.jpg)
2022 a year of turmoil, inflation and change
"A mild-mannered East Valley politician took center stage this year in the high-stakes effort to expose the machinations behind Donald Trump’s attempted coup in 2021.
Rusty Bowers, a Republican serving his second stint in the Arizona House and House Speaker since 2019, testified on June 21 before a select committee of the U.S. House. His story was chilling.
Defying more than two centuries of constitutional tradition, Trump refused to concede his 2020 presidential election and his legal team applied extraordinary pressure on public officials in various swing states in an effort to illegally overturn that result.
One of those states was Arizona, and as House Speaker, Bowers found himself in the crosshairs.
Bowers described the Trump team’s tactics in his June 21 testimony.
He said John Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers, told him to hold a vote in the Legislature to decertify Arizona’s presidential electors “and let the courts sort it out.”
Bowers said he told Eastman, “You’re asking me to do something that’s never been done in the history of the United States.”
Bowers’ testimony implicated another East Valley politician in Trump’s plot to steal the election, which led to a murderous assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bowers said U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., called him the morning of the insurrection and “asked if I would sign on both to a letter that had been sent from my state and/or that I would support a decertification of the electors, and I said I would not.”
Bowers said Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani never came through with evidence that Biden’s election was fraudulent.
Other witnesses told the committee Biggs was closely involved in planning the rally that led to the Capitol riot. Biggs denied that allegation.
Further, the House committee produced evidence that before Trump left office, presidential pardons were solicited by four of Arizona’s congressional Republicans, with Biggs specifically seeking one for himself. Biggs denied that, too.
Bowers also had to fight in the Legislature to keep Republicans from overturning election results. In February he blocked a bill sponsored by Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, that would have allowed the Legislature to overturn elections at will.
Bowers’ effort to defend the American democracy did not sit well with Republican voters. He was trounced by David Farnsworth in the August primary for a seat in the state Senate; Farnsworth had received Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Biggs won re-election to a fourth term in the U.S. House representing Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District.
After losing the primary election in August, Bowers defiantly lashed out at Arizona’s Republican leadership in an interview with The Guardian.
“Taking away the fundamental right to vote, the idea that the Legislature could nullify your election, that’s not conservative. That’s fascist. And I’m not a fascist,” Bowers said.
Still one county
In February a group of Arizona Republican legislators led by a staunch backer of Trump proposed breaking Maricopa County into four smaller ones.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, would have split the county into three sections that supported Trump in the 2020 election, leaving one isolated largely Democratic area.
Although the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is dominated by Republicans, it has drawn the ire of Trump supporters for upholding the 2020 election.
Hoffman was one of 11 Republicans who signed a document falsely claiming to be official electors who planned to cast the state’s Electoral College votes for Trump.
Bowers opposed Hoffman’s bill, one argument being the enormous expense required to build three new sets of county facilities.
Hoffman’s proposal died.
Housing costs soar
Potential homebuyers in the East Valley were stymied by stunningly high prices for even modest dwellings. Then, as prices began to slacken in late spring, steep hikes in mortgage interest rates only prolonged their misery. Rental prices also soared, reflecting an overall housing shortage.
Prominent Valley economist Elliott Pollack told the Gilbert Town Council in February that the housing market merely reflects long-term trends that can’t be fixed easily.
“The first decade of this century, we overbuilt in both single-family homes and apartments,” Pollack said. “The second decade of this century we way underbuilt and we are now at a situation where the vacancy rates for both single-family housing and for apartments are as low as they have ever been.”
The dramatic rise in prices pushed median prices in several East Valley ZIP codes past the $1 million mark.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Maricopa Association of Governments reported in March that it had found more than 5,000 homeless people during a countywide survey in January. That number was 35 percent higher than in 2020.
Some East Valley cities, notably Gilbert and Queen Creek, wrestled with whether to continue allowing the construction of new apartment complexes in the face of pressure from those who preferred neighborhoods featuring expensive single-family homes.
COVID abates
History may note 2022 as the year COVID-19 faded into the background even as its toll continued to mount.
In January, Arizona became the 11th state to record 25,000 deaths from the pandemic. By late in the year the statewide toll was approaching 32,000. Breakdowns by city were not available but Maricopa County had reported more than 18,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic, which broke out in early 2020.
Water, water… anywhere?
A wet monsoon season notwithstanding, Arizona grappled with the long-term effects of a megadrought that began when the century did.
The situation on the Colorado River now is dire.
By late summer, Lake Powell held less water than at any time since it was filled more than half a century ago. Lake Mead also was far below capacity.
With the seven states that use Colorado River water bickering over how to deal with the shortfalls, East Valley cities and farmers contemplated the impact of reductions in their allotments from the Central Arizona Project, which siphons water from the river and delivers it as far away as Tucson.
Mesa, for example, expects to lose 7,000 acre-feet, or about 16 percent of the city’s share of Colorado River water, in 2024.
In the short term, cities are confident that they can deliver water to a still-growing population, relying on diversified water portfolios that include not only the CAP but also the Salt River Project system and groundwater.
Farmers have less to fall back on, and some in Pinal County said economic ruin could result from a lack of water for their crops.
And it’s far from a free ride for the cities, where the cost of delivering water is staggering, and growing. The Mesa City Council learned late this past summer that the price tag for three major water infrastructure projects has ballooned to a stunning $674 million.
Meanwhile, Queen Creek approved a $21-million deal to purchase Colorado River water from GSC Farm in Cibola that will yield 2,033 acre-feet of water annually for the town through the Central Arizona Project canal system. That would satisfy the water needs of at least 4,066 homes a year and possibly as many as about 6,000.
Goodbye to 2 mayors
Queen Creek Mayor Gail Barney, whose public service had an impact far beyond the town that was his home since he was 6 months old, died June 2 after a months-long battle with a lung infection. He was 74.
Barney’s 20 years on the Town Council were marked by unprecedented growth and development for what had been a sleepy ranching community. His impact reached across the region due to his involvement with other entities such as Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.
Former Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker, who spent a total of 18 years on city council before leaving office in 2008, died in October at age 76.
Hawker spearheaded initial formal planning efforts for Mesa’s rapidly developing Gateway area. He also championed the first leg of light rail into Mesa, which led to two extensions that helped infuse new life into downtown.
Mesa Headlines
•Bell Bank Park, a 320-acre amateur and youth sports complex, opened in January at Ellsworth and Pecos roads. By autumn, however, revenue had fallen far short of projections and the project appeared to be going into default.
•Arizona State University’s downtown Mesa campus opened for the 2022-23 academic year. Sidney Poitier, the Oscar-winning namesake of the university’s film school, died in January.
•Cactus League baseball season took a hit when a 99-day lockout by Major League Baseball owners wiped out half of the spring-training games.
•Mesa native Troy Kotsur won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in CODA. He is the second deaf actor to ever win an Oscar.
•Gary Ernst, who in 38 years of coaching at Mountain View High School became Arizona’s all-time winningest basketball coach, was fired without explanation. A public uproar over the firing was to no avail.
•Former City Councilman Scott Somers won election to his old District 6 seat to replace term-limited Kevin Thompson. Jenn Duff won a November runoff election to retain her District 4 seat. And Alicia Goforth was unopposed to replace David Luna in Council District 5.
•Mesa Public Schools issued new guidelines for accommodating transgender and gender-non-comforming students in schools July 14, triggering critics who say the district’s diversity and inclusion initiatives are going too far. The school district said it was simply following federal guidelines.
•Voters gave landslide approval in November to a $157 million general-obligation bond package for public safety.
No comments:
Post a Comment