Tucson Weekly: Publish Or Perish (January 15

City Officials Deny They're Trying To Squelch The Neighborhood Newsletter Program.
By Dave Devine
WHAT'S IN A name? Was the City of Tucson's shift some time ago from a "Citizen Participation Office" to a "Citizen and Neighborhood Services Division" just a meaningless word change? Or was there something sinister indicated in dropping the word "Participation" from the title?
Over the last several months, neighborhood representatives have repeatedly charged high-ranking city staffers with trying to diminish the role of citizens in the local decision-making process. The accusations center around the city's spending on printing and mailing neighborhood association newsletters.
Established in 1980, the original Citizen Participation Office was known for doing one thing well--distributing neighborhood newsletters. Tucson's neighborhood associations could take their newsletters to the office and have them copied and mailed for free. No restrictions were placed on frequency or length, and only a few editorial guidelines had to be followed.
Currents Not unexpectedly, as the number of associations grew and the issues they were involved with increased, the demand for the newsletter service increased. This led to at least two unsuccessful city staff attempts to curtail the program in the past decade.
While the stated reason given for these threats was rising costs, it was apparent that top City Hall bureaucrats didn't appreciate some of the criticism they were receiving in the newsletters. But the City Council kept its hands off the politically popular program.
Then last year several department heads asked for a review of the activities of the Community and Neighborhood Services Division, "particularly those related to copying and mail functions." As a result, the city's Budget and Research Department found that some associations mailed more newsletters than others, the demand for the service was rising rapidly and costs were going up accordingly.
That shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. More neighborhoods are organized now. They have more issues to deal with. But the current $66,000 budget for printing and mailing newsletters is only about two-thirds of what's needed. No one's been denied service, but that prospect seemed to be approaching.
So instead of correcting the budget shortfall by requesting more money, the City Manager's Office asked the City Council to approve a comprehensive look at the printing and mailing functions. The message sent by that request, even if it wasn't intended, was that City Manager Luis Gutierrez wanted to limit the number of newsletters.
The feeling among neighborhood association leaders that a direct assault was underway on one of their favorite city programs was heightened by an August Tucson Citizen article. Headlined "City weighs its costs as 'publisher,' " the story used inaccurate and misleading information to portray the newsletter program as very expensive and controlled by a few associations.
In the article, Assistant City Manager Liz Miller said it was time to take a look at the program with the goal of improving it. She indicated city staff would try to stay within the adopted budget and was quoted as saying, "The city could also move to limit mailing provided by the city."
At the request of the City Council, the Citizen Participation Advisory Committee has been reviewing the issue. Nadine Rund of the committee spent countless hours dissecting the data used in the Budget and Research Department evaluation. She found extensive problems with the analysis, including its reliance on a generalized "labor" cost which ignored the common practice of neighborhood volunteers printing and folding their own newsletters.
Rund also reviewed some of the neighborhood improvement projects that have been accomplished in part because of newsletters. Her conclusion was that for every dollar the city spends on printing and mailing, it gets many more back in return.
Rund bluntly summarized the concerns of many neighborhood association representatives about the intentions of the city staff when she asked, "Who's trying to chop the voice of the people? This has to do with control and silencing the voice of the people."
She also said of the program, "This is one of the finest services the city provides. There is real nervousness that the Community and Neighborhood Services Division is wanting to get out of it."
By early last month, the committee's work, combined with comments by some City Council members, had the city staff doing a complete retreat. The Community and Neighborhood Services Division has requested $100,000 for printing and mailing services in the next fiscal year.
The citizens committee has approved a number of recommendations to try to contain the overall cost of newsletters, but it believes the service must be provided when requested. The committee asked for $116,000 in the next fiscal year for the program. The City Manger releases his budget recommendations in April, and the council will consider the item in May.
Max Torres, director of the Community and Neighborhood Services Division, says the city was simply trying to make the newsletter program as efficient as possible. He's now attempting to arrange with Pima Community College to do much of the printing, and hopes this can double the number of newsletters copied without increasing the budget.
The newsletter issue is scheduled to be discussed by the City Council next month. Whatever the initial intention of the city staff toward neighborhood association newsletters, the program now looks like its budget will be substantially increased, not reduced.

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