The Senate Appropriations Committee passed SB1621, which among other things, funds a little item known as Gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission, once known under the acronym GITEM. The language takes great pains to make sure that the lion’s share of the money goes to Maricopa and Pinal Counties, with the rest distributed to other counties. There is, however, one odd exception. This is the proposed section 23, 41-1724, subsection E:
A county with a population of more than five hundred thousand persons but less than two million persons shall not receive any monies from the gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission fund.
For those of you that didn’t catch the news about the census this week, that would include a grand total of one county: Pima. Counties that are larger and smaller get the money. Funny how that one works out, eh?
The talk from railbirds is that Republican Senators, particularly Al Melvin and Russell Pearce, excluded Pima County because of their anger at Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for remarks he made after the January 8th shootings. Your little feat of pique is a fantastic reason to screw over the safety and security of a good chunk of your constituents, Al.
(By the way, the Republicans who put this forward haven’t seen fit to come up with any other explanation.)
Just to get this straight: these guys are mad that Dupnik called them hateful and vitriolic, so they come back by being vindictive and petty.
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Now how do we get Brodesky, Bodfield and Kelly to fully publicize and opine on this important subject? Have I missed it?
Mean bullies aren’t they? Deny local citizens their fair share of the taxes we pay, all because they got their widdle feelings hurt.
If this very bad bill should achieve passage, will Gov. Jan have the guts to veto it?
This exclusion is illegal and attorneys out there need to weigh in.
If passes, we need to file against it. Every county that pays taxes needs to be incuded – not excluded.
More reasoning for Baja Arizona – State refusing to incude Pima in crime prevention disbursements.
blogtucson, sadly, this exclusion isn’t illegal. The legislature has done this with a number of appropriations, most recently the $5million for Paul Babeau was written to apply only to Pinal County. One legislator justified this by noting that, ‘if it weren’t for the Tohono O’Odam nation, Pinal County would be a border county’.
Yes, some of our legislators suck at geography as badly as they do at History, U.S. Government, and common decency.
AZW88 is correct, unfortunately. Years ago, I worked in the Econometrics section of the AZ Dept. of Revenue, which is in charge of dispersing tax monies collected to various municipalities and the like. The old saying that anyone who loves sausage and the law, doesn’t want to see either one being made, is truest here. While the methods weren’t technically illegal (those who make the laws can always find a way around them), they were certainly morally and ethically reprehensible.
I finally quit when I realized that screwing the elderly out of property tax credits wasn’t really a career option for me.