By Tom Fitton

breitbart.com

Last week we started a new fight with the City of Los Angeles, this time over a new policy that prevents police officers from impounding vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers.

On Wednesday we filed a taxpayer lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department, Police Chief Charlie Beck and members of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners over Special Order 7. Under this policy police officers will no longer immediately impound the vehicles of unlicensed drivers for 30 days, as long as they meet certain conditions.

It’s no secret that this policy change was made to specifically accommodate illegal aliens.

The problem is that Special Order 7 is unlawful. And, for this reason, Judicial Watch’s lawsuit on behalf of Harold P. Sturgeon, filed May 8, 2012, in the Superior Court for the State of California, County of Los Angeles, seeks to stop the use of taxpayer funds to implement the new policy:

Plaintiff, a taxpayer and resident of the City of Los Angeles, seeks to enjoin Defendants from expending taxpayer funds or taxpayer-financed resources to implement, enforce, maintain, or otherwise carry out the provisions of Special Order 7, which was issued by the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) on April 10, 2012 and which became effective on April 22, 2012. Plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment that Special Order 7 is preempted by Article XI, Section 7 of the California Constitution and California Vehicle Code § 21, and therefore is unlawful and void.

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The industry is still facing challenges, arguing that federal aviation restrictions and TSA procedures have had a negative effect

By Danielle Verbrigghe

Phoenix Business Journal

The tourism industry, in Phoenix and nationwide, has earned a newfound respect over the past few years, according to Geoff Freeman, the COO of the U.S. Travel Association.

Freeman gave his overview of the tourism sector at the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau annual meeting Tuesday.

“Phoenix is a case study for what the travel industry is doing across the country right now,” said Freeman. “The greater credibility it’s earning, the confidence it’s gaining, the engagement it’s undertaking to really defend and promote itself.”

Freeman noted that travel is ranked No. 1 among U.S. industry exports. He argued that a growing realization among politicians that the tourism industry is a positive force for economic growth has contributed to a change in the way the industry is viewed.

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By Patrick O’Grady

Phoenix Business Journal

Arizona lost nearly 1,200 manufacturing jobs between March 2011 and March 2012 as the state started to see some benefits of a slowly recovering economy.

Manufacturers’ News Inc., which puts out state directories each year on the industrial sectors, compiles an annual report that measures each state’s manufacturing job sectors.

Arizona reported having 5,267 manufacturers with 214,360 employees in March, and it is benefiting from business-friendly policies as well as an attempt to lure in green businesses such as solar, said Tom Dubin, president of Manufacturers’ News.

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Transportation equipment is the state’s largest manufacturing sector with 31,339 employees.

While job gains were concentrated in electronics, metals and chemicals, job losses were focused around the continued housing malaise with stone and glass, furniture and fixtures, and lumber and wood all down, as was publishing and paper products.

Phoenix accounts for 71,905 of the state’s manufacturing jobs, while Tucson has 30,820. Chandler, Tempe and Scottsdale round out the top five.

Ben Arredondo

The indictment also alleges Arredondo accepted $4,000 in free tickets to pro sports events in Arizona.

By JJ Hensley

The Arizona Republic

Ben Arredondo, a state representative and former Tempe City Councilman, was charged with bribery, mail fraud, extortion and lying in a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday for allegedly demanding and accepting gifts and other items from a company that was actually fronted by undercover FBI agents.

The 10-page court document includes allegations that Arredondo asked the fictional company’s representatives to purchase a $525 table for a charity event with the understanding that the former Tempe councilman would invite guests of his choice to sit in the seats.

The indictment includes allegations that Arredondo took official action for the benefit of the fictitious company, including that he shared information with an FBI agent about the City of Tempe’s bidding process for a project that Arredondo believed the fictitious company was interested in bidding on.

The indictment also alleges that Arredondo accepted $300 in tickets to an Arizona Cardinals football game, more than $1,200 in tickets to Major League Baseball’s American League Championship game in 2009 and that he accepted 18 tickets worth about $2,400 for Arizona Diamondbacks game sin 2010.

Arredondo, a Democrat, could not be reached for comment but his attorney, Lee Stein, said Wednesday that they intend to “do our talking in court.”

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With all precincts in, Monti leading Tempe mayoral race

Jerry Nabours / Photo from Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce website

The Associated Press

A Flagstaff man who is suing the city is now its mayor.

The Arizona Daily Sun reports 63-year-old Jerry Nabours was elected mayor Tuesday night.

The retired attorney beat City Councilman Al White by 320 votes in the vote-by-mail election.

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Arizona Capitol

The Bottom Line: A weekly column from inside the business community

By Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The two years of the 50th Arizona Legislature will go down in the history books as the years when the Legislature hit reboot on the Arizona economy and turned what was a basket case into a best case.

Consider where we were in 2010. We had a structural deficit, which was about the worst in the nation. We had just lost 300,000 jobs in the Great Recession. We were essentially California with a smaller economy and drier weather.

The past two years have been marked by job-creating reforms in taxes, regulations, civil justice and education. Our budget is now in balance.

Arizona’s tax system is now a model for other states. The centerpiece of last year’s tax package was a 30 percent phased-in reduction of our corporate income tax rate. The package also included a phased-in 100 percent elective sales factor for manufacturers who produce in Arizona but sell most of their goods outside of our borders. The property assessment ratio for businesses will be reduced to18 percent. Our already best in class R&D tax credit was strengthened.

The centerpiece of this year’s reform is a phased-in 25 percent reduction of our capital gains tax. Also important was taking the treatment of net operating losses and moving us from worst to first: five years to a new 20-year policy. Also passed this year, a new law that provides for a 100 percent elective sales factor for service industries located in Arizona, a critical move given the trend of commerce moving to the Internet.

Arizona has also signified its commitment to attracting and retaining world-class manufacturing projects by allowing the government to share in the financing of necessary infrastructure for large, high-dollar projects that create a sudden and significant need for public infrastructure. And another element of the 2012 tax package expanded to other manufacturers a tax credit once only available to the renewable energy industry.

But tax reform is only part of the story.

When Gov. Brewer first took office, she instituted a regulatory moratorium that put up a stop sign on new rules and regulations for business to navigate. The Legislature in 2010 followed with its own regulatory reform package that, among other things, ensured that new state rules weren’t more stringent than corresponding federal law.

Gov. Brewer and the Legislature continued cutting red tape in 2012 with the signing of “>Chief Executive Magazine says Arizona has a top-10 business climate. The world is taking notice of the Arizona turnaround. The governor and Legislature deserve our thanks.

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The college will enroll 200 students in three years and eventually grow to 1,000

By Garin Groff

East Valley Tribune

Mesa has a deal to bring a third college to its downtown, a liberal arts institution that will offer an accelerated degree program for non-traditional students.

Albright College of Reading, Pa., will begin recruiting students immediately and offer classes this fall, a full year ahead of the other two colleges that have announced Mesa branches this year. This will be the first location outside of Albright’s home state.

Albright began the accelerated degree program 15 years ago at its traditional residential campus but expanded that offering to eight other locations in Pennsylvania because of strong demand, college President Lex McMillan III said while visiting Mesa on Tuesday.

McMillan said he doesn’t believe any other colleges in the Valley use Albright’s accelerated approach, but he thinks the program will shake up the market.

“I would be surprised if we don’t generate imitation,” he said.

While most part-time college students need up to eight years to get a degree, Albright’s program cuts that to two years.

Albright has already completed Arizona’s accreditation requirements. It will locate in Mesa Center for Higher Education, 245 W. Second St. The former court building will open in the fall of 2013 with Missouri-based Westminster College, and perhaps other colleges Mesa is in talks with. At the same time, Illinois-based Benedictine University will offer classes in another city-owned building downtown.

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The Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest has said it will sue to stop transfer of the money

By Shaila Dewan

The New York Times

In a budget proposed this week, California joined more than a dozen states that want to help close gaping shortfalls using money paid by the nation’s biggest banks and earmarked for foreclosure prevention, investigations of financial fraud and blunting the ill effects of the housing crisis. California was awarded more than $400 million from the banks, and Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed using the bulk of that sum to pay the state’s debts.

The money was part of a national settlement valued at $25 billion and negotiated with five big banks over abuses in their mortgage and foreclosure processes.

The settlement, reached in February after a year of talks and intervention by the Obama administration, was the second-largest in history involving the states, trailing the tobacco industry settlement, and represented the first large-scale commitment by banks to provide direct aid to borrowers.

As part of the settlement, the banks agreed to pay the states $2.5 billion, money intended to help homeowners and mitigate the effects of the foreclosure surge. But critics complained that this was the only cash the banks were required to pay — the rest comes in the form of “credits” for reducing mortgage debt and other activities. Even that relatively small amount has proved too great a temptation for lawmakers.

Only 27 states have devoted all their funds from the banks to housing programs, according to a report by Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing group. So far about 15 states have said they will use all or most of the money for other purposes.

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By Keith Bradsher

The New York Times

SHANGHAI — Renewable energy companies around the world are awaiting a decision Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department on whether to impose anti-dumping tariffs on solar panels imported from China, as a little-noticed policy shift by the department last year has made the outcome of the case unusually hard to predict

Chinese companies grabbed nearly half the U.S. market for solar panels last year through aggressive price cuts that helped make solar energy considerably more affordable for U.S. families and electric utilities. But solar panel manufacturers in the United States have accused the Chinese companies of “dumping” panels: selling them below the cost of manufacturing and shipping them, so as to seize market share, drive competitors out of business and raise prices later.

Any anti-dumping tariffs would be in addition to anti-subsidy tariffs of 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent that the department imposed in March on solar panels from China. The Chinese companies have denied dumping or receiving export subsidies from the Chinese government.

Like the anti-subsidy tariffs, the anti-dumping decision, which was delayed from March to this week, is preliminary. If solar panel importers win a final review of both tariff decisions by the Commerce Department this year, the preliminary tariffs could be reduced or even entirely refunded, although they also might be increased.

U.S. imports of Chinese solar panels soared to $2.65 billion last year from $21.3 million in 2005.

Solar panel trade cases have divided the solar industry in the United States in much the same way that automotive trade disputes in the 1980s split the U.S. auto industry, when Detroit automakers seeking import restrictions were opposed by American car dealers who were making large profits by selling and servicing cars imported from Japan.

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Legislation Would Bar Projects With Chinese Solar Modules From Tax Credit