President Bush will tour a union training center and hold a town hall discussion during a stop in the Valley Friday.
Bush will tour the Phoenix Carpenter's Training Center in west Phoenix, a new facility used to train people in carpentry trades.
The venue may seem unusual for a Republican president, since labor organizations have traditionally backed Democratic candidates for the office. But Rick Mills, administrative assistant for the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said the union does not view the president's trip as political.
“It's an honor,” Mills said of the president's visit. “It doesn't matter who the president is. It's an honor to have the President of the United States come to our center. This has nothing to do with the politics. It has to do with having the president come here and view our facility.”
Bush will hold a discussion on home ownership and tout recent figures from the census bureau showing home ownership is at record high levels in the United States.
The training center, which opened in February, is used to train journeymen and apprentices in all of the construction trades, Mills said.
The president will come to Phoenix from Albuquerque, N.M., and continue on to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, after spending about two hours here.
Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, will not greet the president at the airport because she had a long-standing trip planned to Nogales, where she will dedicate a border crossing station. Napolitano had asked the president to accompany her for the dedication and a tour of the border, but his schedule would not accommodate the diversion, said Jeanine L'Ecuyer, Napolitano's press secretary.
This will be Bush's eighth trip to Arizona since taking office.
