A bill that would force Homeland Security to obey environmental laws when considering border security programs was introduced in Congress by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva.

The legislation would compel Homeland officials to consult with state, local and tribal governments on security programs that may impact the environment and health.

The southern Arizona Democrat is chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.

His bill would:

• Require Homeland Security to consult with federal land managers, along with state, local and tribal governments in creating an effective border protection strategy while protecting federal and tribal lands.

• Ensure that laws protecting air, water, wildlife, culture, and health and public safety “are fully upheld.”

Attorney general: No evidence of tampering with 2006 transit election results

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard announces results of the ballot recount. To see video of his press conference, click on this story at <a href="http://www.tucsoncitizen.com">www.tucsoncitizen.com</a>.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said Tuesday that a hand recount of votes in the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election showed no evidence of criminal tampering with the results.

Goddard said the recounted ballots matched almost exactly the results tabulated by Pima County Elections Division staffers after the election.

“The bottom line of what we’ve shown here is that there was no flip,” Goddard said.

Goddard earlier this year ordered a hand count of ballots from the RTA election, in which county voters approved two ballot items – creation of a Regional Transportation Authority and a half-cent sales tax to help fund projects to be overseen by the agency.

Voters approved a 20-year, $2.1 billion regional transportation plan and the sales tax increase by wide margins, the upheld election results show.

Four major transportation initiatives to be funded by bonds or sales taxes had been strongly rejected by voters over the previous 15 years.

Goddard was trying to determine if the vote was rigged by someone through tampering with electronic vote devices or with ballot tabulating procedures following the election.

“It appeared there was reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed” Goddard said of claims by critics of computerized vote systems that tampering did indeed take place.

Those included illegal printing of early ballot returns five days before the election, and the presence of a crop card, which is a device that can be used to alter results, in the elections division offices.

Although Goddard said the criminal investigation is closed, he would not comment on whether a grand jury has looked or is looking into the conduct of the election.

Goddard ordered the hand recount, done by the Maricopa County Elections Division earlier this month.

His office had probed the Pima County Elections Division and its use of a Diebold-GEMS electronic vote system in 2007. The systems have been widely criticized for being vulnerable to manipulation in several ways.

That probe found serious security flaws in the system and elections division, but no criminal actions.

“I think it proves we’ve been vindicated,” County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, said Tuesday.

The case started in 2007 when the Pima County Democratic Party sought access to the county’s electronic vote databases from previous elections.

Party officials said they wanted to be able to check the reliability of electronic vote systems after widespread complaints from across the country that such systems could be hacked and the results manipulated. Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Miller ruled in December 2007 the county must surrender some past election databases, the first such court order to a government to turn over electronic vote records.

The order omitted the RTA databases, which were released to the Democrats early last year by the Pima County Board of Supervisors. More than 120,000 ballots were recounted by Maricopa County officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

An election worker prepares voting machines.

———

BALLOT RECOUNT

May 2006 RTA election results tabulated by the Pima County Elections Division compared with the Maricopa County Elections Division hand recount

Question 1

“Do you approve of the regional transportation plan for Pima County?”

Pima County election canvass:

Yes: 71,948 – about 60.05 percent

No: 47,870 – about 39.95 percent

Maricopa County Elections Division hand recount:

Yes: 71,626 – about 60.06 percent

No: 47,636 – about 39.94 percent

Difference: 556 votes

Question 2:

“Do you favor the levy of a transaction privilege tax for regional transportation purposes in Pima County?”

Pima County election canvass:

Yes: 68,773 – about 57.64 percent

No: 50,551 – about 42.36 percent

Maricopa County Elections Division hand recount:

Yes: 68,420 – about 57.63 percent

No: 50,306 – about 42.37 percent

Difference: 598 votes

Tickets for speeding at four locations where Pima County has placed photo enforcement cameras won’t start being issued for up to a month.

The vendor, American Traffic Solutions Inc. of Scottsdale, is fine-tuning the camera systems at those locations, Lindy Funkhauser, assistant county administrator for justice and law enforcement, said Monday.

“We’ve told them that we want them to take their time. We’re not going to rush into this,” Funkhauser said.

Citations were due to be issued to violators captured on film at the four intersections starting Monday, after a one-week warning period.

The tickets and warning period have been delayed, however, as the vendor ensures the system meets advertised specifications, Funkhauser said.

“There has to be a period of corrections and a period of testing,” Funkhauser said. “It could easily be a month for it to meet specifications.”

Locations are:

• La Cholla Boulevard at Sunset Road

• Mission Road at Nebraska Street

• Ina Road at Camino de las Candelas

• Swan Road at Calle Barril

Under Pima County’s $1.5 million pilot project, approved by the Board of Supervisors in January, cameras will be placed at 10 locations.

The remaining six cameras are due to be in place May 1. For a week, drivers will receive warning notices. Starting May 8, tickets will be issued for violations at:

• Alvernon Way near Station Master Drive

• Valencia Road near Camino de la Tierra

• Valencia Road near Wilmot Road

• River Road near Country Club Road

• Ruthrauff Road near Rillito Street

• Nogales Highway near Hermans Road

The Government Cemetery in Tucson, circa 1870

Eight months after archaeological researchers removed the last of more than 1,300 remains from a nearly forgotten 19th-century downtown cemetery, some faces from the past are beginning to emerge.

The Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services believes it has identified at least five sets of soldiers’ remains, some from members of the 2,300-strong California Column dispatched to Tucson in 1862 to drive out Confederate troops that briefly occupied parts of the Southwest during the Civil War.

The remains of 58 U.S. soldiers stationed at the then-Fort Lowell location near the cemetery have been exhumed and will be reburied with full honors at the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Sierra Vista on May 16.

“Serving in the Western territories was a thankless job back then and I can’t think of a better way to honor these soldiers,” Joey Strickand, director of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services, said Friday.

There were adjoining civilian and military cemeteries downtown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Army’s Camp Lowell was then located in what is now the Armory Park area and was later moved east to near what is now the intersection of Glenn Street and Craycroft Road.

By comparing old cemetery maps and Army records, Veterans’ Services officials believe they have given names to at least five soldiers buried downtown.

The soldiers’ remains will be buried in a specially constructed 19th-century-style cemetery near Fort Huachucha, Strickland said.

The downtown site, at Stone and Toole avenues, was excavated to prepare for a new Pima County-Tucson Joint Courts Complex approved in a 2004 Pima County bond package.

State law required the county to hire an archaeological consultant to study the site before beginning construction of the courts complex.

What was found was beyond expectations.

“We have an unparalled view of a period of Tucson history of which we have some documentary information but little in the way of physical,” Roger Anyon, project manager for the Pima County Cultural Resources and Historic Preservation Office, said Friday.

“The cemetery gives us a view of Tucson life then and the people who lived here,” Anyon said.

Few of the more than 1,250 civilian remains exhumed and stored for reburial later this year likely will ever be identified, Anyon said.

Archaeologists studying data from the field are finding some clues about how tough life was back then.

One grave revealed three burials, possibly of a family who died at the same time and were buried together, Marlesa Gray said Friday. Gray is the project manager for Statistical Research, Inc., the archaeological consultant hired by the county.

“There were the remains of a fetus and the mother” who may have died together in childbirth, Gray noted.

Territorial Tucson had several deadly outbreaks of disease at that time, including smallpox in 1870.

“There may be certain sections of the cemetery that can be dated to those epidemic periods,” Gray said.

The epidemics took a heavy toll on the very young and very old, records show.

———

SOLDIERS

Tentatively identified more than 120 years after their burials:

• Sgt. John C. McQuaide: Company B, 2nd California Infantry. Arrived in Tucson in May 1862. Died July 12, 1862, from disease.

• Cpl. Paul Remy of Cologne, Prussia. Company D, 23rd U.S. Infantry: Died in Tucson May 11, 1872, from acute dysentery.

• Farrier John Foley from County Wexford, Ireland, Company D, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Died May 11, 1872, from trauma from a fall from his horse.

• Pvt. Peter Bus of Delfshaven, Holland. Company K, 21st U.S. Infantry. Died Feb. 19, 1872, from accidental gunshot to his right arm.

• Cpl. John English of Ireland. Company A, 32nd U.S. Infantry. Died July 16, 1867, of acute dysentary.

Fee increases for programs and athletic field use under the Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation Department will be discussed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The increases are needed to help offset anticipated budget problems in the 2009-10 fiscal year, county officials say.

A wide range of programs and activities would be affected by the proposed increases, some of which could hit 20 percent over existing fees charged by the county department.

Included are:

• Athletic field and basketball court use

• Ramada and room rentals

• Equestrian facilities

• Shooting range

• Campground sites

• Art and leisure classes

• Rillito Race Track rental and horse stall fees

• Youth programs

• Environmental education

• Aquatics programs

———

If you go

What: Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting

When 9 a.m. Tuesday

Where: Pima County Administration Building, 130 W. Congress St.

Feds’ stimulus package also draws their ire

Tucsonans express their feelings about taxes and the Obama administration during the "Tucson Tea Party" on Wednesday at El Presidio Park.

They say they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.

Several thousand people attended Wednesday’s “Tucson Tea Party” at El Presidio Park to send a blunt message to government officials that they believe the nation is way off course.

The symbolism of holding the rally on the deadline for filing tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service was not coincidental.

“We’ve been planning this for over a month now,” event organizer Robert Mayer, 22, said as a country singer played on a temporary stage near the park’s fountain.

“We had hoped to draw about 1,000. But we estimate that over 3,000 people have passed through since it started,” Mayer said.

Hundreds brought signs and placards to give added weight to their complaints:

• The federal bailouts of banks and automakers. The federal stimulus package. The economy. Job losses.

• Loss of liberties under the Patriot Acts. Warrantless wiretapping. The Homeland Security Agency.

• Immigration. Abortion. Capitalism vs. socialism.

The event was one of many held nationwide. Conservative television and radio talk show hosts have for weeks been stirring up public anger, mainly against the Obama administration, and calling for a national day of protest.

The Manns – account manager David and stay-at-home mom Donna – were at the protest because they believe they are being charged for other peoples’ mistakes – individual and corporate.

“I don’t believe they should be using my tax money to shore up mistakes by lenders and people who overstated their income,” David Mann said.

“They’re basically pushing this country into trillions and trillions of dollars of debt. . . . Where does it stop?”

No one ever bailed out Heidi Taylor, 63, who came to Tucson in 1967 after escaping from East Germany. She had $150 in her pocket when she arrived here.

“And I never took one single penny from the government,” she said.

The effects of government spending will carry over for future generations, many at the rally said.

“I have children and grandchildren who will have to pay for our mistakes,” Linda Walker, 61, said.

“We’re here because we want smaller government,” Anna Gilman, 42, said.

“This is about government spending,” Ted Hanson, 60, said.

Hanson also opposed the bank and auto industry bailouts by former President George W. Bush.

Hanson attended with son Ryan Harrison and brother-in-law Don Kraska of Coolidge.

The crowd makeup was a mix of mainly Republicans and Libertarians, although Democrats who said they voted for the president were there as well.

Not everyone agreed with the majority’s messages.

“Obama has been in office about 90 days and they want to blame all of it on him?” asked Jack Smiley, 65.

“None of these people showed up for the last eight years when all this started,” Smiley said.

Mayer said word about the local event was spread using many communications mediums, helping attract the higher-than-expected turnout.

“We started on Facebook, letting our friends know,” Mayer said, referring to the Internet social networking site.

“Then, we started up a blog,” he said. “We were on talk radio, too.”

Albert Dreher, 59, protests at the Tax Day Tea Party at El Presidio Park

Taylor

The rally downtown was similar to others around the country.

By Garry Duffy, B. William Poole

A screening program, however, stays downtown

Treatment of tuberculosis patients will move near University Physicians Healthcare Hospital at Kino, but a screening program will remain downtown, county officials decided Tuesday.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved moving the Health Department’s TB treatment program to a site next to the Herbert K. Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road. It was at the downtown health building, 150 W. Congress St.

After hearing from health care workers and advocates for the homeless and poor – populations at higher-than-average risk of contracting tuberculosis – the supervisors directed the county administration to find a new testing site downtown.

“A lot of people from the homeless shelters walk downtown” for testing, Carolyn Trowbridge, a member of the county Board of Health, told the supervisors.

Shelters require testing for tuberculosis before admitting clients, Trowbridge said.

Moving the program near Kino on the South Side would make it more difficult for the homeless and poor to get there for testing, she said.

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry recommended that treatment and testing be moved to the Kino site. He pointed to inadequate safeguards for the air-handling system at the health building for which the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration had cited the county.

TB is a bacterial infection, generally of the lungs, that is spread in the air primarily by coughing and sneezing.

The county program has 23 patients with active tuberculosis.

Board Chairman Richard Elías sought to have action on the move delayed to July to allow affected individuals and agencies more time to comment on it.

Supervisor Ramón Valadez suggested that the TB treatment program be moved to the Kino site while keeping testing downtown at a site to be determined.

In other action, the supervisors narrowly approved an amended contract for what will be a $6.6 million archaeology project on a Northwest Side site occupied by humans dating back to at least 2000 B.C.

Desert Archaeology will receive an additional $4.6 million to oversee excavations, artifact recovery and preservation, and for a follow-up report on what archaeologists find at the site.

The county has to provide for archaeological study of the prehistoric site under state law, Huckelberry told the board.

The county is disturbing the land to lay a sewer transmission line as part of upgrades and expansion of its Ina Road wastewater treatment facility.

Supervisors Ray Carroll and Ann Day voted against the contract amendment.

“This is an incredible amount of dollars,” Carroll said in questioning the amount of added compensation to the company.

The site was first unearthed during 1998 work to improve frontage roads and the interchange of Interstate 10 and Ina Road. Huckelberry said the site – with ancient burials, buildings, and irrigation canals – is one of the oldest known in North America.

Northbound travel on Country Club Road at Broadway has been reduced to one travel lane this week.

Crews for the city of Tucson are working on a bus pullout lane at the northeast corner of the intersection.

The project work hours and travel restrictions will be 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. through Friday. Crews will be relocating traffic signal poles, installing new water mains and installing the bus pullout lane.

Work is scheduled to be complete in mid-June.

The project is funded by the Regional Transportation Authority.

Tucson’s Department of Transportation is managing the project.

Critics of President Obama’s economic policies – and of taxes in general – will hold a rally downtown Wednesday.

The Arizona Chapter of Americans for Prosperity is hosting the event slated for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at El Presidio Park, 160 W. Alameda St.

The Tucson Tax Day Tea Party is tied in with other such events planned nationwide for Wednesday – the deadline for filing federal income tax returns.

Several local radio talk show hosts will be on hand for the event.

Rep. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, and Tom Jenney, executive director of the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers, are scheduled to speak.

A move of the Pima County Health Department Tuberculosis Clinic from downtown to near University Physicians Hospital at Kino will be discussed Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

The clinic now is housed in the first floor of the Pima County Health and Welfare Building, 150 W. Congress St.

The move would be to a county-owned building near the Herbert K. Abrams Public Health Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road.

The center treated 23 patients with active tuberculosis last year, according to Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.

A move from the current clinic location is needed primarily because of “lack of appropriate air handling for this type of clinic,” Huckelberry wrote in a memorandum to board members Friday.

Tuberculosis is a mycobacteria infection, generally in the lungs but also can affect spinal areas and the brain. It is spread when a person with active tuberculosis coughs, sneezes, spits, or breathes in close proximity to others.

The county TB clinic also serves as a screening center for the disease. It screened 2,715 persons between July and December last year. The screenings are sometimes required for employment in health and child care facilities. TB screening also is required for gaining admission to area homeless shelters.

Huckelberry said several locations were studied as potential new homes for the TB clinic. A county-owned building opposite the Abrams Health Center appears the most suitable, Huckelberry said.

“Initial reviews by TB Clinic staff have been favorable to both the proposed layout as well as the proposed methodology to achieve exceptional air quality compliance,” he told the supervisors.

Tucson’s arid climate has served as a haven for tuberculosis sufferers since the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived here and improved outside access to the area in 1880.

Tucson Medical Center started as a clinic for tuberculosis sufferers. The Desert Sanitorium opened on 300 acres in 1927.

———

If you go:

When: Tuesday starting at 9 a.m.

Where: Pima County Administration Building, 130 W.Congress St.

Tickets will be issued starting April 20

A Pima County photo enforcement camera on East Ina Road and three others will be tested Friday.

Speeding motorists will see the light starting this weekend when some of Pima County’s photo enforcement cameras start flashing during a test run.

The cameras won’t be recording license plates of speeders – yet.

“The company will operate the cameras’ strobe lights on April 10 to 12 (Friday through Sunday) and April 28 to 30 for testing purposes only,” Lindy Funkhauser, assistant county administrator for justice and law enforcement, said Thursday.

“This will be to test the systems’ functionality and not for the purpose of issuing notices of violations.”

Pima County is following the lead of Tucson and the Arizona Department of Public Safety in employing speed limit enforcement cameras.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors earlier this year approved a 10-location system. Four locations will be up and running starting Monday, with the remaining six to be in operation by May 1.

Motorists who speed by the first four active cameras will receive warning notices by mail during the first week of operation, Funkhauser said. Real tickets for those cameras will be issued starting April 20.

Warnings will be sent to violators recorded at the remaining six locations starting May 1. Real tickets will begin May 8.

Fines will range from $183 to $356, not including an automation fee of $18.50 and a photo enforcement fee of $14.75 on each citation.

The county is paying $1.5 million to Scottsdale-based American Traffic Solutions Inc. to set up and operate the system.

The mere presence of the cameras appears to be having an effect on motorists, Funkhauser said.

“Now that they’re up, people seem to be slowing down,” Funkhauser said of informal reports by officers observing the location at North Swan Road and East Calle Barril.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety employs both stationary and mobile speed cameras on interstate highways around the state. There are 36 stationary cameras and 42 mobile units in use now – almost all in Maricopa County.

The agency has two mobile units in the Tucson area – on I-10 and I-19 – that are moved every several hours to different locations, Bart Graves, DPS media relations coordinator, said Thursday.

About 400 citations generated by DPS cameras have been issued to area drivers, Pima County Justice Court records show.

Fines generated by the cameras statewide have produced $7.5 million of revenue for the state.

DPS, contrary to reports published this week of a halt, is still planning more cameras. Graves said DPS will install 22 more camera systems around the state by the end of this year.

Graves said the agency has witnessed a reduction in accident-related deaths since the program began.

“We are seeing statistics here in the Phoenix area that it is saving lives,” Graves said.

The city of Tucson operates one mobile van and four fixed-position cameras – at Tanque Verde and Grant roads, 22nd Street and Wilmot Road, Valencia Road and Nogales Highway, and Oracle and River roads. The cameras photograph license plates of both speeders and red light runners.

According to the latest figures from Tucson City Court, 29,763 citations were issued for both offenses from November 2007 through December 2008.

A red light violation in Tucson costs $280. Speeding fines in the city range from $151 to $366.

The speed camera program in Pima County will be reviewed by the Board of Supervisors before the end of 2009.

The county board approved the cameras as a pilot program by a 3-2 vote.

Republicans Ann Day and Ray Carroll objected, expressing concerns about privacy issues and questioned whether public safety or potential revenues was the main motivation.

More than a dozen bills have been filed in the Legislature to ban photo enforcement systems or to reduce penalties. One bill would ask voters to decide on the Nov. 2, 2010, ballot whether they want cameras.

Another, House Bill 2106, would ban camera systems from state and federal highways, while leaving cities and counties free to use them.

That bill, introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, would eliminate the DPS photo enforcement program and also ban use of cameras to capture streaming video of all passing vehicles.

Many legislators have said they were unaware that the approved photo enforcement program would allow around-the-clock recording of all vehicles passing camera locations, although the capability was noted in the state contract with the Australian-owned vendor, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc.

H.B. 2106 was approved by the House Rules Committee last month and is awaiting scheduling for the Committee of the Whole, a Biggs spokeswoman said Thursday.

Members of a citizens’ group, CameraFRAUD, are circulating a petition to ban photo enforcement systems throughout the state – including in towns, cities and counties.

They’ll need to get the valid signatures of at least 153,365 registered voters to get the measure on the November 2010 ballot.

“It’s very popular,” Bill Conley, a Pinal County deputy sheriff and CameraFRAUD member, said Thursday. “We can’t print (petitions) fast enough,” he said.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu ended his department’s photo radar van program there after defeating incumbent Sheriff Chris Valdez in the November 2208 election.

———

WHERE ARE THEY?

The photo enforcement cameras will be in the following areas:

Phase one

• La Cholla at Sunset Road

• Mission Road at Nebraska Street

• Ina Road at Camino de Las Candelas

• Swan Road at Calle Barril

Phase two

• Alvernon Way near Station Master Drive

• Valencia Road near Camino De La Tierra

• Valencia Road near Wilmot Road

• River Road near Country Club Road

• Ruthrauff Road near Rillito Street

• Nogales Highway near Hermans Road

CITATIONS

• There will be a seven-day warning period once the cameras are operational. During that time, cameras will take photos and video of speeding motorists, but citations will not be issued. Instead, a warning notice will be sent to the vehicle’s registered owner.

• After the warning period, citations and fines will be issued to anyone exceeding the speed limit by 11 miles per hour.

———

PIMA COUNTY SPEEDING FINES

Miles per hour over the speed limit:

11 mph thru 15 mph: $183

16 mph thru 20 mph: $202

21 mph thru 25 mph: $222

26 mph thru 30 mph: $235

31 mph over: $356

An automation fee of $18.50 and a photo enforcement fee of $14.75 will be assessed on each citation pursuant to local county ordinance.

———

ON THE WEB

Arizona Department of Public Safety photo enforcement

photoenforcement.azdps.gov

photoenforcement.azdps.gov/.pdf

Tucson CameraFRAUD

tucsoncamerafraud.wordpress.com

House Bill 2106

www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/1R/proposed/H.2106AB1.pdf

Law enforcement, emergency responders and public safety agencies in Pima County will have the ability to communicate directly during major incidents thanks to a $60.3 million radio system approved Tuesday.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to acquire the PCWIN Voice Radio System that will provide a direct link to area agencies charged with responding to emergencies.

Motorola of Schaumburg, Ill., was awarded the contract to install and maintain the system for five years.

There are three additional five-year renewal options.

Most of the money for the system will come from a 2004 Pima County bond package.

A hand count of the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election ballots that begins Monday won’t necessarily impact the official election results, regardless of what it reveals.

The Arizona attorney general is investigating complaints by critics of electronic vote systems that the election results might have been criminally tampered with to ensure its success.

The hand count by the Maricopa County Elections Division will be observed by a single representative from each of the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties in Pima County.

“The intent of the count is not to change or confirm the election results,” Anne Titus Hilby, the department of law press secretary at the Attorney General’s Office, said Friday.

“The information learned from this will determine what the next steps will be,” Hilby said.

Arizona election laws do not address what should follow if vote or ballot tampering is uncovered. The allowable timeline for challenging the official results has long since passed.

The investigation is a criminal probe, “not an elections process controlled by applicable Arizona election laws,” Donald E. Conrad, criminal division chief counsel, wrote to leaders of Pima County political parties last month.

Conrad outlined the procedures that will be followed during the ballot examination process, which can be observed in person by one representative of local political parties.

Party officials were told to submit three names each as potential observers. The Attorney General’s Office is to select the actual observers from the parties.

The observers will be subject to searches. They will not be allowed to bring cameras, cell phones, writing instruments, or audio or video recorders into the areas where the ballots will be examined.

Party officials said the requirement to submit three names to the office as potential observers was hard to meet because the selected observer would have to commit to five work days next week at the Maricopa County Elections Division.

“It was difficult. It is up there in Phoenix,” Jeff Rogers, chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, said.

The Pima County Republican Party also submitted three names as potential observers, Paula Maxwell, executive director, said.

Pima County Libertarians submitted a single name. That person was rejected by the Attorney General’s Office after a background check showed that elections integrity activist Jim March pleaded guilty in California in 1993 to misdemeanor traffic charges. He did so “to make it go away,” March said Friday.

“The real goal here is to prevent anyone from keeping an independent tally of the vote,” March said.

Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office did not immediately release the names of selected observers.

The issue over electronic vote and ballot tabulating by the Pima County Elections Division arose in 2007 when the local Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking access to the vote and ballot tallying databases for all elections conducted using the computerized Diebold-GEMS electronic system dating to the late 1990s.

Democrats said they wanted experts to look at the databases to see if the system was vulnerable to manipulation that could alter vote totals.

County officials refused and the case was tried last year.

Superior Court Judge Michael Miller in December 2007 ordered the county to turn over some of the electronic vote records, but solely from the May 2006 special election.

It was the first court ruling in the nation where a jurisdiction was ordered to release such records to a political party.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors later directed that the RTA and all other electronic vote records be released to the Democrats.

———

TO VIEW

The public can view the hand count proceedings online at http://recorder.maricopa.gov/elections/Live_Feeds/south_view.aspx

The Pima County Board of Supervisors is expected Tuesday to vote on a $60.8 million contract for a radio system and infrastructure that would enable all regional law enforcement, fire, and other emergency responders to communicate during emergencies.

The supervisors will discuss awarding the contract to low-bidder Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill. The county sent requests for proposals to 38 vendors. Five were deemed qualified.

The system would enable 32 regional agencies to communicate with each other. Federal agencies also would be able to tap into the system, John Moffatt, director of the Pima County Office of Strategic Technical Planning, said Friday.

The system would operate under the aegis of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office.

Moffatt said planning for the system began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, based on reports that law enforcement and emergency responders in New York City could not communicate with each other because of incompatible radio systems.

“That’s what caused the bond issue to be put on the ballot in 2004,” Moffatt said.

Voters approved $40 million for the system.

The program was broadened later to include area public works agencies, adding another $20 million to the cost. Federal grants would pick up some of the additional costs, Moffatt said.

———

If you go

• What: Board of Supervisors meeting

• When: 9 a.m. Tuesday

• Where: Pima County Administration Building, 130 W.Congress St.

Sen. John McCain will be the speaker at the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce National Issues Forum April 17.

McCain, R-Ariz., is expected to address the federal budget, bailouts of the automobile and financial industries, and other issues during his noon remarks at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort.

The Arizona senior senator was the Republican nominee for president in the November 2008 election, losing to President Obama.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to hear from ne of the most prominent senators in the country, coming to Tucson to speak directly about some very important and pressing national issues and how they will affect all of us as Americans,” Jack Camper, president and CEO of the Tucson Chamber, said.

Cost to attend is $50 or $500 for a table of 10. Priority tables are $1,000.

Registration deadline is April 9.

Call Shirley Wilka at 520-792-2250 ext. 132 or visit the Tucson Chamber online at http://www.tucsonchamber.org.