The Skinny

EARLY NOTICE

Election Day hasn’t yet arrived, but nearly 24,000 Tucsonans had
already cast their ballots as of Monday, Oct. 26.

Early ballots promise to be a huge factor in this year’s city
election. In previous city elections, voters had to ask for a mail-in
ballot; in this election, more than 62,000 early ballots went out
automatically to city voters on Pima County’s permanent early-voter
list when early voting started on Oct. 8.

By early this week, more than 68,000 of the roughly 224,000
registered voters in Tucson had received an early ballot in the
mail—a pretty big number, when you consider that only 67,754
ballots were cast, total, in the 2007 city election.

It remains to be seen how many of those early ballots will come
back, but given the typical lack of interest in city elections, we’re
guessing that the physical turnout at the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 3,
will be the lowest in history, as a percentage of the electorate.

The numbers, as of early this week, were looking good for the
Democrats. A total of 32,313 early ballots went to Dems, and 12,249 had
been cast, for a return rate of roughly 38 percent.

That’s the same rate Republicans had seen, but the numbers were
lower: 21,683 ballots went to GOP voters, and 8,249 of those had been
cast.

Independents were either having a harder time making up their minds,
or they weren’t interested in voting: Roughly 13,500 ballots had been
sent to independents, and about 4,100 had been cast, for a return rate
of roughly 30 percent.

DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS

It was another rough week for supporters of the Public Safety First
Initiative, aka Proposition 200, which would require the city of Tucson
to hire at least 333 cops and 70 firefighters over the next five
years.

First, in a long-rumored power play, Tucson Electric Power formally
announced opposition to Prop 200.

TEP has now joined with the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce,
the Metropolitan Pima Alliance, the Arizona Multihousing Association
and Cox Cable as business organizations opposed to the Public Safety
First Initiative.

“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 the
estimated $63 million a year that the initiative will cost once it’s
fully implemented in five years, or the $150 million that it would cost
to get up to the new staffing levels between now and then.

“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.

TEP’s announcement was followed by a critical examination of the
initiative by Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute, who said
that Prop 200 didn’t include any mechanism to ensure the new cops would
actually do enough to lower the crime rate.

“Proposition 200 would mandate hiring scores of new government
employees without requiring spending be reduced elsewhere or imposing
any incentive for good performance or consequence for bad performance,”
Dranias wrote in an op-ed. “This won’t put public safety first; it will
just bloat city government.”

Prop 200 supporters pointed out that the Goldwater Institute hadn’t
actually said Tucsonans should vote against the initiative—and,
indeed, the nonprofit think tank does not take positions on ballot
initiatives.

So other than sending out the op-ed through their press office,
encouraging the media to interview Dranias about his skepticism
regarding Prop 200, e-mailing the editorial to everyone on their
subscriber list and posting it on their Web site, the Goldwater
Institute had no interest in influencing people one way or the
other.

That said, we thought we should mention one other point that Dranias
made in his op-ed: “Somewhere, somehow, Tucson taxpayers will have to
pay the bill, and you can bet that will eventually come in the form of
higher taxes.”

Supporters still insist that the city will be receiving enough money
from the state—you know, the same government that just announced
that this year’s budget shortfall had grown to $2 billion—to
cover the costs. They also say that an economic rebound is just around
the corner.

That’s not a view shared by Kevin McCarthy of the Arizona Tax
Research Association, who noted in an Arizona Daily Star op-ed
that similar unfunded mandates have left the state with a massive
budget crisis.

“With the economic crisis facing Arizona serving as a painful
reminder, Tucson taxpayers can be assured that, if approved,
Proposition 200 will certainly force a tax increase at some future
date,” wrote McCarthy, who added that adopting spending programs via
initiative tends to result in fiscal disasters.

“Sidestepping the city’s budgeting process allows the proponents of
Proposition 200 to have an isolated budget debate regarding police and
fire protection without the unpleasantness of a tax increase to fund
it,” McCarthy wrote. “Make no mistake; in the end, this process always
poorly serves taxpayers who are left questioning why citizens were not
properly informed that these services are not free.”

NEVER MIND

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had to do some major
backtracking last week after a letter with his name on it went out with
the message that the federal government could do nothing to stop the
Augusta Resource Corporation from using federal land as part of the
proposed Rosemont Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains.

Vilsack sent out a subsequent letter apologizing for the first one,
assuring Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that “no decisions
have been made” regarding whether the feds will allow U.S. Forest
Service land to be turned into a dump for the mine.

The letter may have a consequence: It could put pressure on the
Forest Service to deny Rosemont the permits that it is seeking, just to
show that the decision process now underway was not a sham.

Augusta could go to court to overturn any decision—but that
just means more time for Giffords and Congressman Raúl
Grijalva to find support for a bill that would remove the Santa
Ritas from mining operations.

THOSE SAGUARO RANCH NEIGHBORS REMAIN AS PESKY AS EVER

The town of Marana is having a hard time getting rid of some pesky
neighbors who aren’t happy with Saguaro Ranch developer Stephen
Phinny and the town’s bend-over-backward approach in helping to
make way for the 1,035-plus-acre gated development.

In May, Phinny’s most critical neighbors—Tracy
Chamberlain, Sharyl Cummings and Steve
Blomquist—were arrested for trespassing after walking down a
portion of what they consider a legal public easement (despite the
Marana Town Council decision on May 21 to abandon the road in an effort
to get those neighbors to go away).

On Oct. 15, Oro Valley Municipal Court Judge George Dunscomb dismissed all criminal-trespass charges and admonished Marana’s actions
as an improper use of the criminal process.

Find early and late-breaking Skinny at The Range, our daily
dispatch.

This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.