Antenori took a lot of heat from the local papers during his campaign and realized early on he wouldn’t get a fair shake. He actually refused to go to the editorial interview for his general election race, the Citizen endorsed him anyway. 

This week he’s taking a bunch of heat for cutting the $25 million annual funding of the the 21st Century Science Fund. The fund was set up with the help of SALC, Greater Phoenix Leadership Council and the Flagstaff 40 to set up state funding for economic development purposes.  Read our previous post HERE.

Needless to say Antenori took a lot of heat for cutting 21st Century. The house leadership, Governor, business community and newspapers piled on. I spoke with Frank and can sympathise with his position. How do you tell a mother that AHCCCS isnt’ going to cover her child’s needed procude due to budget constraints and then let anything non essential exist on the states dole?

Raise taxes you say and and cut less? Here’s an interesting fact I heard from another State legislator; it took Arizona 100 years to grow it’s budget to $6 billion. It took Napolitano only 4 years to grow it to $10.3 billion. Do you think we over spent a bit?

In the middle of all the anger and arm twisting Antenori chose to write and OP ED to the Az Star. Thanks again to Gila Courier. Here is his response from the editorial board;

Dear Mr. Antenori,

Thank you for submitting a guest opinion to the Arizona Daily Star. We regret to inform you that we have decided against using your article because it fundamentally misrepresents how Science Foundation Arizona works and how it uses state money.

As a guest opinion writer, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but your facts must be correct. In this case, they are not. Please see our notes embedded within your article below and you’ll see where we believe the guest opinion is in error. In general, we believe your article mischaracterizes the funding as a cash bonus to big corporations and neglects to mention that corporations contribute money to match the state’s money.

Sincerely,

Martin Rosales
Editorial writer
Arizona Daily Star