This year marks the 16th year of operation of HighGround, Inc. Beyond that, many of our team members have been in the Arizona public policy arena for more than 20 years. We are proud of what we have been able to accomplish working together with elected officials as well as business and community leaders.
We are proud to have been an integral part of at several significant public policy efforts in Arizona, measures that passed, others that have been defeated. Through them all, hard work and cooperation have always been the heart of theses efforts.
Depending on the issue, there have been times when we have been given far too much credit and other times when we have received far too much blame. However, we keep moving forward because Arizona is our home. We got into politics to effect real change, Arizona is where we want to live.
That is why we have launched a new section of the HighGround site titled, “Leaders in Public Policy.”
We believe that people can get a better understanding about who we are and why we do what we do by learning about what we have done. Good public policy always takes a team, and we certainly didn’t do any of these things by ourselves, but by cooperating, communicating, and compromising you get things accomplished. Below is a sampling of some of the major policy issues:
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- Disproportionate Share Funding (1995)
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- Juvenile Justice Initiative (1995-1996)
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- Growing Smarter Legislative Package and Preserve Arizona Ballot Initiative (1996-1998)
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- Multi-use Stadium (1997-1999) Defeated Growth Management Initiative (2000)
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- Power Generation (2001) Maricopa County Hospital District (2001-2003)
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- Regional Transportation Plan (2002-2004)
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- BCS National Championship Game (2005)
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- Appropriation to build the ASU Polytechnic Institute (2006)
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- Safe Communities Act (2008) Privatization of SCF AZ (2010)
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- Balancing Arizona’s Budget Proposition 100 (2010)
We encourage everyone to take a larger look at what we have been able to accomplish for Arizona when we build coalitions to communicate, cooperate, and compromise. We have spent our time, our efforts, and our political capital to build a state that we can be proud of.