For all you Arizona - bashers out there:

[marybourg]

by Cathryn Creno - Feb. 5, 2009 02:00 PM
The Arizona Republic


Overwhelmed with offers from citizens who want to volunteer doing everything from cleaning up parks to helping out at after-school centers, Phoenix is working frenetically to better connect people with city programs that need them.

The calls have come in the wake of a $270 million city budget shortfall and the announcement that city services - including library hours and materials, recreation programs, senior services and after-school education - were to be cut.

"We were stunned," said Deborah Dillon, the city's education program director. "To be honest, we weren't prepared to hear it. It was overwhelming. We realized we need to respond to this right away."

Dillion said individual city departments have received so many calls that no one has an exact count of how many Phoenix residents want to volunteer

full story:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/02/05/20090205phx-volunteer0207.html

[nichomachus]

1. There are good people everywhere

The problem is that things like senior services should not have to rely on volunteer labor.

[SoCalDem]

2. and when people volunteer, it lets them lay off even more people

This is my biggest beef with the whole "faith-based" crap.. When churches and kind-hearted people step up and do things via charity, the state then just red-exes those things from the budget, and uses that money "saved" for their cronies..and letr on, when free labor's no longer available, those things have to be added back in, and whomever gets stuck with that task, gets labeled as a "big spender/tax-raiser

[nichomachus]

3. Volunteerism is also highly inefficient

Just coordinating volunteers takes time and resources. And volunteers are unreliable -- in the sense that their families and other priorities will often come first. I'm not saying they're unreliable people, but a small hiccup and you're whole volunteer schedule is down the toilet.

This is why, in a modern industrialized country, it makes sense for the government to run these things and for the workers to be paid -- also creates jobs, by the way.

Government is not bad. Government programs are not bad. The conservative/libertarian message is a lie.

[pipi_k]

4. No Arizona basher here...uh, uh....

Arizona never did anything bad to me!



Newark, NJ is a whole different story. We're barely on speaking terms

[Martin Eden]

5. Arizona is still in my doghouse.

Last October my senior softball team (50+ AAA) traveled from Chicago to Phoenix to compete in the Worlds, and, in the words of one of my teammates, "got beaten like a rented mule." We had just got bumped up from the AA division and two of our best players couldn't make the trip. Then in the 3rd game on the first day I blew out my left hamstring. That was it for playing softball, and also for the week of hiking I had planned in Arizona for after the tournament. Spent a lot of money for three softball games and a nagging injury.

Damn lousy state of Arizona!

[alstephenson]

6. Our new Governor, Republican Jan Brewer...

will be cutting funding for full-day kindergarten, which was Janet Napolitano's pet project. Although I'm happy for Janet, we sure miss her here in Arizona.