This article originally appeared in the Southern Arizona News Examiner. The event was held on Saturday and Sunday, March 16 and 17, 2013. It was held within Picacho Peak State Park and was sponsored by the Arizona State Parks foundation, Union Pacific foundation, and in part, by the Arizona Civil War Council. The people who…
Sometimes it is hard to take people seriously, particularly when they are not forthright about their intentions. At the June 20 Pima Community College Governing Board meeting, a representative from C-FAIRR made two complaints during the public comments. First, the representative said that the organization strongly objected to the renewal of Dan Ekstrom’s lobbying contract, and…
It is important to remember that the Rio Nuevo legislation is a partnership between the state of Arizona and the city of Tucson. Both entities have a vested interest in its success. Tax-increment financing (TIF) legislation is a legal template used across the country to finance sports stadiums and similar projects for municipalities. In essence,…
In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was “stadium.” Many moons ago, in the municipal-government firmament, someone figured out a way to build a stadium at no cost to the municipality. It was called “TIF,” and they saw that it was good. TIF stands for tax-increment financing. In this type of legislation,…
Recently I heard a talk show host wonder aloud why president Obama spent much of a recent speech about the federal budget attacking Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Budget. It seemed counterproductive to attack a person with whom, presumably, you would be negotiating, and it was not very presidential. Later…
Voting has always been considered a cornerstone of our democratic processes. It is how we keep our government officials in line, hiring or firing them as we see fit. As voters, we must always look closely at government officials who endeavor to change the process by which we hire and fire them. Democratic Tucson City…
We knew it would happen sooner or later. Now the murderous attack on Gabrielle Giffords and others by a deranged man is being used to launch a new attack on the right to keep an bear arms. This new campaign was predictable right down to the recommendations. Predictability is a result of repeating patterns. One…
Minimum-wage workers make up only 3 percent of the workforce, and only half of those workers are full-time. Most of these workers are not making the minimum for long. Socioeconomic levels are not fixed; people are not stuck in the economic class into which they were born—not in this country. As workers acquire knowledge and…
It is no consolation that virtually every other state in the nation is also facing huge budget deficits, nor is it consolation that California is in worse shape than we are. There is consolation in the fact that, unlike California, there is hope for Arizona. Both California and Arizona are in dire budgetary straits as…
