Archive for February 2nd, 2010

Although annexing the affluent, unincorporated foothill neighborhoods would certainly improve Tucson’s financial means, it won’t be an easy task:

Bob: Annexation isn’t going to happen
Editorial
Inside Tucson Business
Aug. 14, 2006

Poor Mayor Bob Walkup. He’s feeling lonely these days as the only elected Republican at City Hall. That must be the reason behind his newly launched attempt to extend Tucson’s city limits out to take in the Catalina Foothills and Casas Adobes. That is after the city gets done annexing as much of the booming southeast side as it can. Talk about a marketing problem. This one will be like pushing a wet noodle uphill–the Catalina Foothills.

Rule No. 1 when it comes to marketing is create a desire for your product. Where’s the desire? Certainly not at Tucson City Hall. This is a place that likes things just the way they are right now. The bloated bureaucracy is happy with its power and seemingly not having to be answerable to anyone. The politicians in office are satisfied with their status quo. On political maps, Tucson is a blue city–a City Council comprised of five Democrats, one independent and Walkup, all by his little lonesome as the only Republican.

Why would all those Democrats want a bunch of new Republicans to be able to vote in city elections? The areas Walkup is targeting are filled with Republicans. In Catalina Foothills School District No. 16, Republicans have a 25 percent voter registration advantage over Democrats. Another way of looking at it is to consider in Pima County’s Justice of the Peace Precinct No. 1, which takes in most of the Foothills, Casas Adobes and goes all the way up to the Pinal County line. Admittedly Walkup’s proposal doesn’t include the entire area, but it does include a lot of it and Republicans outnumber Democrats by a 3-to-2 margin.

Tucson’s suburban municipalities–Oro Valley, Marana and Sahuarita–are all tilted toward Republican voter advantages. There is no way five Democrats on the City Council want those kind of numbers to spoil their next election.

Annexation is a two-way street. For as much as City Council members don’t like the idea, there also is no compelling argument for people in Walkup’s targeted areas to go along with it either. Quite the contrary. Steve Emerine addressed some of why this is the case in his Valley Views column in the July 31 issue of Inside Tucson Business. (In fact, the curious among us wonder if perhaps that column might have prompted Walkup’s renewed efforts.)

There is no upside for a resident to want to become part of the city. Instead, you would:

• Be part of a higher crime rate.

• Higher city sales taxes.

• Higher property taxes.

• Poorer garbage collection with no options.

• A City Council that is often viewed as a sideshow when it comes to trying to make decisions. (Granted, the county Board of Supervisors acts this way at times, but why add another layer?)

We take pity on Walkup and his lonely state at City Hall. It looks as if he’s bound to stay that way.

September 5, 2008) Ruth Evans believes that part of the responsibility of a chamber of commerce is to educate local and state legislators with regard to how their decisions have an impact on business.

Evans, a recipient of the California Chamber of Commerce 2008 Small Business Advocate of the Year Award, practices what she preaches as she helped lead the Greater Fresno Area Chamber in recent years back to relevancy in the community where she has spent much of her life.

Large corporations have governmental affairs people, who are able to spend time getting their message out, but small businesses don’t really have the time or resources to do the same, Evans said. So in 2005, with the help of some prominent chamber of commerce officials and local leaders, she took a little time after her day job — she has owned her own full service human resources company, The Evans HR Group, for more than 12 years — to help revamp the Fresno Chamber.
Revamp

Following a 2004 planning retreat for 2005, Evans, who has been with the chamber for more than 16 years and was serving as the chairman-elect of the board at the time, decided the chamber needed to refocus its goals.

“Quite honestly I was hearing comments from the mayor of the city of Fresno and other people that the chamber wasn’t on the map and had other people in the community asking me what the chamber did,” she said. “That’s never a good question to be asked.”

So when getting ready for the new year at the annual planning retreat, the board laid the foundation for an effort to make sure the chamber was indeed relevant to what local business and the community were looking for at the time.

The brainstorming resulted in a clear consensus on the Fresno Chamber Board: focus on a specific plan and get your message out.

Advocacy

At the time, the chamber had a governmental affairs program focused mainly on the local level. Evans said the chamber decided to “take our program to the next level” when it came to advocacy.

“More than ever before, the chamber is representing business before government, and getting involved in issues that impact business locally and at the state level,” she said.

In 2005, the chamber significantly increased its governmental affairs efforts, developed a new Governmental Affairs Council of voting members who research, discuss and take positions on issues, hired a new chief executive officer, Al Smith, began a public safety integration process by bringing in a consultant to evaluate integration opportunities and named a committee led by former Secretary of State Bill Jones and Smith to get a local transportation measure passed in 2006.

The board of directors also agreed upon the idea of developing a new grassroots website, solely focused on advocacy efforts, www.fresnochamberadvocacy.com.

Evans said the new website has been a “big success.” The website lists the chamber’s positions on legislation and local issues, provides report cards (vote records) for city council members and state legislators, and displays upcoming events.

Higher Profile

Since the new focus was adopted, the chamber has been very involved in everything from the public safety integration effort to a homeless task force, downtown revitalization, the four day workweek and efforts to support above-ground water storage.

As chair of the Government Affairs Council, Evans led the charge in creating a task force to review the county budget. The task force met with department heads, labor negotiators and top county administration to analyze how local tax dollars were being spent.

In addition, Evans named a task force to review the city budget, a process that had been done several times in preceding years.

“With regard to the county in particular, we had some serious issues with the way things were done and we gave them our feedback on that,” Evans said. “I think there is more demand for the authority of the chamber of commerce to facilitate efforts.”

On the state level, Evans spearheaded the Fresno Chamber’s first legislative testimony in Sacramento when she spoke in front of the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee in 2007 in support of the four-day workweek bill, AB 510 (Benoit; R-Bermuda Dunes).