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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

I’ve done a series of blogs on the facts about the Worker Power initiative now known as Proposition 499 on your November 5th General Election ballot.

Here are some final thoughts. This initiative did NOT come from the City of Glendale. It is NOT sponsored by the City of Glendale. It came from the Worker Power Super PAC, a radical group with California ambitions. Various cities in California have adopted higher minimum wages, especially for fast food workers. It is destroying that industry in California.

Legally, all that the city is allowed to do is explain what is in Proposition 499. It legally, cannot support or oppose it.

As a citizen and registered voter in Glendale, I can oppose it and I do. It is bad for Glendale. It will have the effect of raising the prices for all kinds of entertainment and that cost will be passed on to you, the consumer. It will cause workers to be laid off or to face a reduction in their work hours, as has occurred in California.

It will cause you, the taxpayer, to pay a million dollars a year for the creation of a new Labor Department to monitor all the rules and regulations that are part of this initiative. That’s just a minimum estimate. If it is created, it will grow over time. In this year’s budget, each department’s expenses range from $1.2 million (city clerk) to $122 million (police).

The unintended consequences of such a draconian law will hurt Glendale. It puts Glendale at a disadvantage with every city in the state. What businesses will want to locate in Glendale knowing that its minimum wage is higher than every other city in the state? No one.

California has some of the most breathtaking scenery. I used to love to go over there and spend time by the ocean. No more. Homeless people, drug addicts and trash everywhere. Prices are sky high. Have you ever purchased gas over there?

Now I call it “the land of fruits and nuts.” Statistically, more people are leaving California than moving into it. Let’s not turn Glendale into another California.

This is a bad idea and deserves a “no” vote at the November 5th’s General Election. I urge you to vote by Early Ballot or in person on election day. Tell Worker Power that their California-style initiative is not good for Glendale.

NO ON PROPOSITION 499

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

In preceding blogs you’ve learned about the Worker Power Super PAC, what facilities would be affected, the proposed minimum wage and the requirement to create a new Glendale governmental department.

The consequences for the City of Glendale and affected workers are quite consequential. Kamryn Brunner authored the following September 2024 report for the Common Sense Institute Arizona. It is entitled, The fiscal implications of Glendale’s Hotel and Event Center Minimum Wage Protection Act. Here is the link to the entire study: CSI_AZ_REPORT_GLENDALE_MIN_WAGE_SEPT_9_2024_FINAL (1)

Their conclusion is, “Common Sense Institute estimates the Wage Act would reduce Glendale’s economy by between $120 million and $1.9 billion. Associated job losses would be between 1,700 and 32,000; up to 47% of this is a dynamic effect on businesses indirectly supported by the city’s tourism sector.”

I have cited some excerpts from their study:

  • “An analysis of data from hotels.com and Expedia, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, VisitGlendale.com, and other public information sources, CSI estimates that 19% of Maricopa County’s events and accommodation industry can be found in Glendale alone.” 
  • “While Glendale has only 3.4% of the state’s population and 3.3% of state personal income, but approximately 15% of the state’s entire sports and tourism sector is found in Glendale.”
  • “CSI estimates that there are up to 4,954 employees in the City of Glendale who may be directly impacted by this proposal.”
  • “This initiative specifically targets the niche industry into which Glendale has heavily invested and is today heavily concentrated. Because of the significant costs the initiative could impose on targeted businesses, and the relative ease with which affected activity could move to other nearby jurisdictions while staying close to sports and event hubs, the potential negative impacts for Glendale are likely to be more significant than if this were either a more isolated community or a statewide initiative.”
  • “For Arizona to pass a $20 minimum wage for hotel and event center workers in Glendale, it could cost employers up to $10,756 per affected worker -through a combination of either direct increased wage costs or efficiency losses as employers mitigate the impacts by reducing staff, cutting hours, or moving business activity. Much of this cost will likely be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices and increased fees (as has been the case in California). This may further incentivize both customers and operators to seek alternatives outside the city.”
  • “Ultimately, if enacted, the Act would have dramatic implications for the city of Glendale and its economy. Those implications would likely play out over a period of time, rather than immediately.”                                                                                             “There will be some combination of:
  • Employment losses and reductions in work hours among hotel and event staff.
  • Hotel and event cost increases in Glendale, including price increases.
  • The movement of hotel and event activity outside of Glendale and to nearby cities, particularly over time as part of normal business maintenance and expansion cycle.
  • An increase in the rate of unionization among Glendale accommodation and event staff.”

“Under all outcomes, the nominal wage increase implied by the Act for existing workers never occurs.”

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

In previous blogs I presented who and what the Worker Power Super PAC is, what facilities this proposed ordinance would impact, and the minimum wage provisions. In this blog I will share what new regulations are imposed on Glendale.

The Worker Power initiative mandates that the City of Glendale, effective June 1, 2025, will create a Department of Labor Standards as well as an online and a paper method for individuals to file complaints. It further mandates that there be a Director of Labor Standards and investigators. This new department will publish all labor regulations and is empowered to make labor rules that comply with this proposed ordinance.

The proposed ordinance also requires this Labor Department’s access to all records, and it can impose a civil penalty of up to one hundred dollars ($100) per day to be paid to the hotel or event center worker. The maximum violation per employer can be up to one thousand dollars ($1,000) per day. Statutory damages can be awarded. The party that loses a court case must pay the opponent’s attorney’s fees and any court costs. There is a 3-year statute of limitations during which any harmed individual can sue.

At our last city council workshop, I asked what the estimated cost of creating this new department would be. The estimated cost is one million dollars. That’s just for a bare bones, new department. I ask you this. Have you ever seen a governmental department go away or shrink? Never happens. One million dollars is just the starting point.

Where will the money come from? That’s for the city council to decide but every other department is fair game to lose money. It could be parks and libraries, transportation, public safety. That will be decided next year, if this initiative passes.

In my next blog I will share how this initiative will impact Glendale and you.

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

In my last blog I laid out some background on who and what the group running this initiative, the Worker Power Super PAC is. This blog starts to explain what their proposed initiative includes. I have offered a link so that you can refer to the entire initiative as submitted.  Initiative

The initiative applies to all event centers within the City of Glendale and is defined in the initiative as, “An event center means a publicly or privately owned structure in the city of more than 20,000 square feet that is used for public performances, sporting events, business meetings, or similar events. An event center includes, but is not limited to concert halls, stadiums, sports arenas, racetracks, coliseums, and convention centers.”

Please note that “similar events” is pretty broad and covers just about anything. Hotels are not referred to in this section but are in section 21-187 and is as follows, “A hotel means an establishment in the city that provides temporary lodging for payment in the form of overnight accommodation in guest rooms to transient patrons for periods of thirty (30) consecutive calendar days or less. This definition includes hotels, motor lodges, motels apartment hotels, transient residential structures, private residential clubs, tourist courts, hostels and private guest rooms that may be reserved, meeting the hotel definition.”

Let’s break this down. First, it applies to all public and private facilities. Here are some examples: Midwestern University, Glendale Community College, all high schools and elementary schools (public or charter) that have a football field and/or basketball court or any other large meeting area. It includes government facilities like the Civic Center, the arena, the main library and the Glendale Public Training Facility. It includes private facilities that rent space for meetings or weddings or your favorite performing arts theater or movie theater. It would also include places like the pickleball venue in Westgate and the under construction Mario Andretti cart racing venue. Of course, the football stadium and the arena, both in Westgate, are included.

In other words, any location, public or private where people gather in large groups. Many mistakenly believe that this proposed initiative only applies to hotel workers but as you can see, that is not the case.  That is why they have purposefully referred to “hospitality workers.” It’s smoke and mirrors to make you think one thing when it is actually more broadly written.

Keep in mind that this proposed initiative only applies to the City of Glendale. IT WOULD NOT APPLY TO ANY OTHER CITY IN THE STATE OF ARIZONA! Mind you, should Worker Power be successful in getting this initiative passed on November 5th, at the General Election you can be sure they will take it to other cities in Arizona. The only voters that can deny or pass this proposed initiative are Glendale voters since it currently applies only to Glendale.

Coming in my next blog, how much is the proposed hourly wage and are there any other wage provisions?

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

I am starting a series of blogs on a very complicated issue. Worker Power PAC (political action committee) successfully obtained enough Glendale voters’ signatures to, they hope, get a minimum wage of $20 an hour for hospitality workers on Glendale’s November 5th General Election ballot.

Glendale appealed to the Arizona Court of Appeals stating that the initiative language encompasses more than one subject. In 2022, Arizona required that all ballot measures must have one subject. The Court of Appeals upheld Worker Power’s position. Glendale has now appealed to the Supreme Court of Arizona, and we await their decision. Hopefully by next week.

Before there is an explanation of the Worker Power initiative, let’s find out more about this Super PAC. According to media reports, “The Worker Power PAC is a Democratic Party-aligned Super PAC founded in 2020 as the Working Arizona PAC that expanded to conduct activity in other competitive states in 2022 after changing its name. The PAC is closely aligned with organized labor and has received money from labor unions and other left-of-center advocacy groups including Unite HERE Local 11, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers, and the Arizona AFL-CIO.”

Worker Power in 2022 supported these Arizona candidates: Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D). It also claims through its efforts, it was responsible for radical Democrat Raphael Warnock’s win against Herschel Walker for a Georgia Congressional Senate seat.

As of July 20, 2024, Worker Power had reported total contributions of $4,106,415 and total expenditures of $3,737,230. It may be assumed that “Dark Money” from such groups as George Soros has secretly made its way into Worker Power coffers.

Locally, Worker Power endorsed radical activist Democrat Lupe Conchas in his successful bid to become the next Cactus district councilmember in Glendale. You can be sure that Conchas has greater ambitions than that of a councilmember in Glendale. After all, failed Glendale mayoral candidate Jamie Aldama on his Facebook page congratulated Conchas on his win and referred to him as the next US Senator Ruben Gallego.

Getting back to Worker Power. Their target has always been VIA resort which will be the largest resort hotel in Arizona with over 1200 rooms. That is a target just too juicy for them to pass up.

Their first round of attacks failed as they attempted to kill the use of a GPLET between the city and the VIA Resort. When the city declared that there was no GPLET nor would one be used, they had to come up with another plan of attack.

Why Glendale? They assumed that Glendale would be too unsophisticated to fight back and would be easy picking. They also wanted a win with the largest hotel in Arizona. With unlimited money at their disposal, this would be their signature fight. Then they could use the same tactic with other cities picking them off, one by one.

If history repeats itself, Glendale voters will reject this initiative just as in Phoenix when its voters rejected Worker Power’s candidate, Carlos Garcia, a former immigrants’ rights activist. Instead, Kesha Hodge Washington, his opponent won despite their $300,000 investment in Garcia’s candidacy.

In part 2, I will start to unpack their initiative, concept by concept.

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

Some candidates can’t help but run a negative bashing campaign and it looks like this Lupe is one of them. Recently he posted a video attacking his opponent, Incumbent Councilmember, and current Vice Mayor Ian Hugh.

The video had 3 themes. The first was that Vice Mayor Hugh is too old and out of touch. Let’s take a deeper dive into this allegation. The Vice Mayor is 70 years old. I am 82 years old. The last time I ran I was 78 years old. Age is not the determining factor. It’s mental competency. Vice Mayor Hugh is mentally sharp, and he is in very good physical condition. At 82 I am as sharp mentally as ever but physically, my legs are failing me.

Keep in mind that the majority on City Council comprised of Mayor Weiers, Councilmember Hugh, Councilmember Malnar and me, despite the constant opposition of wanna-be mayor Aldama and Councilmembers Tolmachoff and Turner, have moved Glendale forward in many positive ways. We have a Pavement Management Program designed to keep every road in Glendale in good condition on a rotating schedule. We have started a years long program to upgrade every park in Glendale. We have also instituted a multi-year program to improve the landscaping in every right-of way.

We have embarked on a 3-year program to renovate City Hall, Council Chambers, the Amphitheater and Murphy Park. This city investment in downtown Glendale has spurred developers to invest in downtown. Soon you will see a Hilton Hotel under construction in downtown to name but one major, private investment.

Look at Westgate with a nearly one billion dollar investment in the VAI Resort and Mattel Adventure Park. The city owned arena, Desert Diamond, is earning higher revenues than ever before. Bell Road corridor is thriving and continues to reinvent itself to remain relevant and successful. The “New Frontier,” the  Loop 303, is still exploding with new growth. Witness the latest company to invest in the area, Amazon. We have grown nearly 24,000 jobs in the area.

Age is simply not a factor. Mental acuity is. To borrow a quote from the late President Reagan who was 74 in 1984 when he ran for President, “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

At the bidding of Worker Power, who has real heartburn about the VAI Resort, Conchas threw in the proposed city-owned parking garage at Westgate as his second theme. He and Worker Power contend the public parking garage is not needed. Not so. There is not much land left in the Westgate area and as surface parking continues to disappear as new buildings are constructed, the need for public parking becomes greater. If we want Westgate to continue to thrive and grow, thereby earning more sales tax dollars for Glendale to be used for the benefit of you, the residents of Glendale it becomes more and more critical to have adequate parking in the area.

Conchas’ last theme in his video was to accuse the Vice Mayor of allowing schools in Glendale to close. What planet is Conchas on? Obviously, he doesn’t know that the Glendale City Council has no authority over school districts and their school boards. Nada. None.  This demonstrates how ill informed he is about what a councilmember does.

There is nothing the Vice Mayor can do about the school districts’ policies regarding school closures or anything else school related. Yet Conchas has said, he is “focused on addressing the basic needs of students.” He wants to, “increase school funding at the State Legislature, support teachers, advocate for pay increases, reduce class sizes, and educate the whole child.” That’s fine. He’s also running for the Alhambra School Board. That seems to be his priority. If you agree with him, then you will vote for him for that position…not Glendale City Council.

It’s time for Conchas to stop playing in the mud. Let’s hear what his priorities are as a city council candidate. Haven’t seen or heard anything? That’s because he hasn’t offered anything.

But that’s what you can expect from a Progressive Democrat, Marxist candidate.

© Joyce Clark, 2024    

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

In Part III of this three-part blog, I offer the specifics of the Glendale GPLET and Worker Power’s public statements regarding their opposition to the GPLET.

In the Fall of 2020, Applied Economics submitted an analysis requested by and paid for by the city. Its purpose was to present future tax revenues should the city decide to incentivize the development of what, at that time, was called Crystal Lagoon (now known as VAI Resort). The report also presented two other development alternatives for the same site. Keep in mind that the information I cite from this report is based upon old numbers. Since that report Crystal Lagoon is now VAI Resort and the hotel portion of the site has doubled. In recognition of these facts, the city has commissioned an updated report from Applied Economics. It is not yet available.

The 2020 report concluded that, “The proposed incentive structure outlined here would include permit and plan fee waivers of up to $1 million and a 25-year Government Property Lease Excise Tax agreement (GPLET) on the entertainment, recreation and concessions portions of the development. The total value of the incentive is estimated at $29.7 million, in return for $700.8 million in new sales, property and bed tax revenues to the city, county and state over the next 25 years. These incentives are performance based and the amounts will be less if the project is not built in its entirety.” (Page 2, Applied Economics, August 31, 2020).

The report goes on to state, “In terms of precedent for including the lagoon, Tempe has included sections of the Tempe Town Lake in the parcels for several different GPLETs that also include various types of development along the shoreline.” (Page 6, Applied Economics, August 31, 2020).

Further, “In order to demonstrate that the proposed GPLET meets the economic and fiscal benefit requirement in A.R.S. 42-6206, it is necessary to isolate the portion of the development that would be part of the GPLET. This analysis considers the property tax impacts the GPLET relative to the amount of benefit to the property owner or prime lessee. During the 25 year term, the prime lessee would normally pay lease excise tax instead of real property tax, although the recreation, entertainment and related retail and restaurant concessions of the development are assumed to b exempt from lease excise taxes…The estimated public benefit, or value of the other tax revenues generated by the projects exceeds the property tax savings to the prime lessee from the GPLET by $176.2 million over the 25 year term.” (Pages 6-7, Applied Economics, August 31, 2020).

Lastly, “The Crystal Lagoon Island Resort could result in an annual increase in property tax revenues to schools of $2.8 million, and $3.7 million to all jurisdictions in total after accounting for the GPLET exemptions.” (Page 12, Applied Economics, August 31, 2020).

What the report said is that this property, incentivized with a GPLET earns more money per year over the 25-year period for the city, the schools, the county and the state than if it were allowed to develop sometime in the future as apartments, retail and office buildings with no incentive.

Why does Worker Power object? In an Arizona Republic story dated 7/28/2023, entitled Community group that fought Tempe’s entertainment district aims for Glendale’s VAI Resort, Jordan Greenslade, a Worker Power senior field director, claimed that this tax break was unnecessary, stating, “Greenslade explained that the tax exemption was likely an initiative that began as a means to bring growth and prosperity to an area that could benefit from the jobs and development. Though, as Greenslade noted, Glendale is not that. In fact, Glendale is booming with development.

With additions like the Cardinals’ stadium and Westgate Entertainment District, Greenslade does not see why a 25-year tax break was necessary to draw a luxury resort like VAI to a booming tourist destination.”

Let’s unpack Greenslade’s assumption. He obviously hasn’t done his homework and has no knowledge of the history of this site. Historically, it has been farmed. About ten years ago Michael Bidwill bought the site, called it Organic 101 and had planned to build a gazillion apartments and some office buildings on the site. Apparently, that was not to be, and Bidwill let the property go into bankruptcy.  About six years ago, IKEA had the property in escrow but never completed the sale, so it remained farmland.

It was obvious, despite the success of Westgate, no entity was willing to purchase this site and make a major investment in its development until ECL (now VAI) approached the city with its vision for development and asking the city to consider offering an incentive for such a massive project. The city commissioned the Applied Economics study in 2020 and based upon the facts presented in the study, entered into a development agreement.

The massive size of this development coupled with an investment of a billion dollars along with the revenue return of this project justified an offer to incentivize this project ensuring that this coveted project would come to Glendale and be a perfect fit for Westgate, the city’s sports and entertainment district. Glendale has never had a resort within its jurisdiction and its placement at Westgate on an underutilized piece of farmland made good, economic sense.

The Phoenix Business Journal on 7/28/2023, ran this story entitled, Labor group that opposed Coyotes’ arena wants Glendale resort incentives placed on ballot. The article states, “Brendan Walsh, executive director of Worker Power Institute, said in a statement that GPLETs should ‘not be used to subsidize luxury development that brings little or no benefits to working families already living in the area’.”

Mr. Walsh is offering the same brand of Kool-Aid as Mr. Greenslade. This massive development project will employ at least 1800 Glendale residents. Every possible kind of job from restaurant waitresses and bar tenders to hotel workers to retail managers to skilled tradesmen to maintain this massive property. Another 1800 jobs is nothing to sneeze at and certainly is a major benefit to “working families already living in the area.”

Worker Power on its website offer the following as its Economic Policy:

“A primary focus of Worker Power’s advocacy efforts has been to challenge the misuse of GPLETs (Government Property Lease Excise Tax) by local municipalities. GPLET is a tax abatement program used to spur development in Arizona cities. While these developments purport to bring new jobs and additional tax revenues to aid the economy, GPLETs can add up to hundreds of millions of dollars not spent on local schools and other community needs over time. In addition, GPLETs can contribute to gentrification, exacerbate the deepening housing affordability crisis in our cities, and push low-wage earners out of town.”

Where is the “misuse” of the GPLET in this case? There is none. The Applied Economics study of 2020 stated that all entities – the city, the schools, the county and the state, earn more revenue over 25 years with this GPLET than without.

In addition, Glendale is leading the forefront of Valley cities in creatively financing affordable housing within the community. In fact, Glendale’s homeless population has decreased year over year. There is no demonstration of fact by Worker’s power that Glendale is “pushing low-wage earners out of town.”

Worker Power is spouting phrases designed to gin up general citizen support with absolutely no fact to back up their baseless accusations. It’s as if just because they said it and they are a PAC, it must be true. They are looking for a cause where none exists.

The deadline for turning in their petitions was last Thursday at 5 PM. The signatures collected are in the process of being verified. They claim to have collected over 5,000 signatures but how many of them are good and can be verified?

Worker Power has no legitimate cause to follow in Glendale. Really…don’t be buyin’ their brand of nonsense.

© Joyce Clark, 2023     

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.Yesterday in Part I, I shared the concept of Worker Power and their current referendum effort to oppose the City of Glendale’s use of a GPLET within portions of the VAI Resort. I alerted those who had signed their referendum petition that an email with their personal contact information was generated and sent to the Glendale city council.

What in heaven’s name is a GPLET? Its full title is Government Property Lease Excise Tax. It is an incentive created by the Arizona Legislature that permits cities and towns to encourage development within their communities. A GPLET permits a temporary lower property tax payment for up to a maximum of 25 years. This means instead of a developer paying property tax, the developer must pay an excise tax in its place. The excise tax amount is determined by a formula created by the Arizona Legislature. Please note that tax is still paid on the property but at a lower rate called an excise tax instead of property tax.

A project eligible for a GPLET would typically not otherwise be built at the desired scale or design or timing because of the expense of the land, the cost of building massive projects, and the high rates of commercial property tax.

A city is providing the GPLET to land that it does not expect to develop soon. It is by no means counting on the property paying taxes in the near term. A GPLET can cause a project to be built sooner rather than later.

Historically, Arizona cities and towns have used GPLETs often. It is not some kind of exotic incentive rarely used. In the past twenty years at least 8 Valley cities have used GPLETs.

  • Avondale currently has 4 GPLETs including one for its Phoenix International Speedway
  • Chandler currently has 4 GPLETs including one for its Overstreet Cinema
  • Glendale currently has 21 GPLETs, a majority of which are airport related but there is one for Cabela’s and one for the Renaissance Hotel
  • Goodyear has 1 GPLET for its Western Regional Medical Center
  • Mesa has 51 GPLETs including its Mesa Convention Center and Visitor’s Bureau
  • Phoenix’s financial report is not so opaque but I was able to identify at least 58 GPLETs, including restaurants and hotels
  • Scottsdale has 19 GPLETs including the Tournament Players Club of Scottsdale (part of the PGA Tour)
  • Tempe has 40 GPLETS including the Tempe Town Lake and the Hilton Hotel

Why is Worker Power doing a referendum on the VAI Resort development now? Remember, I said in my last blog post that they are opportunists? If they were genuinely opposed to the use of GPLETs, they would have opposed the original GPLET for this project passed by the city council two years ago. Where were they then? Crickets. Oh wait, weren’t they in Georgia working on Rafael Warnock’s senatorial campaign? That action would bring them far more notoriety than opposing a no-nothing GPLET in Glendale. How come the only other GPLET they’ve opposed is the one involving the Coyotes project in Tempe?

It looks like there will be a Part III to this GPLET blog tomorrow. In the next part we’ll look at the benefits of this GPLET as well as Worker Power’s publicly offered reasons for their opposition.

© Joyce Clark, 2023     

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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

This past week I and the other Glendale city councilmembers have received identical, word for word emails from all who signed a petition circulated by the Worker Power Political Action Committee (PAC). I have not seen the petition but somewhere within it there had to be the petition signer’s permission to allow Worker Power to send emails on the signer’s behalf as well as revealing to the recipient (the city council) the email address of the signer. I bet that everyone who signed the petition didn’t know that. Below is Worker Power’s application for a Referendum petition:

Here is just one of the emails I received. They are all the same with the exact same verbiage. All of the emails come from everyactioncustom.com with the personal information of the petition signer provided at the bottom of the email. What is everyactioncustom.com?

This domain is used to send emails on behalf of the supporters (petition signers) of organizations that use the EveryAction advocacy tools. Each one of those emails represents a form submission by a real person (the petition signer) wanting to contact (did they want to contact or did they even know that their signature granted permission to contact using their personal information?) a custom advocacy target (in this case, the members of the Glendale city council) configured in the EveryAction system. In other words, Worker Power hired Bonterra, the company that runs EveryAction, to set up a system where every signer will automatically have an email sent on his or her behalf. Here is a sample of the form email we are receiving. I have personally redacted the name, address and email address of this sender:

“Dear Vice Mayor Joyce Clark,

I am aware that City Council has approved a 25-year property tax break to VAI Resorts known as a GPLET and I would like to express my concern with that decision. This is tax money that could be going to improve our infrastructure, schools, our parks, public safety, and more. There have been major transparency issues with this project. Despite announced changes to the size and scope of the resort, change in ownership, and changes to the GPLET, it took over a year to update the Development Agreement. For such a massive project that has been delayed for so long, there was very little opportunity for the public to comment given that it was added to the agenda the day before it was set to be heard. We also heard the Mayor express a need to consider the effect of new lighting, more noise, and additional traffic caused by changes to the project from the original approval, but we have yet to see these findings . Finally, the next vote involves a sale of public land to the developer to expand the project. At the last neighborhood meeting, multiple nearby residents expressed concerns about amending the zoning to turn this public land into a parking lot and a six-story office building that could overlook private backyards.

Sincerely,
Daniel ———–
—— W Blackhawk Dr  Glendale, AZ 85308-9638
————–@gmail.com”

What is Worker Power? It’s a super political action committee (Super PAC):

“The Worker Power PAC is a Democratic Party-aligned Super PAC founded in 2020 as the Working Arizona PAC that expanded to conduct activity in other competitive states in 2022 after changing its name. The PAC is closely aligned with organized labor and has received money from labor unions and other left-of-center advocacy groups including Unite HERE Local 11, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers, and the Arizona AFL-CIO.

The PAC has conducted campaign activities in support of Democratic candidates in Arizona and Georgia as well on behalf of the presidential campaign of Joe Biden during the 2020 election. The group also created a separate PAC to funnel funds to support congressional and U.S. Senate Candidates in Georgia in 2020 and 2022 called the Worker Power PAC for Georgia. 

The Worker Power Pac was founded in 2020 as the Working Arizona PAC. The PAC is organized as an unaffiliated ‘super PAC’ that is allowed to spend unlimited amounts of funds in support of candidates via independent expenditures. The PAC describes itself as ‘dedicated to delivering wins for progressive political candidates.’  In 2020, the PAC focused its spending on Arizona-specific state and federal elections. In 2022, the PAC ‘conducted a massive independent expenditure field canvass that provided the margin of victory for numerous progressive candidates and delivered a decisive blow to a slate of extreme right-wing candidates at every ballot level.’

Candidates that the organization deployed paid canvassers to support in 2022 included those of Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D), Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D).” (Google search)

What should be interesting to note is that the city council approved the original agreement with ECL (ownership has changed to VAI)  nearly two years ago and that agreement included the original GPLET (Government Property Least Excise Tax). Where was Worker Power then? They didn’t care almost two years ago and now they do. They are opportunists.

What are they really up to? Part II of this blog to be published tomorrow, Saturday, should explain a great deal.

© Joyce Clark, 2023     

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.