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Why Tucson’s elected officials put business on the back burner
WAKE UP TUCSON: Time to restore balance
By Joe Higgins, Inside Tucson Business, or Chris DeSimone, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Saturday, February 13, 2010
We have many callers to our “Wake Up Tucson” radio show who ask the same question: Why are business owners treated like second-class citizens in Tucson and Pima County? One big reason is that the environmental lobby and the neighborhood associations have done an end-run around the business community.
It’s time for the business community to meet the competition for your local elected officals’ interest. They are kicking your butt.
Environmental lobby
The environmental lobby is extremely successful in our region. There are dozens of groups loosely assembled but they come together like a laser light focus to achieve their goal. Their mission is to stop humans from encroaching on habitat and slow or stop growth from coming to the Sonoran Desert.
Their techniques are multi-pronged and in most cases, very effective. Some of the tools of their trade include:
• The Endangered Species Act, which uses the federal court system to block growth.
• The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, adopted in the late 1990s that laid the path for future growth, land use planning and wildlife corridors.
• Political influence exerted on county elected officials and bureaucrats. Taxpayers have spent over $200 million buying ranches around the county. Uber-environmentalists sit on the Pima County Bond Committee, for gosh sake. With only 16 percent of the land in Pima County in private hands and 10 percent already built, the idea of affordable housing that matches our region’s wages will soon be gone.
• Federal rules regarding dust control, navigable water ways, 404 bridge crossing permits, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineer studies.
• The joint water–wastewater study, which has been in planning for 20 months, is the latest battleground. The blue ribbon panel (Blue Ribbon Panels: Where good ideas go to die…) is looking to merge Tucson Water and Pima County Wastewater Management. In the Phase II report, we see lots of talk about sustainability and stopping growth but little discussion on diversifying our industries. The county has been using its wastewater authority to control growth for years. Give those bureaucrats Tucson Water and things will look even worse.
NIMBY associations
If the goal of the environmental lobby is to stop sprawl and preserve the desert, then city folk need to allow for denser populations, vertical growth, tear down and rebuilds, and infill of vacant lots. When a business man or woman tries to venture into the Tucson city limits to open, develop or grow a business, they run into an entirely new set of problems:
• A land use code that has such restrictive parking, set backs, landscape requirements and now rainwater harvesting, that less and less of their property is actually usable.
• A system that allows one or two rogue neighbors to wield tremendous political influence. A small minority faction can delay your business opening until you’re out of money or completely discouraged to the point that you wonder why you chose Tucson in the first place.
• City council members and offices that realize taking care of neighborhoods above all else has been the path to getting re-elected. When elected officials’ actions are constantly in deference to what these vocal minorities want, the message to city staff is pretty clear: Take care of the neighbors and put the business owner on the back burner.
The business community is trapped between enviros in the county and neighborhood associations in the city. What are we to do as a group? As we’ve said before, the electeds need to fear us at election time — 97 percent of all electeds want one thing in life: to be re-elected. They know the dysfunctional business community does little to help them or their opponents get elected. They will continue to govern in favor of the groups that they perceive will get them votes.
Environmental groups and NIMBY neighborhood associations are united and passionate about their issues. Who speaks on behalf of the Tucson business community with passion and on a consistent basis?
Each month, we ask that question during our many presentations to business groups. We haven’t received an answer yet.
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
Utah is hovering at just over 4% unemployment. It seems the economic crisis skipped over their state and landed in Nevada, Arizona and California. How did they do it? Here’s a hint; it took leadership and years of planning. Utah leaders embarked on a multi year project, Envision Utah. The Southern Arizona Leadership Council brought in organizers of the Envision Utah program about a year ago. A crowd of about 500 heard how Utah navigated through the wide variety of interests to come out with a comprehensive plan that would set their state on the path to prosperity for the next generations.
A project mirrored after “The Envision Utah” is well underway here in Tucson. The local effort, coined “Imagine Greater Tucson”, is lead by local land use attorney Keri Silvyan. I was in the audience and impressed with the concepts and the plan Utah embarked on. What Utah did, and what Silvyn is mirroring locally, is Utah leaders called together a large number of stake holders from varied backgrounds to build relationships and discuss their common future. T
The Envision Utah process put business, politicos and community activists together, discussed each groups particular needs and then used computer models to show what would happen over 20 years if certain paths were taken by the community. For example, if the community wants more open space then the land values would increase, dense population and infill would have to occur and mass public transportation would be required. If the community wanted more growth related industries (housing and sprawl) then the cost of supporting the infrastructure and finding water would have a cost to the entire community.
What’s important is that if Arizona as a state or Pima County as a region starts moving towards a Utah model, their must be voices from all sides being heard and respected. In southern Arizona the environmental voice is organized and focused and the business voice is unorganized and somewhat scattered.
What Happens If That Happens?
Environmentalists ability to influence our community is well documented. We are right in the middle of one of the largest movements in our history to combine water and waste water delivery. In the desert, the people that control water have the power. A large part of the comprehensive water plan included riparian re-establishment of the Santa Cruz. The plan calls for a whopping 25% of reclaimed waste water being sent to the Santa Cruz for creating a river that hasn’t flowed in a generation. The committee that has worked on the process for the past 20 months isn’t exactly ‘fair and balanced’. The business community had one seat on the board and isn’t happy with the results. This debate is the classic growth, no growth debate Tucson has been waging for 60 years. The no growthers are winning and that might not be that bad.
From this weekends Arizona Republic:
Faced with high population growth in the 1990s, Utah civic leaders became concerned about how to accommodate so many new residents without disrupting the state’s high quality of life.
Traditionally, elected officials would have taken the lead to manage growth. But residents of the libertarian-leaning state resisted that kind of top-down control.
So reformers in Utah instead started from the bottom up, building a grass-roots movement that led to the voluntary adoption of measures that observers say improved the state’s economy and helped it weather the current recession.
Compare that approach to Arizona’s, where reform organizers have so far limited public involvement to surveys and a few public forums.
To align the visions of elected leaders with the people they serve, Arizona may have to become more like Utah.
The Utah model
Although managing growth, not government reform, was the Utah initiative’s goal, the process did lead to change in how elected leaders work. In fact, the approach has become a model for problem-solving throughout the U.S. and even in some foreign countries.
Envision Utah was created in 1997, and together with state government, it developed tools to help communities plan. It educated the public on how to accommodate growth through higher-density zoning, the expanded use of mass transit and other strategies.
That education led residents to support proposals they might have once rejected.
The key to reform efforts that work, organizers said, is a bottom-up approach that makes citizens champions of the process. The core of Envision Utah’s model is to ask residents to reflect on their values and hopes for the future and then translate their thinking into action through interactive workshops. In its early days, Envision Utah would hold 50 public meetings for each step of the process.
Large-scale public participation is a catalyst for action, participants say. Tom Jensen, an architect from Logan, Utah, says political candidates in his region now compete with one another over who better supports the vision developed by residents for the Cache Valley.
“This has a greater chance to be implemented because it’s a grass-roots vision,” said Jensen, who also has an office in Tempe. “It gives political leaders cover.”
One example: Grass-roots support led elected officials in nine different communities around the Great Salt Lake to adopt a plan limiting development on the lakeshore.
While focused on growth issues, Envision Utah also has used its model of public engagement to create disaster-preparedness plans for the state and address issues related to higher education.
“We think that this is a process that can be used to address a number of issues in a community,” said Alan Matheson, a Tempe native and attorney who now serves as Envision Utah’s executive director.
Jeff Edwards, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, said the state’s reputation for collaboration has helped officials lure businesses.
“Envision Utah has been a great tool for us in communicating to companies that this is a community that works together,” Edwards said. “We kind of take it for granted. They say, ‘Trust us, this is not the way it happens in other states.’ ”
While no group can take sole credit for a state’s economy, lately Utah has had plenty for Arizonans to envy. The state’s unemployment rate is 6.7 percent, compared with 9.1 percent in Arizona.
The key to success, Matheson said, is not only involving the public from the beginning but also keeping it involved until the end. Persistence, he said, also is critical.
“We’ve all seen examples of good plans that sit on the shelf,” Matheson said. “But nothing happens in the public realm without public support. The way you get public support is by giving people ownership in that plan.”
Arizona’s effort
In Arizona, would-be reformers have made some efforts to involve the public.
The Arizona We Want, an initiative of the Center for the Future of Arizona, aims to take the results of the October Gallup poll and translate Arizonans’ goals into concrete steps to achieve them. The extensive poll of 3,606 Arizonans was designed to produce “actionable insights” into residents’ thinking. Using questions tested in dozens of other communities, Gallup found Arizonans are highly engaged in civic life compared with residents in other states.
Despite that engagement, polls regularly find dissatisfaction with elected leaders.
“The endgame is still the endgame: to get citizens and leaders working on the same things, to start pulling together on the things that we need to do,” said Pat Beaty, director of the initiative and a senior fellow at the Center for the Future of Arizona, the group led by former ASU President Coor.
Beaty said the institute needs to move beyond abstract goals to engage citizens about issues affecting their communities.
“You can talk about the Arizona we want,” Beaty said. “But it has to become embedded in the Flagstaff we want, the Yuma we want, the school we want.”
Coor has toured the state for the past three months, meeting with elected officials and civic leaders and soliciting their ideas and support. And the center plans to send questionnaires to candidates for elected office so citizens can see where they stand on those topics.
O’Connor House Project participants have taken their ideas for reform straight to the Legislature. A spinoff group, Government for Arizona’s 2nd Century, is working with lawmakers to support bills that will ask voters to create a lieutenant governor’s position, eliminate term limits and end taxpayer funding of candidates.
To date, the group’s efforts at public involvement have been limited to an invitation-only town-hall meeting for business and civic leaders. The approach has raised questions about how the group will develop the support necessary to succeed.
The bills cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and are scheduled to be heard in the Rules Committee this week.
Michael Bidwill, president of the Arizona Cardinals and chairman of the government-reform effort, said the time is ripe for change. “We have a unique chance to improve the way our government works,” he said. “When you look at any public-opinion poll, a lot of people are looking for government to work better.”
Organizers acknowledge reform in Arizona has had a spotty history. Many efforts lose steam before any real change is accomplished. Still, the state’s current crisis has brought a rare opportunity for real change.
“I see this groundswell starting to build,” said Sue Clark-Johnson, executive director of the Morrison Institute of Public Policy at Arizona State University and the former chairman and CEO of The Arizona Republic. “In the decades I’ve lived here, I have seldom seen such a compassion and a caring and a concern for the future of this state.”
But concern alone won’t be enough to reform state government.
“You can’t just do a vision and walk away,” said Brenda Scheer, dean of the University of Utah’s College of Architecture and Planning and an Envision Utah board member. “People have to own it, and they have to be champions of it.”
Pima County is being run by, controlled and directed by a very strong environmental lobby that has the singular focus of keeping the environment priority one and jobs, affordable housing and strong families a distant second.
PIMA COUNTY:
• Covers 9,184 square miles
o 42.1% is owned by the San Xavier, Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O’odham
reservations.
o 14.9% is owned by state of Arizona
o 14.9% is Forest and BLM Land
o 12.1% other public lands
o 17.1% is individually or corporately owned
o Current indebtedness $757 million, if include bonds passed but not sold it goes over $1.07 billion
BOND FUNDS: Approved by 66% of voters – no budget crisis in 2004.
• All $174.3 million of the 2004 Open Space Bond funds have now been spent.
o $164.3 million for open space and habitat protection and another
o $10 million to protect Davis-Monthan Air Force Base from urban encroachment.
o Purchased over 51,000 acres of private land
o 127,000 acres of leased State Trust Lands
• PAY BACK: with interest that is $226.59 million dollars ($1.30 payback per $1 spent according to letter Ray Carroll to Chuck Huckelberry, December 29, 2009)
NEW BOND REQUEST FOR NOVEMBER 2010: $285 million
• The Conservation Acquisition Commission (CAC) Recommending a new bond for $285 million for more open space
• PAYBACK: with interest that is $370.5 million.
• County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is recommendation $120 million.
• PAYBACK: $156 million
Take a look at Boulder Colorado, the first municipality in the US to embarked on an aggresive no growth policy in the 1960’s.
In the decade of the 1950s, Boulder’s population grew from 25,000 to 37,000 and during the 1960s it grew by a whopping 29,000 to reach 66,000. Some initial efforts to manage this growth included the “Blue Line,” a citizen-initiated amendment to Boulder’s charter in 1959 that restricted the extension of city water service above an elevation of 5,750 feet. It was later extended by ordinance to sewer service. While a few exceptions have been granted at the ballot box, the effect of this measure was to limit the city from extending water service to properties along the mountain backdrop. Property owners can still develop in the county, but at much lower densities than is typical in the city and only with individual water and septic systems.
Another important growth management program began in 1967, when Boulder became the first city in the United States to pass a tax specifically dedicated to preserve open space. This open space system forms the outer extent of the Boulder Valley, a joint planning area between the city and county.
What are the results after 50 years of restricting land use?
What Are the Pitfalls?
· Boulder’s region encompasses the whole county. Therefore, the city’s surging job growth and limitations on residential growth have had a significant impact on housing demand in adjoining communities. The most striking example is the nearby town of Superior. In 1990 the population of Superior was 255; in 1996 it was 3,377. It has practically no jobs and no sales tax base. This regional imbalance between jobs and housing has created tremendous problems with traffic congestion, lack of affordable housing and school facility needs.
· Getting a hold on sprawl is only half the equation. What happens within the urban service area is the other. In Boulder’s initial planning efforts, there was a clear expression of a preference for infill and redevelopment over sprawl. Since there is no requirement that a certain amount of land be contained within its service area (such as the 20-year required land supply within Oregon’s urban growth boundaries), Boulder does not have to make a trade-off between expansion versus infill and redevelopment. However, it is increasingly difficult to convince specific neighborhoods and the community as a whole that additional density is in their best interests. not grow.
Our goals and convictions that drive us to see change in Tucson
By Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone, special for Inside Tucson Business
Published on Saturday, January 02, 2010
It’s resolution time and we are throwing ours into the ring. Save this article and check back on us when 2011 comes.
A new decade is kicking off with a down economy, our local governments are scrambling to hold on and if you are a business owner like us, you are waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
During difficult times, setting goals and resolutions are more important than ever. When it comes to 2010 resolutions, we are committed to seeing them through.
Each morning the clock buzzer goes off at the crack of too early and coffee starts brewing. We cruise down the road to start our morning radio show at 6 a.m. Day in and day out for two hours we bring it, we serve it up; we do our best to wake this place up.
If you haven’t tuned in yet, what you’ll hear is a cross section of business owners and leaders, authors, politicians and educators sprinkled with local sports, and the best places to eat in town, (in our humble opinion.) Our job is to paint a picture for the listeners of how we think this community really runs. Our job is to Wake Up Tucson and get our community to start paying attention to the basics before it’s too late.
The radio program is just the beginning of our efforts to help change the poor business climate of the greater Tucson area. We are supply-side guys. We believe if business is allowed to thrive, the entire community benefits. All our board service, hundreds of one-on-one meetings, dozens of business events, blogs, and even this column take time away from our business and personal lives. So why the heck do we do what we do?
Below are our 2010 New Year’s resolutions and few of our motivations. Maybe just maybe, they’ll motivate you too.
• With young kids in elementary school, we hope to create opportunities for our children to stay in Tucson after graduating from the U of A. Losing more than 4,000 college graduates each year because of a lack of suitable jobs is unacceptable. The U of A is a brain factory and their end products are fleeing town and not looking back.
• We see an ever-growing pool of people seeking charitable assistance. We realize that what these struggling families need most is a good job that pays all the bills. Creating jobs and industries is not Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities’ job, it’s not the politician’s job, it’s everyone’s job. Ask yourself how much you have personally benefited from this community.
• We realize that the Tucson City Council, Board of Supervisors and legislators constantly make decisions that benefit special interest groups’ voter blocks. We will work tirelessly to end turf wars and bring the fractured business community together to finally have a seat at the table. Unless and until we get our act together, the business sector will continue to be marginalized, minimized and exploited. Check out www.ChangeTucsonChamber.com for details.
• We will be the voice for the merchants downtown. These brave souls have had their patience and loyalty repaid with insider deals, overpaid bureaucrats, too much government interference and very little progress.
• We promise to tell the community, elected officials and anyone who will listen that every day in Tucson should be “Appreciate Small Business Day.” A weak proclamation right before a city election isn’t going to cut it anymore.
• Our goal is to expose and educate the community about funding and accountability measures at the MTCVB, TREO, Downtown Partnership, Fox Theater/Tucson Convention Center and anyone else that takes our tax dollars in an effort to make our community better. If these groups are doing their job we’ll tell you, and if not, let’s just say we aren’t lacking for material.
These are some of the reasons why we do what we do and these are our resolutions for 2010. Now ask yourself, “Why do YOU do what YOU do?”
Let 2010 be the year that you got off the sidelines and into the game, before the game is over and we’ve all lost. Learn more at ChangeTucsonChamber.com, TakeBackTucson.com, ArizonaPolicyInstitute.com and our daily blog at TucsonChoices.com.
Log on, tune in, educate yourself on the issues and get off the couch!
Contact Joe Higgins at joe@joehigginsinc.com or Chris DeSimone at provenpartner@comcast.net. They’re the hosts of “Wake Up Tucson,” which airs 6-8 a.m, weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM.
Copyright © 2010 Inside Tucson Business
WAKE UP TUCSON: We need to make it happen
By Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone, special for Inside Tucson Business
Published on Saturday, December 19, 2009
There’s no mistake about it, Tucson and Southern Arizona is a terrible place to do business. Whether you’re a big home builder a car dealer or a small shoe repair shop you are in a community that doesn’t welcome you, tries to demonize you and will not back you up when push comes to shove. How did we get here and who’s responsible to fix it?
The facts are undeniable. At the height of our booming economy, a statewide poll conducted by the Arizona Small Business Association ranked Tucson the worst municipality for business in the state.
The good news is that people are starting to ask questions. Business owners are starting to ask why it’s so difficult to operate and thrive in Southern Arizona?
A group of small business owners has had enough. Last week Tucson First launched their www.ChangeTucsonChamber.com campaign on our radio program. We commend their efforts and hope for a speedy resolution.
The people behind Tucson First did their homework. After analyzing chambers of commerce they found leadership at the chambers they studied had strong business leadership with a vested interest in the direction of their communities. The chambers they studied got things done.
Albuquerque is a market that’s held up as an example. Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO) and a number of elected dignitaries visited there this year. Albuquerque launched downtown revitalization the same time as Rio Nuevo and now they have a growing district complete with condos, hotels, shops and a convention center. What they didn’t have was Rio Nuevo’s $600 million tax increment finance district.
Albuquerque officials chose to create a pro business environment that told entrepreneurs to come on in. New Mexico has a movie industry, solar industry and it is home to an Intel plant and the Los Alamos testing facility.
The membership of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce totals more than 4,200. The membership of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is less than 1,700. Albuquerque’s chamber asks tough questions and works to set the playing field to benefit the entire business sector.
For the past 32 years Tucson’s chamber has had the same leader. The legacy of the chamber in those years has resulted in as fragmented, uncooperative and ineffective business sector as we’ve had at any time in Tucson’s modern history.
Tucson didn’t get to this point over night. It took years of poor decisions. The root problem in our region tracks back to weak business leaders who put survival above the collective good of the business community. Check around and ask others what has the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce done in, say, the past 15 years to make your business life easier. We’ve asked and have yet get a good answer.
Among the things Tucson First has learned is that the Tucson chamber has a numbers problem. Chamber membership has dropped by half over the past 12 years from 3,300 in 1997 (when it was the largest in the state) to 2,400 in 2003 and now down to less than 1,700. There are nearly 32,000 businesses in the Tucson region, yet only 5 percent of them belong to the chamber.
We have written and talked on-air previously about the multitude of business organizations and how they dilute effectiveness. Just think what might be if the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, TREO, Caballeros del Sol, Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau and the chambers of commerce in the region actually worked together to move policy.
Entrepreneurs are not looking for handouts or incentives, what we want is a level and predictable playing field and a community that values our involvement. We must show courage and absolutely never ever tolerate mediocrity, cronyism and good old boy leadership.
We must get off the sidelines now! You know the history of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and its performance record. Lots of small acts of courage will provide the true change that you are craving. We can not and will not tolerate the status quo.
Tucson First needs your help. Their website is at www.ChangeTucsonChamber.com .
As Ben Franklin said, “If we don’t hang together, we will most certainly hang alone.”
Contact Joe Higgins at or Chris DeSimone at . 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 .