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<big>'''Proposed Bill'''</big> - To be developed. | <big>'''Proposed Bill'''</big> - To be developed. | ||
----<big>'''Good | ----<big>'''Standard for Good'''</big> - Read Federal Standards for Government. | ||
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'''<big>Governance Gaps</big>''' - that we identified in our assessment. | '''<big>Governance Gaps</big>''' - that we identified in our assessment. | ||
Revision as of 05:04, 8 September 2026
Arizona Citizen Voice
Arizona Citizen Voice (ACV) is an independent organization working with our Arizona Senators and Representatives to take action on behalf of all of Arizona's citizens to pass legislation in 2027 to hold Arizona counties accountable to valid citizen complaints.
We seek to pass an Arizona law requiring Arizona counties to implement a process to receive and respond to citizen complaint about county governance issues, Arizona counties will model the citizen complaint process after and be overseen by the Arizona Ombudsman-Citizens’ Aide Legislative Agency to ensure consistency across all Arizona Counties. If the State of Arizona has a process for addressing citizen concerns, certainly this type of process could be implemented at the county level.
We are not trying to fight city hall as the expression goes. We are asking Arizona counties to listen to its citizens, respectfully consider their concerns and take action to fix issues when citizen's concerns are validated. We don't want a fight; we want to be heard.
From a citizen's perspective, this is a bipartisan issue. The proposal doesn't favor one party over the other. The proposal sole purpose is to give each citizen equal standing to be heard when they have felt unfairly treated by county government.
ACV is an all-volunteer organization. We do not receive funds from any outside entity. We certainly don't have any funds to be lobbying through normal channels.
We've layered our presentation so that you don't have to read every page of our website to understand our mission. Some of you may have already felt an injustice from your personal interfaces with your County. You have seen firsthand how their actions or inaction can cause harm and can't get answers when they are desperately needed. If you're in that boat, you're already to jump into action and this will be a short read.
If you're a "Doubting Thomas," we have data to satisfy your skepticism. That said, you're going to be disappointed if you're expecting a legal argument, proving there is a governance problem beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, we will trend examples of poor governance, so the patterns poor management decisions reveal themselves as issues in need of a legislative intervention.
The raw data comes from citizen interfaces with the county and government reports. Interestingly, we found examples of poor governance is government investigation of election-related anomalies. For example, procedures intended to ensure compliance with the Arizona Revised Statutes were violated as determined by an inspector for the Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation. The investigation found numerous anomalies, but no malicious or criminal intent. Basically, the Arizona Attorney General's investigation left a trail of incompetence (poor governance) as the reason for deviating from legal requirements. As would be expected in a criminal investigation, compliance with the law was more important than doing the right thing. Therefore, they left breadcrumbs of poor governance examples in their effort to show compliance with the law.
We chose to present information in the Wiki-format because of its use of hyperlinks. These hyperlinks will allow you to learn more according to your personal areas of interest. Please heed our warning, you may get lost in the data so use organization of topics in the left margin to help you navigate through the abundance of data. Use left margin as you would a directory in a shopping mall. The organization of topic will help you find where you are in the data and where you want to go.
Navigational Guide
The following diagram will help you determine how far you want to go to understand the issues and the proposed solution.
Click here to learn more about the GOAL.
Click here to learn more about what we are asking of our Legislators.
Click here to lean how you can help.
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Proposed Bill - To be developed.
Standard for Good - Read Federal Standards for Government.
Governance Gaps - that we identified in our assessment.
Examples - See how we identified the Governance Gaps
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Quick Overview
If you're already in agreement with the need to force Arizona counties to implement a formal complaint process, then the following pages should suffice:
- Arizona Citizen Voice Goal - This page will explain our goal and give a quick overview about how we intend to get there.
- Legislative Action - We are seeking lasting improvements, which will require new laws and Legislative involvement to make it happen.
- Public Support - We need you to let your Legislators know this proposal is important to you. You may also become another volunteer.
Everyone needs to start with this Quick Overview, including you skeptics.
Details for the Skeptic
This is a bulleted outline of the best way to learn more about the proposal and the reasoning behind the proposal.
- Proposed Bill - The bill needs to be written. We need at least one Legislator to step up and help us write a bill that can get passed. The bill needs to be scant on details and big on impact.
- Process Overview - This page explains what we are seeking in the bill.
- Process Specification - These are the process steps, which would be implemented by the counties,
- Good Governance -
- US GAO Green Book - This explains what good looks like. This is the standard used to identify poor governance.
- Governance Gaps - This explains the governance gaps we discovered.
- Green Book Attributes - Each example was compared to the Green Book Attributes to determine if County behaviors deviated from the Federal standards.
- Heat Maps - These present our narrative findings in a mathematical setting for t
- Take-aways
- Poor Governance Examples
- Jamie's Examples
- Independent Examples
Governance Gap Video
A short seven-minute video was developed to help you understand our motivation for seeking a change to the Arizona Revised Statute to hold Arizona counties accountable to you, an Arizona citizen.
Proposed Solution
There is already a citizen complaint process established with Title 11, which defines statutory requirements for counties. Citizen complaints are currently addressed by A.R.S. 11-1608. Complaints; procedures. By the way, if you have a complaint, you may be better off finding a lawyer than filing a complaint with the county based upon this paragraph from the statute, "Any facts relevant to, and the legal basis for, the complaint." [Emphasis added] Citizens can observe deviations from good business practices and good governance without having knowledge of the legal basis.
There is a precedence for having statutory requirements to allow a citizen to complain to their county. The goal is to change Arizona statutes to create a process for addressing citizen complaints and ensure counties are following the process by having process oversight by an independent state government entity.
The process would consist of the following key steps:
- A citizen, organization or county employee may submit a complaint (or concern) by accessing a page on the county's website.
- The county assigns a tracking number and then reviews the concern to assess risk and significance from compliance and/or poor governance perspectives.
- The cause of a deviation from laws, procedures or good governance
is concerned, if necessary. Question 101 (concerned?? considered? researched?) [This is a place holder for future editing] - Corrective Action Plan to address the causes of deviations. Question 102 (meaning? Need sentence) 🔴🔴
- The original issue may be closed out after the appropriate corrective actions have been implemented and documented as necessary, and the citizen has been informed of county's response. This response may include a description of completed actions to address their concern, or no action, if the concern cannot be validated.
Start Your Journey of Discovery
This website draws attention to poor governance practices so that you can make an informed decision. Should I support proposed legislation to hold Arizona Counties accountable to its citizens?
Key webpages for exploring the Case-for-Action justification are presented in a hyperlink box in the left margin at the top of the page. Key pages are listed under the Navigation and Topic headers.
Join the Cause
Your voice is important. Abraham Lincoln made these remarks in this Gettysburg Address:
"...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
You may be able to help me with a case for action. I need justification to gain legislative support for a new Arizona law that will establish a process to review citizen complaints for governance gaps and implement corrective actions when appropriate. The problem becomes more significant with more examples. How can you help?
Send me details about a frustrating encounter with your county government. With your consent, I would use your unpleasant experience as data in support of a case for action. Your help will be needed to ensure your governance gap is a deviation from a standard. If you dive into this website, you will gain knowledge of the standards for good governance. 
You can help keep this idea in front of your Arizona Senator and Representatives. How can you help?
Following the November 2026 election, send your Senator and Representatives a message. Tell them you want to hold County government accountable to its Citizens. Ask them to support the proposed Bill.
The effort to get the bill approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor is being delayed until after the November 2026 election to allow you to vote for the candidates that you feel will support this effort. The delay will give us some time to draft the bill. The sense of urgency begins after the elections because the Legislature begins their annual review of Legislative initiatives in January 2027.
Our Prayer
Some citizens feel that we are in a battle with our own government. It's a battle of words, not a physical battle. It's not a yelling match; we seek words that spark curiosity and thoughtful consideration. ACV adopted this prayer in an effort receive God's guidance. We, you and all of us need to find the right words, said at the right time, to allow others to see how the proposed bill serves both citizens and government. It is a desire to promote positive outcomes from a freedom to exchange ideas.
Dear heavenly Father, you have blessed the United States of America with founding fathers that served you. You gave them the wisdom to for the first time in recorded history to create a nation for the sole purpose of serving its people. While not perfect, a government by the people and for the people has prevailed for over 250 years. With your love and grace, our nations laws have evolved as people’s needs have changed.
We seek your wisdom and ask for your guidance in a preserving the public’s trust in Arizona County government. A citizen’s voice is meaningless unless acknowledged and addressed with respect. We envision new laws to ensure all citizen concerns are heard. Your desire for peace and love will be served by a thoughtful government response. Your desire for justice will be served when citizen input has been addressed, promoting transparency and making governance decisions that are efficient, effective, safe and benefits the majority of people.
Please guide us towards finding the right words to justify new laws. With your grace, new laws will restore public confidence in government by ensuring citizen voices are heard. A government by the people can’t serve its people unless each voice has an opportunity to be heard. It’s a daunting change, but necessary to address our fast-paced society, where those in control may not always slow down to hear from the meek.
Heavenly Father, it is through our understanding of your desire for love and peace that we seek these new laws. Please grant us the will to carry these ideas forward to our Arizona Legislature and Governor. With devotion to you, we will be patience, place our trust in you, and accept any outcome. We pray that our vision serves you. Amen.
