Page 11 - the NOISE May 2015

Newsbriefs
eDITeD By
Kyle boggs
flagstaff liviNg wage CoalitioN files lawsuit
fRoM lEfT Mik Jordahl & frankie Beesley
nAU.eDU ARCHIVes
On Friday, April 10, the newly formed flagstaff living Wage Coalition filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County superior Court in an effort to give local municipalities like Flagstaff the right to establish higher minimum wages than the current state minimum wage, which is currently $8.05 an hour.
The lawsuit arrives a month after a national study was released by Governing.com, which calculated the average hourly wages all over the country, while factoring in cost of living. Flag- staff, Arizona ranked dead last. “we are determined to establish local wages based on local conditions,” said Coalition spokesperson frankie Beesley.
In 2006, Arizona voters passed Proposition 202, granting cities the right to establish local minimum wages higher than the state-mandated minimum. yet in 2013, the Arizona Legisla- ture adopted a law that would give the state the sole right to regulate employee compensation and benefits.
Mik Jordahl, one of the Attorneys representing the coalition said, “the Arizona Constitution prohibits the state legislature from undoing or modifying the will of the voters without a super majority,” making the 2013 law potentially unconstitutional.
but who will
baN the baN
oN baNs?
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed a bill into law that prevents towns and cit- ies from banning or charging for the use of plastic single- use shopping bags.
For months, a group of Flagstaff citizens — in coali- tion with organizations like friends of flagstaff ’s fu- ture, nAU Green Jacks, and sierra Club — have been working to ban plastic bags in Flagstaff. The City of flag- staff ’s Sustainability Com- mission has been discussing this issue for years. Cities all over the world, including washington DC and over 100 municipalities in California, have bans on plastic bags.
supporters of such bans
claim they are costly to tax
payers and the local environ-
ment, as plastic bags often drift over areas surrounding landfills, ultimately take years to biode- grade, create further regional reliance on oil cartels like OPeC {it takes 14 plastic bags to drive an average car one mile!}, as well as municipal & private industry economic effects calculated by the frequency of trash conveyer belts malfunctioning when bags become tangled in gearing.
Moran Henn of Friends of Flagstaff’s Future was disappointed. “Ducey received over 5,000 opposition letters, emails, and petition signatures. Opposition was very diverse and included cities, businesses, and many individuals from all sides of the political map who believed the state overstepped their boundaries on this one. It is very unfortunate that our state opposes federal control on the premise of local jurisdiction yet turns around to strip lo- cal municipalities of theirs,”she said. “The bill grossly ignores the time, energy, and resources that went into this process.”
It is not yet clear how the law will affect Bisbee, which banned the use of the “one-time-use” plastic “cashier-to-cart” grocery bags in 2013; or the numerous other regional-specific bans in place currently throughout Arizona.
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