SPOTLIGHT ON THIS WEEK’S COUNCIL AGENDA (Business Friendly Tucson Study
Session Item) – As you may recall, time and again I have spoken about
the importance of making Tucson a more business friendly community. I am
pleased that Ward 6 Council Member Nina Trasoff, joined me on the
concept of making the City a “how can we help you” place as opposed to a
“no, no, no” kind of place to do business.
That said, this Tuesday we placed a resolution on the agenda that will
show our support for local businesses by resolving to make our city a
better community in which to do business, by adopting a more
customer-service oriented approach to working with the business
community, by providing a balance between businesses and neighborhoods,
while respecting our diverse culture and providing high-wage jobs with
benefits to raise the quality of life for Tucsonans.
This will be an interesting discussion and I am hopeful that everyone
will be on board. There are very few things more important during a time
of economic crisis than having a strong and vibrant business community
that can help generate jobs and sales tax dollars to keep our community
hopping! I am pleased to be helping the Council and leading the way in
this effort. This is simply the first step. Just like working on losing
weight or achieving a great goal, the first part of the process is
acknowledging the problem and setting a goal. This is a wonderful way
to start making Tucson a “business friendly” community simply because
it’s the right thing to do!
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Correct me if I’m wrong Rodney, but the only jobs you have been responsible for are the consultants you hire to run for office.
As for the jobs coming from the other members of the council I’d ask how those jobs for Rio Nuevo Audit and Accountability are coming along before we get too far into the weeds.
Way too little. Way too late.
(this address to the Mayor and Council City of Tucson Nov.17, 2009)
I come before you to speak in opposition to the so-called “Resolution of Support for Local Business”. This document was submitted by local mega-developer Diamond Ventures on October 27th. It should really be called the “the Diamond Ventures Welfare Plan” since almost all of the items on the wish list consist of ways to make development of raw land in the Greater Tucson area faster and more profitable for Diamond Ventures and a handful of other developers. To see what’s at stake and why this is being promulgated by this company, please consider the current business plans of Diamond Ventures.
According to their website, Diamond Ventures currently has 7 residential development projects and 5 commercial development projects on their drawing board. The four residential projects in the Tucson basin consists of 9,455 acres with some 8,100 homes planned. Their 3 other planned residential projects; most of which are in Southern Arizona add another 9,000 acres and 6,000 homes, including the “Villago” project which has a planned 10 acre lake and aquatic center. Additionally the company has some 150,000 square feet of commercial development on the drawing board.
We are bringing this information to the attention of the Mayor and Council to insure that they know the public understands that this resolution is patently designed to benefit the land development industry and actually the biggest player there; Diamond Ventures. The wish list includes:
• elimination of the restrictions on providing water to speculative developments;
• elimination of the obligations of raw land developers to restore or mitigate damage to ecosystems and preserve natural riparian areas;
• intrusion upon requirements for impact compensation on existing infrastructure;
• sweetheart, rubber stamping of development plans including delay of impact studies;
• in a complete flip, requires the City to provide economic impact reports for business regulation;
• Elimination of the Big Box ordinance and other clearly developer friendly demands.
An effort seems to have been made to avoid a complete feather bedding of the Development industry in that relaxation of the Sign Code is also demanded.
We strongly feel that the current policy of the Mayor and Council that development should pay for itself should be defended against such a transparently self-serving demand. Furthermore, great progress has been made by this Mayor ad Council to acknowledge our community’s limited resources, especially water resources and policies for the preservation of our unique biodiversity. We urge the Mayor and Council to flatly reject this proposal. I does not serve the current nor long term interests of our community.