Andy Kunasek, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, has led a charmed political life. Son of a longtime lawmaker from Mesa, Kunasek has a string of electoral victories going back more than a decade.
Lately, he's sounded off about state leaders, budget proposals that would dramatically affect the county, and "the media's coddling" of Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Republic county reporter Yvonne Wingett talked with the supervisor about the tight financial times, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration operations, and his disappointment with the governor and the press. Read on.
Question: You have expressed concerns about the governor's decision to redirect $1.6 million from the sheriff's efforts against illegal immigration to the fugitive task force. Still feel that way?
Answer: Perhaps she wanted to watch us squirm. She knew she wasn't going to send that money, she should've yanked it before we went through a long meeting to accept a duly offered grant. It was already authorized by DPS (Department of Public Safety) and the governor, and we were simply going through a procedure to accept it.
The sheriff is the sheriff. Love him or hate him, he's stepped up when the federal government, and I think the state government and to a large extent the local municipalities, have not. He's been responding to cries for help from municipalities, individual cities and elected officials, business owners. It's his prerogative on how to respond to those calls, and that's where concern with some of the criticism . . . of the board because we don't tell him, "Don't respond to this cry for help." When you start putting politics into the police enforcement, into their operations, I don't think that's a good idea.
Q: You have expressed big-time frustrations with the media's coverage of the sheriff's policies and the media's coverage of the governor. You want to go there?
A: I don't need to defend the sheriff - he's capable of dealing with his own media issues, and we're all amateurs compared to him. I think it's a common belief out there, and it's a reality, that . . . this governor in particular has enjoyed I think an almost unhealthy cozy relationship with the media. It does appear to be coddling, to me. I don't think that's just me, I think that's a fair criticism. This latest thing with the sheriff, I think those funds were duly appropriated for a specific purpose, and I think she overstepped her executive powers. But she seems to get away with it.
Q: What kind of impact could the governor's budget-related proposals to shift inmates to county jails, and the photo radar enforcement proposal have on Maricopa County? (The governor has several proposals to close the state's budget deficit. They include an expansion of highway photo radar to bring money into state coffers via fines and shifting some inmates from state prisons to county jails.)
A: They started looking for ways to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. The quickest way to do that is to shove their burden, their self created problem onto the local governments. It would increase our average daily (inmate) population by about 4,000. That's a lot of money. Just the operational costs we're estimating $58 million. Before we could take them, we don't have the facilities to put them in there. Their shift of 4,000 inmates to us would put us over capacity by 25 percent. . . . (It's) very unreasonable. It troubles me to think that the governor is still proposing it - I mean, it's still on their wish list to move this $60 million, plus the $15 to $20 it would take us in capital dollars to accommodate these people, even if we put them all in tents we'd have to build the facilities for their health care, their bathrooms . . . everything they would need to service those tents. The photo radar, as I understand it, again is a terrible idea. To think that they would direct all of those traffic tickets into the county justice courts, where we would pick up all the operational costs to process those tickets, and the state would just take the gross receipts - that again, it would be criminal in any other venue.
Q: How is the county budget looking? Are you guys talking about layoffs?
A: Very flat to no growth. The only increases have been in the areas that are mandated . . . areas that we can't cut. Everybody was pretty good about presenting budgets that would result in 5, 10 and 15 percent cuts. In some areas, the cuts were upwards of 15 percent, but for the most part, 5 percent is what everybody turned in, and that's what we're going to wind up with. We'll go wherever we have to to balance our budget and prioritize our services. It's almost a triage when you get into a declining revenue picture like this. We have to start cutting somewhere.
Q: Will you cut the $360 million court tower project?
A: I want to see that in the worst possible way. There has not been a new downtown court tower built since the '70s. It's just inadequate. Criminal justice, that's our key service. We're going to see it through. I know there's a lot of question-looks from down the street, that here we are, embarking on a $300-plus million project without even borrowing to do it. The funds are not all sitting there, but we've programmed operational funds through the project to get it done.