Archive for November 20th, 2009

Published on Friday, November 20, 2009

 
The results of this month’s Tucson city council election shows the electorate is not happy with the status quo. A large part of the campaign focused on incompetence and a lack of economic opportunities. It’s time for Tucson and its leaders to start making the changes that voters and the business community called for during the campaign, and they deserve.

So we thought, alright big-talking radio guys, what would we do if we were kings for a day? Here is what the Wake Up, Tucson Kingdom would look like:

1. The employment mix would have fewer government jobs. The largest employment sector in Southern Arizona is  government — 21 percent of our region’s workers are military, schools or universities and city or county government. By comparison, Phoenix, Denver and Seattle weigh in at between 13 and 15 percent. Tucson’s second largest regional employment sector, at 17 percent, is the service sector. Low on the list are tech jobs, manufacturing and financial service. Not a great stat for a city that isn’t even a state capital.

These lopsided numbers demonstrate that Tucson does way too much handing money back and forth. Fresh capitalist dollars are what we desperately need to grow our economy. Gone are the days when we can just rely on construction jobs to raise the tide. A focus on industries that make things, move things or sell things is needed now more than ever.

2. Roll out the welcome mat to business. An anti-big box ordinance, hostile neighborhood interactions, NIMBYism run rampant and a maze of rules discourage all but the most committed entrepreneurs. Sprinkle in years of regulations, a culture of saying “no” along with zoning and land-use codes designed to discourage the entrepreneurial spirit and you get enterprise exoduses. Businesses are leaving the city or worse, they’re leaving the region altogether.

Last week, we had a prominent local guest on our radio show who talked of how it took 14 development plan reviews and more than nine years to launch his projects. He went so far as to suggest California can be a more business-friendly environment than Tucson. California? Wasn’t Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO) targeting California companies to try to persuade them to relocate here? How’s that for irony?

3. Less of Pima County would be unincorporated. Pima County has 36 percent of its population living in unincorporated areas outside of cities and towns. In Maricopa County it’s only 6 percent. These are important numbers because our region’s portion of state shared revenues are calculated using these population numbers. These numbers cost our region $60 million to $80 million per year that goes to our friends up north. That pays for a lot of over-budget underpasses.

Annexation and incorporations have been attempted over the decades in Pima County. With minor exceptions, it appears we are at a stalemate. To fix this, the Legislature will have to go against the powerful League of Arizona Cities and Towns to amend state law requiring approval of a jurisdiction to start a new municipality within 6 miles of an existing one. Adjust the law and watch for the Town of Vail to be the first to incorporate. Followed by renewed efforts in Tortolita, Casas Adobes and Catalina Foothills. Even Green Valley might go for it.

4. More competition among cities and towns. Maricopa County has 16 municipalities compared to Pima County’s five: Tucson, South Tucson, Marana, Sahaurita and Oro Valley. More cities translate into more competition as each fights for tax dollars. As Tucson fiddles over Rio Nuevo and rainwater harvesting, Oro Valley, Sahuarita and Marana are picking off businesses and creating places where people want to live. Marana’s now the home of professional golf’s Accenture Match Play Championship, a new Ritz-Carlton Resort and, possibly, a world-class sports stadium.

5. Bureaucracies would be shook up. Doing the same thing over and over again just doesn’t cut it anymore. The world is moving too fast and is too competitive not to change. As the late Gerald Burrill, retired Episcopal Bishop of Chicago, said, “The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.”

Southern Arizona suffers from a  lack of accountability and vision from a many of the important business groups that represent the rest of us.  While these hand-picked, resume building boards may ensure that things keep humming along, it is at the expense of the rest of that are lower on the food chain. Not all these are bad some do great work. You be the judge based on the actions and results.

Those of you in leadership roles on these chambers, bureaus and associations; take a hard look at who you’re helping and who you’re hurting.  You have a fiduciary, financial and social responsibility to all of us to ask the tough questions, demand transparency, hold your group accountable. 

For the common business owners, it’s time to really reflect on whether you’re continued support is manifested in a thriving business environment.  It’s time to bring accountability one check at a time.

Contact Joe Higgins at joe@joehigginsinc.com or Chris DeSimone at provenpartners@comcast.net. They’re the hosts of “Wake Up Tucson,” which airs 6 - 8 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Check out their blog at www.TucsonChoices.com.

Standing on the corner watching life pass by Tucson
MY OPINION: Lack of will
By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, November 20, 2009
What’s this I hear about Tucson wanting to bring in business and industry? Is this a major change in policy or am I misinformed? Up until now all I heard from “the powers” was that growth would strain resources, annoy the indigenous animals and contribute to climate change.

But Tucson always seemed above mere commerce, above crass profit, infinitely diverse. Oh, we have our dreams, expensive dreams, but dreams nonetheless - the crosstown parkway and downtown redevelopment. They will happen when the Tucson Citizen returns to the Circle K.

“But why is that,” I asked myself. Is Tucson too small? Is it too big? It can’t be just right or Boeing would have picked here instead of Charleston, S.C., as the site for the assembly plant to build its new 787 Dreamliner and brought with it those 3,000 jobs. Charleston is smaller than Tucson, with about two-thirds the population. We could use a business like that here. We have 40,000 people out of work. Granted, 3,000 is a drop in the bucket, but if you’re in that bucket it matters to you. Then there are all the collateral businesses that would supply Boeing providing another few thousand jobs.

But small doesn’t seem to be a disqualification. Fargo, N.D., with only 90,589 residents just landed a major Microsoft campus. Why would Microsoft go to North Dakota? It isn’t likely to be for the weather.

And small didn’t seem to put off Korean automaker Kia, which is going to build a major manufacturing facility in West Point in Georgia near the Alabama state line. The population is just 3,571. Surely, everyone in West Point will be working for Kia or one of its suppliers.

Each of these companies’ moves will rescue their respective cities or towns from the recession. The new jobs will mean food and clothing sales, eventually new homes and cars.

Charleston and Fargo have airports that will probably get improved airline connections as demand warrants. West Point is an 80-mile shot down Interstate 85 from Atlanta where there is already excellent air service. Tucson is a scenic 125-mile drive away from Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix and Tucson has an airport that would be better served if the passenger traffic were here.

The cost of living in Fargo or West Point has got to be laughable compared to anyplace on the coast. Neither was put off by a lack of fine restaurants and upscale facilities, which will undoubtedly come to satisfy new demand.

There is one common characteristic of these three venues that the arriving companies all agreed was critical. They are in right-to-work states. They all want to be free of the thugocracy of unions. Oh, if only Arizona were a right-to-work state. Hey, wait. It is.

Comparing Tucson with the three locations that hit the jackpot, there are few obvious differences. In fact, Tucson has better facilities and an educated and multilingual work force as well. Everything about Tucson says we should be getting such industries here. We have the stores, restaurants, rail and highway connections, and proximity to markets. We certainly have the weather and a plentiful availability of utilities of every kind.

We have it all. Except…

We don’t have the will to do it. Tucson grows only by virtue of retirees who come here for golf, sun and a steak. They don’t care about bringing industry to Tucson. We can barely get them interested in supporting the schools in which they have no kids.

Tucson has a disproportionately large number of people who have little to gain from the economic success of the region. They don’t really care what happens to downtown Tucson. If it is uninviting, they just won’t go there.

They allow the election of officials who are incompetent, who can’t get things done, who waste taxpayers’ money, and mostly stand around dumbfounded when sports teams — and now probably, the annual gem and mineral shows — leave.

Alexis de Toqueville is attributed with the saying that people get the government they deserve. Pogo famously said, “We has [sic] met the enemy and he is us.” Now what are we going to do about it?

Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia or visit his website: www.newflashpoint.com.