2009 Tucson Weekly Endorsements

FIVE REASONS TO VOTE AGAINST PROPOSITION 200, THE PUBLIC SAFETY FIRST INITIATIVE

The Tucson Association of Realtors wants to sell you a real
fixer-upper.

From the curb, the Public Safety First Initiative sure looks good.
Who can be against hiring more cops and firefighters?

But once you make a closer inspection, you realize the foundation
isn’t quite as firm as it looks. You might not have to put much money
down now, but you won’t be able to afford the payments that will come
due in a few years.

Here are five reasons to reject Prop 200.

1. Public safety is already first.

The city of Tucson already dedicates nearly two-thirds of its
general fund to public safety, if you count the money spent on the fire
and police departments, the courts, the jail and the auxiliary support
that public safety requires.

The rest of the city’s spending—on streets, parks, economic
development, arts, you name it—comes out of the remaining 36
percent of the budget.

Police and fire have not been neglected. Over the last decade, the
percentage of police officers and firefighters has risen from 31
percent of the city’s total workforce to 40 percent. Since 2006, the
city has provided enough funding to add 80 new police-officer positions
and 75 new firefighters. When a budget crunch hit this year, the cops
and firefighters were spared the five-day furloughs that other city
employees had to take.

In short: The current council members have demonstrated that they
put public safety first. The city can’t spend every dime on
fighting crime and putting out fires.

2. We can’t afford it.

City staff has estimated that Prop 200, once it’s fully implemented
in five years, will cost anywhere from $51 million to $67 million every
year. Even if those numbers are exaggerated, it’s obvious that the
Public Safety First Initiative will cost something—and that means
it will come at the expense of something else, whether that’s fixing
potholes in the road or replacing broken-down swing sets at parks.

While supporters say that a recovering economy will provide all of
the funding the city will need for the initiative, no one in city
government believes those rosy projections, especially given that the
city is already facing a deficit of at least $46 million next year.
Even once the economy recovers, there will be programs that are
currently suspended—such as the long-delayed repaving of our
neighborhood streets—that will be impossible to fund if Prop 200
passes.

And that’s not even getting into the costs that will rise for Pima
County, which actually prosecutes most of the crime committed in the
city of Tucson. Taxpayers will have to pay for more jail space, more
prosecutors, more judges, more public defenders and more court staff.
That translates into higher property taxes for all of us.

3. Crime rates are going down.

As we’ve reported in recent weeks, the rate of Tucson crime in most
categories is going down, and has been for some time. Violent crime,
burglaries, criminal damage—it’s all on the decline already.
Preventing crime isn’t just about hiring more cops; it’s about making
sure you have decent prevention programs that keep people on the right
side of the law so we don’t end up with victims of crime in the first
place.

4. Prop 200 subsidizes growth.

Prop 200 also requires that firefighters respond to calls within
four minutes. Fire Chief Patrick Kelly tells us the Tucson Fire
Department already responds within four minutes to most calls in
Tucson. The delays come on the outskirts, on the far southeast side and
the northwest side.

To respond to those calls more quickly, the city is going to have to
build new fire stations on the perimeter of the city. Sure, those
stations will need to get built someday, but it doesn’t make much sense
to us to build them in sparse areas within the next five years. We’re
sure it makes sense to the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association,
however, because they’re always happy when they can get the suckers in
the central city to subsidize irresponsible development on the fringe
of the city. (Now we understand why SAHBA was willing to kick in
$30,000 for the campaign.) There are more urgent needs for most city
residents than fire stations on the edge of town.

5. Unfunded mandates are a bad idea.

If all of the above is not enough to convince you, keep in mind that
unfunded mandates of this nature have helped create a
multi-billion-dollar hole in the state budget. Is that really a route
we want to go down? We believe it would be better if we learned from
mistakes that were made elsewhere instead of repeating them.

The fact that Prop 200 is an unfunded mandate is why business groups
ranging from the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce to the Arizona
Multihousing Association oppose Prop 200—and that’s why you
should, too. They understand all too well that when it comes time to
pay for this, taxes on businesses and renters will be on the rise.

We don’t oppose hiring more cops and firefighters. They work hard
and deserve our support. But we do object to enshrining staffing levels
in the city charter, killing any hope of funding future street repairs
or park improvements, and pushing Tucson a step closer to
bankruptcy.

Vote no on Proposition 200.

CITY COUNCIL ENDORSEMENTS: HOT DOG, FIMBRES, POLECAT

Ward 3: Sonoran Hot Dog

Voters will choose between Democrat Karin Uhlich, Republican Ben
Buehler-Garcia and Green Party candidate Mary DeCamp.

Uhlich, who is completing her first term, is big on transparency and
process, but we fear that too often, those terms have been used to
cover an unwillingness to make a decision.

While we agree with Uhlich on some issues, her waffling on budget
issues has cost the city. She led an effort to delay a 25-cent increase
in bus fares last year, only to agree to an increase this year. Over
that 12 months, the city lost out on a million dollars.

Uhlich also voted to cut the costs of the Parks and Recreation
Department’s leisure classes when she was first elected. Now she thinks
those fees need to be increased, but won’t support doing it until next
year. That’s the kind of delay the city can scarcely afford.

Uhlich’s opponent, Ben Buehler-Garcia, is a decent enough fellow who
has been active in economic-development issues. But we can’t endorse
someone who is supporting something as dreadful as the Public Safety
First Initiative, which will screw up the city’s budget for years to
come.

We feel that Green candidate Mary DeCamp’s ideas—such as
creating a new currency for Tucson residents—are just too far
ahead of their time for her to earn a spot on the City Council. She can
do more to push those innovations in the private sector.

And so we endorse the Sonoran hot dog found at El Guero Canelo, 2480
N. Oracle Road. This feast combines the four food
groups—vegetables, grains, dairy and bacon—and reflects the
melting pot of cultures that is Tucson. This dog never disappoints,
even if it’s not very good for us.

Ward 5: Democrat Richard Fimbres

Richard Fimbres is new to the world of city politics, but he learned
the ropes of managing public budgets while on the Pima Community
College governing board. He’s got a solid background in law enforcement
and budget review that will serve Tucsonans well if he wins his council
race. Fimbres, who hopes to replace the retiring Democrat Steve Leal,
has spent more than two decades managing programs with the Pima County
Jail; he’s worked in law enforcement in the military; he’s headed up
the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety; and he’s even been the Tucson
Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s Man of the Year. It’s an impressive
résumé, and it’s enough for us to encourage you to vote
for him.

His Republican opponent, Shaun McClusky, is a political rookie who
supports the Public Safety First Initiative and shows little grasp of
the city budget, which disqualifies him from our endorsement.

Ward 6: Jasper the Marbled Polecat

Councilwoman Nina Trasoff has disappointed us too often for us to
support her. Like Uhlich, Trasoff voted to delay an increase in bus
fares and supported an irresponsible decrease in park fees that she now
regrets, even though she’s not doing anything to increase
them—thereby solidifying the city’s economic base—until
next year. And to say that she mishandled the fiasco with the Rialto
Theatre over the summer is a considerable understatement.

Republican Steve Kozachik has done admirable work developing new
athletic facilities at the University of Arizona, but like
Buehler-Garcia and McClusky, he’s supporting the Public Safety First
Initiative, which makes him far too irresponsible for us to support.
Kozachik tells us he can identify all sorts of waste in the city
budget, but he doesn’t want to share that info with us. Well, we’re not
buying that he has a secret plan to balance the budget.

Unable to support either candidate, the Weekly instead
endorses Jasper the marbled polecat, who arrived this summer at the
Reid Park Zoo. Although a new resident of Ward 6, Jasper seems so
adorable that we can’t believe he’d make a bad decision at City
Hall.

CITY OF TUCSON: YES ON PROP 400

This proposition is the result of one of those obscure legal
wrinkles: The city of Tucson is required to get voter permission to
spend all of the money that it will have available to it. It doesn’t
mean that the city is raising taxes; it just means that the city’s
current income stream is high enough to exceed an arbitrary formula
determined by the state, so for the city to spend the money it is now
collecting, voters have to approve this prop. If they say no, the city
would just hang on to the money until it gets a chance to spend it. We
might as well spend it now. Vote yes.

TUCSON UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT: YES ON 401 AND 402

These two overrides will give the Tucson Unified School District
enough money to replace aging computers, ensure that classrooms have
enough bandwidth to use the Internet, and give individual schools extra
money to use as the local site councils see fit, whether it goes to
smaller classes, librarians or teaching the arts.

Technology is the future for students, and TUSD’s equipment and
infrastructure is woefully out of date. The cost to the owner of a
$100,000 home will be about $70 a year. Considering the state budget
cuts that are coming in the near future, this is money that TUSD will
desperately need. Vote yes.

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.