Posts Tagged ‘Pima County’

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/16662854/2012/02/02/nbc2-investigates-voter-fraud

County supervisors of elections tell me they have no way to verify citizenship. Under the 1992 Motor Voter Law, they’re not required to ask for proof.

“We have no policing authority. We don’t have any way of bouncing that information off any other database that would give us that information,”

Anyone know a place like this?

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.

Tom Moulton is Pima County’s Director of  Economic Development and Tourism.  His annual salary tops $100k.

The county’s website states:

“The department of Economic Development and Tourism act as primary liaison with the business, academic and tourism community to enhance the economic well being of the region. It provides business development, marketing, training and revenue enhancement programs to Pima County’s leased asset partners (i.e. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Old Tucson Studios, Colossal Cave Mountain Park, Pima Air and Space Museum, Pima County Fairgrounds, and more.”

He is also the county’s expert and watchdog on the $2.6 million it spends on tourism promotion.  He is supposed to make sure the taxpayer dollar is being used wisely by the folks at the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau.  Last year, he made this marvelous statement about his job. (Love the hat, Mr. M!)

A personal tale of how Pima County Elections continues to disenfranchise voters.

I live in Precinct #33 in Pima County near Fairview and Limberlost. This precinct contains both City of Tucson and Pima County voters. Voters in this precinct are in the Amphitheater School District. This election, Nov 2, 2010 voters in #33 shared a polling location with Precinct #32. Those voters reside in Flowing Wells School District and also contain city and county voters. The voting place was the Flowing Wells Community Center on West Wetmore. There should be a total of 4 possible ballot options available at the polls.
I went to vote just after the polls opened this morning and completed my ballot. I turned the ballot in and it was scanned into the machine. After getting in my truck to leave I remembered that I had not voted for Amphi School Board. I pay taxes in Amphi so I’m pretty sure I get to vote on School Board elections. After checking the sample ballot on the wall outside I realized that the Amphi election was not on the sample ballot. After questioning the the Precinct monitor the workers could not find any ballots that included Amphi School elections. After a call to Pima Elections and the Recorder’s office we were told that if its not on the ballot you don’t get to vote. We were further notified after being on hold that the main office was just notified that the election for school board was canceled.
After a lot of back and forth and multiple phone calls to all three Amphi candidates it was determined that the correct ballots were at the precinct but had been over looked. This was after 8:00am. The best they can determine is that somewhere between 9 and 18 people that were eligible to vote for Amphi Schools were not given the opportunity to vote prior to 8:00am or so. They were disenfranchised BY Pima County.
I was able to cast a Provisional Ballot this afternoon for the School Board but there is no guarantee that the vote will count. I can only pray that the actual vote count doesn’t come down to a handful of votes.

I have a simple question. Why do voters in Pima County deserve this kind of treatment? Why are the folks in charge not held responsible for these continuing problems?

Here are some quick facts about Pima County that may help you understand exactly why we have one of the highest property tax rates in the state:

1. Unincorporated Pima County makes up 36% of the total county population.To compare, Maricopa County has 6% of their population in unincorporated areas. Austin is 18%, Albuquerque is 17%,  Salt Lake 16%, Portland 2%, Seattle 12%.  With such a big population to serve we loose out in state shared revenues and must provide services like police and potholes to a much larger area than comparable counties around the country.

2. An aweful lot of DEBT.The Grand Total of Debt for all the counties in Arizona is $1.15 billion. Pima County’s combined primary and secondary debt load (open space bonds, sewer, transportation etc.) equals $757 million of the $1.15 billion. All other counties combined have the remaining $339 million.  Our debt load is more than double all other the other counties in Arizona COMBINED.

3. How Serious Have Cuts Been? Pima County has cut most departments this year. Most have seen a 10% reduction, EXCEPT:
                County Administration went from $100 to $102 Million
                Community and Economic Development went from $70 to $85 million
                Debt service went from $100 to $110 million

4. Does Pima County have a bonding problem? A breakdown in PAST voter approved bond packages:

      1997 – $362 million in general obligation bonds in May 1997 and
                   $350 million in transportation bonds that November (27 of the 34 projects approved in
                           the 2006 RTA vote where carry overs from the 97′ bonds)
                   $105m sewer ($65m Ina and $4.5 Roger)          
      2004 -  $582m general bonds and ($174m open space – $81m health & community – $183m
                                 courts/safety)
                    $150m sewer ($17m Ina and $25 Roger)
      2006-   $54m (Kino and jail)
      2009? – PROPOSED  – $700 to $900 million
                      $345m open space
                      $565m wastewater

   More on Pima County’s sewer option from Dave Divine – January 29, 2009, The Tucson Weekly:

“How many times have we given them money for Roger Road?” Schuh asks. “I understand we have to have some taxes, but (we seem) to have a group that never seems to get the job done.”

Huckelberry counters, “The money we’ve put into the plant has been for odor control and keeping it operational so it wouldn’t collapse.”

5. Lots of people work at Pima County:
        Pima County is the 8th largest employer in our region with 6235 employees. Pima County has more than DOUBLEthe employees per population served than Maricopa County, Travis County (Austin) Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), Salt Lake County, Multnomah County (Portland) and Clark County (Las Vegas).

6. Kino Hospital-The County is legally mandated to provide a psychiatric hospital. When the County ran Kino as a psych unit, they lost $34m. In a deal to increase services and reduce the County’s cost, Kino management was shifted over to UPH. The deal was to be a total of $125m in total guarantees over a 10 year period. . It looks like at the pace we are going, we are due to hit the $125m in year 5 with no end to the subsidy in site.

7. Open Space priorities.  Pima County voters have approved close to $400m in open space purchases to protect outlining areas. The purchases are part of the goals of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. The proposed bond package will include another $345m bringing the total open space commitment to almost 3/4 of a billion dollars. Without discussing the merits of the open space commitments this land will be permanently taken off the tax roles and require some level of ongoing management in perpetuity.

8. How efficient is the County at running things?

• Pima County Sportspark, 6901 N. Casa Grande Highway, will shift to being managed by a contractor instead of the county, Payan said. The county will keep up the grounds Mondays through Fridays but has asked for bids on managing the site after hours, including scheduling the sports leagues and running the concession stands, Payan said.

This arrangement will allow the county to recover the costs of maintenance, and leave the management costs to a third party for up to $500,000 savings, Huckelberry said.

The number of employees in Pima County who earn more than $100,000 a year has nearly doubled since 2006. That’s despite the rocky economy and layoffs of thousands of people in the area during that time.
In 2006, 76 staffers in the county earned six-figure salaries.
Now the count is at 142 — an 87 percent increase at a time when the county is slashing costs to deal with declining tax revenues and state cuts. ……
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry says the number of highly paid employees is appropriate for the variety of services the county provides.

Well it doesn’t happen every day but you got to give Pima County administrator Huckelberry and the controlling majority of the Board Of Supervisors qudos. They deserve major credit for actually balancing a their budget WITHOUT raising property taxes. In fact the counties tax rate has been lowered to its LOWEST IN 35 YEARS!

From today’s Citizen story by Gary Duffy – HERE.

The fiscal plan includes a decrease in the primary property tax rate from the current $3.39 per $100 valuation to $3.31 – the lowest in 35 years, Huckelberry told supervisors Monday in a budget memorandum.

Overall, it calls for a reduction in the combined property tax rate from the current $4.63 cents per $100 valuation to about $4.55 per $100 valuation.

The financial plan also notes the county will finish the current fiscal year with a balance of about $24.5 million, instead of a projected shortfall of almost $40 million.

About $6.7 million of the fund balance would go to property tax relief.

The county enacted across-the-board departmental budget cuts of 7 percent to 10 percent – except for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department – to avert the projected deficit.

“It went away because we managed it away,” Huckelberry said.

I’ve had a few requests of late to share the comparison chart that I used during my campaign. What I I put together was a snap shot comparison of our Pima County to other western US counties over the 1 million population. I compared population, tax rates, unincorporated population and employees per 10k residents (county wide). I took quite a bit of heat from the media about the chart.

You can argue it from any way you want. The biggest push back I received from using it was that comparing Pima County to the other counties was not accurate. The arguments centered on the fact that other counties have different taxing methods (a few had property taxes and a sales tax), some argued that Pima County was in the hospital business or the wastewater business and that was unfair to compare to counties that didn’t have those burdens. True but let’s look at why and how much it costs us to be in the wastewater and hospital business. 

The hard and fast facts that jumped out at me was the large portion of unincorporated population and the employees to population figures.

For those of you that are interested, here’s the chart (click to make it larger).

Times are tough, we get it. Belts are tightening both in the private sector and at every level of government.  In desperate times people (and governments) do desperate things. Today Pima County voted 3-2 to join the City of Tucson and State of Arizona by getting into the highly profitable photo radar business. Make no mistake this is nothing more than a tax on drivers, call is safety, call it law enforcement but we know what’s up. The three Democratic Supervisors voted in unison with the two Republicans, Ray Carroll and Ann Day standing up for civil liberties and seeing this new revenue stream as nothing more than a shake down. Surely there are other areas the county could cut back on before joining the speed enforcement bandwagon. We’ll put a list of suggestions together for another post.

The good news is, smart people are finding ways around the photo radar systems. I had a talk with Charlie the owner of  The Specialist this afternoon and learned that these things have become so bad in Phoenix that innovative entrepreneurs have used GPS technologies to outsmart the cameras. There are products you can buy that sync your GPS into a national database of speed enforcement cameras. My linking up daily even the mobile enforcement vehicles are being uploaded into your GPS system. When you get into the photo speed enforcement zone the unit starts beeping and letting you know to slow down. Seems like a lot of work and planning which could be avoided by simply slowing down but leave it up to good old ingenuity.

These things are getting out of control and based on the comments from the Star’s online version the people know what’s up.

Oh and if they don’t get you with the photo radar or the red light cameras the State will hit you with the new license plate frame law. They ding you $135 for the vanity coveryou got for fathers day that read ‘Worlds Greatest Fisherman’.  What next, dirty car citations, ridiculous spinning rims tickets, poor gas mileage warnings?

A bit more about photo radar tactics HERE 

More-enlightened police forces in North America are aware people do not deliberately speed out of malice or disregard for the law. They realize the majority of motorists speed because of inattention or distraction and that raising awareness is much more effective than punishment in keeping the roads safe.

If you travel Interstate 5 in Northern California, you will see a number of electronic signs along the highway at select locations. Wherever the posted speed is critical to safely negotiating a dangerous corner, the highway patrol have installed solar-powered, radar-operated traffic signs. Only instead of the radar taking your picture and mailing you a ticket 3 weeks later, it displays your actual speed immediately so you can slow down in time to negotiate the turns safely. Of course, the highway patrol doesn’t make any money from this technology but they do manage to save lives and protect citizens… which after all should be the primary purpose of any police agency.

In less-traveled areas, the California highway patrol employs the same technology effectively using mobile trailers. Called SMART for “Speed Monitoring Awareness Radar Trailers”, these solar-powered trailers can be towed wherever they are needed and can be set up in minutes to help motorists slow down. They are extremely effective at making drivers more aware of their speed.

 

PHOTO RADAR ISN’T ABOUT SPEEDING (EDMONTON STATS)
But, of course, Photo Radar isn’t about speeding, it’s about revenue. And we didn’t need this sorry episode in CalgaryAlberta to prove that.

Some cities have non partisan elections like; L.A., Chicago, Houston and some have democratic elections like; Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Here in Arizona ALL cities EXCEPT Tucson have non-partisan elections. Even the 1 square mile city of South Tucson voted this past November to go non-partisan.

Tucson has been ruined over the past 40-plus years because of politics — bad politics. Individuals are elected to office with more loyalty to their political parties and personal ambitions than to the residents of their city, county or state. Politics creep in and affect our governments ability to fill pot holes and pick up garbage.

Back in late 1999 and early 2000′s a group of business and civic leaders came together to propose a ballot initiative to change the Tucson charter to implement NON-PARTISAN elections in the City.  Read The Weekly – HERE.  Long story short SALC took the lead  and put together a cast of characters to work on the charter changes. 

The big players are already in place. The Leadership Council’s members include attorney Si Schorr, land speculator Don Diamond, car dealers Jim Click and Buck O’Rielly, Realtor Hank Amos, real estate developer Joe Cesare, developer Roy Drachman, construction mogul Hal Ashton, AZ Mail Order king Paul Baker, attorney John Munger and Raytheon Missile Systems president Joe Coyle.

Johnston says that the proposed charter changes include:

· expanding the City Council wards from six to eight;

· providing the mayor the right to vote on issues before the Council, including the right to be counted for a quorum;

· replacing partisan elections for city offices with nonpartisan elections.

Easing the annexation of unincorporated areas into the city was also an implicit part of last year’s plan. Leadership Council board member Schorr pointed out in a July 7, 2000 guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star that “increased wards allow for and encourage unincorporated areas near the city to consider annexation with the knowledge they can help form new city wards.”

Johnston recently acknowledged that facilitating annexation is still the main reason his group wants to implement changes to the charter.

Annexation remains a major priority of city officials, too. Andrew Greenhill, Walkup’s chief of staff, said the mayor last week asked Pima County’s state legislative delegation to consider a bill that would remove barriers to annexation.

Greenhill could not say what the mayor specifically had in mind when he put forward his ideas. Walkup was unavailable for comment. Without changes to current state law, a large-scale annexation could take years to accomplish.

Democratic mayor Volgy set out on a clear path to ensure that the party and the power would shift for the next twenty plus years. From a previous post on this blog:

The city’s anti-business movement “got legs” during the terms of Democratic mayors Tom Volgy (1987-91) and George Miller (1991-99). Both had won council seats in 1977.

“As no-growthers, they started to empower extremists and staff to follow their lead,” the SAHBA director said. “The people they hired decades ago are killing today’s redevelopment efforts. Many have moved up into policy-making positions with their negative attitudes toward progress.”

Regarding the conflicts of business versus neighborhoods, Volgy once said, “It’s hard for business groups to understand what the neighborhoods want, and vice versa. It’s very hard to put themselves in each other’s shoes.”

The way we elect our political leaders empowers party bosses and neighborhood activists at the expense of the public as a whole. Due to party enrollment and gerrymandered districts, few elections are competitive. Winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to election in Tucson. 

The unwritten water cooler talk in democratic circles is that any hope for future annexation of surrounding communities will be a challenge. It seems that Tucson Democrats are enjoying their blockbuster voter rolls. It’s a known fact that Tucson has a high democratic voter advantage and the surrounding communities of the Catalina Foothills and at one time Green Valley have  higher Republican party voter rolls. 

As long Tucson has a city full of die-hard yellow dog Democrats, who believe in FDR style government social collectivism with an unbreakable determination to maintain the status quo at any cost, and one of the highest percentages of government sector workers of any spot in the country, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Rabid, frothing, vitriolic political partisanship in Tucson is part and parcel of the mess that the area has become. The Democratic Party and Organized Neighborhoods have been in bed together so long that both fear any separation.

Bottom up government as is being proposed by Jonathan Paton, not Top Down government that has destroyed the areas prosperity, is a real-life possibility for changing the landscape. But nobody seems to want to get out of their Lazy Boy, their Barstool or their bench at the Union Hall long enough to do anything about it.

It’s pathetic and sick and it breaks my heart.

 From National Civic League – Model City revisions on the Pros and Cons of non partisan elections:

Pros: Nonpartisan elections may be appropriate for most cities because they downplay partisan differences between candidates that do not necessarily match significant policy differences that are salient at the time of an election. In this sense, they avoid an unnecessary source of divisiveness in a community. As a result, voters can focus on candidates’ policy stands and problem-solving skills. It takes the focus off of party affiliation, and places it on what makes sense for the city. An incumbent mayor may be the target of the opposition party organization on the state level because he or she is a potential candidate for higher office, not because of the quality of performance in the mayor’s office. It can make it easier for members of minority parties to be elected. The ability to hold nonpartisan elections promotes local autonomy since the outcome of local elections is less likely to be determined by national or state political current, and it demonstrates that city politics differ substantially from state politics.

Partisan differences may be relevant to local policy decisions, e.g., positions on privatization and tax cuts at the local level may correspond to party differences, and nonpartisan elections can be the venue of efforts to mobilize party supporters. These efforts are less likely to have substantial impact when the partisan connection is weak. When elections are partisan, however, parties will be structurally connected to local elections regardless of relevance. A consequence of partisan elections is that candidates run first in party primaries with the winners facing each other in the general election. If one party with a substantial majority has more than one strong candidate, only one will survive to be considered by all the voters (including unaffiliated voters) in the general election, which typically receives far more media attention and a larger voter turnout. In nonpartisan elections, the top two vote getters in the primary, regardless of party affiliation, would be the candidates in the general election.

In sum, there can be advantages to party involvement in elections, but the institution of partisan elections requires that party always be the dominant feature in city campaigns. City governments should recognize that nonpartisan elections can depress voter turnout among voters with lower socio-economic status and take other measures to encourage voter participation and citizen participation generally.

Cons:Nevertheless, partisan elections have advantages. Partisanship is part of politics even when not officially recognized. Parties can help candidates run better campaigns. Party affiliation conveys information to voters, who for the most part do not have time to evaluate the effectiveness or distinguish the claims of each candidate. This is especially important for voters who without a party cue would be less likely to identify their stakes in the outcome of an election. Partisan elections offset the overrepresentation of minority parties. Finally, partisan elections can assist voters of lower socio-economic status. The mobilization efforts of parties offset the informational and resource disadvantages of poorer, less educated voters who are less likely to identify with organizations other than political parties that might work to promote turnout.

 

From National League of Cities – HERE

Election systems in American cities are determined by the nature of the council members’ constituency (See Local Elections) and by the presence or absence of party labels on the ballot.  With regard to the second feature, there are two types of ballots for city council members.  In partisan elections, the party affiliation of the candidate is indicated on the ballot, whereas in nonpartisan elections it is not. 

According to a 2001 survey,  77% of the responding cities have nonpartisan elections, and 23% have partisan elections.  (See Form of Government and Type of Election in 30 Largest Cities)

Proponents of nonpartisan ballots suggest that:

• political parties are irrelevant to providing services; experts and professionals should determine the service needs of the constituents.

Proponents for partisan elections argue that:

• Absence of party labels confuses voters; a voter who must choose from among a group of candidates who he or she knows nothing about will have no meaningful basis in casting a ballot;
• In absence of party ballot, voters will turn to whatever cue is available, and often this cue turns out to be the ethnicity of a candidate’s name;
• Non-partisanship tends to produce elected officials more representative of the upper socioeconomic strata than of the general populace and aggravate the class bias in voting turnout, namely because in true non-partisan systems there are no organizations of local party workers to bring lower-class citizens to the polls on election day; and
• Non-partisanship destroys resources important to coalition building and effective governance.

I sure hope you take the time to read the AZ Star’s online version of the daily news. I’m not sure if the comments on the articles are a true representation of public sentiment or the ramblings of a vocal minority but either way sometimes the comments are the best part.

With a little embelishing the following comment on the Westin La Paloma defaulting on a loan payment is pretty much spot on. Canvas bags, Tiger Woods and a buck for a bus.

Pretty much hits them all.

17. Comment by Morgan L. (csgow) — November 19,2008 @ 8:18AM

Ratings:   -4 +27