TIME not giving up

The folks behind the Governor's transportation plan are not giving up. They have a plan on how they will get their initiative on the ballot, which Espresso Pundit has so graciously shared the talking points for the meeting. We are personally racking our brains to think about the email that starts with G who was supposed to get the email.

You can see these talking points in action in a memo from PolitickerAZ's 6th most influential person:

Memorandum: Regarding the TIME Initiative

From: Tom Ziemba
TIME Initiative Campaign Manager

Re: Ballot Qualification

I wanted to update you on where the TIME Initiative stands in the ballot qualification process. But before I give you the background on this issue, let me first simply tell you that we are very confident that the TIME Initiative WILL be on the ballot this year.

As you may have heard, the Secretary of State issued a statement yesterday saying that, based on the preliminary information about our signature validity rates, the TIME Initiative would not qualify for the ballot. While we strongly dispute her finding, the statement was not a surprise. We have been preparing for this stage in the process for some time and we are ready to move forward to qualify TIME for the ballot.

The fact is, signature counts from the Secretary of State and Maricopa County are troubling and unusual this year. For TIME as well as other initiatives, there appears to be a large number of Arizona citizens who were arbitrarily disqualified from having their voices heard in the initiative process.

Based on our independent review of the signatures deemed “invalid’ by the Secretary of State and Maricopa County, it appears that thousands of petitions signed by registered Arizona voters were wrongly discarded. Once we complete this analysis, our campaign plans to file legal action to reinstate thousands of valid signatures that should have rightly been counted by the Secretary of State and Maricopa County.

The stakes could not be higher for Arizona. Arizonans’ quality of life is suffering because of traffic and lack of choices in our transportation system. The TIME Initiative is designed to ease those transportation pressures, giving people more options and more time to do the things they love, instead of sitting in traffic. The Initiative contains a balanced plan that includes more resources for highways, local roads, rail and other public transportation options – as well as significant resources to ensure that our state’s natural beauty doesn’t suffer as we improve our transportation system.

We will keep you posted in the coming days as we move forward to qualify for the ballot. Please also know that this is not distracting our team from preparing to launch a dynamic, aggressive campaign to talk to Arizonans about our transportation challenges and how TIME can help make life a little better in our state.

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me or any member of our team if we can be of assistance.

Best,
Tom Ziemba

P.S. Stay tuned in the coming days for the launch of the TIME campaign website!