City of Tucson
Rio Neuvo is looking fairly, well broke. Their is a contract being prepared for the full audit of Rio Nuevo finances and we are hearing that full results will be available by October (just in time for the November elections). The auditor general is going all the way back to day one . From what we understand they are REALLY looking forward to doing the audit.
Here’s some preliminary findings:
Here is a list of funds spent to date = $214,989,482.28 through 01/31/2010.
Keep in mind that the City is required to match these expenditures dollar-for-dollar in cash of ‘projects’. This means that OVER $400 million has been spent on Rio Nuevo. The city has until the end of the TIF (2025) to match the total TIF revenues. See - SB1003 pg 20 section D
So what do we have to show for it? I call your attention to the Audited Financial Statements for 2009 (CAFR ‘09) page 15 where the ‘Total Net Assets’ for Rio Nuevo = $ (1,927,188) [no typo here; negative $1.9 million]
http://cms3.tucsonaz.gov/sites/default/files/FY10_Jan_Flow_of_Funds.pdf
http://www.tucsonaz.gov/finance/CAFR09.pdf
Let’s see how our vaunted municipalities handle this one!
Beavers look to Tucson as ‘temporary home’ for start of 2011 season
By Aaron Fentress, The Oregonian
February 12, 2010, 6:38PM
The renovation of PGE Park for Major League Soccer has prompted the Portland Beavers to seek a new home stadium. With prospects uncertain in Portland, the team is considering Tucson, Ariz., as a temporary location for the start of the 2011 season. The Portland Beavers, in what ultimately might be the first step in relocating, are searching for a temporary home for the start of the 2011 Triple-A baseball season in case a new Portland-area stadium is not completed in time.
The Beavers’ current home, PGE Park, is being renovated in anticipation of the Portland Timbers’ first season of Major League Soccer in 2011. The Beavers have been unable to secure a site for a replacement stadium in or near Portland.
A report from the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star stated that the Beavers have explored the Tucson area as “a temporary home in time for opening day in 2011.” Chris Metz, vice president of baseball operations and communications, confirmed to the Star and The Oregonian that the team was exploring other markets but would not name specific cities.
“My goal remains to keep the Beavers in Portland or the Portland-area,” Merritt Paulson, owner of the Beavers and the Timbers, said Friday in a statement, “and in the past year we’ve advanced three good, but unsuccessful, stadium financing plans to do just that. …”
Paulson was not available for comment.
Should the Beavers not get funding for a new stadium, any temporary move could logically become permanent. The Beavers will play the 2010 season at PGE Park.
Metz said the Beavers would need to find a stadium satisfying the requirements of Major League Baseball. Tucson has two: Hi Corbett Field and Tucson Electric Park.
Paulson’s statement said: “With no immediate local solution at this time, however, I have been approached by other locales with potential contingency plans for the Beavers outside the area. Given the rich history of the Beavers in Portland and the loyalty of our fans, this is not our preferred option, but one that we have no choice but to consider, given the timelines involved.”
The Portland City Council this month approved a $31 million agreement with Paulson to renovate PGE Park for the Timbers.
From Rhonda Bodfield - AZ Star -A group formed to oust the president of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce circulated survey results to the chamber’s board last week, showing 21 percent of respondents said being a member helped their business.
The survey, which went out to the chamber’s 1,500 members, received roughly 140 responses.
Among the findings:
• 75 percent said the chamber didn’t promote their business;
• 23 percent felt the membership fee was a good value;
• 57 percent felt the chamber did not have strong political influence in local government; and
• 27 percent rated the Tucson business climate as good or fair.
Eric Ruden, owner of Essential Pest Management, is the founder of the Tucson First Coalition, which was formed to demand new leadership at the chamber.
He said packets were mailed Tuesday to the executive committee and the board of directors. The group is asking the board for a face-to-face meeting in the next two weeks to air grievances about President Jack Camper and the business climate in general.
Camper countered that the group should have done more to work out its grievances before its splashy public opposition campaign. “It’s a shame they decided to attack the chamber and its leadership before asking for an audience with our board of directors,” Camper said. “We’re just going to continue to run our chamber. We think we’re doing well and we’re continuing on.”
Ruden said he was a chamber member for two years until he gave up his membership in December. Other members of the opposition group’s steering committee are Christine Glanz of Computers, Etc.; Jesse Lugo of Lugo Enterprises; Keith Cooper of AlphaGraphics; former City Council candidate Shaun McClusky of Rincon Ventures; and Gene Hildreth of Allen & Young.
“You join the chamber because you feel you might have networking opportunities, establish contacts and help grow your business,” Ruden said. “But it’s a waste of time. The feedback I’ve got is you don’t get anything out of it.”
He said Albuquerque, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City have more active chambers with more political involvement. Tucson’s chamber, he said, seems more focused on social networking. And while his group lauds the charitable activities conducted by the chamber, it says those should be secondary to fulfilling the needs of the business community.
Ruden said the effort has already produced some results, with the chamber taking a “more active interest” in tackling the city’s sign code regulations, and the board now meeting more often. “That’s starting to show more involvement by the board, so even if we don’t get everything we want, at least they’re doing some of the things we want,” he said.
Camper said his organization has been working on the sign code for a year. “It’s just disingenuous, what they’re doing. They just say whatever they want,” he said.
Chamber board members reached for comment had not yet received the information packets.
Sundt Construction’s Ray Bargull, a member of the executive committee, said he couldn’t comment on the substance, “but in general, I think we’re interested in hearing any information that would help us do a better job.”
Richard Underwood, of AAA Landscape and a member of the board of directors, said he’d be willing to sit down with the group as well. “The first salvo from those guys was a good thing because it made us look at what we’re doing,” he said. “You can always learn from criticism. So yeah, I’m glad they’ve done the survey and I welcome seeing the results. I’m not going to reject it out of hand.”
Contact reporter Rhonda Bodfield at 573-4243 or rbodfield@azstarnet.
PHOENIX, Ariz., Feb. 25, 2010 – Results from a special poll of Arizona small business owners released today by their leading representative association show 71 percent of them voting ‘No’ on Proposition 100, the May 18 ballot referendum seeking a three-year, 1¢ increase in the state sales tax.
“The response to this special survey of our members on Proposition 100 came back fast and emphatic,” said Farrell Quinlan, Arizona state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, Arizona’s and America’s leading small business association. “NFIB/Arizona is actively exploring how our association and members can be most effective in the campaign to defeat Proposition 100. Small business owners’ opposition to increasing the sales tax is overwhelming and their voice will be heard during the statewide debate over raising our taxes.”
Unique among most associations, NFIB bases its legislative lobbying positions and political action solely on what its members tell it, through regular balloting, are the issues vital to their survival as small business owners. The special ballot on Proposition 100 was faxed and e-mailed February 17-19.
“In conversations I’ve had with many of our members, there seems to be an over-arching attitude that they spend their daily lives balancing revenues with expenditures so they expect state government to do the same,” said Quinlan. “Arizona is not an under-taxed state. We have the fifth-highest sales-tax burden in the nation. The average Arizonan annually pays $1,440.83 in sales taxes, which is 43 percent above the national average. Add to this income taxes and the new state property tax we all pay and Arizonans are indignant that the state must make do with what it has.”
Should Proposition 100, adding 1-cent to the state sales tax rate for 3 years, be passed into law?
Yes 24.8%
No 70.6%
Undecided 4.6%
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GUEST OPINION: Difference in attitude
By Hugh Holub, special for Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, February 26, 2010
One of the interesting pieces of information from the Census statisticians is the difference in median household income between Tucson and Phoenix. According to the American Community Survey compiled in 2003, in Phoenix the median household income is $40,919 a year and in Tucson it is $32,414. That’s a difference of more than $8,500.
So if you want to make $8,500 a year more in your family, what is the answer?
Why is this the case? Local government being hostile to business?
My favorite Tucson story involves a business that put flags up in front of its headquarters in honor of each country it did business in. They were cited for violating Tucson’s sign code. They moved their headquarters outside the area.
But the governments of Tucson and Pima County reflect the people who vote and participate in the political process.
It could be said that a whole lot of people in Tucson do not depend on the local private sector to eat. And even if they do, they don’t vote their paychecks. How could they when Tucson is a franchise town?
Tucson is also a government town.
If you look around the broader region, from Austin to Albuquerque to Maricopa County and westward, you see communities with very strong and clearly identifiable private sector business leadership. They have big plans. They have a “can do” attitude about improving the income levels of their areas. They have courage and confidence.
When the other cities go looking for jobs, they land Intel plants. When Tucson looks for jobs they land call centers that compete with workers from India.
Recently when companies were solicited by the federal government for renewable energy proposals, all of the companies on the short list were from Maricopa County. None were from Tucson.
There is also a healthy respect for the private sector in El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Diego. Not so in Tucson. The private sector is viewed by many as the enemy of desert rodents.
Look at the downtowns of the cities in the region. You see lots of privately owned buildings.
Tucson has an almost total governmental monopoly of ownership of its downtown. The only cities with higher percentages of government buildings might be Washington,D.C., or Moscow.
The private sector in downtown Tucson was bulldozed out of existence in favor of monuments to tax revenues.
A friend once suggested making the downtown library building — which is spectacularly out of place architecturally — a mausoleum for dead Tucson politicians. Government workers could have an annual parade down Stone Avenue, with local politicians standing on the roof of the building.
The lawn next to the mausoleum would have gravestones for all the downtown businesses that have died since 1950. There would be lots of them.
What is Tucson the headquarters of besides one of the most obstructionist environmental groups in the nation?
What is Tucson famous for making, besides a sign code that makes it difficult to fly an American flag at your business?
Inside Tucson Business came out with its 2010 Book of Lists at the end of January. A suggestion for a new List in the 2011 edition might be: Regional Business Leaders. Who are they?
And besides reducing the amount of red tape businesses have to deal with, what should business leaders be doing to eliminate that $8,500 a family income gap?
Contact Hugh Holub, an attorney who works in real estate development, public utility, water and environmental law, at HughHolub@msn.com.
Copyright © 2010 Inside Tucson Business
Tucson’s modern streetcar - now we get to the pesky details
WAKE UP, TUCSON: Does it make sense?
By Joe Higgins, Inside Tucson Business, or Chris DeSimone, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, February 26, 2010
We can hear it now, “Why do those Wake Up guys have to bang on the streetcar?” Don’t they have anything better to do than bum us out about this “high point” in Tucson’s economic development soap opera?
Does light rail make sense when Tucson lacks a crosstown freeway, our streets are so bad Joe almost lost his car in a pothole, and freight trains routinely botch up rush hour traffic along the east side of Interstate 10?
Spending $144 million — $38 million per mile — to build rail tracks on roads that nearly empty Sun Tran buses now travel makes complete sense to us — in fantasyland! Print this story
Our electeds love to work with the broad brushstroke. That’s good for campaign pamphlets, but the pesky details about this modern streetcar/light rail worry us.
It’ll spur private investment
Portland, Ore., is the land of light rail. They’ve been modernizing their light rail system since 1986. After 10 years, Portland’s then-City Commissioner Charles Hales noted the many vacant sites along its light rail system and said, “It’s a myth to think the market will take care of development along transit corridors.”
Ten years and a career change later, in 2006 Hales, now a development consultant to HDR Engineering, the company that helped sell Tucson on light rail, was quoted saying “The $55 million streetcar line has sparked more than $1.5 billion (and growing) in new development.”
What the ex-commissioner, now light rail promoter, failed to mention is to-date, Portland’s governmental subsidies have exceeded $1.5 billion.
It’ll spur housing
Is light rail really the impetus to finally get student housing built downtown? For the last decade, the University of Arizona has suffered from a housing shortage and downtown needed the development.
Downtown has the Ronstadt Transit Center and lots of Sun Tran buses to take students to campus.
The lack of student housing downtown has more to do with developers not wanting to get tangled up in the city’s and Rio Nuevo’s insider deals, development services, payoffs for pet projects, bureaucracy, and more.
Having a streetcar without major reform in the downtown redevelopment process leaves us in the same swamp of stagnation.
Ongoing expenses
Once the light rail is built it’s going to take money to keep it running. Fares are planned to be somewhere between $1 and $2 per ride. The actual cost will be something else.
The scariest example comes from Beaverton, Ore., where the TriMet system has an average cost of $33 per rider but collects just $1.15 per person in fares. (read about Oregons experience HERE)
Construction isn’t cheap
The “Happy Gilmore” check in federal stimulus money our esteemed electeds now hold represents $63 million of a total $144 million project. Tucson Transportation Director Jim Glock was quoted saying it will more than likely come in under budget. God bless him in his optimism.
Call us skeptical, but after a 50 percent cost overrun on the $46 million Fourth Avenue Underpass and the $820,000 that was spent on a 15-minute movie about Rio Nuevo, our confidence in the cost projection is a little low.
The Federal Transit Administration studied 21 rail projects and found they had an average 40 percent cost overrun on construction. That’s only an extra $56 million in Tucson’s case. Maybe the mayor can find that amount under the cushions of his couch. (Read the US Dept of Transportation report HERE)
Why not celebrate?
Lastly, we’ve heard: “How can you guys knock Tucson winning a $63 million federal grant, who would be against something so wonderful?” Our simple response is these tax dollars are your tax dollars. The working family in Oakland, Calif., the single mom in Lincoln, Neb., and the cab driver in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., are all contributing to a city in Arizona that’s getting $63 million of their hard-earned tax dollars. For what? To build a four-mile rail system that will shuttle college students to and from school.
Other’s excitement and Tucson’s excitement over winning the money may not match up.
We hope we are wrong regarding Tucson’s venture into the world of light rail. We hope ridership is through the roof and businesses spring up along the route. We hope the project comes in under budget. We hope light rail is the spark downtown needs to get going.
Our history, research and past experience with projects run by the City of Tucson just isn’t encouraging.
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.
Copyright © 2010 Inside Tucson Business
More about light rail from Antiplanner.com.
