The gist of Gov. Jan Brewer's address: More spending cuts, a "temporary" billion-dollar tax increase and a promised tax cut that kicks in a few years down the road.

The big question: Which taxes does she want to hike? The rumblings have been focused on a sales-tax increase, but Brewer was sketchy on the details tonight.

She served notice to the Right and the Left:

I will not sign a budget that relies on primarily on debt and federal stimulus dollars. And I will not sign a budget that relies primarily on unrealistic spending cuts.

Now she just has to find 31 representatives and 16 senators who see things her way.

The March 5-11, 2009, edition of the Tucson Weekly is online and ready for readers. Feel free to comment on its contents here!

I mentioned last week on Arizona Illustrated's Roundtable that tensions were growing between Gov. Jan Brewer and Republicans in the Legislature. Daniel Scarpinato fleshes out the details in a piece in the morning daily.

Brewer is set to give an address on her budget vision this evening (at the same time that Arizona Education Association will be joined by labor unions and college students for a march on the Capitol to protest budget cuts--so at least she'll have a crowd, albeit not a friendly one.)

On Monday, Republicans announced that they had their own economic recovery plan, although they evidently didn't clear it with the entire caucus.

The GOP plan consists of four planks:

• Reduce regulatory burden

• Assure a stable tax structure

• Prevent arbitrary fees to employers

• Remove government from direct competition with private employers

So far, this is it for the "plan"--a list of soundbites that could have been cooked up by Joe the Plumber. No specifics on the tax structure, no list of regulations to be eliminated, no idea of what the arbitrary fees now are. The closest thing to a specific policy is a mention of Senate Bill 1466, which creates a commission to study what areas of government could be turned over to private enterprise.

Election-integrity activists proved this week that when you want to know something, you get in a van and haul ass to Phoenix.

What they wanted to know was the exact location of the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority ballots that were transported from a secure storage facility in Tucson to Phoenix on Tuesday, Feb. 24, after being released to the Arizona Attorney General's office following a sealed court order issued by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge. And while they suspected the ballots were going to Maricopa County Election Department, the activists also wanted to know the exact procedures that would take place to make sure chain of custody of the ballots was protected and how AG Terry Goddard will go about counting the ballots. They wanted all political parties in the counting process and as recount observers.

On Monday, Jim March and John Brakey from Audit AZ went up with a van of other activists and paid a visit to the Maricopa County Election Department. They were told the ballots are not there by election department employee Ray Valenzuela. The exchange was caught on film as part of JT Waldron's documentary Fatally Flawed, on the Pima County elections-integrity travails.

The big news garned from the interchange: The AG has the ballots, the AG has contracted with the elections department up in heathenville (i.e. Phoenix) to prepare and do a hand count, and all of it is expected to take place in April. See a clip from Monday's visit HERE.

Imagine that ... the mystery of the RTA election--if it was flipped as the Pima County Democratic Party and election integrity activists have come to suspect--could be resolved by spring.

The activists ended their Monday road trip at the AG's office, where they hoped to talk with Don Conrad regarding the ballots. They wanted to ask if a security seal could be placed on the ballots boxes and find out if the ballots are indeed there. They stuck around for an hour waiting, and were told no one was there to meet with them, so they headed outside to protest.

Via e-mail from Brakey: "Truly the AG office doesn’t get it! As we know election security is a cooperative process between elections officials and the political parties, per Arizona law. Historically, when law enforcement or ANY other agency seizes sole control of critical ballots, it's a sign that either the agency does not understand chain-of-custody election laws--or it is their intent to commit election fraud. Without approved witnesses appointed by the major political parties, the public can NEVER be certain that ballots secretly sequestered by ANY agency are EVER counted correctly."

For this week's Weekly, The Skinny talked to AG Press Secretary Anne Hilby, who confirmed the ballots are in possession of the AG’s office and are being treated as evidence as part of their ongoing criminal investigation into allegations that the RTA election was flipped-- although Hilby couldn’t confirm or deny they may indeed be at the Maricopa County elections office.

The Skinny requested a copy of the court order, but Hilby said the document is sealed in court and is not considered a public record. Hilby said an examination protocol has yet to be decided, but once it is, it will be made public before any counting or examination takes place. Of course, Hilby and her boss probably didn't expect Brakey and company to drive up and ask for themselves.

“I can confirm the Attorney General’s office has taken ballots… The ballots are treated as evidence in a criminal investigation… We understand the significance of this issue, especially to particular organizations in Pima County,” Hilby said.

Come April, I'd like to have a front row seat in Maricopa County. I want to watch this count take place, and like everyone involved--from activists, to Pima County politicians and bureaucrats, the RTA folks, our own elections department and even Terry Goddard--I'm looking forward to an ending to what has often seemed like a never-ending story.

Before we can call it close to quits, we need the AG's office to do this right, and that means talking to the Pima County Democratic Party, following chain-of-custody and other security measures as suggested, and making sure everyone is on board with the final procedures before that first hand touches that ballots. If not, it never ends.

Attorney Chris Brooks, a friend of The Weekly, has launched a blog that is trying to make sense of local water policy. Check it out for a good round-up of what's been going on with the city-county committee that's been examining our water supplies.

One big takeaway:

Essentially they are asking - How far will our existing supplies take us under these different scenarios? The upshot of this being, that unless we either find new supplies, make greater use of effluent, or further reduce per capita usage (or some combination of those) we will be hitting some limits with our supplies around 2020, which is not that far off.

A new report from state budget experts shows a precipitous drop of nearly 31 percent in income-tax collections in January.

Overall, the latest numbers from the Joint Legislature Budget Committee show that January’s revenues--which also include sales and corporate income taxes--dropped by 21.9 percent compared to January 2008. The total revenues were nearly $82 million below forecast.

The report notes that the drop is especially calamitous when you consider that revenues in January 2008 had dropped 14.4 percent compared to January 2007. The two-year decline totals 36.6 percent.

We'll have more in this week's dead-plant-matter edition of the Tucson Weekly.

We've mentioned a few times recently that City Council members may be asked to raise the city's trash fee—a politically dicey proposition, since most of the current members have opposed the fee, or at least complained that it costs too much. (Or at least that it cost too much when Republicans on an earlier council created it.)

Well, the memo requesting a hike in the trash has finally arrived.

Andy Quigley, the city’s new director of Environmental Services, has done what he can to lower spending in his department. He’s cut one civil engineer from the staff, along with enough other employees to save a million dollars a year. He’s not paying down the department’s bond debt this year. He’s saving $2.3 million by putting off the purchase of new garbage trucks.

But the market for recycled materials is declining and private waste companies are dumping garbage elsewhere, so the department isn’t bringing in as much money as it had hoped. So Quigley is asking the council to boost the $14-a-month trash fee by 60 cents.

That comes on top of recent increases in your sewer bill by the Pima County Board of Supervisors and a request for higher water rates that will be considered by the Tucson City Council.

And now for something completely different: Mayor Bob Walkup as Willie Nelson.

The video--and yes, that's Councilman Rodney Glassman alongside Walkup--was shot as part of Glassman's annual Evening of Love Songs, a Valentine's Day fundraiser for the Glassman Foundation. Proceeds from the event, which features a variety of heavy hitters singing their hearts out alongside a 20-piece jazz band, went to benefit UA Band Day, TUSD's Opening Minds Through Arts and other educational programs.

If you want to see Don Pitt making his way through a George M. Cohan medley or Jim Rosborough teaming up with Bert Williams for "Sixteen," you can find the entire concert here.