AZ Morning Briefing, 9-21, Audit Hearing, Hernandez Endorses Petersen, Arizona Prevails Action On the Attack, and More

•SEND IN THE AUDIT–The Joint Legislative Audit Committee is meeting this morning on Arizona’s fourth consecutive late federal Single Audit. Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Gustav Chiarello will testify (try to keep the paparazzi away!), as will numerous state officials. The federal government has already warned that continued noncompliance can lead to conditions on grants, withheld payments, disallowed costs or suspensions. As Spy Magazine used to say: Boring but important.

•CONTROL, ALT, DELETE–The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Friday that destroying a public record after somebody requests it counts as denying the request. The case involved the University of Arizona destroying an audio recording of the creepily-named “Committee of Eleven” after professor Matthew Abraham requested it in his attempts to challenge the school’s DEI practices. In other open records news, Phoenix City Council is scheduled Wednesday to consider new police public-records service fees and staffing. The posted proposal has commercial requesters paying $10 plus 25 cents per printed page, while noncommercial digital releases remain free. Information should be free for all, we say! Though 25 cents a page is a pretty good price.

•HERNANDEZ CROSSES THE AISLE–Outgoing Democratic Rep. Lydia Hernandez endorsed Republican Senate President Warren Petersen for attorney general Friday afternoon, backing him over Democratic incumbent Kris Mayes. Hernandez lost her LD24 Democratic primary in July and her district party had previously censured her, in part over voting with and endorsing Republicans. The Petersen campaign announced the endorsement; Hernandez described him as her choice on school and community-safety issues.

•PAC ATTACK–Arizona Daily Independent reported Sunday that Arizona Prevails Action is running video ads against a slate of Republican legislative candidates, including Shawnna Bolick, Carine Werner, Matt Gress, Pamela Carter, Michele Peña, Rachel Keshel, John Winchester, Julie Willoughby, Kevin Hartke, Janet Weninger and Chris King, or, as API is calling them, “The Legion of Doom”. The article quoted the number as $500,000, but that is an estimate. Election Day is in six weeks.

• WE SELL USED WATER–The city of Tolleson votes Tuesday on temporarily pricing treated wastewater sold to APS and SRP at $275 per acre-foot through the end of 2027. Tucson may be in the market for this deal. Tucson now expects to order only about 71,000 acre-feet of new CAP water for 2027, less than half its roughly 144,000-acre-foot allocation, and for the first time plans to make up part of the difference by recovering Colorado River water it previously stored underground. Tapping into its reserves when high-quality Tolleson wastewater is available seems foolish.

•FRIDGED–Ranch owners near Clifton discovered an old refrigerator stuffed with decades-old, deteriorating dynamite, Fox 10 reported. It was too unstable to transport, so the DPS bomb squad blew up the refrigerator where it sat. Authorities say forgotten dynamite still periodically turns up on rural Arizona properties because it was once commonly used for mining and land clearing. Professor Indiana Jones was inside the fridge when it blew up, and survived the blast.