Government Accountability
Back-room deals and closed doors are not the stuff of free governments. Our work is making governments more transparent and accountable to citizens.
Mesa lobbyists were pitching a bill to hike taxes and surcharges to build a new stadium for Chicago Cubs spring training games. But rather than work openly in the hearing rooms of the state Capitol, the city offered each of the state’s 90 legislators free tickets to a Cubs game at Hohokam Stadium last March.
PHOENIX – The Valley of the Sun chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has presented one of its most prestigious honors, the First Amendment Award, to Goldwater Institute Investigative Reporter Mark Flatten.
PHOENIX - The proposed agreement between the city of Glendale and a group headed by Chicago sports baron Jerry Reinsdorf for purchase of the Phoenix Coyotes is facing severe criticism from a conservative watchdog group.
Carrie Ann Sitren, lawyer at the Goldwater Institute, said Reinsdorf's memorandum of understanding on a revised lease made public on Friday "raises serious legal questions."
PHOENIX—A Yavapai County Superior Court judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the Congress, Arizona Elementary School District seeking to have four taxpayers barred from requesting public documents and school records about their children.
Until recently, state and local government interaction with the federal government seemed to consist mostly of local and state officials asking D.C. for more money. As a result, many states, counties and cities have ended up on their backs, hog-tied by federal mandates. What James Madison called our "compound republic" cannot stand unless state and local governments recognize their obligation to join with the people in resisting federal overreach.
In a period when financial markets and institutions have appeared near collapse, the accounting methods used by public employee pensions effectively ignore risk. These accounting methods, which are used by public pensions in Arizona and around the country, allow pension fund managers to assume that high returns can be earned through stocks and other investments without taking any market risk. As a result, the true market value of Arizona pension shortfalls that must be funded by taxpayers is understated by around half of what the pension funds have reported.
When four parents requested public information from the Congress Elementary School District, the district sued them. Goldwater Institute investigative reporter Mark Flatten joined the Mike Broomhead Show on KFYI with details.
PHOENIX—A rural school district in Yavapai County, Arizona, has gone to court to stop four taxpayers from seeking any public records from the district, from suing the district and from filing complaints about the district with state oversight
A handful of taxpayers in a small community north of Wickenburg, Arizona are being targeted by the local school district in a lawsuit that asks a judge to declare they have no right to request public records, sue the district, or complain to outside agencies.
The Congress Elementary School District has a history of violating Arizona public records law and other state and federal laws that guarantee parents the right to see school records about their children. These violations have been documented by the state attorney general and the state ombudsman. The violations were brought to attention of state officials over the past decade because of actions by parents and taxpayers such as Jean Warren, Barbara Rejon, Cyndi Regis and Renee Behl-Hoge. At different times, these taxpayers have requested to see various documents widely considered to be basic public records, including agendas and minutes of school board meetings. Rejon, Regis and Behl-Hoge also have asked to see records about their children when they attended school in the district. However, Behl-Hoge’s family no longer lives in Congress and she hasn’t requested to see any school district records in more than six years.