The Show for June 29, 2026: Arizona's SNAP error rate, painter Emma Florance and more

Arizona has removed more residents from its food stamp program than any other state in the country. The state’s error rate for the SNAP program was also higher than the national average. Plus, a painter who's new to the Valley grapples with the environmental realities of this desert city.

Transcript

UNDERWRITER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. BannerHealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, will there be a deal on school vouchers at the state capitol, or will voters have their say in November?

GILGER: And the town of Guadalupe is facing a budget deficit and no obvious way to fill it.

BRODIE: But first, the ACLU will spend more than $24 million this year to safeguard elections in this country. The organization says it’s identified threats in areas including access to voting and election administration and is preparing to take action, including legal action. The money will be spent nationally, but also in a handful of states, including Arizona, where the group says the risk of election interference and voter disenfranchisement is high.

With me now to talk about what this effort might look like here is Victoria López, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona. Victoria, good morning.

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: Good morning, thanks.

MARK BRODIE: So, what is the concern specifically in Arizona?

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: Well, we’ve seen — first of all, the 2026 midterm election is going to be a hugely consequential election for us in the state. We obviously have top of the ticket candidates vying for votes. We also have major ballot measures that are going to go to the election. But we also will see exactly how elected officials and administrators across the state are actually administering our elections and actually complying with the Constitution and election administration safeguards.

So, a hugely consequential election here in Arizona, certainly, and we can’t ignore the backdrop that’s happening at the federal level with the ... president and the federal administration with rhetoric and a narrative that is really fearmongering and really putting voters in a really tough spot when it comes to the security and the safety of our elections.

MARK BRODIE: How much does the bickering between the Maricopa County supervisors and the recorder play into this? ... This is the state’s most populous county, big vote center here right here in the Phoenix area.

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: Yeah, it’s hard to ignore what’s happening in Maricopa County, and I think we’re seeing that not just in state, but we’re seeing that at a national level. And so, yes, the election will be hugely consequential. What we’re seeing between the recorder and the Board of Supervisors playing out here will have a tremendous effect. And of course, that is one of the huge priorities that we have at the ACLU of Arizona in monitoring what happens not just in Maricopa County, but in the 15 counties across the state.

MARK BRODIE: So, what does your effort look like this year? What are you planning for?

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: Well, voting rights and making sure that people can cast their ballots has been a priority for the ACLU of Arizona for every election cycle and will continue to be after this election cycle as well.

We’ve seen over the last several cycles, 2020, 2024, attempts by elected officials, by people to subvert access to the ballot. We’ve seen people trying ... with hand counts, with fraudulent narratives. And so, keeping an eye on those things, we’ve hired a voting rights attorney, we’ve hired an organizer who’s dedicated to monitoring elections. And we’re working in coalition across the state to make sure that people can cast their ballots and that the elections are administered in the way that they should be.

MARK BRODIE: Does that work — has that work started now? I mean, obviously for the primary, registration, the deadline has passed and everything. Are you working now to make sure that people can vote if they are eligible, and if they are not eligible, to get them registered at least for the general?

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: Yeah, that’s right. I mean, we’ve been planning for this 2026 midterm for over a year now. And that includes the know-your-rights information that we do at the ACLU of Arizona every election cycle to make sure that eligible voters have the information they need to register and to cast their ballots. We’ll continue to do that through November, and then after November, after Election Day, we’ll monitor the election results, and we’ll make sure that those election results are certified properly.

MARK BRODIE: Is what you’re doing this cycle different appreciably than what you have done in previous cycles?

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: In part, no, but in part, as I said, we can’t ignore the backdrop that this election is happening and the intense pressure and the scrutiny that election administrators and that the general public feels around this election cycle.

And so, part of it is making sure that we are providing credible, reliable information to the public about how to cast their ballot and making sure that we’re monitoring. And we’re making sure that elected officials are, in fact, following the Constitution and following the laws when it comes to access for voters and making sure that those votes are counted.

MARK BRODIE: Do you agree with the ACLU national’s suggestion or their opinion that Arizona is one of the states that maybe needs extra attention, that the risk of things like voter disenfranchisement are particularly high?

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: I mean, we’ve seen that election cycle over election cycle, and we’ve been doing that work. I think particularly, as you noted, with Maricopa County and the intense scrutiny and the intense conflict that we’re seeing between the Board of Supervisors and the county recorder sort of necessitates additional attention and additional eyes and additional resources to make sure that voters can do what they need to do this election cycle.

MARK BRODIE: What have you heard from the new hires so far about what they’re hearing, what they’re seeing on the ground?

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: I mean, what we’re seeing is general, just information. People want to know how they can cast their ballot, how they can register, how they can do what they need to do, what our democracy asks of them to do, and make sure that their vote gets counted. And so, having information about who are the cast of characters that administer the elections at the county level and at the state level? How one can register, how one can cast their ballot in a way that makes sense for them.

MARK BRODIE: What is your level of optimism that you will be able to get through this cycle without having to file a lawsuit?

LÓPEZ: I mean, we’ve had to file lawsuits in the last couple of election cycles.

MARK BRODIE: So maybe not such a high level of confidence you won’t have to this time.

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: I think we anticipate that we will probably be involved in some litigation this election cycle. In previous election cycles, we’ve had to file lawsuits, for example, to make sure that polling locations can stay open because people are ... standing in line waiting to cast their ballot. Those kinds of election administration issues, we anticipate having to monitor and potentially file lawsuits over those kinds of issues again.

I think this election cycle, we’re also really mindful of making sure that we don’t have any type of subversion when it comes to people coming in and trying to subvert the election and making sure that election centers, that people can get to those places, that they can cast their ballot safely. And that the certification process and the counting process of those ballots conforms with the law.

MARK BRODIE: OK, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Victoria López, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona. Victoria, thanks so much.

VICTORIA LÓPEZ: Thanks for having me.

GILGER: The battle over the state’s universal private school voucher program is heating up in court. Now, public education advocates have filed a legal challenge against a Republican-backed ballot measure — a ballot measure that Democrats are calling a “poison pill” designed to weaken another ballot measure aimed at reining in the ballooning program.

And all of the back-and-forth is happening as lawmakers behind the scenes are talking about making a deal on the Empowerment Scholarship Account program. And they’re talking about doing it in a special session.

Here to break it all down for us is our own Camryn Sanchez with KJZZ’s politics desk. Good morning, Camryn.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Good morning.

GILGER: OK, so this is a bit of a tangled web, so help us untangle it, Camryn. Let’s start with this lawsuit. This was filed by the Arizona Education Association — the state’s teachers’ union — and they’re trying to stop this so-called “poison pill” ballot measure that Republicans in the state legislature put on the ballot.

SANCHEZ: Right, and they put it on the ballot to go after the measure that the AEA and SOSAZ, which is Save Our Schools Arizona, were already trying to gather signatures for to put their measure on the ballot. So, we’ve had a lot of action-retaliation here that got us to this point.

But basically, in their lawsuit they’re saying this measure that Republican lawmakers put up needs to be blocked from ever going on the ballot because it’s a violation of single-subject, it’s doing too many things, and it has legal issues.

The main problem with it that they see is this Republican measure is ostensibly about protecting scholarships for military families, and that’s what the title suggests. But further down in the bill, it says if any other measure — like the AEA-backed measure — is to pass in the same election, then our measure would nullify your measure and take precedence.

GILGER: Right.

SANCHEZ: And they’re saying you can’t do that, it’s misleading to voters.

GILGER: OK. That’s the “poison pill” part.

SANCHEZ: That’s the “poison pill” part.

GILGER: Right, so potentially here, you could have two ESA-related ballot measures on the ballot for voters to vote on, and they could cancel one another out.

SANCHEZ: Correct, voters could absolutely pass both, especially if voters — as the AEA and SOS are arguing — if they are not aware that the poison pill measure doesn’t just refer to military families.

GILGER: OK. At the same time, Camryn, there are whispers behind the scenes — maybe more than whispers now — that lawmakers are trying to work out a deal on ESAs, which they did before this “poison pill” measure came about, right? Thinking about a special session to try to strike a deal on ESAs. What’s on the table in terms of how they might approach reining in this program?

SANCHEZ: There’s a few things. So, what the AEA and SOS-backed measure includes is an income cap for eligibility for families, which says if you make over $150,000, you’re not eligible for ESAs. And that is, I think, the main thing that Republicans are not OK with.

But there are other things as well, like security measures, fingerprint requirements, caps on how much you can spend on ESAs and sort of codifying restrictions on purchases for things that are not education-related …

GILGER: Which we’ve seen a lot of, we should say.

SANCHEZNES: Yes, we have. And we’ve seen plenty of headlines since ESAs were expanded to universal about weird purchases. And I think Republicans maybe see the need to at least take some sort of action on that issue. But I think the income cap is probably going to be the main, the sticking point there.

GILGER: Yeah. OK, so this is a potential deal between Republicans at the state Legislature and the teachers’ union, the AEA. But there is, as you mentioned, another pro-public education group that’s maybe not OK with this?

SANCHEZ: Yeah, and not all the lawmakers are OK with it either. So, we’ve got two groups sort of trying to organize a deal, and then they don’t have consensus within their own camps. And we’ve got this weird situation where there’s some far-right Republican lawmakers siding with Save Our Schools Arizona because they don’t like a deal either.

GILGER: The political horseshoe.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, but for different reasons. So it’s not clear if they can come to an agreement that would put guardrails on ESAs.

I think part of the concern from SOSAZ, and the reason that they’re not in agreement with the AEA on this — even though they’re both advocating for public education and they both want guardrails on ESAs — is the concern that if Republicans agree to put their own guardrails on ESAs, there will, first of all, be fewer guardrails — they’ll be scaled-back versions of it — and they could potentially just go and undo those guardrails later on.

GILGER: Oh, right. And they’d have much more protection, right, if they were passed on the ballot?

SANCHEZ: Right, because what courts love more than anything else is this concept of the will of the voters. And so, when the voters pass something like a voter referral or constitutional amendment, that has basically this ironclad protection. Lawmakers can’t just go in and undo that as soon as they come into session.

GILGER: OK, so a lot of political, it sounds like, maneuvering going on here, Camryn. Tell us a little more about some of the folks on the far right and the far left who are both against this.

SANCHEZ: I mean, it really comes down to uncertainty, right? Because if the Save Our Schools and AEA measure gets enough signatures, then it can go on the ballot. But they’re expecting that to face a legal challenge. Presumably the opponents, the Republicans, are going to file a challenge and say that their signatures are invalid.

So they’re going to have to overcome that even to just get on the ballot. And then, you don’t know for sure if voters are going to pass your measure.

But same thing for the “poison pill” measure.” They don’t know if that’s going to hold up in court now that a legal challenge has been filed against that. And even if that makes it to the ballot, you can’t know for sure if voters are going to pass that either.

I think both sides are not confident in what’s going to happen in this election, and that’s making everybody really nervous. So that is kind of the benefit of coming to an agreement that’s a compromise that isn’t perfect for either side.

But there’s people on both ends who are not cool with what they would be giving up.

GILGER: Yeah, they say it’s not enough, basically.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, we’ve heard from (Sen.) Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), who voted against the proposed deal the first time around before the end of session, that basically this is too much. It’s too much of a concession and too much of a win for (Katie) Hobbs as well.

Because Gov. Hobbs has been trying to put guardrails on ESAs this whole time, and she’ll be able to campaign on this if they put anything on the ballot or get anything through in a special session that restricts ESAs in any way, and they don’t want that win for her.

GILGER: Right, so you’re talking about basically like a bird-in-hand versus later on situation. I wonder, do we know, Camryn, what voters might do on potential measures like this? Do we know if voters want to rein in the ESA program, if they’re mad about it?

SANCHEZ: I can’t say for sure that we always know exactly what voters are going to do. I do think that if both of the measures make it to the ballot, they both have a good chance of passing. Again, especially if this “military families” measure gets to go on the ballot with that specific title. And it’s not called, you know, “the scary poison pill measure,” quote-unquote. And there’s nothing in that, you know, that would suggest that it affects other ballot measures.

But I can also see definitely the SOSAZ and AEA measure getting voter approval. I think there’s a lot of appetite for that in the community.

GILGER: So that would make for a complicated campaign, I’m guessing, from the public education side, right? How do you advocate for one and against the other?

SANCHEZ: Yes, and without coming across as attacking military families.

GILGER: OK, what’s next here? We’re looking at a pretty quick deadline when it comes to signatures, right?

SANCHEZ: Right, so signature deadline for turning in signatures to get the AEA measure on the ballot, that’s Thursday And today is obviously Monday. So the question is — we’re kind of all expecting to hear by the end of the day today, probably, whether they’re coming in for a special session or not. Because if they do, they have a couple of days to work it out and come to an agreement and pass something before the signature deadline.

GILGER: Camryn, would we assume that should they call a special session, they pretty much have a deal and the votes on the table, or is this something that could fall apart even if they do call a special session?

SANCHEZ: Everything can fall apart, but they typically wouldn’t come into a special session until something’s already been agreed upon because they wouldn’t want to waste each other’s time. And Hobbs wouldn’t want to call everybody in a special session just for them to go home again without having done anything.

GILGER: Yeah. OK, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez with our politics desk. Camryn, thanks as always, appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, how a painter raised in England and Switzerland learned to love the polar opposite climate and sprawl of Phoenix.

EMMA FLORANCE: I think it’s so stark here, the contrast in comparison to anywhere else that I’ve spent time. Because you’re looking at a mountain, and then you turn the other direction and it’s just like this huge city.

GILGER: We’ll hear more from the artist who traded swamps for saguaros.

BRODIE: But first, the U.S. Agriculture Department says Arizona’s error rate for food stamp applications was 10.8%. That’s higher than the national rate of 10.6%. And if that number doesn’t come down, it’ll cost the state in penalties, thanks to provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services joins me to talk more about this. And, Howie, let’s start with Arizona’s 10.8% error rate. What is the significance of that number?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, it’s significant because one would expect, first of all, that not one out of every 10 cases would not be screwed up. Now, remember, this is overpayments and this is underpayments. It deals with eligibility, deals with everything else.

What’s significant about it financially is that as part of the Great HR 1, Congress said any state with error rates above 6% would pay a penalty. So, for example, the penalty hits 5% for error rates up to 8%, 10% when it goes up to 10%, and 15% for rates higher than that. For Arizona, Arizona had a 10.8% error rate for FY 25. That means the year, the calendar year or the fiscal year 2024 to 2025, which hits us at the rate of 208 million. Now, this again, the error rate is up against what’s normally paid in benefits. Now, remember, benefits are normally paid for by the federal government.

Now, there’s some changes in HR 1 about who pays for some of the administrative costs, and that’s not an issue here. The federal government is saying, if you can’t get your show in order, we’re going to go ahead and say you’re going to pay for some of these problems, and that’s where we are right now.

Now, the other half of that is the way HR 1 is structured, it says you can choose the lower of two rates for FY 25, which is a 10.8%, and FY 26, which is the year we are in, which under federal fiscal year ends September 30th. We don’t know where we are. The governor insists that she’s done things to cut down the error rate, she’s added more people to go ahead and go through the applications. But in terms of will we be any better off, I don’t know that we’re going to get it down below 6%, but we may do somewhat better, and that may save us a couple of million dollars.

BRODIE: Well, and whatever the error rate is, Howie, the number of cases presumably that caseworkers are dealing with will be lower because a lot of people in Arizona, more than any other state in the country, have been removed from this program.

FISCHER: Well, that’s sort of chicken and egg. A lot of them have been removed from the program because of the fact that the state, in anticipation of HR 1 and what HR 1 did, started going through these things with more of a finer-tooth comb. You know, we had, I think at one point, 920,000 people on food stamps in February of 2025.

What’s happened since then is some of them have fallen off because of some additional requirements in terms of legal status and everything else, because there are some exceptions to the whole issue of who gets what. But what’s also happened is that Michael Wisehart, who is director of DES, has essentially said, look, you know, we need to get the error rate down, so we’re not going to take—for example, it used to be you could people could self-attest, “I have a job,” or other things like that. Now they want the documents. A lot of people don’t come with the documents. There’s a whole bunch of ways that you can fail to get qualified in this. So, it isn’t a question that there are fewer people applying, it’s a simply a question there are fewer people who actually have jumped through all the hoops who are getting what they need.

Now, what happens if they, in fact, get everything up to speed? You know, that’s an interesting question. Part of the reason that there’s been more failure is sometimes it’s harder to get in. You know, they we dropped something like two-thirds of our people who were doing the applications, not only for that, but also for unemployment. And so, again, more hoops to jump through. Some people, I think, gave up, some people are keep going back, they say they can’t get through on the phone lines. So, it’s not a question that there are fewer people getting them, and have to go through the annual reviews and stuff, but a question of people saying, “We’ve been sent home, we need this document, we need that document, we need this proof of of whatever, whether it’s citizenship or name or anything else.”

And so, what they’ve done is they’ve put in in the budget this year, I think it was 10.8 million for additional people. The governor had put in some COVID money last year to go ahead and hire more people. That’s part of the problem. The other part of the problem, according to Mr. Wisehart, is they’re working essentially with this legacy system of computers. Now, I mean, that would be basically be like doing your your homework on a Windows 2.0 DOS 2.0 system here. It just doesn’t work, and they’d like to get the money for the upgrade. Now, I don’t know that there’s the money there in the budget to do that. I think they’re telling them you got to kind of limp along for a little while, but I think they also recognize that if you’re going to have a system that works, you need a system that is current and up-to-date and easy to go ahead and work with.

BRODIE: Howie, you mentioned that there are financial penalties for states that don’t get their error rates below a certain level. Does Arizona, like, did they budget money for that potentially in the new state budget if the error rate is not where it needs to be?

FISCHER: Well, no, but there’s also a reason for that. The penalties kick in in FY 2028, in other words, the 2027-2028 budget year. So, for the moment, there’s nothing for them to budget for. Now, you and I talking a year from now, where they’re trying to figure out, OK, how do we have the money, what is the error rate, has there been any relief granted? You know, perhaps Congress is having second thoughts and saying, “Well, you know, there are a lot of red states, perhaps, that can’t get their error rates down.” And if you still have a Republican-controlled Congress, or who knows, after this November, we may have a Democrat-controlled Congress, and they may change things and say, “Look, we’re not going to be so much of a pain, and that we’re going to hurt states in ways that the only people who end up being hurt are the people we’re trying to help.” And so that becomes the unknown unknowns, as Rumsfeld would have said, in terms of figuring out how does this all work out. But again, we have we have sort of a year there.

Now, what’s being done in the interim to get that error rate down? Again, we don’t have a lot of time between now and September 30th to do a lot for that. And here’s the other piece of it. The FY 26 error rate, the official USDA FY 26 error rate won’t be available until July of 2027. So, who knows what we’re going to be seeing then.

BRODIE: Well, and even as you say, you know, a year is not a ton of time, it sounds like Arizona has a lot of work to do to get from almost 11% to 6% or less.

FISCHER: Oh, there’s no question about that. And I think you could do a lot more probably with a lot more eligibility workers. You could do a lot more with a better computer system, you could do a lot more with the issue of having folks not being able to get those appointments that they need. Is that the total issue? No.

I mean, there are Republican lawmakers who are insisting this is all about fraud. The reason we went from 920,000 down to 455,000 was, “Oh, those are just people who bounced off because of fraud.” I don’t think that that’s a realistic expectation. Is there always fraud in some systems? Are there always people trying to game a system? Sure, but I don’t think you could say that 50% of the people who were collecting food stamps were there fraudulently.

BRODIE: Interesting. All right, that is Howie Fischer with Capitol Media Services. Howie, thanks as always.

FISCHER: Have a great morning.

LAUREN GILGER: The town of Guadalupe sits in between Tempe and Phoenix, with the I-10 in between. It has just over 5,000 residents, very few businesses, and a long and proud history connected to the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Mexico. But now it’s facing a major budget deficit that could be hard to fill.

Maritza Dominguez is a reporter for The Arizona Republic who covers the East Valley. And she came into our studios recently to tell us more about it, beginning with just how big this deficit is.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: So, it was originally $1.5 million coming into this year, looking at their expenditures. Um, on June 25, the council approved their final budget for this coming up fiscal year. They ended up cutting about $90,000, bringing down that deficit to 1.4.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so they made some cuts at the Town Council level, but they kind of balked at this idea that they should make deeper cuts, right?

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: Right. So, at a previous council meeting, the council and the mayor pretty much said, “This is not the year to make those deep cuts.” The town manager had suggested about half a million cuts. That would not get them to where they need to be, but it would definitely have been a more substantial cut.

The council said, you know, “This is not the year,” because they were potentially looking at bringing their employees down to a 32 workweek, potentially closing Town Hall on Fridays, or making a way where they would keep Town Hall open Monday through Friday, but still only have staff be at a 32 workweek, eliminating some contracted services or cutting it in half, such as building inspectors, planning. And they — the council — felt as though they need the staff levels to sort of find new revenue sources. They are suggesting potentially bringing back the property tax vote next year that failed earlier this year in May.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, voters there rejected it, said, “We don’t want a property tax.” But they are saying, “We need this,” right, at the Town Council level to make up for this deficit.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: Right, but it would have only raised about $300,000.

LAUREN GILGER: So not a — not enough.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: Not enough, but, you know, the mayor had mentioned that this would have been a revenue source to continue programs like the senior centers, to not have the general fund sort of subsidized, because grant funding that the town has received has been lowering every single year.

A part of the cuts made at the council meeting is including the Community Action Plan. Most cities have this program. It’s a program that provides utility assistance or rental assistance, also provides food boxes for community members. That will be cut with this budget decision that they made on June 25.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so there are some cuts coming, but not enough to fill the gap. Back up for a moment, Maritza, and just tell us how we got here. Like, there have been a lot of city budgets impacted by federal and state decisions of late. This is part of that, it sounds like.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: It is part of it, but it is also something that has been looming for Guadalupe for many years. So, the current town manager started raising the alarms back in 2018, telling them, “We will at some point, we are spending more than we are generating,” right. He had started the process then, and then COVID-19 happened.

And so, a lot of the COVID relief funds that the town received, they were able to use that to fund the programs that were eligible for it, like the Community Action Plan, like the senior center. They were able to use it to pay for their firefighters. Um, and so whatever they were not spending from the general fund, they were banking it into their reserves.

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: So, at the end of COVID-19, they came out with a balance, a general fund balance or reserve of about $6 million.

LAUREN GILGER: OK.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: But they were still spending more from their expenditures more than their revenues. So, they were drawing out funds every year from their reserve balance. And now they’re at the point where by fiscal year 2029, their reserve balance will have been drawn out and will be empty and they will not have the ability to subsidize their general fund with their reserves.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so not a great situation financially for the town going forward. You talked to some financial experts about this, and what they had to say I found very interesting because one of them literally said, and I’m quoting here, “It’s not clear to me that Guadalupe makes sense from the outside as a fiscal matter.” What did this expert mean by that?

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: They are — they are such a small town, you know, they’re less than a square mile, they’re landlocked. They are largely a residential community. You know, it’s very common in Arizona that our cities are not funded by property taxes. Um, but cities like Mesa, Gilbert, other East Valley cities, they have large commercial districts that are going to raise quite a bit of sales tax funds.

That’s not what’s happening in Guadalupe, and so for him, it did not make sense to him why Guadalupe did not have a property, a primary property tax to sort of pay into the general fund.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, like almost where else are they going to get any funding.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: Correct.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. OK, so let’s just pause for a moment and talk about Guadalupe, because it’s a very unique place, a very small place. And one of the things that these experts told you is essentially that, you know, if they continue on this path, they will cease to exist.

And that would be, I’m sure, devastating for the people in Guadalupe, because they have really fought for five decades to be their own community. They incorporated 50 years ago to preserve their very unique culture.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: Correct. Yeah, you know, Guadalupe used to be a county island. 1975, they voted, and narrowly passed the incorporation. Um, you know, they secured their borders because they wanted to secure their heritage, their culture, their sense of living. Their residents are overwhelmingly Latino, a lot of Pascua Yaqui tribe members who fled, you know, persecution, um, in the early 1900s from Mexico.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: But, you know, from what I’ve heard of community members that I’ve spoken to, they are really prideful in their culture, in their community, and they want to find ways to to remain. To the point where could they be incorporated by another town? No one is um, seriously speaking about um, any sort of incorporation into Tempe. There’s also they would most likely have to disincorporate before there could be any serious um, talk about incorporating into another city.

LAUREN GILGER: Which would be a tricky and probably a difficult thing for a lot of the folks there. So, let’s just talk lastly then, Maritza, about the long-term or even relatively short-term possibilities here. Like, how long can Guadalupe continue like this? Is bankruptcy an option for them?

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: From what I’ve heard experts say, bankruptcy likely wouldn’t make sense for Guadalupe. Guadalupe does not have serious debt, they have not gone out for a general bond since the 1990s, I believe, and bankruptcy is largely used as reform of debt. What Guadalupe has is a structural issue within their budget.

Now, I’ve heard talk of receivership. Looking into state law, receivership does not look like an option for um, a municipality. Could Guadalupe and state legislators that represent Guadalupe attempt to change state law? That is a big question mark, and that is something that could potentially be something to look down the line if they were serious about taking that. And an appointed receiver would come in and make the cuts for the council. One expert said that means that your politics aren’t working if you put in a receiver.

LAUREN GILGER: Interesting. All right, so unclear future for this town at this moment. Lots of really interesting reporting there from Maritza Dominguez, reporter for the Arizona Republic. She covers the East Valley. Maritza, thank you very much for coming in, I appreciate it.

MARITZA DOMINGUEZ: Thank you so much.

BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new chemical that can be used in sunscreen. Bemotrizinol has been used in sunscreens in other parts of the world for years, but until this month, it’s not been allowed in products made in this country. And the FDA’s approval of it has led to optimism that it could lead more Americans to actually use sunscreen.

Michael Scaturro is a health journalist. He’s written about this for KFF Health News and joins me to talk more about it. And Michael, let’s start with what this chemical actually is.

MICHAEL SCATURRO: So, this is a sunscreen chemical, a UV filter that has actually been used in Europe and in Asia for about 20 years. It is incredibly safe. It was designed to be safer because you have, you know, you have all these concerns around older sunscreen chemicals, and this sunscreen chemical was designed from the beginning to sort of address those fears around usability, around the look on the skin. It actually is like it has some of the most protective qualities of any sunscreen chemical, but it’s not white. So, there’s that. And it is designed to really not seep into the bloodstream, to sit on the skin, to really just be very chemically and cosmetically elegant, so it’s seen as although it’s been around for a while and it’s been used for a while, it’s new for us here in the U.S. and it’s kind of exciting that we’re finally getting it.

BRODIE: Well, I mean, based on your description, it sounds pretty great. Why is it that we’re only getting to use it now?

SCATURRO: Well, it’s kind of complicated, but I think you can boil it down to the fact that in the U.S., sunscreen chemicals are considered over-the-counter drugs. And that means they’re regulated by the FDA like aspirin or cough syrup. And that means that for a manufacturer to get FDA approval for a sunscreen chemical, they have to take the chemical or the filter through the FDA and almost in all cases subject that over-the-counter drug to animal testing.

And that’s been the big sticking point because in Europe and in Asia and many other places, sunscreens are considered cosmetics, and I know in the case of the EU and of the UK, basically cosmetics cannot be tested on animals, and there’s an animal testing ban. And it’s like the opposite in the U.S. The FDA was really demanding that the manufacturer of this chemical, DSM, which is a Dutch-Swiss company, that they provide animal test data. So, over the last 20 years, the FDA and this company have been going back and forth kind of talking about whether this is really necessary, and in the end, the company did supply animal test data, which was sort of what brought this chemical, bemotrizinol, over the finish line.

BRODIE: Well, so you and I have talked in the past about how, you know, more and more Americans are being diagnosed with skin cancer. Is there a hope in the in the health world, in the in the dermatology world that having this ingredient available in sunscreen in the U.S. might help bring those numbers down a bit?

SCATURRO: I think that is the hope, because this this chemical, this this UV filter, will allow manufacturers to do two things: to make sunscreens that people will really want to wear, that look good on the skin, that are less greasy, and that just like feel feel a lot better, and so that’s that’s the first piece, the the idea that people will be more willing to wear sunscreen on a daily basis.

And I think the second piece is bemotrizinol is much better at blocking UVA rays than some of the existing chemicals. Essentially, the U.S. really only had one what’s called chemical or or organic filter that could block UVA rays, and the rest were sort of UVB blocking. And so, now sunscreen manufacturers in the U.S. will have another tool to sort of add to their repertoire of of tools that can really help create a more robust and chemically and cosmetically elegant sunscreen.

BRODIE: Is there a sense of which was the bigger problem here, in terms of either people not really wanting to wear the sunscreen because how of how it felt or that the ingredients in the sunscreen weren’t doing a good enough job?

SCATURRO: Well, you know, I think I think it’s very complicated because, you know, we we know the CDC says that only like 12 to 18% of men wear sunscreen regularly. And so, I think I read somewhere that like 40% of men never wear sunscreen on their faces, bodies, or otherwise. So, it’s not it’s not that the sunscreens we have in the U.S. are not effective, they do a great job of blocking UVB rays and to a lesser extent UVA rays, so they’re robust and they are they are safe and they are they’re good, they’re good. They’re not as good as they could be, but they were good, right? And so, with this new chemical, we will have newer sunscreens that are even better at blocking UVB and UVA rays.

UVB rays are considered to be more high energy and responsible for burning. These UVA rays penetrate the skin more deeply and are more thought to be responsible for aging and wrinkles. But the problem is even if we have like these amazing new sunscreens in the U.S. like people have had for a while in Asia and in Europe, if people don’t wear them, they’re not going to work. You have to put sunscreen on your skin for it to work, right? And I think that’s been the issue.

BRODIE: Are there other chemicals that sunscreen manufacturers would like to be able to include in sunscreen sold into the U.S. that they can’t right now, but maybe think they will be able to now that this one is is allowed?

SCATURRO: Well, the the first part of that question is yes, there are so many interesting and new and newly designed sunscreen filters that are already used in commerce in the EU, in Asian countries. And so, yes, there are so many chemicals and and some of them are really good. They’re they’re, you know, they’re different molecules basically that that are designed to not penetrate the skin at all, so they they are even safer, you could say, than some of the older sunscreen chemicals that are still used in the U.S.

And we’re never going to get them in the U.S. I think that’s that’s the takeaway, right? Because although Congress has in in two legislative acts, in two bills, essentially told the FDA to to be more open to accepting non-animal test data for for sunscreens, they were not convinced, and they were really quite unwilling to to sort of move from that position. They really wanted animal test data. And that’s the sticking point because these the companies that tend to make these newer filters are based in Europe. DSM is one, and the other one is BASF, which is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. And I think then, on the one hand, they’re not willing to to spend the money because if they go through the process of getting a new sunscreen filter through the FDA, they really only have an 18-month exclusivity period. And so, there really isn’t the the incentive to do it. This company spends about $18 million, they told me, on on bringing the drug through the U.S., and they’ll have a very small period of time where there during which they’ll be the exclusive seller of this chemical.

And so, what the the company told me and what people in the personal care industry told me is that if we want the FDA and the U.S. government to sort of consider new sunscreen chemicals, then the makers of these chemicals and the sunscreen manufacturers will have to form a kind of coalition and sort of share the costs. And I think that’s interesting. I I get I got kind of a sense that there is an interest in doing that, but it isn’t clear to me whether there’s the bandwidth right now to bring any more, at least in the next year or so, any any new sunscreen filters through the FDA.

BRODIE: All right, that is health journalist Michael Scaturro. Michael, thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

SCATURRO: Thanks for having me.

GILGER: Good morning, it’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Painter Emma Florance grew up in England and Switzerland, very different parts of the world from Phoenix, Arizona. So now, living here for the first time, she’s got mixed feelings about this desert city. And that’s what she tackles in her first solo art exhibition at the Shemer Art Center. It’s called Desert Fairy Tale. She came into our studios recently to tell us more about it.

GILGER: And she told me she moved to Phoenix after graduating college at the Rhode Island School of Design.

FLORANCE: And I felt like I was working so hard to graduate, and I finally did, and then I got here and I like was wiped out.

GILGER: Yeah.

FLORANCE: And I think it took me like six months to really want to paint again. I was like trying to do it, but I wasn’t really enjoying it. Um, and my mom kept being like, “Just paint a cactus. Everyone wants to see like a cactus painting.” I was like, “Mom, no, like I can’t. I can’t just like suddenly start painting like desert stuff and just like call it that.” Because you’re here. That’s not what you painted before, I’m guessing. No, not because I don’t like it, because I do like it. I mean, clearly I like it. But, um, yeah, I don’t know, it just it didn’t really feel organic because I hadn’t lived here before. But, of course, she was right. Because, I don’t know, my mom is always right. Um, uh, and, um, and I did, I started painting. I did like a really big painting of a saguaro with a girl inside of it, um, and it just, I don’t know, something about it was really resonating with me because I was thinking about how it was living here and like it felt really, really different to me because it is really different to anywhere else that I’ve ever lived.

GILGER: Yeah, it’s a very unique place. And you grew up, we should say, out of the country—Switzerland, England, right? So, you’ve been kind of all over the world and in very different parts of the U.S., but I know you’ve always had family here. So, you’ve you’ve spent time in the desert, but never really lived here.

FLORANCE: Yeah, I spent a lot of time like during summer vacations here, which, um, I think made it feel really special to me because it was like always I was seeing like my grandma and my grandpa and like, you know, going to the pool and hanging out and not like doing schoolwork. So, to me, Phoenix was always just fun, um, and like a little bit magical because I was a kid and it was so different and like all the plants are kind of weird and they it looks like you’re under the ocean, but it’s dry.

GILGER: That’s a good way to put it. Let me describe that that saguaro painting you’re talking about, because I’m looking at it now and it is, like it’s like a a large saguaro that goes off the frame, right, and then there’s like a girl peeking out of a hole in it, and you see one of her hands wrapped around one of the arms, and you see her feet actually at the bottom by the roots, and behind her is like the grid of like the Phoenix city lights. Um, talk a little bit about the kind of contrast that you’re drawing throughout this this series of of paintings, which is sort of about not just the city, but the the natural environment colliding with it.

FLORANCE: Yeah, I think it’s so stark here, the contrast in comparison to anywhere else that I’ve spent time, because you’re looking at a mountain and then you turn the other direction and it’s just like this huge city, um, and I never realized growing up how big Phoenix is, and like how vast and wide it is and how much concrete it is, and I think when I first moved here, I was like, oh my gosh, like it’s so like dusty and gray and like, you have to drive a car to get everywhere, and I really was sort of like fighting that.

GILGER: Yeah.

FLORANCE: Because I didn’t like it. I was like, oh my gosh, this place. I think I had the same reaction when I moved here as a middle schooler. Yeah, like it’s it’s really overwhelming, um, and you it sort there’s sort of this feeling that there’s no nature, but then, as I’m living here and I’m like walking around when the weather is nice, like there’s a lot of nature. There’s a lot of plant life and creatures that live even in the city, and I was so surprised by it and just like it’s so magical to see like all of a sudden a huge cactus and think that like how much water it holds and it’s just like growing next to the sidewalk or next to the highway.

GILGER: Yes.

FLORANCE: Or something and especially the saguaro, that they’re so regal, and they have to be really old to get that big, and I just think it’s incredible that they’re just there. Like it’s just there. Yeah. Um, amazing the the perspective an outsider can give us on our own place, yeah. I know, like it’s so strange, the contrast.

GILGER: I mean, you really hit on that here, and you you use your own likeness in this, right? Like, the little girl or the the woman in these portraits is often you—like these are self-portraits, in a way.

FLORANCE: In a way, I didn’t mean for them to be initially, but it was sort of like lack of another subject, like another person to paint. Like, I didn’t want to paint a portrait of someone else because I didn’t want the story to be about like a specific person, but rather an experience or like she’s sort of like a conduit for like anyone. Like, if you can see the figure in the painting, like you can sort of imagine that you’re her or like you’re watching her experience something, but they all do sort of look like me.

GILGER: Because I think— I think you’re the easiest person to paint is yourself, because you know your face really well. Um, at least personally, like all the portrait practice I did, um, not all of it, but a lot of it was like in a mirror, because it’s just you’re the only person that’s always available, always there.

GILGER: Always there. I would have thought it would be almost harder to paint yourself in a way, because it’s you. Like, do we have any objectivity when it comes to yourself?

FLORANCE: I think you have to, right? Like, Really, I think it’s easier, because when you’re painting someone else, you want it to like look good. That’s true. Because you want to show them and be like, “Here, like I did this of you,” and not have them be offended. But if I’m painting myself, like I can’t really offend myself.

GILGER: Fair enough. I don’t think.

GILGER: So you’re in these pieces, a lot of them, or someone who looks like you. I want to talk about the process of this, because these are oil paintings. They’re often very realistic, but they all have this kind of mystical, magical kind of energy about them. And since this is radio, I’ll try to describe them. They’re all, most of them at least, pretty dark, like almost twilight kind of feeling to these, and then lots of them have like these bright lights, whether it’s the city lights or in one of them you have like the cactus flowers like lit up. And they look glowing, like it it doesn’t look like a painting in that way. How do you do this?

FLORANCE: Lot of layering.

GILGER: Yeah.

FLORANCE: Yeah, I would say so. Um, I work really slowly, so I’ll start with a drawing on paper, and then I’ll do a drawing on the canvas, and then I’ll do multiple underpaintings, multiple layers. Those are literally just paintings under the actual painting. Yeah, correct, yeah. It’s just like um like thin layers underneath, and then like with every layer it gets a little bit thicker, the paint gets thicker, the colors get more opaque. It’s really slow. How long does it take you? Like, if you start that that saguaro painting, how long did it take you to finish it? That painting took me about a year, but I wasn’t working on it like constantly every day. I would say that was like a few hours every day or a few hours every other day.

GILGER: Yeah. Do you think, as you’re looking at that interplay between the urban landscape and the kind of natural environment, those, you know, cactuses in the middle of the desert by a sidewalk on the street, right, or on the highway? Do you think that the the urban landscape, the city, is is stifling out that kind of natural landscape, or do you think there’s something really cool and interesting about them both being there and together?

FLORANCE: I feel both ways. When I first moved here, I—and I think you can tell in my paintings because a couple of like or like the saguaro painting, for example, it’s kind of bleak. Like, it’s very gray, and I was really concerned about like pollution and light pollution, and just like all the gas fumes and the dust and everything, um, which I’m still concerned about because I think, you know, those are bad things. But the longer I stay here, the more I realize that they’re kind of coexisting.

Well, a good example would be Camelback Mountain. I think it’s a shame that the roads are so close to it and that houses were ever allowed to be built on it, because it’s beautiful nature, and I think it should have been protected. However, I’m grateful that I get to drive so close to it, because it’s so cool to see it, and I there’s I think it’s 44th Street, uh, where you’re driving past it and you’re just so close to the rocks.

GILGER: Yeah.

FLORANCE: And it’s so beautiful to see it like that. It’s right there in the middle of everything, yeah. Yeah, like it’s so audacious that the city was built like up onto it. Audacious is a good word for it. All right, we’ll leave it there. Emma Florance, an artist and painter. Her current solo exhibition, her first in fact, is called Desert Fairy Tale. It’s available now until July 9th at the Shemer Art Center. Emma, thank you very much for coming in, I appreciate it very much.

FLORANCE: Thank you.

BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Camryn Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban, our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.