CLOUDS OVER SOLAR CULTURE?
More than two decades ago, artist Steven Eye first opened the
doors to an abandoned downtown produce warehouse on Toole Avenue that
he had rented for the princely sum of $300 a month from the Arizona
Department of Transportation.
That warehouse, which had been acquired by the state and was slated
for destruction to make way for a Barraza-Aviation Parkway extension
that was never built, has blossomed into Solar Culture, which is part
art gallery, part performance space and part artistic hub of the
downtown Warehouse District.
But there are dark clouds gathering over Solar Culture’s building,
which is set to go up for auction next week as the cash-strapped state
seeks to unload surplus properties in an effort to find revenue.
The auction process was put into motion by developer Steve
Fenton, who put down $9,500 for the chance to bid on Solar Culture.
That’s 10 percent of the appraised value of $95,000.
Unfortunately, when the Tucson City Council had to decide which
warehouse spaces to transfer from the state into city hands, Solar
Culture did not make the list, which did include the Steinfeld
Warehouse, the Toole Shed and the warehouse that’s now home to
Skrappy’s.
Eye has poured his heart and soul into the building. He estimates
that he’s also spent something in the neighborhood of $50,000, plus
countless hours of sweat equity, into making it the funky space it is
today.
Over the last two decades, Solar Culture has hosted hundreds of
bands from around the world and has showed thousands of works created
by local artists.
But Eye has never made much money from his artistic endeavors and
certainly does not have the deep pockets necessary to compete in an
auction against Fenton.
The Warehouse Arts Management Organization—WAMO—is
trying to help out Eye. Earlier this week, the board was able to
convince the city’s Industrial Development Authority to put up an
undisclosed sum of money so that WAMO could also bid on the property
next Tuesday, Nov. 10. That money would be paid back over time in form
of monthly payments from Eye.
Marvin Shaver, president of the WAMO board, says that Solar Culture
must remain an arts space.
“It’s a vital and ongoing community-based arts venue,” Shaver says.
“We’re after the creation of an arts district, and we already have a
centerpiece in Steve Eye and Solar Culture.”
Fenton did not return a phone call from the Tucson Weekly,
but he has reportedly told Eye that he would like him to keep running
his gallery in the Solar Culture space—as long as he can make the
rent.
That’s all well and good, but it’s easy to suspect that Fenton’s
long-term plan for the space does not include a funky art gallery and
performance space, especially since the building will probably need
considerable improvements once it moves into private hands.
We would hope that Fenton would recognize, when he’s calculating how
much he wants to bid on the property, exactly how much bad press he’d
absorb should he decide to kick Eye out of the Solar Culture space.
One merely has to look at the community hostility that downtown
developers Scott Stiteler and Don Martin are receiving
over the Rialto Theatre fiasco earlier this year, and the recently
unveiled plans to kick out some merchants on Congress Street to make
way for a new restaurant. That latest twist has generated a growing
Facebook page dedicated to abusing Stiteler.
There are surely safer and easier investments in property these
days, particularly when you consider the glacial pace of Rio Nuevo
revitalization and the curse that many would-be downtown developers
appear to labor under.
However the auction goes next week, Solar Culture should remain a
community-arts resource, and Steven Eye should keep running the
show.
FREEDOM’S JUST ANOTHER WORD …
Sen. John McCain recently introduced the “Internet Freedom
Act,” which has little do with freedom, except when it comes to the
freedom of Internet providers like Cox and Quest to decide what sort of
sites you can visit.
That’s at the heart of “net neutrality”—the concept that
providers should be obligated to allow customers equal access to all
Web sites, rather than, say, giving fast load-ups of Fox News and the
Drudge Report while jamming connections to Talking Points Memo and the
Huffington Post.
The Federal Communications Commission recently voted to set up rules
regarding net neutrality, which brought a swift response from McCain,
who has enjoyed oodles of contributions from the telecom companies over
the years.
McCain’s legislation would prohibit the FCC from establishing rules
regarding net neutrality, which would be a very bad thing for the
Internet as we know and love it today.
McCain says his legislation would “keep the Internet free from
government control and regulation.” But that, in turn, would leave the
telecom corporations free to regulate and control it as they see
fit—and that seems like leaving the foxes in control of the
virtual henhouse.
ARIZONA: STILL BROKE
The state’s finances remain in a freefall, according to the latest
report from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
A JBLC bulletin tells us that in September, sales-tax collections
were down nearly 16 percent compared to September 2008, and income-tax
collections were down nearly 25 percent from September 2008. It’s the
14th straight month of double-digit declines compared to the previous
year.
Even worse: During the first three months of the fiscal year, the
state has spent $2.8 billion, and has taken in $1.8 billion. Some of
that has been papered over with federal stimulus dollars, but the
projected shortfall in the current budget year is up to $2 billion. And
next year’s shortfall is anticipated to be even higher.
Once you make a few adjustments, the state’s collections are now
$233 million below the conservative projections upon which the budget
was based.
Those are enough numbers to make your head spin, but here’s the
bottom line: We’re so screwed.
We hear that lawmakers may be close to a deal for a special session
to deal with at least some of this red ink, perhaps sometime around the
middle of this month. But the scope of that get-together remains
subject to negotiation.
We also hear that Tim Bee, the former state Senate president
who is now running Gov. Jan Brewer‘s Southern Arizona office,
may be taking more of a role in budget talks. That could be good news,
given that Bee is a master of understanding the budget, even if he
never had to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.
Speaking of Brewer: We hear she’s taking more steps that make it
appear as though she’ll be running for governor next year. So far,
we’ve seen Tucson attorney John Munger and Paradise Valley Mayor
Vernon Parker setting up campaigns to challenge her; we also
keep hearing Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin mentioned as a
potential GOP challenger.
Find early and late-breaking Skinny at The Range, our daily
dispatch.
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2009.
