Gov. Janet Napolitano (second from right) along with ADOT director Victor Mendez help to open a stretch of the Santan Freeway in 2005. (Found at azgovernor.gov)

Tribune writer Dennis Welch has a hot story about Gov. Janet Napolitano cutting a secret deal with Arizona’s biggest homebuilder group to provide $100,000 for an initiative campaign to raise the state sales tax for transportation projects.

The coalition behind the initiative, Transportation and Infrastructure Moving AZ’s Economy, previously had claimed that making growth pay for itself would be essential to any successful statewide transportation plan. Now we know why no such funding mechanism was included in the actual proposal when the campaign to collect initiative signatures was launched Tuesday.

Napolitano was willingly to protect homebuilders, who will benefit heavily from additional transportation construction, in exchange for their cash to get this campaign underway even as the state struggles with a multi-billion budget shortfall.

Posted in: Arizona government • Election initiatives • Governor • Transportation |

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