NE Valley Times

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) must have turned green with envy when Fountain Hills tried to pass an Environmental Plan Tuesday February 21. All based on an 11-page utopian manifesto. Among the many fantastical goals, I have highlighted the five most preposterous proposals:

• Remove gas and diesel cars from town roads
• Force ridership of unpopular public transport
• Ban gas powered leaf blowers
• Increase traffic by eliminating lanes for cars
• Spike building costs with new sustainable building codes

Curiously missing from any of the discussions is what all this would cost. Nationally, AOC’s Green New Deal has been touted as being from inestimable because of its complexity to upwards of $100 trillion. If implemented, I would have expected the Fountain Hills Environmental Plan to consume an eye-popping amount of greenbacks as well.

Luckily the conservative majority on the Fountain Hills town council stopped this expansion of the Green New Deal. Council members Brenda Kalivianakis, Hannah Toth,  Gerry Friedel, and Allen Skillicorn voted down this unpopular and expensive virtue signaling. 

Council members Peggy McMahon, Sharron Grzybowski, and Mayor Ginny Dickey all voted to implement Green New Deal restrictions on their town and neighbors.

After the meeting Councilman Allen Skillicorn said, “I will not allow Arizona to slide into California! Last night four conservatives stopped the green new deal in Fountain Hills. This begs the question, when leaf blowers are outlawed, will only outlaws will blow leaves?"

Councilman Allen Skillicorn also tweeted an image of Charlton Heston holding up a leaf blower with the words "From my cold, dead hands!"