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Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Politics Councilman-Elect Kozachik Brings Donovan Durband Back Downtown
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 12:07 PM
Democrat Nina Trasoff's term as the midtown Ward 6 councilwoman comes to an end next Monday, Dec. 7, as Republican Steve Kozachik is sworn into office.
Kozachik, who doesn’t plan to quit his day job managing the facilities over at the UA Athletics Department, says a prime focus will be the city’s ailing budget, which is continuing to spiral into deeper trouble. Last week, City Manager Mike Letcher delivered the bad news that weak sales-tax collections and other problems have left the city facing a $32 million shortfall in the current fiscal year.
“Far too many decsions are being made without having the numbers that make sense sitting in front of you,” says Kozachik, who warns the issue is “going to be potentially contentious.”
Kozachik is pessimistic about Rio Nuevo’s future and concerned that with tax collections below forecast, there’s barely enough money to cover debt service for the downtown revitalization project.
“Let’s be real about that,” Kozachik says. “That patient is on life support. There’s no money there.”
A new board will soon be controlling future Rio Nuevo spending, thanks to a law passed by the Arizona Legislature in this month’s special session.
Kozachik says his downtown focus will be on downtown merchants so they don’t “become the forgotten few. My sense of downtown is clean, safe and activities. Let’s get a bunch of activities going down there.”
Kozachik has already hired aides, including Donovan Durband, who was executive director for about seven of the 10 years he worked at the Tucson Downtown Alliance. Durband did what he could with the resources at hand and remained a fierce advocate for businesses that were trying to eke out a living in downtown.
But when TDA expanded into the new Downtown Tucson Partnership and was placed under the control of Glenn Lyons, Durband quickly realized that The Powers That Be had little use for him. He walked before they made him run.
Lyons has his hands full trying to untangle himself from a political fustercluck that erupted when he tried to sell Fourth Avenue’s Coronado Hotel, which now is home to low-income seniors. (Dave Devine will have the the messy details in this week's print edition.)
Durband will be handling downtown issues for Kozachik, who praised his new aide’s “knowledge of downtown and his familiarity and good relationship with local merchants down there.”
We’ll see if Durband’s history leads to frosty relations with Lyons and his staff, who are already viewed with suspicion by some longtime downtown business owners and other Rio Nuevo skeptics.
But it’s certainly not going to be as cozy a relationship as Lyons had with Trasoff’s office. The DTP’s marketing director, former Tucson Citizen editor Cara Rene, is married to the outgoing Trasoff’s chief of staff, former Tucson Citizen columnist C.T. Revere.
Comments (16)
Showing 1-16 of 16
Don Durband's tireless struggles with a city manager's office that wanted to control everything in a non-transparent fashion are legendary. Now we have a new city manager and city council, and I'm sure Mr. Durband can advise Mr. Kozachik wisely. He knows where the bodies are buried.
Mary Lou Focht, Old Town Artisans and La Cocina Restaurant
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Good luck to both Durband and the new Councilmember. Downtown needs a lot of help and cleaning up.
Bringing back someone who for years did nothing for downtown to work on improving downtown? How demonic.
The circus is coming to town. Get ready for lots of poop in the streets.
Knowledge is power. The poop was scooped up in the election process. Well....some of it!
Oh please Donavan Durban didn't know the first thing on how to run a professional business he couldn't keep his books straight, he championed the ridiculous charge to make congress a two way street with only one lane in either direction, he had 10 years to do something and accomplished little. It is SO ironic that and even though he blogged about continuing the facade program he himself never even thought of a facade.
Some of you have been snowed by your friendship with him. Call it the Good Ol Boy Club of the Left -- as long as you are a 'friend' you get a pass on incompetence.
hey my first comment got cut off so to continue it
"he himself never even thought of a facade program but the new guy came up with it in less than a year found the money and made it happen"
Umm...Red Star is sorry to break this to you but until you slide heavyweight UA $emi-pro athletic facilities downtown and develop diverse downtown residential communities that can compete with the sprawl, you're going to have a continuation of Old Pueblo jibba jabba.
The Tucson Downtown Alliance, with Durband, conceived of and fought for a Facade improvement program
for many years. Refer to the plans.
Durband will bring some truth to the downtown mess. Trasoff and her ilk have ruined our chances to do much of anything for Rio Nuevo. Too bad Ben Buelher-Garcia didnt win (175 votes folks!!It was that close!) didnt get in--that would have helped a lot.
Durband fought long and hard to make downtown a better place.
Durband did indeed champion the facade program downtown and was road blocked every inch of the way. By way of his membership in national Downtown Associations,coupled with a bit of simple logic, would have one want to implement a facade program in their town. There is no real author of the idea, for christ sake, it is almost cliche. But Durband did initiate the mechanism to implement the program. Fact.
If you want to split hairs here, the "need" for the facade was proposed by the Tucson Trade Bureau in 1979 along with the support of Walgreens. Fact.
And if the new guy, who has to date confabulated many of his accomplishments, like the McArthur Building, which was really a simple real estate deal that was underway long before his clandestine hiring over the Christmas holiday, actually found the money in the city coffers to git'er done, then who was responsible for hiding the "allocated" money all those years? Hein? And which side of the car did he get out of for the DUI? The Left or the Right? Irrelevant eh? Just like your silly comment about the,"Left"
So, it appears then by your logic "Obeserver" that the found money is a backward syllogism pointing to fraud and malfeasance. Where was the money sitting? Where is it in the published budget?
Durband is an ethical man. Fact.
Many projects did not come to fruition because the City Managers Office beats to a different drummer than the electorate, the elected, and most all homo sapiens in Tucson. Ergo, the term "Shadow Government" Durband had to deal with the shadow people who have forever had their own parallel life in the CBD. Many retailers, developers and just good people have lost their sanity and poketbooks dealing with these folks. Don did not.
Lets talk about some real flops then. Please tell us what Downtown Development accomplished in 30 years. Salary enhancement? And a turn over of land banked properties to the City that Valley Bank was going to foreclose on. A bit more important than who implemented a facade program. By the way, DDC said they were going to accomplish that task too. It was around 1984!
So "Observer" who many can guess your role here, what have you done for the good of the order in the past ten years? Are you just going to be sour grapes for the next four years, or will the Sgt.of Arms be asking you to exit the meeting? Let's allow some folks to smile for awhile before the dumping starts.
As a 20-year downtown survivor I can attest to the progress made under the Don Durband led TDA as compared to the current regime. All bills come due and perhaps we can arrest this free-fall before we hit bottom - it is coming up fast. Blaming/praising is not the job of hacks online, the proof is the results and some things/actions/deeds will remain when other names/faces are long gone.
Concupiscence knows the score. Donovan is extremely well known and respected by leaders of the US downtown revitalization industry, the International Downtown Association. That's because he's attended their events and workshops for ten years, read all their books, met with the authors, collaborated on their projects and carefully studied what works and fails in downtown revitalizations. He's a staunch proponent of small steps building on small steps. But he was always outnumbered by mayors and councilmembers who dreamed only of bankruptcy-bait buildings like rainbow bridges, color changing 30-story Texas hotels on Cushing St., and new entertainment districts on land they didn't own next to fragile barrios.
Let there be no mistake, Observer is a lying operative of the shadow government. Donovan Durband is a champion of truth and the hard working, risk taking small businesses, artists, residents, and downtown workers who have been ready to redevelop downtown if government would only let it happen. Best of luck to you both, Donovand and Steve K!
Really where was all the progress under Durban? I haven't seen one accomplishment listed by any of you only a bunch of conspiracy theories.
I didn't see any progress in downtown revitalization but I did personally witness this board, under his direction, spend an entire meeting debating the word choice of one of many objectives in a plan that never got implemented or accomplished. Your fancy words like syllogism only illustrates this. Fact.
What has been happening in the past 2 years? Progress. Fact.
I see much that Donovan's friends have come to his rescue but those same friends that were part of the nothingness that was accomplished during that tenure. Fact.
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