In a long-rumored power play, Tucson Electric Power has formally announced that it is opposing the Public Safety First Initiative that city voters will decide on Nov. 3.
“We have all the support in the world for local first responders,” says TEP spokesman Joe Salkowski. “But this proposition amounts to an unfunded mandate that would draw resources from other areas where the city desperately needs to invest.”
Salkowski says Prop 200 doesn’t include any way of paying for the estimated $63 million a year that the initiative will cost once it’s fully implemented in five years.
“That doesn’t seem like a smart way to manage a city budget, particularly at a time when economic stresses are so high,” Salkowski says.
Our reasons to oppose Prop 200 here.
More on crime rates city politics and the cost of Prop 200 here.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2009.
If the City of Tucson would not have ventured into the alleged “Rio Nuevo”, which to me, is a joke… There would have been enough funding for additional QUALIFIED police officers, as well as additional firemen and paramedics, etc.
I am a native Tucsonan (I was born here; I didn’t migrate from the East or Mid-West); unfortunately Tucson is 20 to 40 years behind the times. This is tragic, because there is so much potential in Tucson! Recognition of and implementing this potential is very much lacking. Rather, for the past numerous years I have heard of only Rio Nuevo. Therefore, I am wondering: just who is ‘padding’ the wallets of whom?
I have heard several candidates say just how much they love Tucson. If this were so, Tucson would have been one of the most progressive cities in the US. Which, it is not…