Highlights of last night's meeting, held at the Pyle Center in Tempe:
Randy Camacho (thanks to Tedski for the heads-up on Mr. Camacho's website), candidate for chair of the ADP, stopped by. He spoke to people before the meeting, and was introduced to a round of applause.
All three of our elected legislators, Senator Meg Burton-Cahill, Representative Ed Ableser, and Representative David Schapira, attended and gave brief updates on their activities at the lege.
Senator Burton-Cahill spoke about the "sense of change" that is permeating the Capitol - 45% of the House members and 43% of the Senate membership are now Democrats. The days of Jim "Fundraiser" Weiers wholly ignoring the Democrats and their constituents are over.
[Personal note: But not as over as they will be in 2 - 4 years when the Republicans become the minority party in the Legislature. ]
Her focus will be on health care issues, including prescription drug prices. Unrelated to that, she currently has co-sponsored bill HB2092, a bill that would excuse active duty military personnel from jury duty.
Representative Ableser spoke about his trip to Washington state last week, noting that Arizona is fortunate to have had the foresight to enact Clean Elections.
He is working on a mental health parity (for insurance purposes) bill, as well as increasing financial aid to students. As a member of the House Environment committee, he is also working on a number of environmental issues.
Representative Schapira talked about he and Ed and other legislators fighting the massive tuition increases proposed by the state's universities, a fight that took place even before they took their oaths of office.
The fight was partially successful - tuition is increasing, but not nearly as much as the management of the universities wanted.
He also spoke of two of the bills that he is working on that address issues near and dear to him -
Teacher minimum salary and teacher loan forgiveness.
Under his proposal, a teacher's minimum salary would be $33,000.
The teacher loan forgiveness program would forgive the student loans for teachers that agree to teach in 'shortage' districts (i.e. - districts that really need the help) on a year-for-year basis. Each year worked in such a district would result in the forgiveness of one year's loans.
The program is expected to cost $1.5 million per year for 300 participants.
He thinks that the bill has a good chance of passage - it has bipartisan support because it's a "forgiveness" program, not a "grant" program; in addition, at $1.5 million, it's relatively inexpensive.
Other highlights:
The new chair and vice-chairs gave short presentations about themselves (bio-type stuff) as a way of introducing themselves to the district in a non- "campaigning for a district officer" sort of way.
New chair Doug Mings also gave a presentation about the election results that makes a good case for considering LD17 a "Blue" district in spite of the Republican registration advantage -
Congressman Harry Mitchell won every precinct in LD17. Even Laura Knaperek's. :))
Governor Napolitano won every precinct in LD17. Whooo hooo!
Attorney-General Goddard also won every precinct in LD17. Not a shock here - he took every one in 2002, too.
If LD 17 decided things (and maybe our Reps should propose an amendment to the state constitution for just that. :)) ), Jim Pederson would be our U.S. Senator, Rano Singh would be our state treasurer, Jason Williams would be our Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Mark Manoil and Ric Boyer would be Corporation Commissioners.
It was a very illuminating presentation, to say the least.
Anyway, the next meeting is Tuesday, February 6 at 7:00 p.m in the Escalante Community Center in Tempe.
Other stuff:
Tonight, the Scottsdale Planning Commission is considering two proposals to restrict temporary political signs, including one that places severe limits on signs placed on private property.
It should be a...ummm...."colorful" meeting. Hope to see you there.
5:00 p.m., City Hall Kiva.
Later!!
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