Farewell Janet, hello 5 supervisors

Alan Levine, Staff Writer March 03, 2009

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Lost in all of this is the undeniable fact that five districts, a five-member board, shrinks the districts to more manageable sizes and makes county government more efficient and much more effective.

When Janet Napolitano received a call in January to take the job as director of Homeland Security, she dashed out the door and headed straight for Washington, D.C., in time to attend her new boss's inauguration. In explaining why she left Arizona so fast, she said that it was imperative that she begin protecting the citizens of the United States, posthaste.

Her detractors opined that Napolitano had skipped out on a budget deficit of more than $1 billion, along with the onus of having created some programs that would need to be trimmed or cut. Consequently, the former Education Governor won't have to be the one wielding the scissors, nor will she have to contend with a legislature comprised of a few more Republicans.

In the meantime, Republican legislators were wasting no time in crafting House Bill 2101, which mandates that Pinal County move from a three-member Board of Supervisors to a five-member board and sets up an opportunity for voters to elect two new supervisors in the 2010 mid-term election to fill the two additional seats on the board.

Debt wasn't all that Napolitano ran out on. She also left behind a virtual mountain of vetoes, a legacy as it were of having set the all-time record for saying no to majority-passed legislation. She had executed her 115th veto during the fourth year of her first term, at that point eclipsing by one the record held by former Gov. Bruce Babbitt, a fellow liberal Democrat, who spent nine years setting his now second-best effort.

Among the bills that fell victim to Napolitano's veto pen were several that attempted to limit the hideous practice of partial-birth abortion, several bills that required local police officers to enforce immigration laws, spending freeze and property tax repeal bills, et al., plus scores of line item vetoes that weakened some of the bills she did sign into law.

Napolitano freely admitted that she was quite proud of all of her decisions and at one point even offered up her own personal favorite - the Guns in Bars Bill. One of her vetoes was on House Bill 2575 on June 28, 2006, which like the current HB2101 called for Pinal County to move to a five-member board and would have had voters electing two additional supervisors in 2008 to serve in the two new districts created by using the community college district map, which divides the county into five viable districts.

The bill, passed by majorities in both the House and Senate, landed on Napolitano's desk on June 20. A day later, she received a letter signed by all three (Democratic) Pinal County supervisors asking her to veto the bill, calling it "flawed legislation." But it's more likely a case of flawed reasoning, because for one thing, moving to five supervisors after reaching 200,000 population (current estimate is 320,000) is mandated by state statute. The legislators were acting within the law and were reflecting the wishes of the majority of their constituents. That's the way representative government works.

In another perceived justification for the veto, the supervisors cited costs, estimating redistricting to run as high as $1 million. Republicans countered by saying it shouldn't cost more than $300,000. The sad fact is that costs go up every year, and the next opportunity for redistricting, according to the Democrats' timetable, was in 2012, which means that taxpayers would be looking at the original cost estimates plus four years or more of inflationary increases.

Lost in all of this is the undeniable fact that five districts, a five-member board, shrinks the districts to more manageable sizes and makes county government more efficient and much more effective.

Last week, HB2101 passed the House Government Committee, and estimates put the bill on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk in four to six weeks. One thing is certain. Had Napolitano remained as governor, HB2101 would still be gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. But with a Republican in the governor's office, it would seem to be a case of farewell Janet, hello five supervisors.

©Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc. 2009
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