Archive for the ‘Tucson’ tag
And This Just In: Gabby Giffords Town Hall on Thursday Night, August 6
Please tell your friends and family!
Pasted below is more information about the August 8th Code Blue Tea Party protests for health care freedom at Gabby Giffords’ offices in Tucson and Sierra Vista.
1) What, When and Where
2) This Just In–Gabby Giffords Town Hall on Thursday Night, August 6
3) How to Sign Up—And Info on Other AZ Rallies
4) Ideas for Signs
5) Why this Protest is Important
1) WHAT, WHEN AND WHERE
Members of the Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity are joining allied organizations this Saturday, August 8th, at 9 am, for protests at the offices of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Her Tucson office is at 1661 N. Swan Road (SW corner of Swan and Pima), Tucson, 85712. Her Sierra Vista office is at 77 Calle Portal, Sierra Vista, 85635.
Our message to Congress, Washington bureaucrats, and special interests:
HANDS OFF OUR HEALTH CARE!
AFP Arizona activists will join Arizona Tea Party, 912 Project Arizona, Smart Girl Politics, Tea Party Patriots, and hundreds of citizen activists in these Code Blue protests for health care freedom at Gabrielle Giffords’ offices.
Congresswoman Giffords has serious reservations about the initial versions of the Obama-Pelosi-Kennedy “reform” plans. She knows that the current plans would result in massive new taxes, fail to control costs, and take America a long way toward a single-payer, Canadian-style system of government-directed health care (under which Washington bureaucrats would decide which doctors you can go to, and which medical procedures you can and can’t have).
Giffords is under intense pressure from President Obama, from her hard-left colleagues in Congress, and from radical activist groups that want to destroy what remains of America’s private health insurance system. We need to make sure that Giffords hears loud and clear from grassroots supporters of health care freedom!
Location for Giffords’ offices: Saturday, August 8, 9:00 am. Tucson–1661 N. Swan Road (SW corner of Swan and Pima), Tucson, 85712. Sierra Vista–77 Calle Portal, Sierra Vista, 85635
2) THIS JUST IN—GABBY GIFFORDS TOWN HALL THURS AUG 6TH
This just in from Tucson Tea Party co-organizer Robert Mayer:
WHAT: “Casual Conversation” with Gabrielle Giffords
WHEN: Thursday, August 6, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
WHERE: La Placita, 110 S. Church Ave.
Parking info: The address is 110 South Church Avenue, at the intersection of Church and Broadway. Parking is available across the street (West of La Placita), off of the street “Jackson” in the five-story parking garage. Parking is reportedly free after 5 p.m. on Levels 3 and above.
Mayer asks Tea Partiers to remember to wear your red Tea Shirts!
3) HOW TO SIGN UP FOR SATURDAY, INFO ON OTHER AZ RALLIES
To sign up for a rally, please take the following five steps:
a) Decide which Congressional office you wish to visit on August 8th. The offices are listed on the Code Blue flyer:
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/files/health-care-code-blue-8-8-flyer.pdf
b) Reply to this email (or write to tjenney@afphq.org) to let AFP Arizona know which office you plan to visit.
c) Let your local Tea Party organizer know which office you’re going to, by signing up at www.arizonateaparty.com
d) Get talking points, policy updates, and ideas for signs at: http://joinpatientsfirst.com/
e) Email and call your friends and family members, and urge them to join us on August 8th.
4) SOME IDEAS FOR SIGNS
My doctor is my choice!
Hands off our health care!
ObamaCare = Long lines, poor quality
ObamaCare = Death
Read the Bill, Gabby! Then vote NO!
Read Page 30 of HR 3200: Govt will decide who gets treated
Read Page 72 of HR 3200: All private plans must conform to govt rules
Read Page 124 of HR 3200: No one can sue the govt health monopoly
Read Page 149 of HR 3200: 8% payroll tax on large employers
Read Page 150 of HR 3200: 6% payroll tax on small employers
Read Page 167 of HR 3200: 2.5% tax on people who don’t go along
Read Page 272 of HR 3200: Cancer hospital payments will be rationed
Read Page 318 of HR 3200: Hospital expansions prohibited w/o govt approval
Read Page 335 of HR 3200: “Outcome-based measures” = Rationing
Gabby: Don’t let DC bureaucrats destroy health care
Don’t pull the plug on elderly Americans!
Fed up with govt health care
The VA almost killed me—ObamaCare will finish the job
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s “free”
We say NO to ObamaCare
Where will the Canadians go for surgery?
Fascism: When govt decides whether you live or die
5) WHY THIS PROTEST IS IMPORTANT
This is the fight of the decade for American liberty. Now is the time to take a stand.
President Obama and the leftists in Congress wanted to hurry up and complete the national government’s takeover of American health care–before the public got a chance to find out what was in the legislation. We are grateful to report that the legislation does not look like it will move until after the August recess. That means we have a very limited window to act.
The same people who have taken over private banks and much of the auto industry now want to take over even more of the health care sector. The same people who make you wait in line at the Post Office want to create a system in which you will have to wait weeks, months, or even years for life-saving or life-improving medical services. The same kind of people who run America’s very expensive and very ineffective public schools claim that they will (somehow) maintain quality and control costs in the health care sector.
Some of the central planners in Washington want to give government the power to say which doctors you can go to, and which medical procedures you can and can’t have. President Obama is not sure whether the government should have allowed his own grandmother to get a hip replacement. Imagine how Washington bureaucrats will treat YOU!
We must take a stand NOW to protect elderly patients, to maintain the high quality of health services in America, and to preserve the essential doctor-patient relationship. Government has already distorted US health insurance markets by making private health insurance too expensive for many Americans, and by making American workers dependent upon on employer-provided insurance. But if you think things are bad now, wait until government completes its takeover of the medical sector. We must STOP the rapid march of socialist health care!
For Liberty,
–Tom
Tom Jenney
Arizona Director
Americans for Prosperity
(Arizona Federation of Taxpayers)
www.aztaxpayers.org
tjenney@afphq.org
(602) 478-0146
Tucson may charge fee on new home sales
By Rob O’Dell
Arizona Daily Star
September 28, 2008
Many new homes in Tucson could come with a 1 percent transfer fee assessed on their sale under a proposal now being pushed by City Council members.
The idea faces strong opposition from real estate and development interests, who are being rocked by one of the worst housing markets in decades due to the mortgage industry collapse. They say the fee would take money from either the home buyer or seller, making housing less affordable.
The new fee, recommended for approval by a council subcommittee on Sept. 15, would apply to any house or condominium unit where a builder has entered into a development agreement with the city.
Money from the fee — equal to $2,000 on a $200,000 home — would go to the city’s housing trust fund, used to pay for such things as home repairs and down-payment assistance for low-income residents.
The fee for the first sale from the developer to the original buyer would be one-half percent, but it would increase to a full 1 percent for any subsequent sale in perpetuity. It would be enforced through a deed restriction attached to the home.
Development agreements are contracts between the city and a developer to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do, beyond a standard rezoning.
The agreements often are used to collaborate on parking, for pre-annexation agreements, or when the city sells public land, City Attorney Mike Rankin said. Developers and the city also make agreements to share the cost of building roads or other infrastructure.
The push for the 1 percent transfer fee by Councilwomen Regina Romero and Karin Uhlich already threatened to derail one development, a proposal to convert apartments to condominiums Downtown.
Romero and Uhlich voted on Sept. 15 in the Children, Families and Seniors Subcommittee to recommend that the full council consider the fee, which could happen as soon as late October. Councilman Rodney Glassman, the third member of the panel, was absent.
Although the idea still hadn’t been presented to the full council, on Sept. 16 Romero proposed attaching a transfer fee to a development agreement with Ross Rulney for his Flats at Julian Drew project, converting apartments into 53 condominiums in a 91-year-old Downtown building.
Romero said she wanted to talk about a “voluntary” 1 percent transfer fee, but Rulney balked, saying he didn’t want to saddle his potential residents with the fee. With Mayor Bob Walkup absent and the City Council split on what to do, the decision was put off for a week.
Romero subsequently agreed to drop the issue for Rulney’s project, which was approved unanimously by the council last week.
Since then, Uhlich and Romero have dialed back their push for the transfer fee, saying it is one item on a “menu” of options that should be considered to help fund affordable housing in Tucson.
Romero said the idea was proposed by the board of the affordable-housing trust fund after developer Jerry Dixon, of the Gadsden Co., agreed to the 1 percent transfer fee in a recent development agreement for a mixed-use development on the West Side.
“We think it’s a good idea for the council as a whole to hear about it,” Romero said.
Uhlich said she will withhold judgment on the transfer fee until it is considered by the whole council, but she said it merits consideration, especially if the city is giving concessions or incentives in the development agreement.
“It has enough validity to be considered,” Uhlich said. “I support giving it serious consideration as another tool for developers to address affordable housing with their projects.”
The transfer fee will face opposition from the Tucson Association of Realtors, said Colin Zimmerman, its director of public affairs.
“Now is not the time to stick another tax on a market that’s already shaky,” Zimmerman said.
That opinion was backed by Downtown resident Mike Sepich, a counselor who is interested in buying one of the Julian Drew block condos priced in the low to mid-$100,000s. “It’s pretty ironic to have a fee like that on the only affordable housing that’s proposed Downtown,” he said.
Zimmerman said the Realtors already support Proposition 100 on November’s ballot, which would ban a fee or tax on the sale of property by the state, counties, cities and towns.
He acknowledged that the proposition would not forbid Tucson’s new rules because the fee would be part of a deed restriction that city officials contend to be voluntary, although Zimmerman added that it’s not voluntary if you can’t get your project approved without it.
Rankin agreed that the state proposition would not prohibit the city’s transfer fee.
Corky Poster, a housing trust fund board member, said the housing fund needs a dedicated funding source to supplement the money it now gets from condo conversions and other smaller sources.
Since being created in 2006, the city’s housing trust fund has taken in $650,000 and has committed $385,000 for homeowner repairs, down-payment assistance and employer-assisted housing, said Community Services Director Emily Nottingham.
The idea behind the fee was to recapture some of the public money that helps get a project off the ground, Poster said.
“It recognizes the city contribution,” he said. “Developers think it’s a good idea because it doesn’t interfere with their first sale.”
However, Richard Studwell, a local developer who opposes the fee, said Tucson doesn’t have a track record of spending tax money wisely, given its much-criticized Rio Nuevo Downtown redevelopment effort.
“The fund … will have high administrative expenses, and it won’t accomplish anything,” Studwell said. “These are well-meaning people who can’t get it done.”
● Contact reporter Rob O’Dell at 573-4346 or rodell@azstarnet.com.
More commentary:
http://azbiz.com/articles/2008/10/03/opinion/columnists/steve_emerine/doc48e663957af38634175803.txt
