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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS www.ahwatukee.com
RESTORING THE LAKES
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
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Chamber eliminates CEO post in surprise move
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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he Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce board has eliminated the position of president/CEO, costing its current top executive, Lindy Lutz Cash, her job and charting a new course for the 24-year-old business organization. In a release over the weekend, the board said its new chairman, Ross Murray, will handle “the leadership and responsibility that this position oversees” and that he would do so “with 100 percent oversight by the board of directors.” The board said, “Unfortunately, the difficult decision like this does impact our sitting president,” and it praised Cash for her service. “We’d like to thank Lindy Lutz Cash for her 14 months of service,” Murray said in the release. “She did an outstanding job representing the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber in a professional manner and we very much appreciate her service.” It was unclear how much the Chamber’s financial condition figured into the board’s decision. The board stated that “the overarching goal”
of the position’s elimination “is to be able to provide additional benefits for our members and business community.” The release quoted Murray as saying, “The board made the decision that in order to serve our members and community to the highest level, we needed to refocus our resources to maximize our value and services offered.” Finances prompted the organization last year to cancel its popular Red, White and Boom! Independence Day festival and fireworks display. Cash took over the position on an interim basis in November 2016 after Anne Gill left to become president/CEO of the Tempe Chamber. The Ahwatukee Chamber board then hired her for the position six weeks later. During her tenure, Cash helped reinvigorate the Chamber’s Young Entrepreneurs Academy, worked with AFN to conduct a candidate forum in the City Council District 6 election and quickly became the Chamber’s public face at a host of public events in Ahwatukee. She issued a statement on Monday, saying, “I’m proud of what we’ve been able to
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IT’S THAT TIME!
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(Cheryl Haselhorst/AFN Contributor)
Lindy Lutz Cash was all smiles in December 2016 when she was named Ahwatukee Chamber CEO.
National study adds urgency to DiCiccio’s debt warnings BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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report released today by a national watchdog group is giving new urgency to city Councilman Sal DiCiccio’s effort to stop Phoenix officials from careening off a fiscal cliff. Truth in Accounting, a 15-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to providing “understandable, reliable and transparent government financial information,” warned that “little has been set aside to fund” Phoenix’s pension and retiree healthcare benefits
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totaling more than $4 billion. “These statistics are jarring, but what’s also alarming is that city government officials continue to hide significant amounts of retirement debt from the balance sheets despite new rules to increase financial transparency,” says the group’s review of the fiscal health of America’s 75 most populous cities. “This skewed data gives residents a false impression of their city’s overall financial health,” it adds, putting Phoenix among the 64 most populous cities “that do not have enough money to pay their bills.” While Truth in Accounting describes itself
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as a nonpartisan group of accountants and other financial experts, the Center for Media and Democracy describes it a right-wing entity with ties to the Koch Brothers and the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council. In its report, it said it is making no policy recommendations to any city, except to urge more accurate and clearer reporting of municipal finances. The report comes at a time when DiCiccio has joined forces with a former Utah See
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