Read more: http://azstarnet.com/article_24e3c053-3403-5fa1-a7d8-af7811782b66.html#ixzz1VyCYtmts

I don’t know what the latest ‘transportation corridor enhancements’ look like on the Road to Hell, but the Modern Streetcar might give you a close-up view.

Please note that the article does not have ANY costs for the actual building of the stops, JUST the design phase. I’m curious how much a big sign that reads ‘GOVERNMENT WASTE’ costs to put up in place of the stops?

Posted: Friday, July 29, 2011 8:00 am | Updated: 10:34 am, Thu Jul 28, 2011.

An open letter to the board members of the MTCVB By Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone, Inside Tucson Business Inside Tucson Business | 2 comments

Dear Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau board member,

By now you’ve had a chance to see and read Pima County’s performance audit of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau (MTCVB). As you know the county’s audit commission included actual stakeholders, including general managers of major resorts, members of the Pima County Sports And Tourism Commission and officials with our region’s renowned attractions. Among them are some of your former colleagues on the MTCVB board.

As a board member, you may not be happy the current MTCVB board got attention in the audit, as “not fully engaged, energized or pro-active in representing the stakeholder community.” Those of you who are vendors also must know, as the audit found, that serving on the MTCVB is not in the best interest of the bureau.

You realize, of course, the MTCVB board isn’t alone in having to take a hard look at the performance of the organization it’s responsible for. The Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona and the Fiesta Bowl have all had to make sweeping changes.

In addition to implementing the recommendations in the audit, you’ll also have to ascertain the true performance of senior leadership of the MTCVB.

In fact, we suggest you might consider it an annual performance review and don’t be surprised if it goes something like this scenario:

You: “Thanks for coming in today. What are we looking like for this year? We’ve been paying you guys for over a decade and I’d like to hear from you about what you feel your impact is on our resort. What’s going on at the MTCVB?”

They: “Well, two of our biggest funders, Pima County and the City of Tucson, did independent audits of our performance. This has never occurred before. Actually, it’s pretty rare.” (A fact noted in the Pima County audit.)

You: “What did they find?”

They: “There’s a perception in local government and among other principal stakeholders that we view ourselves with a sense of entitlement. Also, while we produce strong results at times, we do not consistently provide transparency, accountability and a focus in communicating out to stakeholders.”

You: “That’s not very comforting. You’ve been telling us all is well for years.”

They: “We have some problems telling the story of our results. They say ‘major deficiencies are found with the annual report, the marketing plan, and brand development program, as well as the current leisure development marketing program.’”

You: “That’s pretty serious, you’ve been paid millions each year in bed tax collections to tell the world how great our region is. Is there anything else?”

They: “Even though our senior vice-president was certified as a Destination Marketing Executive by DMAI (Destination Marketing Association International), the audit said our ‘current process for branding bears little resemblance to the industry’s preferred models.’ They also said our branding ‘was produced by staff and not by principal stakeholders. Instead of input, a very few were relegated to providing feedback, which provides no true inclusion into this process’.”

You: “(Sigh) Any good news?”

They: “Our employees working day-to-day in the trenches are working very hard: ‘staff is generally dedicated and skilled, they display high morale, are long tenured and professionally accredited in their scopes of work’.”

You: “Is their any independent verification of your true performance?”

They: “Well, the county’s audit included a 10-year analysis of our market share performance. Our competition statewide brought in 41.4 percent more tourism spending in their areas. We were up 21.8 percent. We actually dragged down the state average.”

Interview over.

So now, as an owner or general manager of a tourism asset in Pima County, you have to ask yourself what you would do with such a vendor? You might be tempted to go find another company. In the case of the MTCVB, the county’s audit found the staff is diligent and capable. That leads to the question: Is it time to make a change in senior management?

The Tucson region’s No. 1 industry cannot afford to be the weak link in Arizona’s tourism chain any longer.

Contact Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone at wakeuptucson@gmail.com. They host “Wake Up Tucson,” 6-8 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Their blog is at www.TucsonChoices.com.

Top tourism award goes to Yuma Lettuce Days
July 14, 2011 7:26 PM BY CHRIS McDANIEL – SUN STAFF WRITER
Yuma Lettuce Days is now truly the cream of the crop.

The longtime Yuma event, transformed this year to reflect Yuma’s agricultural roots, was chosen as Arizona’s best special event for 2010-11 and honored with the Governor’s Tourism Award Thursday during a ceremony in Scottsdale.

Yuma Lettuce Days now rubs elbows with past winners such as the NBA All-Star Game, Cactus League Baseball and the Fiesta Bowl Festival of College Football.

The award was accepted by Susan Sternitzke and Kristan Sheppeard of the Yuma Visitors Bureau, organizer of the 2011 Lettuce Days 2011, from Sherry Henry, director of the Arizona Office of Tourism, at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism.

Wow what an unbelievable honor, said Sheppeard, who as director of YVB’s new agritourism division took the lead in Lettuce Days planning and execution.

We’re just thrilled, said Sternitzke, YVB executive director. Yuma earned so much positive media and recognition in the last year. We’re looking at this as just the first salvo of new attention and recognition of what we have to offer.

Yuma Lettuce Days was chosen out of a statewide pool of competitors in the Urban category. The festival competed against events held in other areas with a population of 75,000 or more, including those in metro Phoenix and Tucson.

Though we knew we were among the finalists, when I looked at the list of past winners in the program at lunch, I figured we didn’t really have a chance, Sheppeard said.

This is just amazing, especially considering all the great events that take place every year across Arizona.

Sheppeard attributed the success to the shift of Lettuce Days away from just being just another arts and crafts fair, and back to focusing on Yuma’s agriculture.

All the changes we made to Yuma Lettuce Days this year were intended to give it a new and distinct identity ” I guess this award is evidence that we achieved that and took it to a new level in terms of attracting people from outside of Yuma and outside Arizona.

Plus, the strong support we got from Yuma agriculture community and the shippers and packers was really important.

Lettuce Days is expected to become a yearly tradition in its current form, Sheppeard added.

Our goal is to make Lettuce Days a signature event for our area, like the Garlic Festival is for Gilroy (Calif.). This award will give a big boost to our efforts to promote Lettuce Days as a great showcase for the whole Yuma area and our fantastic agriculture industry.

This event would not have been possible without both the ag community which includes growers, shippers, Yuma Safe Produce Council, Yuma Area Ag Council and really the entire industry ” and the amazing culinary experts, which includes all of the talented executive chefs that offered their culinary expertise for the entire festival.

Yuma was last honored with a Governor’s Tourism Award in 2009, when the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area earned the annual Arizona Preservation Award for its master plan redevelopment programs.

Sternitzke, Sheppeard and Ann Walker represented Yuma at the tourism conference, along with Tina Clark from the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area.

It’s been great, Sternitzke said. Everyone we talk to is giving such positive feedback, it’s nice to see that Yuma’s hard work is not going unnoticed.

Posted: Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:00 am | Updated: 10:13 am, Thu Jul 14, 2011.

Tale of the tape: tracking the numbers that make a difference in Tucson By Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone – Inside Tucson Business

The tale of the tape, here are numbers we’re watching and so should you:

200,000 – the number of residents in Pima County, or one out of five, who try to get by on incomes below the federal poverty rate, according to a report in the June 23 Tucson Weekly that starts out: “If poverty were a disease, Pima County officials would have declared an epidemic by now.” It amounts to less than $10,890 annually for an individual or $22,350 for a family of four.

$4.68 per $100 of assessed valuation – Pima County’s combined primary and secondary property tax rate for this year, which was up an average 2 percent despite declining property values. Your neighbors in Maricopa County paid $1.05 per $100 of assessed valuation. What do we in Pima County get for the four times more we pay?

95 out of 101 – Tucson’s ranking as a place to business by the Dow Jones news service MarketWatch. Detroit surpassed Tucson.

165 out of 200 – Forbes ranking of Tucson as a market for business and careers.

2 – Tucson’s ranking on the list of cities with declining average home values, down 18.2 percent, since the second quarter of 2010. Only Columbus, Ohio, dropped more, 19.2 percent. Detroit was down 12.6 percent.

$4,000 per day – the estimated cost to subsidize a planned four-mile trolley from University Medical Center through downtown to some dirt lots on the west side of Interstate 10, according to Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik.

$13 million – the amount of money moved from the city’s pothole fund to build a bridge over the Santa Cruz River for the new trolley’s rail. The cost to resurface a road is about $500,000 per mile and more than 60 percent of city roads are in poor condition.

$87.50 – the cost of a case of duct tape to patch railing at the Tucson Convention Center. Despite collecting facilities fees on every event at the center, the fund those monies went into was swept by city officials to be spent on operations, including $187,000 salary and a car for the previous director. And to think some were pushing to spend $200 million on a hotel to support the decrepit convention center.

$475,000 – the base salary for Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. Under Crow’s leadership, ASU has not only eclipsed the University of Arizona in size but its ability to raise money by convincing donors it is a top tier university and valuable resource to the state.

0 – the number of Republican candidates names on the ballot for Tucson mayor this year.

$29.1 billion – the total gross domestic product for the Tucson region. It’s $187 billion in Phoenix.

40 percent – the expected increase in Pima County wastewater fees over the next four years to bring processing fees into compliance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards county officials have known about for more than a decade.

$8 million – the increase to the Sun Tran budget from the City of Tucson, raising the total subsidy to $39 million. Meanwhile, police, fire and street maintenance were cut by a combined $25 million.

21.8 percent – the increase in tourism revenues in the Tucson region since 2000. Statewide, tourism revenues are up 41.4 percent and the Phoenix area was up 49.7 percent. Tucson can’t keep up with its place in the sun.

Top 25 – A list in the March issue of Travel + Leisure magazine that includes Tucson as one of the “World’s Most Underrated Travel Destinations.”

5 years – the length of time Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities has been promoting economic development for our region.

62 – the number of dignitaries who showed up last month at ribbon cutting ceremonies at Raytheon Missile Systems’ new production facility at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala. The list included U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who could wield some influence in Raytheon’s way as a member of the defense subcommittee of the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee.

300 – the number of jobs Raytheon Missile Systems is adding in Alabama at the new $70 million, 70,000-square-foot missile intergration facility. Taylor Lawrence, president of Raytheon Missile Systems, was quoted at the ribbon cutting, saying the plant there “was the best business decision for us because of all the incentives and the integrated approach that the state brought to supporting this facility.” He also said, “We see it being part of our integration facilities for many, many, many years in the future, and to support next generations” of missiles

7 months – the time it took Joe Higgins (one of the two writers of this column) to lease a 1,200 square foot retail space to Goodwill in a building inside the Tucson city limits. The use required a neighborhood meeting, zoning commission approval and a vote by mayor and council. (Aside from Joe: Guess how many more retail developments I want to do in Tucson in the future?)

$600,000 – the original contract for the Scott Avenue improvements near downtown. Costs jumped to more than $9 million as a result of change orders that included lighted sidewalks and an orange phoenix or griffin piece of art. One of the original four Rio Nuevo board members was the owner of a bed and breakfast on Scott Avenue.

$1 – the amount of rent paid to the city for the old downtown fire station by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), which is in the Rio Nuevo redevelopment district. One of the original four Rio Nuevo board members is MOCA’s executive director.

$5 billion – the investment Intel is making in Chandler to build a new chip manufacturing plant, adding 1,000 new jobs. The same week that announcment was made, Tucson’s announced was the arrival of 400 new call center jobs.

300 and 500 – the number of new jobs Sargent Controls is bringing to Marana and Roche is adding at Ventana Medical Systems in Oro Valley. Between Roche and Sanofi Aventis, Oro Valley now has the No. 3 and No. 6 ranked largest biotech firms in the world.

390 – The combined number of employees earning $100,000 or more working for the City of Tucson (200) and Pima County (190). There are 122 staffers in the White House who make more than $100,000.

$340,000 – the per-unit cost to rebuild the $23 million Martin Luther King low income housing project in downtown Tucson. Upon completion the building appraised at $10.5 million. Studio and one-bedroom apartments will rent for $167. A three-bedroom apartment in Oro Valley rents for $1,500 a month.

$820,000 – the price paid by Rio Nuevo to make a 15-minute video that was to be played at the Heritage Museum which never got built.

2.4 – the number of police officers per 1,000 population in Oro Valley. In Marana the figure is 2.05, Tucson is 2.0 and unincorporated Pima County is 1.28.

$17.53 – the bed tax paid on an average hotel room in Tucson. It’s the highest in Arizona and higher such cities as Austin, Texas, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Honolulu.

4.1 percent – the increase from 2000 to 2010 in passengers served at Tucson International Airport. The region’s population grew by 20.1 percent over the same period. In the two previous decades, 1990-2000 and 1980-1990, Tucson airport passenger traffic grew by 74.4 percent and 66.3 percent, respectively.

60 percent – the number of students in Tucson Unified School District who identify themselves as Hispanic. Those identifying themselves as Anglo represent 25 percent.

93,699 – average daily circulation of the Arizona Daily Star, down from 113,296 in 2005.

21.8 percent – the percentage of Tucson’s workforce in the government sector. It ranks No. 5 among the highest percentage of government workers in a non-state capital city and 11th among all cities.

$4.8 million – the price land speculator Yoram Levy paid by buy 2,760 acres in the Santa Rita Mountains in 2004. A year later he offered to sell it to Pima County for $11.5 million, which turned it down, and by June 2005 it was sold to Rosemont Copper for $20.8 million. As a copper mine it is projected to produce annual revenues of $3.8 billion.

Contact Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone at wakeuptucson@gmail.com. They host “Wake Up Tucson,” 6-8 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Their blog is at www.TucsonChoices.com.

It’s over 100 pages and it’s a little ponderous to read.  Here’s a snapshot  of the Pima County Audit for your digestion( or indigestion).  A listing of the MTCVB Board will follow soon.  It’s up to them to see if this gets fixed and get rid of the Walker/Vaughan tandem.(at left on their Scottish Golf Vacation with one of their vendors)

Here’ s the complete report: http://pima.gov/Administration/MTCVB_audit/bd-mtcvb.audit.report_20110712090644.pdf

Tale of the Tape – Stats on Tourism Growth

The ten-year recent period of 1999-2008 was selected, just before

the precipitous drops that occurred across the state in 2009. Here

are the results.

1.    Arizona’s total travel spending for the period grew 41.4

percent, from $13,071billion to $18,480 billion dollars.

2.    Maricopa County’s travel spending percentage of growth

exceeded that of the state with a 49.7 % increase, from $7,779

billion to an estimated $11,642 billion.

3.    Pima County’s tourism expenditures experienced a

significantly less robust estimated growth rate of only 21.8

percent, from $1,725 billion to $2,101 billion.

 This time period was during the boom days.  Before global economic meltdowns, SB 1070s, etc.  Pima County lost significant market share during the tenure of the Walker/Vaughan.  They were funded anywhere between $6-$10 million per year.  They also get paid $180,000 and $230,000 respectively.  That’s some serious money.  Serious money for bad results.  Time to go, gents.

Posted: Friday, July 1, 2011 5:00 pm | Updated: 3:26 pm, Thu Jun 30, 2011.

Is Tucson really still a “western” town? By Hugh Holub, Inside Tucson Business Inside Tucson Business | 0 comments

Recently Earl Wettstein proposed a 10-story cowboy hat be constructed downtown for a western museum.

Not a bad idea actually. Certainly would improve the appearance of downtown.

But that raises another question…is Tucson really still a “Western” town?

Historically Tucson is one of the real deal Western places. It is right up there with Dodge City and Deadwood and Virginia City and all those other places where Western myths were made.

Tucson is the real thing when it comes to the West…at least it used to be.

One of Tucson’s heritages is cowboys…the whole definition of what a cowboy is evolved right here and southwards…cows have been on the range since Father Kino brought the first herd to San Xavier.

But local environmentalists are determined to wipe out southern Arizona’s ranching community

And the Tucson area had its share of wild and wooly mining towns…most of which are now haunted by ghosts and 21st century mining companies who see copper in them that hills.

Tucson seems to want to turn its back on his important role as a location of minerals which are in fact mined.

Tucson has been relentless in destroying its history and making itself over as a modern American plain vanilla city.

Not only should downtown be home to a western artifacts museum, the idea of turning the old Pima County Courthouse in the top western art museum in the country ought to be pursued as well.

But Tucson doesn’t really want to celebrate its Western identify, nor even follow some of the good old “Cowboy Way” philosophy much of which actually originated from around here.

Imagine a city that celebrated its western heritage and was run on the Cowboy Way…..

Here’s one Cowboy Code and the Code of the West from Gene Autry (above). More people, especially our politicians, ought to follow them.

Has the environmental lobby their “Waiting For Superman” moment? What the popular documentary did to expose the insanity of public education started a movement around the country.

Has a good idea by a pioneering Congressman from Arizona, Mo Udall, been taken to an extreme that has diminished the intent of saving endangered species?  Is it time for Congress to reign in the run away legal industry that uses tax payer funds to sue taxpayers?

Like many things in America a good idea can turn bad when left unchecked.  One such idea is the work that Arizona Congressman put into the Endangered Species Act to protect animals at the edge of extinction at the hands of evil developers. What he started was marked a monumental for the environmental movement. Sad to say his idea has turned into a billion industry for groups like the Center For Biological Diversity.

Tucson is on the front lines of this fight and has been completely nuetralized and over taken by the environmental groups. We talk about pygmy owls, orchids, snails, jaguars or any series of animals not because we love to see them flourish but because these law suits and the plants and animals that Mo Udall fought so hard to protect are used as pawns to churn huge fees and obstruct growth.

xFrom: Environmental litigation gravy train  – Opinion piece by Karen Budd-Falen, Budd-Falen Law Offices  – September 16, 2009 between 2003 and 2007 a fund paid out to environmental based groups was as follows: 

• In total, $4,716,264,730.00 (that is billion with a “b”) in total payments were paid in taxpayer dollars from the Judgment Fund from 2003 through July 2007 for attorney fees and costs in cases against the federal government. 

Published in The Tucson Weekly:
By harassing the feds to make a profit, the Center for Biological Diversity makes environmentalists look bad

by Ted Williams

Ted Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News. He writes in Massachusetts.

It has taken me decades to be recognized as an environmental extremist. My “attack” on Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, a National Rifle Association board member, in Sierra Magazine fomented a mass exodus from the Outdoor Writers Association of America. I serve on two foundations that award major grants to groups defending land from developers, and I write a muckraking column for Audubon called “Incite.”

Actually, I’m an extremist only as defined by people who perceive fish and wildlife as basically in the way. For those folks, all environmentalists are extremists. But radical green groups do exist—and you and I are a major source of revenue for them.

The Interior Department must respond within 90 days to petitions to list species under the Endangered Species Act. Otherwise, petitioners like the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) get to sue and collect attorney fees from the Justice Department.

For 2009, the CBD reported income of $1,173,517 in “legal settlement.” The center also shakes down taxpayers directly from Interior Department funds under the Equal Access to Justice Act, and for missed deadlines when the agency can’t keep up with the broadside of Freedom of Information Act requests. The Center for Biological Diversity has two imitators: WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project.

Kierán Suckling, who directs and co-founded the Tucson-based CBD, boasts that he engages in psychological warfare by causing stress to already stressed public servants. “They feel like their careers are being mocked and destroyed—and they are,” he told High Country News. “So they become much more willing to play by our rules.”

Those rules include bending the truth like pretzel dough. For example, after the center posted photos on its website depicting what it claimed was Arizona rancher Jim Chilton’s cow-denuded grazing allotment, Chilton sued. When Chilton produced evidence that the photos showed a campsite and a parking lot, a court awarded him $600,000 in damages.

“Ranching should end,” proclaims Suckling. “Good riddance.” But the only problem with ranching is that it’s not always done right. And even when it’s done wrong, it saves land from development.

Amos Eno runs the hugely successful Yarmouth, Maine-based Resources First Foundation, an outfit that, among other things, assists ranchers who want to restore native ecosystems. Earlier, he worked at Interior’s Endangered Species Program, then went on to direct the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Eno figures the feds could “recover and delist three dozen species” with the resources they spend responding to the CBD’s litigation.

“The amount of money CBD makes suing is just obscene,” he told me. “They’re one of the reasons the Endangered Species Act has become so dysfunctional.”

A senior Obama official had this to say: “CBD has probably sued Interior more than all other groups combined. They’ve divested that agency of any control over Endangered Species Act priorities and caused a huge drain on resources. In April, for instance, CBD petitioned to list 404 species, knowing full well that biologists can’t make the required findings in 90 days.”

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and his Fish and Wildlife Service director, Jamie Clark, together saved the Endangered Species Act from a hostile Congress. One way they did this was with brilliant habitat-conservation plans that rewarded landowners for harboring endangered species.

A few plans were flawed, but the center scarcely saw one that it didn’t hate.

Clark offered this: “Back then, the suits came mostly from CBD. Now I think CBD and WildEarth Guardians are trying to see who can sue most. … Citizens need to be able to petition for species in trouble, but this has become an industry.”

Acquiring the public’s attention seems to motivate environmental extremists almost as much as acquiring the public’s money. Recently, the CBD petitioned the EPA to ban lead ammunition and fishing weights. There are lots of inexpensive, non-toxic alternatives, and lead projectiles for hunting and lead sinkers small enough to be ingested by birds do need to be banned.

But the Center for Biological Diversity sought a ban on everything—no exception for the military, target-shooting or deep-sea sinkers that ostriches couldn’t swallow. It seems inconceivable that the center didn’t know its petition was going nowhere. But for a year, its name has been all over the news, and now the center is suing the EPA.

The Center for Biological Diversity gives every environmentalist a bad name.

It looks like someone is finally starting to connect the dots:

If poverty were a disease, Pima County officials would have declared an epidemic by now.

In the past few years, local poverty has literally gone off of a chart compiled by the Pima Association of Governments. Yet elected officials, other local leaders and the media do not appear interested in the fact that Tucson recently eclipsed El Paso as the poorest major city in the Sunbelt.

The epidemic of poverty doesn’t seem to be a priority for either city or county government. We often hear about the proposed Rosemont Mine and the Rio Nuevo redevelopment district, but rarely do officials talk about the fact that 200,000 Pima County residents, or one in five, get by (or try to get by) on incomes below the federal poverty rate. For an individual, that translates to less than $10,890 annually, and $22,350 for a family of four.

Whether the increase in poverty is the result of a lack of job-training, reduced education funding, or something else, there is little discussion about trying to change the harsh reality that almost one in every four Tucson residents is currently living below the poverty line.

If a healthy economy is about a community’s collective capacity for productivity, how can Pima County prosper when so many of us are suffering from the debilitating social conditions imposed by poverty?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 21, 2011

Contact:  Patrick Bray, azcattlemen@gmail.com, (602) 267-1129

Great Arizona Bale-Out

Fund set up to help fire-stricken ranchers

In the wake of the worst wildfire season in Arizona history, ranching families are struggling to save their homes and livelihoods. The Arizona Cattle Growers Association has established the Great Arizona Bale-Out Fund to raise money to help.

Seed money of $5,000 was given to start the fund by Rosemont Ranch, a 30,000-acre working cattle ranch in southern Arizona and a subsidiary of Rosemont Copper. The Bale-Out fund will provide much-needed emergency relief of hay and feed.

To date 90 families have been tragically impacted and more than 800,000 acres – much of it grazing lands – have been consumed by the fires. While most livestock has been saved, critical grazing land is no longer available to feed their cattle.

“While ranchers were able to save their herds, the eradication of grazing areas places these families in a potentially catastrophic situation,” said Patrick Bray, executive vice president of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association. “With an annual economic impact of more than $3 billion, what affects ranchers affects us all, particularly in these rural communities already hit hard by the fires.”

Loads of hay and other help have been donated to date, but feeding the cattle continues to be a challenging issue. A contribution of $15 will feed a cow for three days, for example, while $250 will purchase a ton of hay, feeding approximately 60 cows for a day, Bray added.

Tax-deductible contributions can be made to the Arizona Cattle Growers Association Arizona Bale-Out Fund, 1401 N. 24th St., Ste. 4, Phoenix, AZ 85008, by stopping by at any branch of Wells Fargo Bank, or by visiting www.azbaleout.org.

An open letter to “Good ole boy (or girl)” business leaders

By  Joe Higgins & Chris DeSimone – Wake Up Tucson for Inside Tucson Business -

Dear Good Ole Boy and Girl,

First and foremost, thank you for your investment in the community and for the employment of thousands of Tucsonans over the past few decades. As you may have guessed, things are changing in the Old Pueblo.

There’s a new breath of fresh air in leadership at the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. There are other indications that the same old ways of how things get done here are no longer being tolerated; legislation allowing Marana to put itself in control of its own destiny with wastewater, performance audits of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau and an investigation of the mess over Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment.

It’s time to start solidifying the business community back into one entity: the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. We led the charge for change in the organization and are committed to support efforts to reverse the fractionalization of Tucson’s business community. Strengthening the voice of business must involve three things:

1.Creating a business voter block that shows up for an election.
2.Recruiting good pro-business candidates.
3.Educating everyone on how a healthy private sector equates tobuses running on time, filling road potholes and police and fire protection.
Sadly, the efforts of CEO groups, community forums, town halls and economic development think-tanks continue to fail because a unified business voice isn’t at the table politically. Groups split away for good reason, but now it’s time to come back.

With Tucson city elections coming up this year and 2012 looming huge for the Pima County Board of Supervisors, it is time we realize that the actions you take – or do not take – will either help the region correct the course toward prosperity or allow the entrenched political machines to drive us off the cliff.

The issues are bigger than SB 1070, the failures of Tucson Unified School District or Rio Nuevo and dealing with potholes or graffiti. It’s the political culture that looks upon business as a necessary evil that exists to be taxed and regulated.

It all comes down to Election Day. The business community has a terrible track record of getting people elected. Only when things get as bad as they are now have we been able to get one lonely voice of moderation elected to the Tucson City Council.

Sadly, as we are learning, business gatherings two weeks ahead of Election Day to exclaim: “what the heck is the business community doing to help get pro-business folks elected?” are too little too late.

A few people have put their personal lives aside to try to make a difference in this year’s Tucson city elections.

The ribbon cutter isn’t seeking reelection and is going away but what are the visions of the candidates who are running for mayor? Do you even know who they are?

As for the three council seats that are up election, it’s time to find your pro-business candidate, from either political party, and start supporting him or her now.

When your family came to Tucson, I am sure they had a vision of making a living, building a legacy and leaving the efforts of your work to your children. If you are paying attention to the path we are on, the chances of that happening are dwindling by the month.

Leadership from business in Tucson has been taken over by middle managers. It’s time to tell your vice president of government affairs to step aside and for you, the CEO or owner, to join in the leadership process.

It’s time to stop sprinkling your membership support among a myriad of business organizations that have produced little to no results. It’s time you realize if we don’t all get on the same page the customers who eat at your restaurants and buy your products or services will have gone away.

We ask you to dig deep and give Tucson one more chance at getting it right. Every morning in places like Huntsville, Ala., or Albuquerque or Scottsdale there are leaders waking up looking to grow their communities and create the environment that will raise the economic tides.

We’re ready to wake up.

Contact Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone at wakeuptucson@gmail.com. They host “Wake Up Tucson,” 6-8 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Their blog is at www.TucsonChoices.com.