The Ward 3 City Council debate between Councilwoman Karin Uhlich, Republican Ben Buehler-Garcia and Green Party candidate Mary DeCamp from Arizona Illustrated, after the jump. Who knew that trying to get a simple answer about park and rec fees could be so darn difficult?
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.
I know they spent hours with coaches grilling them to remember the snappy Parks-and- Rec’s-cost-recovery-issue answers. Boy, did they have it down. I guess they just broke under the pressure.
Proposition 200 has no money and is unnecessary.
Every crime scene in Tucson seems to have an abundance of cops stumbling over each other. Just outside my place today are two officers for a cosmetic fender-bender. Most of the devices designed to squeeze revenue out of it’s citizens are running full tilt. Parking two feet outside a designated parking area for 6 hours will guarantee a $300.00 ticket. A thorough study by the Federal Department of Transportation concluded that excessive speeds account for 5% of traffic fatalities. Despite this relatively small contribution to traffic fatalities, traffic schools are bursting at the seems with citizens chucking revenue for excessive speeds in areas containing ridiculous speed limits. People are being pulled over for making left-hand turns and simultaneously changing lanes with no traffic in sight. Many sleepless nights are caused by choppers flying overhead in the university areas to bust keg parties. Advertised teen hip-hop parties have been known to draw as many as 25 cop cars to one scene – with no laws broken. Police failing to make their case for pulling someone over will find things like cracked windshields and, if you can’t afford to repair them, the city yanks your license. Bicycle cops, with nothing better to do, drift past houses with stereo’s playing to bust people for possession of marijuana. For those not living inside of the gated communities or “the Foothills”, cops are everywhere and, except for the rare occasions when they are actually needed, create more hazardous, stressful conditions for those who live in the city. Do “Prop 200” advocates think they can fund their proposal by squeezing more revenue out of the already gutted, less affluent population?
By your silly rationale, Jim, why not just say that magic beans will pay for the trolly car, too? The city council have gone out of their way to put Tucson tax payers in debt to the tune of over $125 million. They’ve proceeded with ordering the cars, the tracks, and moved major utilities, all without any funding whatsoever. And for what? A 4 mile stretch that most Tucsonans avoid like the plague! Please don’t try to use the excuse that Rio Nuevo will revitalize the area… that’s been an empty promise for over a decade. J.T. Waldron, if there is such an abundance of cops, why is Erik Hite laying in a grave instead of being on patrol? He was killed well outside his patrol area. $80 million for Prop 200 over a five year period is not unreasonable or unrealistic. I’d rather my tax dollars go for my protection than be wasted on a trolly car that will never pay for itself. Jim and J.T., the both of you have either forgotten or simply don’t know that the mandate of government, whether local, state, or federal, is the protection of it’s citizens through police, fire, and infrastructure.
Dr. Law,
I think you’re somewhat misinformed.
To say that there is no funding whatsoever for the urban streetcar is factually incorrect. There is somewhere around $70 million coming from the RTA that was approved by voters. The process for getting federal funding is underway and support appears high.
I’m not sure why you would characterize the university area as one that most Tucsonans avoid like the plague. Extending a connected between downtown and the university actually makes a great deal of sense, because the area would then support more housing for students, faculty and university employees. Already, Jim Campbell is developing student housing near the Fourth Avenue underpass. In addition, you have to start somewhere with a rail line; once it’s in place, then you can explore extending down Campbell Avenue or Oracle Road, where you have additional densities and commercial activity.
I was downtown for Tucson Weekly’s Club Crawl and there were 10K-plus people downtown on one night having a great time. Tucson Meet Yourself, last week, drew thousands of people. If you don’t enjoy downtown, that’s your choice, but many Tucsonans do visit downtown and to dismiss it as a ghost town is again inaccurate.
Your numbers of Prop 200 are inaccurate as well, at least according to the city’s independent audit commission, which estimates it will cost about twice as much as you state over five years. So what you’re saying is “unrealistic” and if you have to completely distort the numbers to make your point, it’s not a very strong argument. You can’t use RTA dollars or federal transportation to pay for police officers, so even if the urban streetcar project was canceled tomorrow, it still wouldn’t provide more money for public safety.
You will have to either raise taxes or cut something from the general fund to pay for Prop 200. Perhaps you could suggest to the GOP candidates running for office what could be cut from the general fund. They seem to be having a difficult time finding anything significant to cut.
Eric Hite made the ultimate sacrifice to this community and deserves our respect and gratitude. Sadly, he was killed by a total nutjob and I don’t believe that more police officers would have dissuaded someone that irrational from committing those heinous acts that day. Making it more difficult for nutjobs to obtain high-powered weapons is, unfortunately, almost impossible in today’s America and won’t be addressed by Prop 200.