Headlines
AZ: Gov Brewer vetoes bill demanding return of federal lands
MI: Commentary: Follow the money in Detroit consent agreement
CA: Company wants to tap Mojave’s public lands for Southland water
‎IL: Chicago’s Daley, a year later— No thanks for the memories
PA: Commentary: Will public education die in Philly?
PA: Move to privatize Pa. prison nursing services fails
PA: Residents voice nearly unanimous plea not to privatize nursing home
MN: Toll roads bill stalled in Minnesota House
VT: State board tables district independent school application
FL: Court moves prison privatization oral arguments
KY: Lawmakers briefed on UK dorm project
‎MS: Gautier council rejects privatization move
CO: CSU chancellor finalist to face privatization challenge
TX: County official nixes idea of outsourcing tax collections
Outsourcing national bison range to tribe

AZ: Gov Brewer vetoes bill demanding return of federal lands
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Monday vetoed a bill demanding the U.S. government turn over millions of acres of its property to the state, dealing a surprise blow to the “sagebrush revolt” against federal control over vast tracts of land in the West. The much-publicized measure, which cleared the Republican-dominated Arizona legislature last month, called for federal agencies to relinquish title to roughly 48,000 square miles (124,000 square km) of land they hold in the Grand Canyon state by 2015. Brewer, a Republican and staunch conservative who had been widely expected to support the measure, said in a statement that the legislation failed to “identify an enforceable cause of action to force federal lands to be transferred to the state.” Huffington Post

MI: Commentary: Follow the money in Detroit consent agreement
Follow the money. It’s good advice in politics. In the case of Detroit’s fiscal crisis the money all flows in the same direction — from the 99 percent to the 1 percent. The consent agreement engineered by the state as a “remedy” to Detroit’s crisis achieves, without an emergency manager, the goal for which EMs were invented: Protecting banks and bondholders from loss. Take a look at Section 18 of the Emergency Manager Law. It requires that the fix for a local government’s finances include “payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes, and municipal securities of the local government.” That means the Wall Street bankers lose nothing — while Detroit’s workers and residents pay more every day. The Detroit News

CA: Company wants to tap Mojave’s public lands for Southland water
‎If the plan succeeds, it will turn ancient desert groundwater, a public resource, into a fountain of private profit, blazing a new — and some warn ominous — path in the state…”It’s taking a public resource that originates on public land, privatizing it and selling it back to the public,” said Seth Shteir of the National Parks Conservation Assn., one of a dozen environmental groups challenging the project. “This water is going to Orange County lawns and swimming pools. The desert is being asked to shoulder the burden.” Los Angeles Times

IL: Chicago’s Daley, a year later— No thanks for the memories
Consider, in no particular order…News that the dreaded privatization of parking meters in 2008 was worse than we thought: Chicago Parking Meters LLC, which has been cheerfully jacking up rates since buying 75-year rights to meter revenue for $1.15 billion, is billing the city $14 million for the offense of taking meters out of service for repairs and other street closings, and pursuing an additional $13.5 million claim related to parking for the disabled. Headlines announcing that Daley, who quickly burned through most of that $1.15 billion parking-meter payout in an effort to conceal a structural deficit in city finances, was hired by Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, the law firm that — wait for it! — billed the city $663,000 for helping negotiate the parking-meter deal. News that under a little-known provision of Daley’s 2006 deal that privatized four Grant Park-area parking garages, the city may owe Chicago Loop Parking LLC some $200 million for allowingStandard Parking Corp. to open a competing lot inside the forbidden zone designed to protect the investors who paid $563 million for a 99-year lease on the city garages. Chicago Tribune

PA: Commentary: Will public education die in Philly?
The Philadelphia plan is the latest manifestation of the idea that the best way to educate kids is to hand them over to private entrepreneurs. It is au courant and wrong. The drive for privatization is driven by multiple ideologies. DianeRavitch

PA: Move to privatize Pa. prison nursing services fails
Critics of a plan by Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections to outsource the work of its nurses to private companies are breathing a sigh of relief. Pennsylvania’s state prisons already contract with private companies for certain medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical services. But the state’s biggest health care workers union is rejoicing over news that nurses won’t be added to that list. NewsWorks

PA: Residents voice nearly unanimous plea not to privatize nursing home
About 230 people attended the forum…Without making a recommendation, the report focused on three changes that would enable the county to save money on the facility: converting it to a nonprofit 501c3, leasing it to a private operator, or selling it. Unionville Times

MN: Toll roads bill stalled in Minnesota House
A plan to create public-private partnerships in finishing major road construction projects stalled in the Minnesota House this session. WJON News

VT: State board tables district independent school application
The matter before the board was whether to approve an independent school. Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca said the application is all the district should consider, but the board agreed it needs to consider the bigger issue of replacing a public school with an independent school. Board member William Mathis, a former longtime superintendent in the state, disagreed that the decision is as simple as approving an isolated application. “The purpose and intent all along was to privatize a public school, pure and simple,” Mathis said. “I think we need to look at the question of, is privatization of public schools a path we want to go down? I suggest that is a very, very important question and a very difficult one and one which I’m not prepared to support today.”  Bennington Banner

FL: Court moves prison privatization oral arguments
The First District Court of Appeal has moved back by two weeks oral arguments in the state’s appeal of a prison privatization ruling. The state is appealing a ruling by Circuit Judge Jakie Fulford that struck down an privatization plan approved by the Legislature after the the Florida Police Benevolent Association sued to block the initiative. Fulford said lawmakers improperly folded the privatization plan into the fine print of the budget. NorthEscambia.com

KY: Lawmakers briefed on UK dorm project
‎The University of Kentucky is moving forward with its plans to privatize the dorms on campus. WTVQ

MS: Gautier council rejects privatization move
On a 4-2 vote the City Council decided to stop advertising for proposals to privatize the city’s public works department at their meeting Tuesday in City Hall. Mississippi Press

CO: CSU chancellor finalist to face privatization challenge
How can the nation’s land-grant universities, founded on the ideas of accessibility and affordability, sidestep privatization as state and federal funding runs dry? The Coloradoan

TX: County official nixes idea of outsourcing tax collections
The possibility of consolidating Cherokee County tax collections with the appraisal district was apparently shot down Monday when Tax Assessor/Collector Linda Little said she would not go along with the proposal…But Little said one reason she opposed the proposal was there were no guarantee any of the estimated $85,750 savings would be passed along to residents by lowering property taxes a half-cent per $100 of a property’s appraised value. Daily Progress

Outsourcing national bison range to tribe
The US Fish & Wildlife Service has unveiled its third attempt at a pact for a Montana tribe to assume operational control over the National Bison Range, considered the crown jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System. YubaNet