By Joe Higgins, and Chris DeSimone – Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, September 25, 2009
You’ve quietly mumbled under your breath while watching the evening news. You’ve commiserated with colleagues at lunch. You may have even taken the time to write an e-mail or call the office of one of our elected officials. A handful of you may have even showed up at a city council meeting, taken your three minutes of fame at the podium delivering a speech that would make Jimmy Stewart proud. Or maybe you rationalized that you’re too busy. That someone else will carry the load. You wrote a check to a business association or chamber of commerce so your work is done.
What have your efforts accomplished?
Try higher property taxes, increased bed taxes, taxes on tanning salons, ballooning utility costs, more regulations and red tape, a rotting city core, larger pot holes, scarier streets, more graffiti, less baseball and a whole lot more vacancies. As business people, we want to believe Tucson welcomes our entrepreneurial spirit. We tuck in each night dreaming of a community that wants us to succeed. They appreciate the hard work and risks we take. After all small business is the economic engine the politicians all love to brag about. Dream’s over – time to wake up!
Our current flock of elected officials seem to have little interest in supporting you or making your road to riches any easier. You’re in this community to be taxed, regulated and demonized. If you’ve made a business career here you’ve really done something special.
Want to know how we got here? Take a look around. How many of our local politicos have ever owned their own business? How many have built a successful career in the private sector? How many have spent their careers in nonprofit or government jobs? Most have risen from the ranks of the progressive party machines. Are there exceptions? We guess so.
Let us share the real problem the business community has in our region. Our politicians don’t get us. They don’t respect us. And they certainly don’t fear us.
Since the dawn of the democracy, when elections come around politicians count votes. Environmental lobbies, neighborhood associations, unions and university and government employees vote. When a politician’s primary goal is to get re-elected or move to a higher office, catering to the groups that walk the streets, pick up the phones and show up at rallies is perceived as essential to future success.
What are we as a business community to do? For starters, we need to identify strong pro-business candidates then truly support them. The heat will get turned up on you or your business but you must take a stand. A trite chamber of commerce endorsement isn’t going to cut it.
We must ensure that our elected officials are true friends of business. If they aren’t we must take them out of office in a strong and swift show of force. When we do win a seat, the business community needs to remind the other sitting officials that we have the power to influence an election. Once they fear us, they will respect us. Once they fear us, they will listen to us. Once they fear us, things will change.
Don’t fall back on your indifference. Don’t go back to watching “Dancing With The Stars” or “The Biggest Loser.” Sure, we can continue to wait and hope someone else will carry the load but how’s that worked out for us so far?
Wake up business community. Wake up Tucson.
Early ballots will be arriving in mailboxes Oct. 8. If you haven’t requested an early ballot, call (520) 740-4330. Any registered voter in the city of Tucson can vote for any of the six council candidates running. This is a partisan race — for now — and it’s not limited to individual ward-only voting. Inform your employees, family and friends of what is at stake in this election. Research the candidates and measure results.
Vote.
Contact Joe Higgins at joe@joehigginsinc.com or Chris DiSimone at provenpartners@comcast.net. They’re the hosts of “Wake Up Tucson,” which airs 6 a.m. – 7 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Information about the show is online at WakeUpTucson.net
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I just stopped by your blog and thought I would say hello. I like your site design. Looking forward to reading more down the road.
There is the tendency to lump people together into one evil pot then try to stir it up. I fear that is what Joe is doing in this piece. I have spoken to a lot of small business owners and they do not see all of the Council as being cut from the same cloth. Example: Karin Uhlich has the respect of the small business owners I have talked to who are in Ward 3. Why? Because she has shown leadership with the Local First Arizona initiative; the Gateway Business Alliance; has supported Buy Local Day; has tried to make Ward 3 and the entire city safer for all businesses, etc. Please don’t lump it all into an indistinguishable puree. They are some delicious differences.
This is the sort of ‘on the radar screen’ guts that I have been looking for since the election campaign began. I appreciate the willingness of Chris and Joe to go public in their strongly pro-private sector stand. Unless and until more of our local entrepreneurs join them in this effort, nothing changes. Once they/we do, together we can make a difference in our community. Thanks for ITB and the role you all play. Thanks to the “Wake Up Tucson” crew for their work.
Steve Kozachik
Council Candidate / Ward 6
Well said! It is up to all of us. I remember Hurricane Katrina and the devistation that it brought. Yet after it was all saud and done, the idiotic people of New Orleans, voted to RE-ELECT mayor Ray Nagel. Was there a great voter turn-out or where the residents of New Orleans just apathetic?
Tag, you’re it Tucson!
Henny…….
TAKE KAREN UHLICH ……….PLEASE !!
Ms Uhlich governs in a far more craven manner than Ms Trasoff. She is far more manipulative and has deep rooted ideology that will only further wreck the city of Tucson if she is allowed to win a re election. She belongs with the other one because she has failed to live up to her promises.
Let’s look at her record:
1.She promised to end the trash fee. She failed to do that and in fact increased the fee.
2. She promised to protect public safety . She failed so miserably the citizens have signed an initiative to protect public safety funds. Did you know when a TPD officer is commissioned they get one 9mm handgun,3 clips of ammo and a pair of handcuffs. Some send off. No Tasers. No kevlar. Shotguns relegated to the trunk of their squad cars. Cancelled police academies. ALL UNDER HER WATCH.
3. She has failed to live up to contractual obligations with the Rockies and we have lost MLB in Tucson.
4. She has foolishly mortgaged the assets of the city away with Rio Nuevo. No RN audit as promised. No transparency as promised. Voted to spend $820,000 on a 14 minute video for a museum that will never be built with a DC company.
5. She has supported ( TWICE ) a renter’s tax on the elderly , working families and those most economically vulnerable. She has supported and voted for many taxes on business that are especially harmful to job creation.
6. She has done nothing that would create a long term viable resolution to the problems facing Tucson with the eventual loss of the Tucson Gem Show. So , as a result of her lack of good governance we will loose 2 of our top economic generators and attractions in the winter/spring–professional baseball and the gem show.
7. She has shepherded a ill conceived plan to restrict re development within Tucson’s center city area which is against Arizona law ( Prop 207 ) and the US Constitution. Another job killing and higher housing cost policy with her fingerprints on it.
8. Lastly, look at the wretched conditions today in her home ward. Are the voters in Ward 3 any better off then they were 4 years ago? The crooks , hookers, pimps and drug pushers think so but I’m not so sure about law abiding citizens who put their faith in her 4 years ago.
FOR ALL THESE REASONS HENNY I LUMP BOTH OF THEM WITH THE SAME SHAMEFUL RECORD OF LOUSY GOVERNANCE , BROKEN PROMISES , PUNITIVE BEHAVIOR TO THOSE WHO DEFY THEM.
ARE ANY OF US BETTER OFF TODAY THAN WE WERE FOURS AGO? I THINK THE ANSWER IS PRETTY CLEARLY–NO.
ARE YOU AS TIRED AS I AM WITH THEIR PERFORMANCE? IF SO , VOTE STEVE KOZACHIK, BEN BUEHLER-GARCIA AND SHAUN MC LUSKY FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE BECAUSE CHANGE CAN’T WAIT.
Oh, this is funny! Bruse Ash, the champion of the poor! Mr. Ash, sticking up for the people because Karin won’t? You are REALLY saying that?
But the best part is when he finishes with “… because change can’t wait.”
Ash is throwing out Obama slogans now! Hilarious!
Listen, Bruce, please, you don’t even believe yourself. Karin is the only elected official in Tucson that runs a social justice agency while she serves as a Council Member. She is the E.D. for the Southwest Center for Economic Integrity. She fights predatory lending every day. She fights your greedy buddies every day, Mr. Ash!
And, on top of that—oh, and I know you have to hate this—she has the support of many, many business owners because of your commitment to our local economy via the Gateway Business Alliance, Local First Arizona, the Tucson GLBT Chamber of Commerce, and on and on. You gotta hate that—a progressive who also gets economic development.
Again, you are hilarious! Using a down economy– that same messed up economy YOU and your Republican friends handed us– to blame everything on Karin.
Now you are saying that YOU are for the “working poor”, huh Mr. Ash? Please.
Karin fired your buddy, Mr. Hein. She brought back impact fees which your pals at SAHBA just hate.
Mr. Ash, you think you can pay for all of your hateful, right wing, rhetoric on the radio and then try to play yourself off as some kind of an Obama “change” man? Seriously?
Come on, Ben B. Garcia, with friends like Mr. Ash, you are only HELPING us re-elect Karin. You can do better than that.
Vote Karin Uhlich. Go to http://www.karin2009.com for more info….. unless, of course, Mr. Ash can get you in to see the President… since he is connected like that, ya know…
See, Mr. Ash, you got me so Obama-like-inspired that I even gave you credit for Karin’s business acompishments… NOT. Obviusly, that was a typo.
Power to the people, Mr. Ash!
Joe. I am disappointed in you. I thought you were a different kind of conservative. I thought you were more independent. Why don’t you show some class and just come out with it and endorse Ben & Steve instead of pretending to be neutral.
Interesting. The word was you didn’t run with the good, old, powerful boys… the Cick’s, the Diamonds, Patons, Grannells, the boys at SAHBA, Tucson Realtors, etc.
You are jut like all of them. At the end of the day, even though you know first hand that Karin is the smartest council member and very supportive of Small business, you still went there.
You, of all people, know that of course you were not feared these past four years— instead, you were respected and listened to. I know you don’t fully believe what you say in your column, but you said it anyway. Still, you chose to go there. I’m very disappointed.
But, that’s cool. You have drawn the unfortunate, partisan line in the sand under pressure even though you didn’t have to. Congrats. I guess the Republican Party will forgive you for standing up to them in the past and welcome you back.
Didn’t take much for you to trade in your integrity to get your seat back at the fat cat table.
Congrats. Well done.
It’s on.
(I know you won’t post this. But, deep down I know you are a good guy, so I know my words will bother your conscience. And that is good enough for me for now.)
Amen Bruce Ash and amen Joe and Chris. Bravo.
What we have here is a failure to communicate………
Running the city is not about R’s or D’s. It is about competence. Ms Uhlich and the current city council is simply DYSFUNCTIONAL. The decisions made by that body have been detrimental to Tucson’s future. This council has not been transparent. This council has helped kill jobs. This council has placed an enormous amount of debt on our assets that we can hardly afford and will make it even more difficult to achieve prosperity in the future. This council has abused the trust of Tucson’s citizens .
I ask the question AGAIN…………”"ARE YOU BETTER OFF TODAY THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?” The answer is simply no.
BTW–one of the worst symptoms of these posts is the class warfare you engage in. How unfortunate. The very people you hate so much are the same folks who make jobs, pay taxes, create community and care as much for Tucson as you claim to. I applaud Ms Uhlich’s professional background. I am impressed with her resume. But as a city council member she has been a failure and what elections do is give voters a chance to decide which direction they want to go in the future. I hope more people will agree with us that change is really needed and vote for a new good government team.
My wife and I reside in Uhlich’s district. We rent, and we protested the renters’ tax. Although that idiotic idea was defeated, her Plan B – increase city taxes and fees, is getting about half what the renters’ tax would’ve gotten out of us and the rest of the renters.
And I’ve e-mailed her office many times. All I get is a perfunctory “she’ll get your message” from an aide a few days later.
In conclusion, she’s not as bad as Trasoff, but she’s definitely not what we need to move Tucson forward.