Archive for February 7th, 2010

PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 4, 2003:
There Goes the Neighborhood
Have neighborhood associations lost their political muscle?
By JIM NINTZEL

Last month, Yolanda Herrera tried to organize a citywide workshop for neighborhood associations to learn more about the liquor license application process.
Herrera, president of the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, has frequently opposed new liquor licenses in southside Tucson, so she thought other neighborhoods might benefit from her experience. She worked with a social service agency to reserve meeting space and got various city and state officials to agree to come by.

Once all that was done, she dropped off a pile of fliers at the city’s Department of Neighborhood Resources more than a month before the event–but the city staff didn’t end up sending it out until weeks later. The invitations arrived in mailboxes just four days before the get-together.

Had she known city officials would just sit on the flier, Herrera says she would have found other funds to mail it out. As it was, the shout-out was sent too late for many people to set aside time to attend the training session.

Herrera says that’s just one example of the way city officials have quietly pushed neighborhood issues aside.

“Long story short, they are no longer neighborhood friendly,” says Herrera. “They’re selling us out to the business people.”

It’s an increasing complaint about the Department of Neighborhood Resources, or DNR–which some activists have taken to calling “Do Not Resuscitate.”

“We’re paying this huge part of the budget for DNR, but the services are not coming down to the neighborhoods,” Herrera gripes.

She sees the impact on her southside neighborhood as banks are replaced by payday loans outlets and traveling vendors set up shop in empty lots. “It’s starting to look like Nogales down here,” she says.

Although City Council members talk about supporting neighborhoods when they campaign, they don’t always open their doors once they’re in office, according to some neighborhood activists.

Brad Holland, a lawyer and musician who serves as president of the Midtown Neighborhood Association, says he’s seen a definite shift since Ward 6 Councilman Fred Ronstadt and Mayor Bob Walkup arrived at City Hall.

Holland says the midtown neighborhood, which is bordered by Swan Road, Speedway Boulevard, Alvernon Way and Grant Road, has problems that are serious enough that city officials don’t completely ignore them.

But Holland sees money that could be reinvested in neighborhoods, such as the Ward 6 Back to Basics dollars, instead being spent on downtown projects.

“We have some real needs in midtown,” he says. “We have meth monsters; we have drainage issues; we have slumlords; we have crime; we have 22 registered Level 3 sex offenders within the square mile of midtown. There’s a lot of things we could have down with $800,000 in regards to quality-of-life issues.”

While he can call Ward 6 staffers, Holland complains that he doesn’t have access to Ronstadt or Walkup. “There’s a difference for us as far as the mayor’s office is concerned,” says Holland, who is supporting Democrat Tom Volgy’s effort to unseat Walkup in this year’s mayoral race. “We can’t even get in the door.”

Valerie Greenhill, communications director with Walkup’s re-election campaign, says Walkup’s office has no record of Holland requesting any meetings.

“The mayor is accessible to all neighborhoods,” says Greenhill. “He’s always available to meet with constituents. It’s interesting that these claims are coming up in the middle of the campaign season.”

Greenhill says Walkup has supported neighborhoods through a variety of programs and “is absolutely committed to improving the Department of Neighborhood Resources.”

In Ward 3, Councilwoman Kathleen Dunbar, who was fiercely opposed by neighborhood associations when she ran for office two years ago, has worked vigorously to neutralize neighborhood unrest. She turned down Walkup’s request to redirect her Back to Basics dollars to downtown, choosing to spread them around the ward instead, and has assigned staffer Bennett Bernal to handle constituent service.

Dunbar healed some wounds with neighborhood leaders along Mountain Avenue earlier this year when she backed their opposition to a controversial public art project. She’s recently been trying to address development and parking issues around the UA and has given meeting space to Campbell Avenue merchants who were incensed at her for her support of a grade-separated intersection at Grant and Campbell.

But other parts of Ward 3 still feel neglected. Jerry Anderson, a Democrat who stepped down two years ago after one term as Ward 3 councilman, says that new city restrictions and a decline in available resources have hurt neighborhood organization efforts. In his work with a group called Ward 3 Neighbors, he’s seen the city limit the ability of the group to host or promote political forums.

“All in all, it’s been a challenging time for neighborhoods to really provide a service to the residents of their neighbors that straddles the fine line between politics and community service,” says Anderson, who is also supporting Volgy in the mayor’s race. “The city seems to have taken a very stance about telling neighborhoods about what they can do and what they can’t do. I don’t think that’s neighborhood-friendly at all. And I’m confident that’s going to change in November.”

Neighborhood associations have certainly lost the ability to work together to dramatically affect larger community issues, as they did in the early ’90s when they pressured the Pima County Board of Supervisors to turn down legendary land speculator Don Diamond’s massive rezoning of Rocking K Ranch. (Diamond would later persuade the board to a pass a less-intensive rezoning.)

The big mover and shaker in that struggle was the Neighborhood Coalition of Greater Tucson, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. But the aging organization has been overshadowed by the rise of other political machines, such as the Pima County Interfaith Council.

Sharon Chadwick, a longtime leader with the Neighborhood Coalition of Greater Tucson who introduced candidates at a coalition-sponsored debate in June, didn’t return numerous phone calls to discuss the organization.

Part of the reason that neighborhood power has waned is the basic reactionary nature of neighborhood associations, says Paul Mackey, a local political activist who has studied and worked with the groups, most recently as a liason to a UA campus planning process.

Mackey, who calls the Neighborhood Coalition of Greater Tucson a “relic organization,” says that associations generally form when neighborhood residents recognize a problem in their neighborhoods. Once the problem is resolved, many neighbors get back to their lives outside of politics.

In some cases, council offices have been able to neutralize potential uprisings by finding money, through Back to Basics and other programs, to take care of some neighborhood needs, such as installing sidewalks, streetlights or speed humps to slow traffic on residential streets.

If neighborhood associations have much political weight left, it’s in city primaries. Democrats who can grab the neighborhood-friendly label tend to come out ahead: Jerry Anderson worked that constituency to upset Michael Crawford in 1997, Molly McKasson won the 1999 mayoral primary and Paula Aboud channeled it to beat Vicki Hart in 2001.

But when they face Republican opponents in the general election, those Democratic candidates have ended up losing in recent years, despite the 3-2 voter registration edge of Democrats in Tucson.

There are more factors at work than just neighborhood support in those losing campaigns; McKasson was hobbled in her race against Walkup by her support of an unpopular CAP water initiative, while Aboud was a rookie politician up against Dunbar, who had both name recognition and campaign experience from her one term in the Arizona House of Representatives. Both Republicans also benefited from independent campaigns that hammered the Democrats.

Nevertheless, whatever the reasons for the Democratic defeats, the end result has been a council that is less responsive to neighborhood activists.

The neighborhood’s win streak in Democratic primaries could come to an end next week, if Lianda Ludwig fails in her bid to knock out Ward 2 Councilwoman Carol West. Ludwig, who has bagged the endorsement of the Neighborhood Coalition of Greater Tucson, has played to neighborhood issues, such as a fight over the future of Case Natural Resources Park and the big-box Target store at Harrison Road and Old Spanish Trail. (See “Analyze This,” Page 17.)

West, who defends her record on neighborhood issues, says she didn’t expect to win the endorsement of the Neighborhood Coalition. “I wasn’t surprised at all,” she says. “They have their own agenda.”

But increasingly, it seems, it’s an agenda that neighborhood activists can’t implement.

Holland optimistically predicts change is on the horizon. Many residents are organizing, particularly via e-mail.

“There is a heightened neighborhood response,” Holland says. “I’d say it is an adversarial response. The neighborhood response is not, ‘Let’s get together and work with Fred and the mayor and Kathleen and Carol.’ The discussion is ‘How do we respond to the threat of Fred and the mayor and Kathleen and Carol?’”

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

“I guess we’re going to find out what the tolerance level is for people,” said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. “It’s a new day.”

Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.

“How are people supposed to live? We’re not a ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’ anymore,” said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety cuts. “We’re the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We’re in trouble. We’re in big trouble.”

Mayor flinches at revenue

Colorado Springs’ woes are more visceral versions of local and state cuts across the nation. Denver has cut salaries and human services workers, trimmed library hours and raised fees; Aurora shuttered four libraries; the state budget has seen round after round of wholesale cuts in education and personnel.

The deep recession bit into Colorado Springs sales-tax collections, while pension and health care costs for city employees continued to soar. Sales-tax updates have become a regular exercise in flinching for Mayor Lionel Rivera.

“Every month I open it up, and I look for a plus in front of the numbers instead of a minus,” he said. The 2010 sales-tax forecast is almost $22 million less than 2007.

Voters in November said an emphatic no to a tripling of property tax that would have restored $27.6 million to the city’s $212 million general fund budget. Fowler and many other residents say voters don’t trust city government to wisely spend a general tax increase and don’t believe the current cuts are the only way to balance a budget.

• Though officials and citizens put public safety above all in the budget, police and firefighting still lost more than $5.5 million this year. Positions that will go empty range from a domestic violence specialist to a deputy chief to juvenile offender officers. Fire squad 108 loses three firefighters. Putting the helicopters up for sale and eliminating the officers and a mechanic banked $877,000.

• Tourism outlets have attacked budget choices that hit them precisely as they’re struggling to draw choosy visitors to the West.

The city cut three economic-development positions, land-use planning, long-range strategic planning and zoning and neighborhood inspectors. It also repossessed a large portion of a dedicated lodgers and car rental tax rather than transfer it to the visitors’ bureau.

“It’s going to hurt. If they don’t at least market Colorado Springs, it doesn’t get the people here,” said Nancy Stovall, owner of Pine Creek Art Gallery on the tourism strip of Old Colorado City. Other states, such as New Mexico and Wyoming, will continue to market, and tourism losses will further erode city sales-tax revenue, merchants say.

• Turning out the lights, literally, is one of the high-profile trims aggravating some residents. The city-run Colorado Springs Utilities will shut down 8,000 to 10,000 of more than 24,000 streetlights, to save $1.2 million in energy and bulb replacement.

Hansen, the criminal-justice student, grows especially exasperated when recalling a scary incident a few years ago as she waited for a bus. She said a carload of drunken men approached her until the police helicopter that had been trailing them turned a spotlight on the men and chased them off. Now the helicopter is gone, and the streetlight she was waiting under is threatened as well.

“I don’t know a person in this city who doesn’t think that’s just the stupidest thing on the planet,” Hansen said. “Colorado Springs leaders put patches on problems and hope that will handle it.”

Employee pay criticized

Community business leaders have jumped into the budget debate, some questioning city spending on what they see as “Ferrari”-level benefits for employees and high salaries in middle management. Broadmoor luxury resort chief executive Steve Bartolin wrote an open letter asking why the city spends $89,000 per employee, when his enterprise has a similar number of workers and spends only $24,000 on each.

Businessman Fowler, saying he is now speaking for the task force Bartolin supports, said the city should study the Broadmoor’s use of seasonal employees and realistic manager pay.

“I don’t know if people are convinced that the water needed to be turned off in the parks, or the trash cans need to come out, or the lights need to go off,” Fowler said. “I think we’ll have a big turnover in City Council a year from April. Until we get a new group in there, people aren’t really going to believe much of anything.”

Mayor and council are part-time jobs in Colorado Springs, points out Mayor Rivera, that pay $6,250 a year ($250 extra for the mayor). “We have jobs, we pay taxes, we use services, just like they do,” Rivera said, acknowledging there is a “level of distrust” of public officials at many levels.

Rivera said he welcomes help from Bartolin, the private task force and any other source volunteering to rethink government. He is slightly encouraged, for now, that his monthly sales-tax reports are just ahead of budget predictions.

Officials across the city know their phone lines will light up as parks go brown, trash gathers in the weeds, and streets and alleys go dark.

“There’s a lot of anger, a lot of frustration about how governments spend their money,” Rivera said. “It’s not unique to Colorado Springs.”

Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473#ixzz0etttVvtZ