Archive for November 4th, 2009

Time for some good news. Tucson is known for its outdoor activities like hiking and golf. Triathlete Magazine ranked Tucson the best place for training in the world. Add in the El Tour De Tucson and a beautiful ride up to Mt Lemon and we’ve made our mark.

From Inside Tucson Business:

The Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau says it doesn’t have specific figures on people who come to Tucson to train for such things as triathlons but estimates amateur sports events bring in about $27 million a year in economic impact.

Lieneke-Nickle said often there will be one spouse who is into endurance training and the other isn’t, but they both come.

“That’s what is great about Tucson, it is a unique location with golf, shopping, desert museums and so much more to do,” she said.

For the spouse who is into it, she said there are some local training routes that are quickly becoming legends among triathletes.

Tucson Citizen.com blog – In Section: Meet Me Downtown » Posted By: Donovan Durband

Here are seventeen suggestions I have for the Tucson City Council, with respect to Downtown Tucson:

1. Do an audit of Rio Nuevo. Don’t wait for the State to do it. Get all the skeletons out of the closet.

2. Stop tolerating the insider favoritism that’s run rampant.

3. Put more funding into the Facade Program. A relatively small investment in fixing up old buildings makes a big difference in downtown’s image and in facilitating vibrant downtown activity. Facade improvements provide a big bang for the buck. Allocate some TIF funding to the Facade Program. The lawyers have said it’s okay, I know they have!

4. Support the existing businesses that have toughed it out through the hard times. A well-known community leader said to me, when the Downtown Tucson Partnership was forming in 2007, that he didn’t want anyone involved in Downtown up until that time, including businesses, to be part of the new regime. That is so wrong-headed on so many levels. Existing businesses should not be displaced to make room for new businesses if at all possible (especially not seven of them at a time!).

5. Get out of the entertainment business. Stop messing with the Rialto Theater and running the Fox Theater. The Rialto is doing just fine, and stop pretending that everything is headed in the right direction at the Fox. Renegotiate the Fox’s loan and insist the Fox Theater Foundation board add some new members dedicated to fundraising, and encourage the board to operate independently. Let the Foundation hire its own director and other staff.

6. Discourage the further demolition of historically significant buildings and older buildings with character. Encourage new construction on empty lots and surface parking.

7. Focus energy and resources on saving the Gem Shows. Suck up to the Gem organizations as much as needed, although the time for sucking up without action has passed. Which leads right into . . .

8. Build a more affordable, more realistically-scaled convention hotel that won’t put the City’s finances at risk.

9. Hit the reset button on a master plan. What can still be done with the remaining 15 years of TIF? What projects do Tucson citizens consider important? What projects from the original master plan are critical and must be given top priority, and which ones should only be done if there is an unexpected windfall? Communicate this plan to the public. Don’t spend additional money on the planning process, just engage the public, use the available information, and show leadership. Tell us why you’ve decided to establish the priorities you have.

10. Support the development of some student housing – especially along Broadway (on empty lots!). This will create demand for downtown businesses. Perhaps the UA will elect to locate some academic programs downtown as well, once the Streetcar is operational. Everyone says they are in favor of more downtown housing, and this is the most ready source of demand for residential space – college students. This would also take pressure off the neighborhoods experiencing mini-dorm development.

11. Keep pushing forward on the Modern Streetcar.

12. Wash the sidewalks. The BID maintenance crews are doing a good job of picking up litter and sweeping, but the sidewalks need to be power-washed too – badly. An entertainment district needs good security and attentive maintenance.

13. Stop blaming the Legislature for problems that we’ve created for ourselves here.

14. Stop acting out of desperation.

15. Get out of the real estate business, but have a fair and open process for disposing of city-owned property. This is where there is great risk of approving insider deals. Don’t give land away. Downtown development requires that the banks see some comps.

16. Take positive action to implement prior commitments. The Warehouse Arts District is one of those commitments.

17. Think and act “Urban!” Be guided by urban principles, not suburban principles. This post originally appeared on TucsonCitizen.com

It looks like the 570 vote margin Karin Uhlich had over Ben Buehler-Garcia for Ward 3 city council is getting smaller. As of 1:30 today the lead has shrunk to 444. A mid town precinct that had to be hand counted last night brought the race closer. With a stronger Democratic presence in mid-town this is should be a bit concerning for the Uhlich campaign.  There are between 5,000 and 9,000 ballots still left to count from all over the county (many of these are non-city voting ballots). We understand that at least one east side precinct still has be be tallied. The east side has a higher percentage of Independent and Republican voters was a major factor in the Kozachick campaigns lead.

This isn’t quit over yet folks.

Time for some changes in Tucson City Council. Steve Kozachick lead the race after initial early result were release a little after 8pm last night by a razor thin margin. Over the course of the evening with 32 precincts out of 89 counted Trasoff was ahead with a growing margin that look insurmountable.  It appears that the east side precincts came in late in the evening to swing the race towards Steve. Final results 48.6% to 50.78% for Koz. Steve won with a 1200 vote margin. Here’s the actual results.

Buehler-Garcia lost by as little as 573 votes out of 60,000+ cast. Their will be lots of talk about what Uhlich did differently than Trasoff but either way the results show a huge lack of confidence in the direction of our city.

Shaun McClusky came out of no where to challenge a Democratic machine and put up together an amazing race. Hats off to Shuan, I’m sure we’ll see more of him. Congratulations to Richard Fimbres, the newly elected Ward 5 councilman.

We will have two new faces on the Tucson City Council.

From the AZ Star:

Uhlich, who serves as the executive director of a nonprofit agency, had 47 percent of the vote to Buehler-Garcia’s 46 percent.

She said the race was “very difficult” because it was dominated by negative advertising and independent campaign efforts. “That’s heightened the fear and anxiety people feel in the city,” she said, adding that makes her job more difficult.

The small margin, she said, just “shows there’s a lot of stress and anxiety because of the economic downturn.”

“The citizens of Tucson told us loud and clear the message of fiscal responsibility,” she said, adding her first responsibility will be to balance the budget in a fair way.

Buehler-Garcia said it was hard to counter the Democrats 2-to-1 voter registration advantage, but took solace in the fact that it was a horse race nonetheless. “I think it speaks to one — we ran a good campaign. And two, there is a level of frustration in the community.”

The emotions at the Republican celebration at an east-side Chuy’s Mesquite Broiler swung wildly. The early crowd of about 250 cheered when the polls closed and cheered again any time anyone mentioned the influence of the Tea Party.

The anxiety became more palpable as the candidates continued to trail. By 9:30 p.m., about half of the attendees had left. But by 11 p.m., with the east-side precincts coming in, the margins shrank again and Republicans vowed to seek recounts if the race remained tight.

The party had predicted the rise of the Tea Party, discontent over the Rio Nuevo missteps and the national dissatisfaction might have all coalesced to spell a win.

Bob Westerman, chairman of the county Republican Party, said the early voting strategy will need to be reworked. “Even though we pulled up even with the Democrats, our strategy was to do better than that and we didn’t really meet our goal.”

He was clear, though, that the night was a success and the Tea Party movement remained “extremely relevant.”

“I can’t stress enough how extraordinary the numbers were.”