County about $5 million in lost revenue and about 70-80 jobs.  That loss cannot be tolerated!  Do the legislators and governor hope to make a ghost town out of our fair community?

Additionally, the governor has now stolen the Heritage Funds and directed them toward her bottomless pit (of a) mismanaged budget.  The Arizona State Parks Board Heritage Fund was established in November 1990 by voter initiative and provides up to $10 million annually to Arizona State Parks from Arizona Lottery proceeds (A.R.S. §41-503).  Another $10 million annually goes to the Department of Game and Fish to conserve natural resources and protect endangered species.  This portends the ultimate lifeline for State Parks.  Do our state administrators have any answers for the one lucrative revenue source they are killing?  Yes, they will let private companies manage a few of the parks, as it works so well in California State Parks.  This is NOT true.  Californians can pay up to $70 for the luxury of going to a mismanaged and dirty state park that is now managed through a concessionaries contract.  Do not let this happen. Flood your legislators with letters or phone calls.

Please call your legislators today and let them know you will not tolerate the elimination of the state parks as we know them today.  If you would like to be a part of the ongoing fight to save our state parks, please join the Friends for Roper Lake.  You can contact me at 775-230-2225 or Roxi1b@yahoo.com.

Viewpoint: Attack on Voter Protection Act threatens our valuable initiative process

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[Source: William C. Thornton, Special to the Arizona Daily Star, 3-8-2010] — Voters Beware!  Once again our right to legislate by initiative is under attack in the Arizona Legislature.  Inspired by the progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, framers of the Arizona Constitution provided citizens with the initiative and recall as remedies for an unresponsive Legislature and direct means of removing corrupt or incompetent public officials from office.

It’s no secret that many legislators don’t like initiatives.  Many voter-approved measures provide evidence of a gap between an electorate with a progressive streak and the conservative legislative leadership.  Examples include the Arizona Heritage Fund, which passed by a 2-1 ratio in 1990.  With Heritage Funds, the citizens of Arizona have invested more than $400 million of lottery revenue in Arizona State Parks and Game and Fish, and earned many additional millions of dollars in matching grants.  If you hunt, fish, hike, camp, boat or picnic, you have benefited from the Heritage Fund at no cost to taxpayers.

By initiative we have also banned the barbaric blood sport of cockfighting, the hideously cruel use of leg-hold animal traps and mandated more humane conditions for factory-farmed hogs.  These measures all passed with overwhelming public support when the Legislature couldn’t or wouldn’t act.

Through the mid 1990s legislators engaged in a series of fund transfers and other actions designed to undermine the initiative process.  Matters came to a head when, in a particularly outrageous display of contempt for voters, legislators took it upon themselves to “fix” an initiative that legalized the limited use of medical marijuana.  The backlash produced the “Voter Protection Act” of 1998 that rendered voter-approved initiatives immune from legislative tampering.  [Note: To read the full opinion, click here.]

Help save Arizona State Parks. Contact your legislators NOW!

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Arizona’s State Parks — natural areas, historic places, archaeological sites, cultural resources, and much more — are in trouble.  Parks funding from the Arizona State Legislature has decreased significantly over the last eight years, and a number of parks are closing.  To protect our parks for future generations, legislators should do two things:

FIRST, they should restore the enhancement fund (parks fee dollars we all pay) and the Heritage Fund so State Parks can continue to operate in the short term.

SECOND, they should support HCR2040, which refers to the ballot a measure to allow free day use of our parks for a fee on vehicle registrations.  The vote is scheduled for 2 p.m., Thursday, February 25!

While you’re certainly welcome to show up in person, YOU CAN CLICK HERE NOW to send a message to your legislators asking them to vote YES on HCR2040.

If passed by the Legislature, this measure will be referred to the ballot.  If Arizona’s voters approve, the fees will be voter protected, meaning that the Legislature could not divert them for other purposes.  This is a crucial step toward saving our state park system!

Thank you for your support of our state parks and Arizona’s heritage!

Arizona Heritage Alliance Board of Directors (and 175 other organizations listed here)