Attention Phoenix, AZ Taxpayers:

Please join us at the Phoenix City Council meeting this coming Wednesday, September 15, beginning at 3:00 pm, to speak out against the move by a majority on the Phoenix City Council to impose a fee for parking at the city’s hiking trails.  (Details, instructions, and more information provided below.)

Sal DiCiccio, the taxpayer’s best friend on the council, points out that the city’s 14,000 employees make an average of almost $100,000 per year in salaries and benefits.  A five-percent across-the-board pay reduction would be sufficient to wipe out the city’s $64 million deficit.  Or, the city could reduce its workforce by eliminating unnecessary positions.  But the city is not moving to reduce those bloated pay packages.  Instead, the majority on the city council wants to hit residents for yet another fee increase.  This time, the target is hikers.

(Note to city employees:  We understand.  No one wants to get a pay cut.  But city employees should remember that we are in the middle of a major economic crisis, in which upwards of 20 percent of people who want jobs can’t find them!)

And this is just the latest outrage by the majority on the council.  So far this year, the City of Phoenix has imposed the following tax and fee increases on Phoenix families:

    * A new food tax (up $50 million per year)
    * Increased water rates ($30 million per year—that’s a 40 percent increase over five years)
    * Increased sewer rates ($3 million this year)

    * Increased fees on small business
    * An attempted increase in your property tax rate (foiled by DiCiccio and the members of Prop 13 Arizona and the North Phoenix Tea Party).

To read Councilman DiCiccio’s take on the hiking fee situation, go to this URL:

http://tinyurl.com/37u4k3b

To see the rapid increases in city employee pay during this recession, go here:
http://tinyurl.com/35dpetl


To view a video of DiCiccio explaining city finances, you can use this link:
http://phoenix.gov/citygovernment/phx11/programming/oti/otid6.html


(At the same link, there is also a video of AFP Arizona director Tom Jenney talking about city budget issues on the city’s cable TV channel—click on the right side of the video link, outside of the play button.)

To contact your city councilmember via email, use this link:
http://copwww05.phoenix.gov/mydistrict/


Here are the details for Wednesday’s city council meeting:

 
Event Type:   City Council Meeting
Topic(s):   Phil Gordon & Co. Want to Raise Hiking Fees
City:  Phoenix
Date:  Wednesday, September 15   
Time:  3:00 to 5:00 pm
Hosts:  Americans for Prosperity, North Phoenix Tea Party

Ideological Orientation of Host(s):  Patriotic/Free-Market/ Conservative/Libertarian/Constitutionalist (and hiking enthusiasts!)

Location:  Phoenix City Council Chambers, 200 W. Jefferson Street, Phoenix, AZ 8500   (The low round building NE of Jefferson and Third Avenue.  There is a parking garage on the NW corner of Jefferson and Third Avenue.)

Parking Map:  http://www.downtownphoenix.com/map

Contacts:  Tom Jenney, tjenney@afphq.org, (602) 478-0146, Wes Harris, wwharris@msn.com, (602) 432-2871

Meeting Info:  http://phoenix.gov/CITYGOV/meetgen.html

Budget Info:  Feel free to contact the office of Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio for more information about the city budget.  His email is Council.district.6@phoenix.gov
and his phone is (602) 262-7491.