Archive for October 23rd, 2008

First Things First

23rd October
2008
written by clothcutter
They all love to talk about economic development: The media, the politicians and the bureaucrats that serve them. It has become a buzzword that makes the above-mentioned personnel and the business cloth that consorts with them warm and fuzzy inside. We create an extra layer of government bureaucracy (TREO) to attract companies to either move or expand here. (This supposed independent organization is a convenient office consolidation for Pima County and City of Tucson employees with this poor guy they hoodwinked into running the thing. But I digress.)
Any company who is considering moving or expanding to a new city will perform some sort of due diligence. This process should include the following questions:
1-What is the quality of the education system?
2-How safe is the city are we possibly moving to?
3-How business-friendly is the local government for the area we are moving to?

4-What kind of taxes are we going to be paying? And are they worth it?

5-Is Lute really retiring?

Some not so happy answers:

1-As we all know our public education system is not doing a very good job of getting our youngsters ready for a viable future. It is a system without much accountability or impending improvement. It will be tough for prospective companies to convince their key employees to move to the area and subject their kids to our educational system.
2-All they have to do is look at various websites that deal with crime statistics, such as:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_10_az.html

County

Violent crime

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter

Forcible rape

Robbery

Aggravated assault

Property crime

Burglary

Larceny-theft

Motor vehicle theft

Arson1
Maricopa(3.8 Mil. Pop)


850

25

30

94

701

6,698

1,734

3,936

1,028

69
Mohave

204

9

4

22

169

3,111

1,165

1,559

387

26
Pima (1.003 Mil. Pop)

783

18

88

214

463

13,674

2,643

9,237

1,794

121
Pinal

298

11

39

42

206

5,079

1,067

3,176

836

24
Yavapai

354

5

13

10

326

1,703

408

1,092

203

7
Yuma

215

3

6

32

174

1,577

330

1,009

238

9
Cochise2

0

17

22

1,531

580

755

196

15
Gila

100

1

7

6

86

559

229

264

66

7
Graham

243

0

2

1

240

203

58

134

11

8
La Paz

84

0

0

6

78

417

82

290

45

1
Navajo

61

1

7

2

51

661

386

189

86

8
Santa Cruz

8

0

1

2

5

368

136

164

68

0
According my awe inspiring math skills:
We have about 26% of the population of Maricopa, but 92% of their violent crimes! We also exceed them in forcible rape, robbery, property crime, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. Hold your head high, Pima County!
3-As you can see below, ASBA named Tucson as the most unfriendly municipality in Arizona to do business in. In my experience, Pima County isn’t far behind. Their combination of poor development services, sign laws and meddling councils/boards is not an attractive package for any company.

4-The previous blog by jhiggins cites the marvelous amount of taxes we pay, either as individuals or companies. What have we gotten for them? Bad roads, a baseball park in the middle of nowhere, Rio Nuevo, Garbage taxes, the inept Downtown Partnership, a $9 million dollar Visitors bureau with no accountability, many potholes and many other blunders. Our high taxes don’t sound like they are worth it.

5-Yes, he really is retiring. The reason he is so popular is that he is the only government employee in Arizona that successfully ran his department over a long period time. But I digress again.

The point of this is simple. The governments of State of Arizona, Pima, Tucson, Oro Valley, Marana and others need to make this the best place possible to work, own a business, live, play and raise a family that they can. Then and only then should we worry about going out into the void and convincing companies to move here. So until then, Good-Bye TREO. Good Bye, Joe Snell. Vaya con Dios!

1 Comment
City of Tucson, Economic Development, Education, Pima County

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