Here and Now: Big Ideas in Arizona Public Policy

There are several areas that we need to look at and come up with some creative solutions... we need to seriously look at regional government. Having anywhere from 19-23 municipalities in close proximity with duplicative services is non-sensical and fiscally wasteful. A regional governmental base would allow for better planning and ultimately for better services.
Regional government could better control water resources and water conservation. We should look at limiting lawn watering by gradually eliminating lawns and insisting on retrograding to desert landscaping - even in our older communities.
It is shameful that AZ is in the lowest segment of money spent per pupil on education. Children are the future and poor schools do not encourage employers to bring qualified staff into the state. We may be one of the lowest taxed states and it shows in our educational services - we need to seriously examine expanding the revenues given to schools even if that means increasing property taxes.
The recent initiative which tied aid to preschool children to an increased tax on smoking - is a short-sighted approach. Since there is "cross-intent" - stopping people from smoking by making the cost prohibitive and yet increasing the need for smokers to buy more cigarettes so as to increase revenue for preschool.
The defeat of both land-use bills indicates that the voters wanted something more realistic in conservation and in development - it should not be all or nothing. Certainly there is a middle ground between setting aside 40,000 acres or 700,000 acres.
Creating a legislative government that gives real power to the legislators - so that they would be responsible for initiatives, the laws resulting from them; and working full-time as legislators (might actually get a pay raise if they were perceived as working for the people, rather than shirking everything off to propostions.)
Given all of this - Arizona is a GREAT place to live and work. We need to make it even better.

Sorry if I rambled.

Germany, France, and Japan all have had great success with intercity high speed passenger trains. When are we going to see how our traffic congestion is choking us and going to get going on high speed trains between Phoenix and Tucson?

Forget NATION health care, lets provide a STATE health care plan for all citizens (and therefore all businesses).

Imagine a hiring environment where you are not concerned with age or the health of an applicant but on their job skills (Yes this type of discrimination is illegal but there are ways to gert around the laws). Its a Win / Win for business and employees.

Ideally, no business should be allowed to provide health care insurance as a benefit. This would allow for a more competive rates (just like Life and Auto insurance). I predict that if automotive repairs were an employee benefit, an oil change would cost $300 today.

We could then regulate insurance as a seperate entity and not as an employee benifit.

Rob

A friend of mine, Christopher Swan ( a professor at San Francisco State) , designed a system he calls Suntrain a number of years ago. It entails using individually hydrogen powered cars which operate on standard guage rails. The cars can operate on the grid or off. An integrated system can self-configure for traffic patterns and you can imagine getting on a street car in your Phoenix neighborhood and ending up in downtown Tucson by using such a system. It seems to me that using the canal right of way, owned by SRP (who would sell power to the train system) is a logical step to easily, quickly, and relatively inexpensively getting a train 'off the ground' in Phoenix. I put up a draft proposal at http://rdhamouris.tripod.com/smart1.html and I invite you to take a look :)
I have nothing to gain by this system going in except a reliable, fast way to get across town.

Thanks!