Prop 401: The most polite forum... ever

The Feldman Neighborhood, which has a reputation for fiery politics, hosted the most polite community forum ever last night. Was it the gentle ambiance of the historic but hard-to-find St. Luke's Chapel, built by Josias Joesler. Or the lack of suits?

About a dozen citizens gathered in the chapel to discuss the pros and cons of Prop 401, the proposed changes to the Tucson City Charter. Local lawyer, environmentalist, and Tucson Charter Change Coalition (TC3) executive committee member, Mitch Coker spoke in favor of Prop 401. Political gadfly and former blogger, Luke Knipe represented Protect Local Control, the No on 401 committee.

The free-form, unstructured forum was dotted with controversy and consensus. There was major discussion of what the charter changes would fix, deceptive advertising by Prop 401 supporters, government accountability, the impact of shifting the election cycle, the pros and cons a stronger city manager, and the pay raises for politicians.

When asked what city government problems the charter changes would fix, neither Coker nor Shirley Kiser (one of the architects of Prop 401, along with her husband Jim Kiser) could answer the question. They waffled around what the charter changes would do but couldn't name any problems they would fix. I asked a follow-up question but still no specifics.

My point to them was that the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC) has raised almost $50,000, talked with hundreds of people, and spent thousands of dollars on yard signs and a giant "Fix city government" billboard at the gateway to downtown. And they can't tell us what they want to "fix"?

Finally, since they couldn't come up with an answer, I said that I believe SALC is trying to "fix" the City Council. The proposed charter changes would dramatically weaken the City Council's power and influence over decision-making. Here's how: 1) electing the entire city government in one election (instead of stagger elections, as they are now) would allow moneyed forces (like SALC) to a sweep the entire Mayor and Council out in the same year; 2) the charter changes would take the City Council out of many hiring and firing decisions and give all authority to the unelected city manager; and 3) giving more power to the Mayor weakens the City Council.

Taking power away from the elected City Council reduces government accountability. Repeatedly Coker and Kiser gave examples of strong city manager cities that are "well run". The examples they gave were cities that had had the same unelected city manager for 10-20 years. It dawned on my later that the corporatists want an iron-clad impervious leader for the city; they want the City of Tucson to be run by a despot-- a CEO!

Unfortunately for them, we live in a democracy, and democracy is messy.

SALC: Show us the money

Due to their latest proposal to alter the Tucson City Charter, I have written several articles about the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC) recently (1, 2, 3, 4).

Consequently, I have become a student of SALC's website and related media coverage of SALC.

From a public relations standpoint, SALC's website is gorgeous-- very professional with well-executed corporate photography, a warm-and-fuzzy mission statement, and links to their initiatives. Unfortunately, it is sorely out date and lacks real content, current news, and details regarding where their money comes from and how it is spent.

For a group that has sooooooo much corporate money behind it, one item that is strangely absent from their website is their balance sheet. The only mention of funding is on the FAQ page...

Where does SALC get its money?
SALC is funded solely through membership dues. Additional contributions from members and others help to finance projects undertaken by the group.

The 2008 "annual report" is the most recent one on their website, and it is just a PR piece-- not really an annual report, which would include an audited financial statement. There are no dollar signs in that document. And, besides, where is the 2009 annual report? 2010 is half over!

Um, guys, how do you spell "efficiency and transparency"? SALC has been using the let's-bring-efficiency-to-government-because-business-knows-best mantra to support their push for changes to the TucsonCity Charter. Ironically, until just a few days ago, their website listed 2008 accomplishments under their "Recent Successes" tab, which has now been fixed. The most recent news item on their website is dated November 12, 2009.

I don't often quote Jesus, but "let he who is without sin [read inefficiency] cast the first stone."

I, for one, would like to see how much money SALC brings in, where it comes from, and how their funds are distributed across their different initiatives. For such a high-profile group, their website should provide more real information about their initiatives.

For example, their Tucson Values Teachers initiative sounds highly worthwhile on the surface. One of their goals is "to attract, retain and support the very best teachers for Tucson’s children." I am all for that. I followed the link (with the help of Google, since the link on SALC's page was broken) to the Tucson Values Teachers (TVT) website.

Under the "Business" tab, TVT gives suggestions on how business can get involved in improving education. Cool. Below is the list. (I added the numbers; otherwise the text is verbatim from TVT.)

HERE ARE OTHER SUGGESTIONS - FOR BUSINESSES AND THE COMMUNITY - ON HOW TO GET STEP UP, AND JOIN TEAM TVT:

1. The next time you're at the grocery store, buy an extra notebook, a pack of pencils or a box of crayons for a classroom.

2. Instead of another mug, give a teacher a gift card to an office supply store.

3. Help out on a class field trip.

4. Help elect legislative leaders that support a robust educational system.

5. Join the fight to secure higher pay for K-12 teachers.

6. Read to a child after school.

7. Donate to TVT at TucsonValuesTeachers.org.

8. Give a teacher a summer job.

9. Offer underpaid teachers a discount on services or products at your business.

10. Invite a TVT representative to speak at your association's next meeting.

11. Stay in the loop - sign up for our e-mail list at TucsonValuesTeachers.org

12. Volunteer to be part of the TVT Speaker's Bureau and spread the word on how we can better value our K-12 teachers.

13. Tell a teacher how much you appreciate what they do.

Don't get me wrong, these are all great suggestions, but let's consider the source. SALC membership includes some of the richest people in Southern Arizona, and their suggestions on how businesses can help schools include ideas like buying an extra notebook, a pack of pencils or a box of crayons for a classroom or giving a gift card to a teacher. Give me a break. These guys have the money to build a frickin' school, and they are suggesting that businesses buy a notebook?! Most of these suggestions are the ones that desperate school teachers give to parents and grandparents-- not to corporate giants. (Come on, open up those coin purses.)

Considering that their membership includes starve-the-beast Republicans like Bruce Ash, Jim Click, and John Munger, I was shocked to see #4 Help elect legislative leaders that support a robust educational system and #5 Join the fight to secure higher pay for K-12 teachers on their list of suggestions on how business can improve education.

Where was SALC when the Republican governor and legislature decimated K-12 and university budgets and forced the lay-off of hundreds of teachers? Where were they when adult education was eliminated? Oddly silent, I believe. SALC says they want to improve our region's economic climate. Arizona will continue to slide into the abyss as long as we underfund and undervalue education.

On the TVT page, I also was surprised to see this group of weathly corporatists (who keep their organization's financing and expenditures secret) ask for donations (#7).

Donations for what?

Where does the money go?

October 2010 Update: If you want to see one way the big business members of SALC spend their money, check out the SALC-backed Prop 401 campaign finance reports.

Is the Tucson City Council about to be 'swift-boated'?

Will the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC) be successful in changing our city, our City Council, and life as we know it in the bluest part of Arizona? It could happen...

Absurd, you say? How could this small group of right-wing corporatists accomplish such a feat? By proposing City Charter changes that will weaken elected government in Tucson and further distance it from the voters.

SALC is a special interest group comprised of regional-to-multi-national corporatists who operate in Southern Arizona (eg, Tucson Electric Power, Diamond Enterprises, Jim Click, Raytheon, you get the picture). They are trying to control and restructure local government by changing the City Charter. In 2009, this same tactic was used by proponents of the failed Prop 200 initiative, which was resoundingly defeated by voters, despite overwhelming financial support by donors, including at least one SALC member.

Currently, SALC is lobbying the Tucson City Council to put a package of four changes to the City Charter on the November 2010 ballot. Their rationale is that these charter changes will bring "efficiency" to city government. (In reality, the changes will make it easier for special interest groups like SALC to influence governmental decision-making. Under the proposed new system the only person they would have to schmooze is the City Manager because the City Council members and the neighborhoods they represent would become weaker.)

What is most dangerous about these proposed changes is not the esoteric strong City Manager or strong Mayor debate, but the WIIFMs SALC has added to the package to entice the City Council's support.

City Council members are paid a measly $24,000 per year for what is supposed to be a part-time job. Included in the SALC package is a proposal to make the Mayor and Council positions full-time and to increase their renumeration significantly and bring it in line with that of the Pima County Supervisors. Two cost-neutral proposals have been floated to pay for this very attractive WIIFM: 1) each City Council member should eliminate a staff person to pay for the raise or 2) the city should eliminate off-year elections for part of the City Council. (In other words, voters would elect the entire council in the same election year.)

Let me say that I totally agree the Mayor and Council positions should be full-time, and the poor souls who volunteer to do these high-stress, thankless jobs should be paid better. BUT this is the wrong way to go about this pay increase and, more importantly, the wrong time for the City Council to be enabling a raises for themselves.

In the past year, severe budget shortfalls have forced the City Council to dramatically reduce funding for most city programs, people have been laid-off, and many workers have been forced to take unpaid furlough days.

I can hear the 2012 commercials now... [voice over] When the City of Tucson was in the depths of historic budget deficits and city workers were being laid-off, what did the Democratically-controlled City Council do? They increased their positions to full-time and gave themselves a raise! (You're right. This fantasy commercial text is not exactly true, but two years from now only the true political wonks will remember how this all came down.)

Here comes the really scary part. Since the current charter change proposal includes the provision for eliminating off-year elections, the entire City Council will be up for re-election in 2012. The five neighborhood-friendly, arts-friendly, progressive Democrats on the City Council could be swift-boated right out of office by the Republican propaganda machine.

This past Tuesday, the Tucson Mayor and Council voted to postpone the vote on whether or not the SALC-initiated charter changes should be on the November ballot to the last possible day for a decision-- July 7.

In the meantime, there will be Ward-wide public hearings on this proposal. I urge you strongly to attend the meeting in your Ward and/or to call or e-mail your City Council member and tell them to deep-six SALC's charter changes.

In the future, if SALC wants changes to the City Charter (and they probably will), they should collect signatures like everyone else-- instead of asking the City Council to do the heavy lifting (and take the heat later).

City to hold public hearings on charter changes

Tucson's City Council Chambers were filled with businessmen in suits and activists in blue jeans, as business leaders and neighborhood leaders squared off on the topic of changes to Tucson's charter.

For more than a year, corporatists represented by the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC) have been promoting changes to Tucson's Charter as a strategy to manipulate local government and circumvent elected officials. (This is the same group that got the failed Prop 200 charter change initiative on the ballot in the fall of 2009.)

This year, SALC is pushing the Tucson City Council to place a set of four proposed charter changes on the ballot. These changes would:

• Give the city manager greater hire-and-fire authority over some top city department heads and remove the City Council checks-and-balances authority.

• Increase the number of wards by two.

• Give the Mayor (who currently is just a figure head) more voting power.

• Change the Mayor and Council positions from part-time to full-time and increase their pay to put it in line with that of the Pima County Supervisors.

Businessmen representing SALC claim that these changes will make the city more efficient because it will strengthen the City Manager's position (and weaken the City Council, although they are not specifically saying that.)

Changing Tucson's of government to a strong City Manager system will further distance local government from the voters. In addition, consolidating power under the unelected City Manager could lead to cronyism.

This has grass roots activists and neighborhood associations up in arms. Former City Council member Steve Leal, several neighborhood association presidents, and other Tucson residents spoke against the charter changes. Former state legislator Tom Prezelski said that SALC members thought of themselves as "colonial overlords," since this relatively small special interest group is trying to bend policy in their favor, while usurping power of the voters and their elected officials.

Some charter-change opponents went further to call for a strong mayor system. A strong mayor system would give voters the power to hold elected officials accountable. With our current form of distributed governance, the City Manager, the City Council, and, to a lesser extent, the Mayor all hold some power. At the local level, there is no one elected official who is singularly accountable to the voters-- no one who has the authority to say, as former President Harry Truman did, "The buck stops here."

After dozens of mini-speeches during yesterday's study session and during the City Council meeting, the Mayor and Council voted unanimously to hold ward-wide public meetings on the charter changes and to delay the vote on whether or not to put the changes on the ballot until July 7, 2010.

Stay tuned for meeting announcements. As always, if you have an opinion on this, don't hesitate to call or e-mail your City Council member. If you want to watch Mayor and Council proceedings, check out Tucson Channel 12.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column.

Should the most powerful person in Tucson government be an unelected bureaucrat?

While most Tucsonans are busily bracing themselves for another summer or making plans to escape the heat, local corporatists are making plans to change local government-- in a big way.

The Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC) has been working on a set of Tucson city charter changes that would make the City Manager's position much stronger. SALC's current proposal includes four changes to the city charter:

• Give the city manager greater hire-and-fire authority over some top city department heads and remove the City Council checks-and-balances authority.

• Increase the number of wards by two.

• Give the Mayor (who currently is just a figure head) more voting power.

• Change the Mayor and Council positions from part-time to full-time.

On the surface, these changes may seem innocuous, but they're not. Do we really want the most powerful person in our local government to be an unelected bureaucrat? Tucson has had a City Manager form of government for decades, and it's not working.

Tucson is faced with many challenges -- and opportunities. We need a strong elected visionary Mayor to lead us, not a strong bureaucrat who tosses out random ideas and lets the City Council take the political hits when the ideas prove unpopular.

Tuesday, June 15, the Tucson City Council will hold a study session to discuss these charter changes and other topics. The following Tuesday, June 22, the City Council is scheduled to vote on whether these charter changes should be added to the November ballot.

Call or e-mail your City Council member to voice your opinion on these proposed Charter Changes. The phone number for the Mayor and Council comment line is 791-4700.

Don't let business and development further tighten their control over our local government. If SALC wants to put their ideas on the ballot, they should collect voter signatures-- rather than just slipping it under the Council's door and encouraging their action.

Making the City Manager more powerful is not the answer to Tucson's challenges. Adopting a strong Mayor form of government is. Electing the most powerful person in the city assures that he/she will be accountable to the voters.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column.

Tucson lacks "the vision thing" but proposed charter changes won't remedy the problem

In the 29 years I have lived in Tucson, I have seen the city's fortunes ebb and flow like the ocean tides. No where has this cycle of growth and decay been more evident than in downtown Tucson. Over the years, many businesses and revitalization initiatives have come and gone regardless of how successful or popular they were.

A case in point: long before Rio Nuevo and Second Saturdays, there were the Tucson Arts District Partnership (TADPI) and Downtown Saturday Nights.

Both Rio Nuevo and TADPI were charged with breathing new life into downtown. TADPI focused primarily on downtown revitalization by showcasing Tucson artists, hosting downtown arts and music events (like Downtown Saturday Nights), and beautifying downtown with mural projects and pop-up galleries in vacant buildings.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a viable strip of shops and galleries along the east end of Congress Street-- Yikes Toys, Picante, Berta Wright Gallery, Pink Adobe Gallery, and others. Downtown Saturday Night attendees visited these shops and perused the wares exhibited by street vendors. One by one these business folded or moved.

Downtown Saturday nights and the other TADPI projects were wildly popular but were mysteriously discontinued in the 1990s.

Rio Nuevo was created in 1999 when voters approved a special tax increment district and began accumulating sufficient funding to support projects in 2004, according to the city's website. Rio Nuevo has had far more money than TADPI ever did but also has had less focus and much more bad press (thanks to a vendetta by the Arizona Daily Star). Second Saturdays is a downtown business initiative-- and not a Rio Nuevo project-- but projects occurring simultaneously downtown and tend to be lumped together in the minds of citizens.

By 2008, this same strip of shops on Congress Street (which had been vacant for years) had been reborn and housed four galleries, a coffee shop, a hair salon, and a trendy clothing resale shop, along with a few bars. Creative events (1, 2, 3, 4) drew hundreds of Tucsonans downtown to enjoy the art and check out the music and bar scene. To us supporters, downtown appeared to be experiencing a resurgence. By early 2010, seven of these businesses were closed or relocated by a developer to make way for a trendy sports bar, whose owner was glorified in a Daily Star puff piece this week.

While other cities are able to revitalize their downtowns (1, 2), Tucson's beleaguered city core suffers from the fits and starts. This leads long-time Tucsonans ask themselves: "Why does Tucson keep re-inventing the wheel? Why can't we get it right?"

Why? In my opinion, Tucson suffers from the lack of a visionary leader. Yes, we have had plenty of politicians, plans, proposals, and committees, but if you look behind the glossy PR of these initiatives, you'll usually find that they benefit special interests, and not the city as a whole.

Tucson's City Manager form of government is inherently flawed. Our Mayor is a powerless figurehead who signs proclamations and acts as a tie-breaker when City Council members can't agree.

With a City Manager form of government, there is no one elected official who takes responsibility and says, as Harry Truman did, "The buck stops here." Tucson has a City Manager, a Mayor, and six City Council members who run the government. It's no wonder that decision-making, at times, appears schizophrenic. This distributed governance allows some people to be scapegoated (like Nina Trasoff, who personally paid the political price for Rio Nuevo's perceived lack of progress), while Mayor Bob Walkup became our local Teflon Don and easily won re-election.

A leadership vacuum such as this affords the perfect opportunity for special interests to shape local government decisions. Enter the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC)--a group of local businesses-- and the Tucson Charter Coalition (TC3), a spin-off organization, who want to save the city by making basic structural changes in governance.

Currently, these groups are lobbying the Tucson City Council to put city charter changes on the November 2010 ballot.

Some of these proposed changes I agree with. For example, changing city elections to even years would align them with the larger presidential and Congressional elections, thus increasing voter turnout and saving money. Changing the City Council's and Mayor's positions to full time and aligning their salaries with the Pima County Supervisors' compensation would allow the city to attract more qualified candidates. Since these positions are now all part-time, much power is held by unelected staff members. (Eliminating off-year elections will provide funds for the change from part-time to full-time positions.)

What I vehemently disagree with are SALC's proposals that would give the City Manager, another unelected official, more control.

Bureaucrats already hold too much power and are not directly accountable to the voters. Tucson needs a strong visionary Mayor to lead us into the future-- not a strong bureaucrat who owes his power to local businesses.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column.

Healthcare reform anyone?

Today is "the day" in a year of landmark votes on healthcare reform. As I write this on Sunday morning, National Public Radio is predicting the vote on reform in the US House of Representatives will come within hours.

This has been a week of arm-twisting, media hype, dueling polls, rallies, e-mail blasts, and facebook posts from both pro- and anti-reform camps. My personal survival strategy was to not watch television and limit my talk radio listening. Ed Schultz spent much of the week pushing for passage of the reform legislation but vowing to fight for more reform until a single payer system is achieved. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now aired several stories throughout the week, including an nterviewed Congressman Dennis Kucinich after he agreed to vote for reform. Kucinich also vowed to keep pushing for a single payer system, saying this bill is just the first step.

I was impressed with President Obama's use of social media to get the pro-reform word out to supporters. Move On and Organizing for America sent thousands of e-mails urging reform advocates to call their representatives and senators and to rally for reform.

On Friday, March 19, several of us from the local Drinking Liberally club joined other progressives for a Move On rally in front of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Tucson office. Approximately 150 reform advocates waved signs, cheered, and chanted. (They were joined by 3 anti-reform protesters.) Earlier in the week the Arizona Daily Star reported that Giffords and Congressman Raul Grijalva would both vote for reform today.

Hundreds of lunch-hour motorists cheered and honked as they passed the marchers. If honks were votes, I'd say that there is strong support for reform in Tucson. What will happen today? Who knows, but since Barack is one of my friends on facebook, I'm sure he'll post the news on his wall.

This article was originally published in my Progressive Examiner column. To see a slide show from the Tucson rally, click on the Examiner link.

Old hippies abound at the Tucson Peace Fair

The 28th Annual Tucson Peace Fair was Saturday, February 27. Despite grey skies, hundreds of Tucsonans turned out for an afternoon of peace, music, social justice, and community.

Dozens of informational booths representing everything from socially responsible investing to the Tucson Astrologers Guild ringed the area around the Reid Park band shell. Pictures tell the story better than words, so check out the slide show linked below.

This article originally appeared in my Baby Boomer Examiner column. Check out this link to view a slide show of the event.

Democrats rally the faithful for 2010 elections

Fallout from years of Republican-controlled state government gave Democrats plenty of fuel to fire up the faithful this weekend at the Democratic State Committee Meeting in Phoenix.

Speaker after speaker hammered Republican governor Jan Brewer and Legislative ideologues with the facts. Arizona's economy is one of the worst in the nation. They have locked Legislative Democrats out of the budget process, refuse to listen to Democratic budget ideas, and failed to come up with concrete, fair solutions to the state's financial crisis. Arizona is fighting for the bottom in about every measurable statistic--except unemployment and home foreclosures.

"Leadership is not a spectator sport," declared Gubernatorial Candidate Terry Goddard. "Real leadership would be to include Democrats in the budget process." Goddard vowed to bring everyone together to solve the state's problems--unlike Brewer who has worked only with fellow Republicans.

Goddard went on to say that Arizona "is on a sprint to the bottom, and it's time to stop the free fall."

Arizona is at the precipice. State Republicans have ignored their fiscal responsibilities, given repeated tax cuts to the rich, mortgaged our future, and shortchanged our children and grandchildren. Reminding Democrats that education funding is one of our core values, Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidate Jason Williams led the audience in a chant from Dr. Seuss: "A person's a person no matter how small."

The Arizona Democratic Party is fielding strong candidates at all levels in 2010-- from Attorney General Goddard for governor to dozens of legislative hopefuls. Jobs, education, the economy, solar energy, and immigration reform were recurrent themes through several speeches.

Personally, I was very impressed with all of the candidates, their ideas, their integrity, and their energy. For detailed information about the candidates and their ideas for our future, check out the link lists that I have posted.

The 2010 elections are crucial to our state and the country. I encourage everyone to volunteer, donate, and VOTE! It's time to take back our state.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column. Click this link to see the slide show from this event.

John McCain, Your Constituents Want the Public Option

Wednesday afternoon Move On organized a healthcare reform rally in front of Senator John McCain's office in downtown Tucson.


Fifty or so people waived signs and chanted as commuters headed out of downtown in evening traffic. The protesters were looking for their senator and wondering what happened to that "maverick" and his straight talk express. You know-- that guy who talked about campaign finance reform years ago? What happened to him? He seems to have forgotten his constituency and dissolved into the mainstream, ultra-conservative Republican Party (along with his partner in crime, Senator Jon Kyl).

A few speakers told their personal horror stories about health insurance problems, and State Representative Phil Lopes urged everyone to keep fighting for the simplest public option solution-- extension of Medicare to all. (After all, Medicare is working well for US seniors, why can't the rest of us have that as an option?)

After the chanting, sign-waving, and speeches, the group went to the door of McCain's office to present him with a $3.4 million dollar check-- representing the amount of money he has received from the healthcare insurance industry over the years. You see, John McCain has received more campaign contributions from the healthcare industry in his career than anyone else in the US Senate.

Protesters politely knocked on McCain's office door, but no one answered. McCain's constituents were locked out--again-- a symbolic gesture given the differences between his stance on reform and the opinions of many in Southern Arizona.

There will be more rallies. McCain and Kyl, we're not giving up.