BACKGROUNDING THE AZ COMMERCE AUTHORITY

posted by Lucy Valencia

The Arizona Commerce Authority. What's that? I asked myself when I was assigned to research it for Arizona Week for this Friday's program.

All I had heard was of CEO Don Cardon’s hefty pay increase in August.

The ACA project seemed modern, innovative and a good effort to advance the global competitiveness of our state, in a newsworthy way, of course. So I was very eager to grab my reporter’s notebook and begin making calls to the reputable people backing the project.

At the rudder of the ACA are Gov. Jan Brewer, sports team owner Jerry Colangelo and Cardon, a successful Phoenix developer, among the 31 board members.

The Arizona Commerce Authority is new. It is well known among leaders, politicians and corporations. It has millions of dollars, many of them taxpayer dollars, in its pocket, ready to selectively support Arizona corporations to help fuel and propel their businesses through loan funds.

The ACA project focuses on diversifying the business economy beyond real estate and construction by reaching out to new industries such as science, technology, aerospace and renewable energies. It attracts all business people alike, who can submit proposals to see what the ACA will have to offer.

Brewer and ACA officials took a trip to China this month to pursue new contacts and help the state’s economy.

In other news, the U.S. Department of Treasury recently awarded an $18.2 million grant to the ACA. I knew this story would have a wonderful journalistic aspect to it, any audience would be interested to see uncovered. I was excited to shine some light on the ACA.

I started sending out emails and gathering names for my research about a week in advance. I was excited and scared, without much of an idea in which direction my sources would lead me.

Finally, after scouring a few Websites, I found a way to get hold of Don Cardon. I shoved my phone against my face, half-expecting his media contact would somehow open doors for me that day with the sheer sound of her voice.

When nobody answered, I sent e-mails.

Then I just waited, sort of bemused for a few days. I left voice mails and figured I could wait for them to call back or respond until tomorrow. Tomorrow turned into a few more days, and I began getting nervous.

The problem is, this wasn’t just happening with Cardon. Essentially the entire posse of ACA board members was unreachable. Many experts who might have a global economic or political opinion about the ACA felt they did not know enough about the new project to comment, and I kept getting passed along to different references.

This was all OK, I told myself. I had other options, I said as I tried to stay calm, cool and collected in my research process for the next few days. I began calling government agencies and experts in Tucson and Phoenix, who might have valuable input on the ACA and Arizona businesses’ potential to reach a global status.

I sat at my desk, typing on the computer and looking at my long list of possible contacts for the week’s topic as if this was the only thing left to do. All of the names had been crossed off with little notes next to them indicating they declined or did not answer.

As the week unfolded, however, I learned that I had to start contacting people lower in corporation ladders in order to reach the top leaders and CEOs. I finally got hold of one person, from the Greater Phoenix Economic Council with whom I had an amazing conversation about possibly interviewing for Arizona Week.

I told her about our broadcast, answered all her questions about how our taping was done, and everything seemed to be going great. It took about 10 seconds for the horror to set in after she, too, politely declined.

Would I ever find a source to interview for our topic on the Arizona Commerce Authority? How long would an intern like me be tolerated for such a delay in finding sources? And most memorable of all, I remember feeling inundating by Friday looming around the corner; the final day for interviews.

At the end of the week, Michael Chihak was able to find sources. I was pleasantly surprised when he mentioned he had secured time slots to interview someone in Scottsdale on Thursday.

In the end, the struggle was worth the time. All the people who tried to help me along the way thanked me for the offer and said to call back if I ever needed an interview for a different topic.

COMMERCE AUTHORITY: CAN IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

posted by Michael Chihak

Friday's Arizona Week will take a look at the state's attempts to reinvent the economy by growing businesses that provide high-quality jobs, to balance the housebuilding and development industries that for years have fed economic growth.

Arizona can't depend on population growth and the ensuing flurry of land development, construction and their boom-bust cycles any more.

The Arizona Commerce Authority, a public-private agency set up by legislation passed in February, is getting its work under way.

We will look at what Commerce Authority officials and others think is needed to make a difference in the state and to grow jobs and the overall economy.

Some key questions:

• Does the Commerce Authority have the funding and the right people in place?

• How much do the severe cuts to education -- both K-12 and higher education -- hamper the economic development effort?

• Can the Commerce Authority succeed by targeting certain industrial categories, or does it need to be more egalitarian?

• What role will local economic development organizations play in the grander scheme of things?

• What special ideas are there for rural economic growth?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: REDISTRICTING

posted by Melanie Huonker

I first received word that I would research this week’s topic, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, a couple weeks ago. Little did I know how much I would gain out of the experience.

From the get-go, I poured over countless articles covering all aspects of the commission. Absorbing facts such as the Voting Rights Act, Attorney General Tom Horne’s investigation, the commission’s struggle with time.

One of the people I spoke with was Jennifer Steen, a political science professor at Arizona State University. Her last words to me left a lasting impression as my role as a journalist.

She said many media outlets are simply reporting “he said, she said” stories without providing substantial support about the commission, specifically involving the recent investigation. It’s important as a journalist to interpret the situation for the viewers and give them more.

That’s what I hoped to do during my on-air discussion with Michael Chihak.

Watch Friday’s program of “Arizona Week” to hear about the IRC’s influence and the arithmetic it takes to redraw Arizona’s nine congressional and 30 legislative districts.

DE TOCQUEVILLE WOULDN'T RECOGNIZE THIS

posted by Michael Chihak

The work of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is worth watching closely, not only for what it will do to political boundaries in the next decade, but for what it says about the dystopian state of our political system.

The commission’s work, beyond its constitutionally mandated goals, serves as both a commentary on and a reflection of our state and nation’s attitudes about majority rule in a democracy.

An outside observer, perhaps a 21st century De Tocqueville, might look at America now and say that we no longer possess the sense of equality that De Tocqueville saw in the 19th century, but that we have retained our sense of religious conviction along with its almost constant companion – hypocrisy.

That religion, by the way, is from the i’m-right-and-you’re-wrong house of worship.

All this has the potential to leave people disenfranchised.

Just do the math: in Arizona, 35 percent of registered voters are Republican, 31 percent are Democratic and 33 percent are registered with neither party, most calling themselves independent. Those are the voters dissatisfied with the two major parties, although disgusted might be a better description of how many feel.

So how does the attention given to the redistricting commission reflect this? By the way the two major parties are striving to influence its independence.

Politicians on both sides are regularly making pronouncements to the media and the public decrying the process.

The attorney general, a Republican, is investigating how the commission has conducted business and has challenged the one requirement of the commission, that its work meet the dictates of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters.

The American religion of partisan politics is hampering, if not obfuscating, the independence, and our democracy is the worse off for it.

AZ REDISTRICTING? DO THE MATH

posted by Michael Chihak

Doing the math is most important when it comes to congressional and legislative redistricting in Arizona.

It depends on who is doing the math and for what purpose. Richard Gilman, journalist and chief contributor to thinkingarizona.com, demonstrared so in an opinion piece he wrote that appeared in Sunday's [Arizona Daily Star(http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/article_6055df29-0b0d-52d3-9eb4-2cd63cb477fb.html).

Besides population equity, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission must draw boundaries that comply with the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. Additionally, the boundaries should:

-- Be geographically compact and contiguous.

-- Respect communities of interest.

-- Use geographic features, city, town and county boundaries.

-- Allow for politically competitive districts "where to do so would create no significant detriment to the other goals."

Those requirements make the math much more complicated, and as is being demonstrated in some early numbers crunching, mean that most maps would have trouble fulfilling even four of the six goals.

For Friday's Arizona Week, we will look at the numbers and talk to those who would influence the process.

MAD SCRAMBLE, AND THE CREW COMES THROUGH

posted by Michael Chihak

Interviews at a law office on East Camelback Road ended about 2:20 p.m. Thursday, cutting into our travel and setup time for another recording planned for 3 p.m. on the ASU campus in Tempe.

Generally, the video crew that shoots Arizona Week likes a minimum of one hour to set up for a shoot. That time is needed to position cameras, set and adjust lighting, build attractive background, all designed to enhance the interview.

Once it's all in place, the rest is up to me and my guest.

In the case of the East Camelback interviews -- two, back to back -- all was well. Nice lighting and backgrounds, and the interviews themselves went well. We did run a little long, and that made the transition to Tempe a scramble.

Crew videographers Bob Lindberg and Steve Riggs and student grips Ricardo Johnson and Freddy Duarte got us packed and on the road in a two-van caravan by 2:35. We hit the ASU College of Law building at 2:58 and scrambled upstairs to set up in the dean's office.

Interim Dean Douglas Sylvester was most accommodating, allowing his snug office to be turned quickly into a mini TV studio. The crew used minimal lighting and stuck with the backgrounds that already were in place.

The was no time for perfection, but it worked beautifully, with a good interview, well lighted and good audio. The dean was most affable about the whole production, and all ended with smiles and handshakes.

Watch the results tonight at 8:30 MST on PBS-HD-6, or at azweek.com.