Request to Speak on: electric school buses, selling water, and zoning without conservation requirements

Besides the voter suppression bills (see a separate blog) we have three Request to Speak actions.

NOTE: It seems like the RTS system was especially slow on the weekend. Perhaps there are some better times (when it isn’t so busy) to weigh in.

This week, please take a minute to call your House members and ask them to oppose HB2055 Harquahala non-expansion area; groundwater transportation (Griffin: Bowers) because it is going to the floor for a vote. It allows private water companies to import water from the Harquahala Valley and into active management areas (AMAs) for development. Creating groundwater sacrifice zones and further privatizing water is a bad idea. Be sure to tell them that you are their constituent.

HB2101 electric energy; reliability; public policy (Griffin: Abraham, Blackman, et al.), which repeals provisions in the law that create parameters for retail competition of electricity, is on the House Rules agenda for Monday. We are still opposed as we have concerns about how it will affect community choice aggregation and have not seen what additional amendments they may be adding to it.

You can find your representatives' phone numbers here: (https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/?body=H)

If you don't know what district you are in you can find out here: https://azredistricting.org/districtlocator/

Monday, February 7th

Senate Committee on Education at 2:00 PM

SB1246 school buses; electrification; contracts (Boyer) establishes a process for a school district to select preapproved entities to provide electric school buses and related infrastructure and services. This can help expedite acquisition. SUPPORT

Tuesday, February 8th

House Committee on Commerce at 2:00 P.M.

HB2674 municipal zoning; by right housing (Kaiser: Chavez) preempts zoning and land use restrictions for most single- and multi-family construction. Makes cities' general plans meaningless. It also prohibits energy conservation requirements for residential construction unless the city or town shows clear and convincing evidence that the energy savings within five years will exceed the cost of the requirements. OPPOSE

This bill would have three big impacts:

• It would take away the ability of municipalities to mandate maximum housing density and building heights in their zoning codes.
• It would greatly reduce the time allowed for a municipality to review development applications and automatically approve the application if the city doesn’t reply in time.
• It would prevent municipalities from mandating energy conservation measures if the costs of those measures aren’t paid for within five years. (The breakeven point for solar, for example, is often greater than five years, so this would prevent a municipality from mandating solar panels on new construction.

DIRECTIONS FOR REQUEST TO SPEAK ACTIONS

Sign on to your Request to Speak account, click the blue Request to Speak button, click on New Request in the nav bar (left column), then simply cut and paste the bill number into Search Phrase (for example: HB2674). Push blue Add Request button, weigh in FOR or AGAINST, click No on Do you wish to speak? (in person), leave a short Comment, and click on SUBMIT. For another submission, click on the New Request link in the nav bar on the left and follow the directions above.

If you had an account with RTS previously, it is still active. If you do not have an account, go ahead and set one up, but someone will have to help you activate it as it requires going to the Capitol. Reach out to Civic Engagement Beyond Voting.