C’mon, Tucson: It’s time to fix the roads, replace our firetrucks and police cars and otherwise upgrade our public safety.
While the city has made headway in repairing our damaged streets, it’s obvious the job isn’t done. Our aging fleet of fire trucks and police cars are in desperate need of replacement. And our cops and firefighters need new equipment in order to keep you safe when you need them.
Here’s what the city is asking: Your approval of a half-cent-per-dollar sales tax for five years, after which the tax goes away. While your cost will vary depending on how much you shop, it’s estimated that will cost Tucsonans at extra $3 a month.
That will raise an estimated $50 million a year, or $250 million over five years, with 40 percent going to the roads, 30 percent to the Fire Department and 30 percent to the Police Department.
Here’s what you’ll get:
• Streets across the city would be repaved and rebuilt at a cost of $100 million. That includes major corridors, collector streets and even neighborhood roads. The city has already demonstrated that when it comes to road repair, it does what it says it is going to do. In 2012, voters narrowly approved $100 million in bonds to be paid back via property taxes. The gamble has paid off. The city has now repaved 183 miles of streets. Big stretches of our city’s arterials—Kolb Road, Speedway, 22nd Street, Valencia Road, Fort Lowell and many others—are now smooth rides. The work came in under budget and ahead of schedule, meaning you’re getting more than promised. How often do you get to say that about a government project?
• The Police Department and Fire Department would get new cars and the modern equipment that goes along it—new laptops, new cameras in the cars, new lifesaving equipment for ambulances. For police officer safety, there’s money for new bulletproof vests. For police officer accountability, there are new body cameras. To ensure that cops and firefighters have the resources to do their jobs, there are upgrades to aging police and fire stations.
The business community, which has never been shy about criticizing the city, is all in on Prop 101, with enthusiastic support coming from the Tucson Metro Chamber and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council. The cops and firefighters are supporting it. The Pima County Democratic Party has voted to support it.
You’ll hear various arguments against the sales tax.
Critics will say that the city just needs to cut the budget elsewhere to pay for streets and cops cars and fire trucks. Well, the city has been cutting. The number of employees has dropped from more than 6,000 in 2008 to about 4,500 this year.
Critics will say that the tax is regressive and hurts people at the bottom more than those at the top. That’s true, to some extent. But there aren’t really a lot of other options. It’s not as if the city could enact a progressive income tax. And higher property taxes are also regressive—and those are all paid by Tucson property owners, while at least some of the sales taxes are paid by tourists, county residents and those who live in the suburbs. No tax is ideal, but this one at least spreads the cost so that Tucsonans aren’t the only ones footing the bill, which wouldn’t be possible with a property tax. On top of that, groceries, medicine and rents remain untaxed in Tucson, so that’s a break on necessities for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Critics will say that the city always tries to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest in Tucson. That’s not true, either. The city has passed on the opportunity to tax housing rental payments several times in the past. It has not turned to creating a sales tax on groceries, as other jurisdictions have.
This tax would bring Tucson up to the level of other jurisdictions in the area, such as Oro Valley and Marana, as well as most other Arizona cities.
Whether you’re rich or poor, it’s vital to have an ambulance when you need one. It’s vital that cops can do their job. It’s vital that we have decent streets. These things are good for residents and they’re good for persuading new companies to move here, improving our ability to create jobs and have a decent standard of living.
Through the recent tough economic times, the current City Council has demonstrated that it can wisely manage its finances, despite losing a lot of state and federal funding. It has made tough spending cuts. It has turned around downtown redevelopment and improved the business climate. It has shown that when given money to fix roads, it handles the job competently.
In short, the city has earned our trust.
Let’s invest in ourselves and quit trying to do everything on the cheap. That’s how we ended up with lousy roads in the first place.
Vote Yes on Prop 101.
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2017.
Vote NO on tax increase. We never get what they promise. Don’t be fooled again. This City needs change of leadership.
Well, the ultimate reason we have lousy roads is a car culture that is incredibly wasteful and virtually impossible to maintain.
To show how ingrained this culture is, we have the spectacle of the local progressive paper trumpeting the “vital” need to spend 100’s of millions more on it. And what are we buying? Cars and trucks for police and fire as well as the roads themselves.
All this in order to cross increasingly long miles of sprawl which looks like everywhere else: mostly covered with asphalt for cars to drive and park.
Why is this not a Bond Election rather than a Sales Tax? As the article points out, the 2012 Bond Election Moneys were properly spent.
The problem that I have with the Sales Tax is that from the Beginning of the Year (January 1, 2017) All Sales Tax Collections are now processed through the Arizona Department of Revenue in Phoenix. And we know how much Phoenix and the State want to take the Tucson and Pima County funds to be used in other parts of the State. (Where are all of our HURF Funds?)
Even the Chamber says the City has been spending the Bond Funds properly.
This election should be a Bond Election rather than a Sales Tax Election.
The “need” for a sales tax increase is due directly to the failure of the Mayor and Council to focus more on the basics, and less on the special interest programs.
How much did the Stone Avenue and Campbell Avenue tree planter project cost, vs simply resurfacing the existing roadway? What need was there to disrupt left turn traffic on those streets?
How many police cars are approaching 200.000 miles, and why was the money not directed to vehicle replacement programs, while the City “leaders” are tossing money to keep empty oversized buses on the streets?
Do you like the way the City spends money where not necessary, while not keeping Fire trucks on the streets? Go ahead and approve this list of shenanigans. If this makes no sense to maintain the status quo, then
VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 101.
If you vote yes to give those stooges more money you’re nuts.
Why do I feel like the timing of this is to otherwise fund a wasteful City government that’s willing to lose federal funding because (and I don’t care what you call it) Tucson is a sanctuary city. That judge’s ruling is not going to stand and anyone with half a brain knows that.
Charles Smith is correct in stating that this issue should have been decided with a bond to ensure that money raised stayed in Tucson.
How many times has the Tucson Weekly stood on its soap box and warned us of the elected thieves in Phoenix who have no conscience about taking money from children and then using political shenanigans to never pay it back — and you want us to send more money to them?
I would rather write a check for $100 to the police and another $100 to the fire department than to see the city throw more money away on maintaining a roadway system that fails to improve moving around Tucson and only provides job security for the companies that half-ass chip-seal and oil-paint the loose gravel that is already there.
As a side note to n7iqv, they may have said they were beautifying Campbell with the tree project, but the reality was there were too many accidents during morning and evening rush hours by individuals using the turn lanes as rush-hour lanes. It was easier to say Were making the roadway pretty than Tucson drivers suck!
Temporary tax? Come on people how do you think they got us to a combined rate of 8.1%.
Absolutely NO on 101.
Not on the backs of working people. If you can’t pass a property tax, we don’t need a sales tax.
Our property taxes are near the lowest, our sales taxes are near the highest. Much as I hate to say it, the teabaggers are right on this one…
!NO 101!
I am thrilled to see all of these comments for a vote NO. Only a total group of incompetents can write a $1.4 billion budget & turn to our policemen & paramedics and say “no money for your overheating ambulances, no money for your bulletproof vests”. n7iqv is SPOT ON about the tree planters – utterly careless use of taxpayer money & now drivers can’t see oncoming traffic when moving in to the center turn lane. I’m hoping to soon get commentary in the Daily Star about how inept our current sales tax system is. NO TO PROP 101!
$9.4 million city surplus last year — could have purchased 15 brand new pumper trucks for the fire dept and had $$$ for overhaul of bulletproof vests — instead all city employees got a bonus — now they try to raise our taxes.
Broadway east of Camino Seco might as well be scraped clean and drill for oil. It no longer qualifies as a paved road. Shame on this local government. They have cheated the tax payers.
Hey Bub, Broadway east of Camino Seco is already planned, funded and scheduled to be repaved…
What about the rest of our roads? I am voting yes for this proposition because our current city government demonstrated effective spending during the last funding cycle for roads. Let’s keep the ball rolling. I get it that people are upset and the system is not as efficient as it should be BUT we have as many miles of roadway as the city of Chicago (same city sq miles) but we only have about 1/6th the population, at some point we have to find an alternative way of paying for the roads. Ideally this would be funded by a gas tax or registration fee increase in addition to receiving more help from the state, for example HURF funding… Back to reality, this is our best chance to keep the progress going and the city has demonstrated enough over the last 5 years to justify another 5 or 6.
That’s like telling me Houghton Road is going to be widened. They told me that in 1967, and it still isn’t done. Don’t trust, verify. These liars have a horrific track record and I am not giving them more money. Borrow it from the County!
No on 101!!!
Wow. The votes aren’t even counted and the city is meeting on declaring itself a sanctuary city. I hope this new tax goes down in flames.