New Maricopa County chair makes public safety, housing and economic development top priorities

The newly elected chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors used an organizational address to lay out an agenda focused on public safety, housing and economic development, urging state action on a county sales-tax that funds jails and proposing new county positions and programs to spur job growth and streamline housing approvals.

In his remarks to fellow supervisors and invited guests, the chair said county leaders must balance “prosperity and security” and pledged to work with the county manager and elected officials to align county resources with those priorities. “It's an honor to be elected by my colleagues as chairman of the board of supervisors,” he said.

The chair framed public safety as the top fiscal and policy priority for the board. He called attention to the jail excise tax that currently funds adult and juvenile correction facilities, probation services and correctional health care and noted it will expire in 2027 unless the state legislature acts to allow the measure on the ballot. The chair said the county’s citizen-led public safety committee recommended a 20-year extension of the one-fifth of a cent sales tax that has been in place since the 1990s, and urged state approval to put an extension before Maricopa County voters.

He criticized the federal court…