Wmicentral.com – 07/03/2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell capped their push to restore funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program with a major legislative victory June 17.

As the amendment they co-sponsored to restore funding to SCAAP passed the House with bipartisan support. The Arizona lawmakers have been leading efforts to block the cuts to SCAAP in the FY 2010 budget. The program is supported with $400 million this year, but was set for elimination in the president’s budget for next year.

It was partially restored in the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Bill currently before Congress, but remained 25 percent short of this year’s funding level.

The amendment sponsored by the three members fully reverses the cut and restores $100 million back into SCAAP, keeping the program at the FY 2009 level.

“This is a victory for the folks on the frontlines, fighting to stop cross-border trafficking and illegal immigration,” Kirkpatrick said. “Our law enforcement needs more resources, not fewer, and congressional leadership has recognized that. Now we can focus on launching a sustained, comprehensive effort to secure our borders and keep our communities safe.”

“As long as local law enforcement agencies in Arizona are doing the federal government’s job of securing our border, it is critical that they get compensated for it,” Giffords said. “This is the fair thing to do and Congress clearly recognizes that.”

“This is excellent news for states like Arizona that have seen their law enforcement communities burdened by the federal government’s inability to secure the border,” Mitchell added. “Their manpower and their budgets have been stretched thin and the SCAAP funding has been critical to helping ease the financial strain.”

When the Obama Administration first announced its intention to terminate SCAAP in May, Kirkpatrick, Giffords and Mitchell wrote a letter to key House lawmakers such as Reps. David Obey and Jerry Lewis, the chairman and ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, urging them not to cut the program.

That letter earned widespread support, and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science responded to their concerns by restoring $300 million.

However, this was just three-quarters of current funding levels for a program that was already cash-strapped, and earlier this month the Arizona members wrote another letter to congressional leaders calling for them to continue funding SCAAP at $400 million. The amendment that passed was proposed in response to these concerns.

In 2008, the Arizona Department of Corrections received $12.8 million from the federal government to house the 5,600 criminal illegal immigrants who were in state prisons. That is only 10 percent of the $124 million the state spent to house illegal immigrant inmates that year.

ADC estimates it will spend $128 million in 2009 to house, clothe, feed and provide medical care to illegal immigrant inmates, accounting for over 10 percent of their $978 million budget at a time when the ADC is facing severe cuts.

Currently, Arizona’s state prisons hold 6,100 illegal immigrants – 15 percent of the state’s inmate population.

San Pedro Valley News-Sun – Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thelma Grimes

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-District 8, remains busy, working with President Barrack Obama to cut government spending, and announcing millions in funding for Arizona education.

It has been a busy time for Congress as budget talks continue, the debate over a new Supreme Court nomination looks to be lengthy, and the District 8 congresswoman is joining President Obama in several initiatives.

Giffords joined the president in supporting legislation to restore fiscal discipline for the federal government.

The congresswoman praised President Obama for supporting legislation that will require any new mandatory government spending to be matched with budget cuts.

“The federal government needs to do what most American families do,” Giffords said. “We need to restrain spending, pay our bills and live within our means.”

The legislation will reinstate pay-as-you-go rules. Known as PAYGO, these requirements are to offset spending increases that were in place in the 1990s. They were instrumental in allowing the federal government to balance its books and achieve a $128 billion budget surplus.

“Our country faces a $1.8 trillion budget deficit,” Giffords said. “If we do not begin paying our bills, we will short-change our children and grandchildren by saddling them with higher taxes and cutting federal investments in education, health care and national security.”

Giffords said PAYGO is a clear indication of the president’s commitment to restoring fiscal responsibility and accountability to government over the long-term.

Giffords is a current member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally responsible members of Congress who have worked for years to require the federal government to spend within its means.

While Giffords supports legislation to push elected officials to be more fiscally responsible, she was pleased recently to announce that Arizona will benefit from the stimulus package approved by Congress earlier this year.

Arizona is set to receive $681 million in economic recovery funds, which will save teachers’ jobs and lay the foundation for a generation education reform.

Arizona continually ranked in the bottom when it comes to education funding, and with the state facing a more than $3 billion this year, public schools looked to be taking another hit. Schools are still expecting between 6 and 8 percent decreases.

According to U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan, the recovery funds represent the largest boost in education funding in recent history.

In order for Arizona to receive the funds, state officials had to provide assurances that it will collect, publish, analyze and act on information regarding the quality of classroom teachers, annual student improvements, college readiness, the effectiveness of state standards and assessments, progress on removing charter caps and interventions in turning around underperforming schools.

The Arizona Department of Education is also required to report the number of jobs saved through the recovery funding.

Giffords has also stayed true to her campaign promise to make herself more accessible to the public, recently hosting the 17th ‘Congress on your Corner’ session in Vail.

At the events, Giffords takes time to hear directly from her constituents.

There are no sessions currently scheduled in Cochise County.

Join us at the Loft Theater Saturday, June 27 for the Premiere of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club featuring the Academy Award winning actress Kathy Bates as the Voice of Pancho. With special guest, Writer & Producer Nick Spark.

Florence “Pancho” Barnes was one of the most important women in 20th Century aviation. A tough and fearless pilot, Pancho was a barnstormer and rival of Amelia Earhart. She also made a name for herself as Hollywood’s first female stunt pilot in the 1920s and 1930s. She also made a name for herself as Hollywood’s first female stunt pilot in the 1920s and 1930s. Discover this  enigmatic icon whose story, until now, was largely unknown.

To buy tickets, click here.

For more information, download the flyer.

University of  Arizona News, Published May 27, 2009

By Ginny Geib, UA College of Pharmacy

Helping set the stage for a community town hall discussion on national health care reform in Tucson May 26 were Richard Carmona of The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and J. Lyle Bootman of the UA College of Pharmacy.

The Health Care Town Hall sponsored by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords drew approximately 1,000 Southern Arizonans to Sahuaro High School for a wide-ranging discussion of issues surrounding how health care is financed and delivered in this country. Congress expects to take action “before the August recess” on several legislative proposals, Giffords told the audience.

In responding to the Congresswoman’s invitation to provide overviews of the current state of American health care, Carmona, the most recent U.S. Surgeon General, declared that currently the country has a “perversely incentivized sick-care system” rather than one that supports disease prevention, educates citizens on the consequences of their own behaviors and provides access to quality care to all populations.

Bootman, dean of the UA College of Pharmacy and a member of the National Institute of Medicine, said much of the current debate centers on “whether health care is a right or a privilege.” An estimated 47 million Americans lack health coverage, he said, with the cost of providing services rising from 7 percent of Gross National Product to 16 percent over the last 40 years.

Following up on Carmona’s emphasis on disease prevention, Bootman told the audience that 15 chronic conditions accounted for 56 percent of all increased health care spending over the past 20 years, and that one-third of total health care costs are associated with just five conditions (heart disease, pulmonary diseases, mental health disorders, cancer and hypertension).

Following remarks by Bootman and Carmona, Giffords introduced 14 representatives from Tucson-area business groups, health care providers, nonprofit organizations, community service agencies and other interest groups to share their perspectives.

Topics included examples of the need for better mental health coverage, using case managers more widely to improve access to services, how health coverage affects an employer’s competitive edge in government bids, the inadequacies of health services in rural areas, cost-shifting by payers, reimbursement to providers and the complexity of Medicare plans.

Several presenters supported universal coverage and a greater participation by government in payment and delivery, with one declaring that guaranteed health care is a right. Another presenter drew both applause and disapproval from the audience when he called for patients to pay directly for their services.

Giffords entertained a dozen or so comments from the audience before ending the forum, which lasted more than two hours. One speaker urged the representative to make sure the concerns of family members providing long-term care to loved ones were included in any reform legislation, a physician pointed to the federal employee benefits system and Medicare as models that work well and others argued for the special needs of the disabled, retirees and people with lifelong conditions such as diabetes.

Sierra Vista Herald/Review,  Published Saturday, May 16, 2009

By Bill Hess

TUCSON – Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas says it is time the few remains of soldiers from the 1860s through the 1880s  who died in the then Arizona Territory be given a final resting place.

“They need land where they will have final peace,” the bishop of the Diocese of Tucson said Friday morning.

Prior to blessing the remains of 57 soldiers, three children and an Army civilian employee at All Faiths Cemetery in Tucson, the bishop said, “All of us want our lives to be remembered and respected.”

In the case of the remains, which were placed in small wooden caskets constructed by Palominas resident Joe Smith, they have been moved a few times.

Some of the remains may have even been separated, with some being moved to California while parts remained in Tucson.

“These bodies will find their eternal rest,” Kicanas said.

The remains of the soldiers who protected the Arizona Territory in the 1800s have been forgotten for more than a century.

Years ago, their graves were paved over as roads were built in downtown Tucson. But as preparations were made for a new Pima County and city of Tucson court complex, the remains were rediscovered.

In a legal archaeological process, the remains of the 61 people, along with more than 1,700 other remains, were processed for removal and relocation.

The Arizona Department of Veterans Services, through the state-operated Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery’s administrator Joe Larson, then started the process of having the soldiers placed among the honored dead of all branches of the services that served after them.

Before the bishop gave the final blessing for the journey from Tucson to Sierra Vista on Friday, motorcyclists representing many veterans organizations carefully placed 35-star flags on each small coffin. The national banners were from the era the remains of soldiers fought under in the 1800s. The remains included cavalrymen, infantrymen, cooks, farriers, musicians and others who were stationed in the territory from the Civil War through some of the Indian Wars.

Kicanas led the people at the Tucson cemetery in singing the first verse of “Amazing Grace.”

“We pray for their souls, for those who gave their lives for the protection of our country,” the bishop said.

Blessing each casket with holy water, Kicanas told each of those whose souls were represented in the caskets to “sleep in everlasting peace.”

Then he asked the riders to form a semi-circle in an area between the rows of the caskets and blessed each of them asking God to grant them a safe drive from Tucson to Sierra Vista as they escorted the remains.

Each casket was then carried by two of the riders and placed on one of two government vehicles as a pair of soldiers from Fort Huachuca’s 11th Signal Brigade saluted each coffin as it went between them.

The trip from All Faiths Cemetery to the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery on Buffalo Soldier Trail took slightly more than two hours.

Upon arrival, Fort Huachuca Chaplain (Col.) Thomas Day said a prayer as the remains were received in Sierra Vista.

Soldiers and airmen from the fort then removed and ceremonially folded two large 50-star American flags that covered the caskets in the trucks.

The caskets were then removed and placed in an area where they would remain overnight waiting for today’s 10 a.m. reburial ceremony in Sierra Vista.

The Victorian-era style cemetery-within-a-cemetery that will be the final resting place was nearby. Each grave will be marked with a marble headstone in the style of the 1880s.

There will be no names on the markers, even though records indicated the possibility of names for some of those in the Tucson graves. Each tombstone will be marked unknown because of the lack of DNA required by the federal government to confirm the identification of a set of remains.

Kicanas said the short farewell ceremony in Tucson and the one today in Sierra Vista are meant to give those who served so many years ago in Arizona the recognition they deserve.

As birds sang in the growing heat of the Tucson cemetery, the bishop again addressed the remains in the caskets, saying where they were going in Sierra Vista.

“May this new resting place be a your final eternal resting place,” he said.

U S Army Online Magazine May 7, 2009

By C. Todd Lopez

Two members of Congress who’ve lived the life of a military spouse say the experience has better helped them understand the military family and helps them connect better with those who serve.

“Since being married to him, I understand the stresses that military families go through,” said Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, congresswoman from Arizona’s 8th district.

Giffords’ husband is Navy Capt. Mark E. Kelly, an astronaut, who currently is assigned at Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas. Kelly works on the space shuttle and has spent nearly 40 days in space — he’s served as pilot on STS-108 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006, and was Space Shuttle Discovery’s commander on STS-124 in 2008. He spends a lot of time training in Texas while Giffords remains in either Washington, D.C. or Arizona.

“We try to see each other if possible twice a month. That’s our goal. But it’s been more like once every three weeks,” she said. “But I am very proud of what he does — he serves his country with great honor and great distinction.”

Giffords serves on the House Armed Services Committee, where she is responsible for helping make decisions that affect the entire Department of Defense. She said her short time as a military spouse — she and her husband have only been together since 2007 — has given her better insight to the lives of both military members and their spouses.

“As a woman on the Armed Services Committee and a military spouse, it provides me a unique perspective,” she said. “(I’m) able to visit our troops in theater and have a conversation (with them,) not about how the weapons systems are working or not necessarily how the operation is going, but what is happening back at home. How are the kids? How is the spouse doing? ”

Giffords said she believes that communities can do more to help military families, on a person-to-person level, in the school systems, and also with the mental health issues for military members and their spouses.

“I feel very strongly that counseling should be made available to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, spouses and family members that are struggling because of maybe post traumatic stress disorder, maybe traumatic brain injury or maybe the stress of just being deployed,” she said. “And I am concerned about the divorce rate, about domestic violence rate, and the suicide rate. Those are problems we as a community cannot ignore.”

Both Giffords and husband Capt. Mark Kelly are serving their country though — she in the Congress and he in space. She said she’s proud of the work he does and proud to serve.

“Both of us are really honored to serve our nation,” she said.

Rep. Thomas Rooney, of Florida’s 16th district, is also a former military spouse — though it’d be more appropriate to say he was half of a dual-military household. Both he and his wife, Tara, began serving in the Army in 2000 as part of the Judge Advocate Corps, after the two attended law school together.

“We got married after law school and decided to join,” Rooney said, saying a recruiter had convinced them the opportunities for advancement and exciting cases were greater in the Army than in the civilian world.

The two served first at Fort Hood, Texas, where he was part of the 1st Cavalry Division and she was in III Corps.

“She was probably the most squared-away judge advocate that I ever met,” he said. “Very attention-to-detail oriented and she was a great legal assistance attorney.”

The two took a second assignment in New York at West Point, where Rooney served as an instructor of law and wife Tara switched to the Reserves. While Rooney was half of a military couple, his interactions with other military families at both his assignments have brought him a perspective that many others don’t have.

“Seeing what the spouses had to go through, supporting their spouse whether male or female, watching some of them deploy, and just becoming a support system with the rest of our friends that we either went through basic with or were stationed with — especially spouses with small children — it was very hard,” Rooney said.

“I think that what spouses go through in the modern era is certainly something I am very comfortable with, which is why I want to be on the subcommittee for personnel. You want people to want to be in the military. You want spouses to be happy — to be happy their better half served in the military. It should not be an encumbrance at all.”

Military spouses, he added are “probably the most unsung hero part of the military.”

Rooney said he is working on legislation now that helps military spouses better deal with some of the stresses they face when Soldiers come home — specifically dealing with PTSD.

“Our bill would make it a lot easier to identify what the needs are of each individual warfighter when they get home,” he said. “A large part of it was to assist the spouses who really have to deal with it in a way they probably never anticipated.

“I think the first or second bill I sponsored was directly written because of my concern for military spouses — with PTSD. I talked to a lot of women who when their husband got home, whatever level of stress they may have had, they were not ready to deal with that. And so I just thought if as a Congress we can make it easier on them by making (more accessible) whatever care the returning warfighter is going to get … then all the better.”

The Citizen’s Demise
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS
Tucson Citizen Published: 05.16.2009

Arizona’s oldest continuously published newspaper will hit Tucson newsstands and doorsteps for the last time on May 16.

As a longtime reader of the Tucson Citizen, I think I speak for many when I say the paper’s closure will be like saying goodbye to an old, trusted friend.

What a friend it has been. The Citizen already was 11 years old when it told us about Wyatt Earp’s shootout at the OK Corral in 1881. It had been around 42 years when Arizona became a state in 1912. And when the city of Tucson celebrated its bicentennial in 1975, the Citizen had a 105-year record of reporting behind it.

Tucson will be very different without the Citizen. Our community will have one fewer voice, one fewer watchdog, one fewer place to go for the news we need to understand our increasingly complex world.

Many believe that, as an afternoon newspaper, the Citizen’s days have long been numbered. Perhaps, but the loss of the Citizen is emblematic of a far more troubling trend. The entire newspaper industry is struggling as never before, thanks in part to a seismic shift in how we get our news.

Today the Internet, not the daily newspaper, serves as our window to the world.

For news junkies and avid newspaper readers, this is a truly sad turn of events. I count myself among this shrinking community.

Sure, going online is fast and handy. But old school types love newspapers – we love holding them, with a cup of coffee at hand, and learning about what has happened in our neighborhood, city, state and country.

Some of us – the real die-hards – even like comparing competing articles and editorials on the same subject among rival newspapers. Tucson was one of the few cities where this was possible; ours was one of the last two-newspaper towns left in America.

With the demise of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver over the past month, Tucson is by no means alone in having to rely on one newspaper. That, however, is little comfort. Competition is a good thing for newspapers, as it is for any business.

Having two newspapers fostered a competitive spirit that allowed the Tucson Citizen and Arizona Daily Star to bring out the best in each another. Reporters, editors and photographers at each of our papers wanted to scoop the other guy. In that race, readers were the winners.

Since 1870, the Citizen has kept southern Arizonans informed. We didn’t always agree with an editorial position or like the angle of a news story, yet we kept reading.

We needed the Citizen. Sometimes we needed it to figure out a City Council decision. Sometimes we needed it to tell us how the Wildcats did. And sometimes we just needed it to tell us when movies began at The Loft.

The point is, the Citizen was there for us.

From the era of the Butterfield Overland Stage to the Phoenix Mars Mission, the Citizen helped chronicle Arizona’s amazing journey from a rough and tumble territory to the second-fastest growing state in the country.

It was an indispensable part of our community. It educated us, entertained us and inspired us. It will be missed.

Goodbye, dear friend.

Gabrielle Giffords is a member of the U.S. House representing Tucson and southern Arizona.

Explorer May-06-2009

Rachel Childers’ portrait to hang in U.S. Capitol

An Ironwood Ridge High School student has won the grand prize in the Congressional Arts Competition sponsored by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Rachel Childers, a senior, won for her painting “Portrait of Elmer,” a portrait of her grandfather. Childers’ painting is now destined to hang in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for a year. It will hang along with 434 grand prize winners from each of the nation’s U.S. Congress districts.

Childers also won second place in the general painting category for a landscape, “Norwegian Landscape.”

Friends of Western Art supports the Congressional Arts Competition with monetary prizes. This year, 49 prizes were given in eight categories during an awards ceremony Saturday in the performance garden at Tohono Chul Park. Student art work is being displayed in The Gallery at Tohono Chul from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through June 1.

This year marks the 24th anniversary of the Congressional Arts Competition, an event sponsored by the Congressional Arts Caucus. The competition is open to all high school students, and was created to recognize the creative talents of young Americans.

“If this year’s entries are any indication, we have a tremendous amount of artistic talent in Southern Arizona,” said Giffords. “Many of the paintings, drawings and photographs we looked at this year could easily be displayed in a gallery or museum.”

Childers and her parents are receiving plane tickets to travel to Washington, where they’ll attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 24 with all of the winners from each Congressional district.

Herald/Review Published: Thursday, April 30, 2009

New funds bring total received so far to more than $23 million
By Bill Hess

FORT HUACHUCA – More than $4.5 million of federal economic recovery funds have been approved for eight construction projects aimed at making the fort more energy efficient, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office said Wednesday.

Fort Huachuca has now received $23,033,166 in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to Giffords, D-Ariz. The fort is in her 8th Congressional District.

The new stimulus funding totals $4,574,808.

The new funds will go to retrofitting an administrative building by repairing electrical, heating and air conditioning, latrines, doors and windows, changing a number of energy using lights to better “green” devices, repairing the installation energy management control system, improve a water distribution loop, replace a boiler with a wood chip boiler in the central heating plant, repair two different sewer lines and repair another boiler and insulate that building, according to Giffords’ office.

Earlier this year, the fort received $18,458,358 for 32 projects that the Army approved.

In March, the post’s director of public works, John Ruble, said many of the projects being funded have been waiting for money to let contractors start, some going back five years.

The initial funding is going to many “shovel ready” projects, something the Obama Administration wanted to support so they could start faster than going though a design phase.

C.J. Karamargin, Giffords’ spokesman, said the additional stimulus  dollars are to support upgrading infrastructure with new technology.

As the stimulus stream continues, there is a possibility additional funds may come to the fort, he added.

Of the additional funds, Garrison Commander Col. Melissa Sturgeon said, “We welcome the additional economic recovery funds. They will be put to good use to repair infrastructure shortcomings on the fort and allows us to accomplish necessary projects for sustainment of this critical installation.”

East Valley Tribune, April 15, 2009

Bill Richardson, Commentary

“We are dealing with a lethal narco-insurgency!”  Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

On April 7, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., hosted a border-related crime summit in Tucson. City, county, state and federal law enforcement officials from Arizona’s border counties, Pinal County, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., attended.

Southern and central Arizona have long been destinations for organized crime. Thanks to years of neglect by state government, Arizona is now the gateway to the United States for the Mexican drug cartels.

David Gonzales, the U.S. marshal for Arizona, described Giffords’ sit-down as a milestone in addressing the problems. Gonzales, a former southern Arizona undercover narcotics agent and gang unit commander, had high praise for Giffords.

The summit focused on the totality of the state’s cross border crime problem, not just illegal immigration. Human smuggling is one of many profit sources for domestic and international organized crime that makes tens of billions of dollars from the United States’ growing supermarket of crime. Border control is just part of the solution.

The congresswoman obviously sees and understands what’s really going on. She wanted facts, not emotion and bravado. She got what she asked for, no holds barred!

Giffords assembled some of the best minds in the business. Ritchie Martinez, a criminal intelligence analysis supervisor from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Center, told Giffords that cartel members are in Arizona to protect business interests and expand their markets. HIDTA is a significant source of federal funding and support for successful local law enforcement projects designed to combat cross-border and organized crime in Arizona.

Martinez has spent 36 years working the border and is one of the top criminal intelligence experts in the world.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KJZZ radio (91.5 FM) following the summit that violence stemming from Mexico’s ongoing drug war is here.

Gonzales, who also heads the Arizona HIDTA leadership team, said “organized crime groups with ties to the drug cartels are here, growing and joining forces with, or charging other criminals taxes to conduct criminal activity in the state.”

In a March 25 Associated Press story, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, who also attended the summit, said, “the cartels are responsible for kidnappings, shootings, rapes and banditry” in his county.

In 2007 there were 30,600 violent crimes and 279,794 serious property crimes reported in Arizona. Statewide only about one in five is solved. U.S. Department of Justice officials have attributed 80 percent of all crimes committed to organized crime groups and have reported the presence of Mexican organized crime in Arizona. The Congressional Quarterly announced in March that Arizona is America’s eighth most dangerous state.

Recent seizures of Mexican heroin in northern Arizona show how far-reaching the problem is. And the recent arrests of American street gangsters in Phoenix and San Diego for two separate multimillion-dollar fraudulent enterprises demonstrate a new level of diversification by cunning organized criminals who have long been thought of as only being capable of dealing drugs, drive-by shootings and stealing beer.

The congresswoman expressed concern about the state’s need for resources and the ability of law enforcement officials to share information and move rapidly and collectively against the growing and increasingly unified enemy of organized crime. She told meeting attendees that “communication and cooperation are not optional!”

Unfortunately Arizona is lacking significantly when it comes to effective communications. For years, state officials have chosen not to spend a small portion of the millions in federal pubic safety aid it receives on an urgently needed cooperative statewide criminal information collection, sharing and communications system for law enforcement.

Even though the Legislature has pledged $1.6 million for Maricopa County immigration sweeps, the state won’t fund a $2.5 million information sharing project to allow every police officer in Arizona to communicate and share information on crime and criminals.

Giffords’ summit jump-started a long overdue, serious, apolitical and nonpartisan discussion of the crime problem that’s permeated the border and made its presence well known throughout the rest of Arizona.

Her “take the point” leadership is extremely refreshing.

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at .