The Tucson City Council has failed its residents again.
Leaders of the private Grand Canyon University (GCU) recently expressed interest in possibly opening a campus in Southern Arizona. Sites in Tucson and in Oro Valley were the locations thought to be under consideration.
Citizens and business executives should applaud GCU’s interest in our region and should roll out the welcome mat. This project brings with it an estimated 1,000 well-paying jobs averaging $60,000 per year. New construction of a university campus would enhance the look and feel of the neighborhood in which it is situated. An estimated $500 million economic impact to the community over five years could contribute significantly to the local tax base. And we all know we need a more competitive workforce. What better way to acquire that workforce than to grow it in our back yard?
The GCU site under consideration in Tucson was (up until Tuesday, May 28) the El Rio Golf Course, an under-utilized public recreation facility responsible for more than $4 million in city of Tucson operating debt in the last five years.
Common sense dictates that exchanging a loser for a sure-fire winner is a no-brainer. But common sense and the courage to do the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens in the community are sorely lacking in City Council chambers.
Small groups of single-agenda extremists rose up and succeeded in depriving Tucson of another golden economic development opportunity. Neighborhood residents want a park. Members of the GLBT community take issue with the Baptist-based philosophies of GCU. Instead of having the courage to plow through the noise, the Tucson City Council appears to have caved in. Perfect is again the enemy of good. The citizens of Tucson will pay the price both in money, continuing community decay and lost opportunity.
Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that the El Rio site was even under consideration in the first place. According to some on the Council, negotiations are under way with other parties for the property. If those negotiations haven’t yet resulted in a signed deal, then all options should have been on the table, including GCU. If a deal has been struck with other parties, why was El Rio offered as a site?
An even bigger question is, “Why are members of the City Council, supposedly the policy making body of City of Tucson government, even involved with duties normally the purview of the city manager?”
A City Council that sticks its fingers in day-to-day operations is not a true City Council. They are a drag on city operations and an obstacle to growing our local economy.
It’s interesting to note that City Council members I frequently visit with all tell me how committed they are to economic development. Those are their words. Their deeds are very different:
• Opposition to Grand Canyon University, its 1,000 jobs and millions in economic impact for Tucson.
• Indifference or opposition to support for the 162nd Air National Guard’s acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to preserve its mission and $160 million plus in local economic impact.
• Ambivalence to a $25 million private sector gift to bring CAP water to the southern reaches of our local aquifer through Project Renews.
• Opposition to the Rosemont Copper project, its 2,000+ direct and indirect jobs and its millions in tax revenues even though the Council has no dog in the regulatory fight.
The City Council has earned an “F” on the Grand Canyon University matter.
They have proven yet again that they are not serious about doing what is necessary to welcome business opportunity, put our citizens back to work and increase our tax base through economic expansion.
Could it be that the City Council is too comfortable with the poverty that surrounds them?
This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2013.
This mess started with the annual tiresome chatter about golf in Tucson. El Rio is a nice course, apparently, for the few thousand people who actually use golf courses. There’s one way to make it the most used course in the community: Close Randolph Golf Course and let the city have a Central Park equivalent to New York City’s. Golfers have cars and there is no need to waste that enormous amount of park land for the whims of a few thousand (I figure no more than 5000 golfers in a year) who can easily go elsewhere. And notice the long advance application for ramada space. The city needs that golf course for picnics.
Predictable clap trap from the chamber of commerce.
How long’s this guy been in Tucson anyway?
There so many empty or under-utilized land sites that the religious university can use. What is wrong with the East-side of town? Why deprive the people in west Tucson of a recreational park?
Actually it is called “listening to your constituency” or “democracy”. It isn’t only “single-issue” GLBT community members that don’t want to see Tucson overrun with hundreds of little Pat Robertsons. Tucson is a friendly and diverse city, due in some small part to a progressive city council, and most of us want to keep it that way.
Sounds like someone isn’t getting their fair share of the graft/bribes.
Wow! Somehow the estimated 400 jobs that Rosemont has “projected” has turned into 2000+ direct and indirect jobs! If this is one of the facts written here, then one has to question the worthiness of the entire commentary.
Who is this writer? TW should identify it’s guest commentators by their group affiliation, if one exists. I’m sure in this case one does.
Get out of the city limits and ask people who live near the Santa Rita Mountains how they feel about the prospect of their ground water being poisoned. Their beloved mountains being destroyed, not just on the east side, but on the west, facing Green Valley as they have hinted.
Talk to the environmentalists, and just the people who care about the environment (you know, the people you despise) about having endangered species, which live only in that ecosystem, extinguished.
Talk to the people who DO have jobs already in the area, in the tourism field, who will lose them. The same people who are seeking to develop this copper mine developed one in Italy under a different company name. They left the area in shambles. Like a hit and run accident. The community hemorrhaging.
I want to thank the Tucson City Council for not bending to the will of a big money Canadian corporation and standing up for the little guys down here who are fighting the good fight to save our water, our air, our ecosystems, our roads, our property values, our economy (we depend on tourism and snowbirds) and our mountains.
The GCU/El Rio deal was wrong on so many fronts, not the least of which is the fact that the surrounding neighbors had no idea this deal was going down (and had been in the works for months) — you don’t just swoop down out of nowhere, take a neighborhood’s main greenspace, give it to a private entity, and expect all smiles and “thank you, sir, may I have another?” in return, do you? There is the SMALL possibility that if the neighborhoods had been approached when GCU started specifically asking about That Parcel, there MIGHT have been some kind of win- win- win arrangement made, but no — TPTB lied, denied, and then acted all surprised that the neighbors don’t like being lied to or having their greenspace taken away (especially THAT greenspace, El Rio Golf Course has some history).
F-35 simply has no place at an airport completely surrounded by a metropolitan area, sorry, the sandbox ain’t big enough for that toy, it is what it is. Too bad the energy spent name-calling and accusing isn’t being spent working on attracting missions to DMAFB and ANG that will provide jobs without further negatively impacting residents, missed opportunity that.
It’d be really nice if TPTB worked to find and grow common ground between and among the various stakeholder groups instead of engaging in hostility, divisiveness, and a “my way or the highway” approach to solving Tucson’s economic challenges.
Varney thinks bullying will work. He’s making a lot of enemies and there will be backlash.
Varney is President and CEO of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. His complete lack of understanding of the community he supposedly represents promises a bigger failure for Tucson from the CofC than even our bumbling Mayor and Council provide. Grade Varney F-!
@ Oneil. I guess when “diverse ” only fits your definition of the word correct?
I’m glad the City Council stands up to the Chamber of Commerce on occasion. I don’t think they do it often enough.
I know…lets put a trolley in el rio and make everyone happy…build it, they will come, even with no parking.
Michael, how do YOU spell diploma mill? I spell it GCU. Jobs – right! Part time underpaid ‘faculty’ pushing a lousy education, to bilk students into borrowing huge loans they’ll never be able to pay back. JUST what Tucson needs!
These are same idiots (Metro CofC) that want to update Tucson’s nickname! Hey I know let’s sell nick-naming rights to the highest bidder!