Arizona’s newest road leads straight to the Obama White House.
Construction began when Gov. Janet Napolitano endorsed Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy on Jan. 11.
As most readers know, one fork on this road is likely to lead Napolitano to Obama’s cabinet. Even as the other fork is being mapped, it’s pedal to the metal.
Arizona State University President Michael Crow is among those regional leaders who see that at fork as leading to federal investment in Arizona’s transportation, water, education systems.
Crow told the Tribune’s editorial board last Tuesday that he had scheduled a meeting with Napolitano on Wednesday to ask her to use her influence with Obama to put ASU projects on the new administration’s map.
All the planning work was done. Crow said he just needs money.
Crow’s comments came on the same day that Obama opened the door wide to including state and local infrastructure in his economic stimulus package.
At his third press conference since the election, Obama said this when asked about what he could do for governors and mayors whose budgets are in desperate straits:
“We are going to have to make sure that we are investing in roads, bridges, other infrastructure investments that lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth. A lot of that goes through our states and our local governments….
“So we’re going to be working very closely with governors. We’re going to be working very closely with mayors of towns, small and large, across the country. This economic recovery plan will require their input, their participation.”
On Wednesday, Obama made good in a hurry on his commitment by inviting the governors to meet with him on Tuesday Dec. 2 in Philadelphia.
Do you suppose Napolitano will tuck into her briefcase a copy of the $42 billion transportation system initiative and one-cent sales tax increase that she had championed last summer only to see it fall short of the signatures needed to get on the ballot?
If she is given a chance, it’s also a pretty good bet that she’ll talk about efforts among Arizona leaders, including Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, to take a regional approach to infrastructure development.
Smith was on a panel promoted by the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution just last Monday to discuss that topic.
The Brookings Institution has developed an interest in the growing cities of the Inter-mountain West and last summer began pursuing the creation of a federal partnership to help “America’s newest Metropolitan Places” prosper.
Why, for instance, is there no interstate connecting the “mountain megas” of Phoenix to Las Vegas or Phoenix to Salt Lake City? Why is there only a four-lane interstate connecting Phoenix to Los Angeles and Phoenix to Tucson? And so forth.
The Monday session was aimed at emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation, getting the attention of a new administration in Washington and overcoming political resistance to a federal handout.
After all, the Valley of the Sun would only be a blip on the map without the Lake Roosevelt Dam and Central Arizona Project canals that funnel water to 3.6 million people.
Neither one of those projects would have been developed without federal funding. And the more recently developed canals that connect the Valley with the Colorado River brought about by Republicans and Democrats working together, including the late U.S. House Minority Leader John Rhodes, R-Mesa.
Napolitano and Smith were among the speakers at the Monday conference.
“Arizona has done a pretty good job on its own, but we need to work as a region to help us get to where we need to go,” Democrat Napolitano said.
Said Republican Smith, “…unless we join with our fellow states in the Intermountain region, we will be dead on arrival.”
So could it happen that Democrats and Republicans travel this road paved by Napolitano together?
To find an answer to your question — because Napolitano is a women, did things get easier for women, and mothers in the family court system, and women and girl inmates as the incarceration of women and girls have soared, while other states are cutting back. Families are being destroyed and unless you are a mother you cannot know. Napolitano was not there for these women.