Tucson’s participation in a 20-year renewal of Regional Transportation Authority construction projects has been lifted out of the fire. It’s still over the flames, but is ever so gently being moved to firm, cool ground. 

The RTA could still fall back into the flames of oblivion, but its fate is looking more assured than it was several months ago.

On Tuesday, the Tucson City Council discussed a compromise meant to woo them back into the fold with the eight other area jurisdictions trying to put two decades of transportation funding to voters soon. The Council also told staff to prepare to call an election for March on a city-only half-cent sales tax to address housing and crime.

I don’t want to say the Tucson City Council is being squeezed on the RTA They’re not being squeezed. Well, OK maybe they’re being squeezed a little bit and not necessarily in a bad way.

First, the RTA faces a time crunch. Second, if the Council can clear traffic from the city’s plate with a county-wide effort, then they can proceed with city-centric sales tax plan. 

The Council sounds eager to do the latter and more willing to do the former.

Maxwell’s silver bullet

Councilmembers have been reluctant partners in the nine-jurisdiction RTA as it closes out the first 20-year program approved by voters in 2006. To their way of thinking, Tucson hasn’t been given a large enough share of the proposed projects, given the city’s population and amount of sales tax revenue that would be generated within city limits.

The Council wanted more say on the RTA board than just a single vote out of nine. But giving Tucson proportional representation would require approval by the Arizona Legislature. That isn’t going to happen.

Next, the city complained Tucson is expected to generate two-thirds of the RTA’s revenues but was only getting half of the funding.

Finally, councilmembers have had problems with Farhad Moghimi, the Pima Association of Governments’ executive director and the top staffer running the RTA.

The original gripe about proportional representation is a fleet of F150s under the bridge. The Council lost that one and moved on, though bitterness remained.

Enter Ted Maxwell, the Arizona Department of Transportation’s representative on the RTA board. He and the Sahuarita team have been working on a compromise to keep Tucson part of RTA Next.

The RTA is using pessimistic projections to plan $2.46 billion in work. It forecasts weak economic growth, which is not typical in Tucson. The first and current go at the RTA got burned because the Great Recession unexpectedly swallowed hundreds of millions in expected revenue.

Projects have been left uncompleted. Tucson projects got hit hardest.

If however, Pima County has a normal economy over the next 20 years, an extra $330 million will be available.

So the new plan is to give Tucson $220 million of that, bringing its share from 50 to 55 percent. Tucson has 55 percent of Pima County’s population.

To be clear: The RTA Board has not voted to extend the offer to the city. It was supposed to decide that in July but that meeting got canceled for the lack of a quorum. Maxwell still wanted to explain the proposal, which is now public, to the Council prior to the RTA’s next meeting in September.

So the proposed solution is a compromise neither side has taken a position on yet.

A big shift

Unofficially, councilmembers seem to be OK with Maxwell’s approach and that’s a huge turnaround. Mayor Regina Romero said the city laid down its demands and that made the difference in the talks with the RTA.

“I’m optimistic about this plan,” Romero said. “Both city managers (current manager Tim Thomure and recently retired Mike Ortega) have been clear
about what our non-negotiables are. Being clearer about what the city of Tucson’s needs are has led us to this.”

One remaining hang-up appears to be the current RTA projects that haven’t
happened because the mortgage bubble of 2008 left the program short of
cash.

The only councilmember issuing warnings about a “no” vote is Kevin Dahl. He’s mad about not getting enough funding commitments, or worse, answers about how the unfinished projects will be completed.

Romero and Councilmember Paul Cunningham
both said they want a unanimous vote on staying with the RTA. Well, if
Dahl is a no, then the rest of the Council are probably voting no, and RTA Next is a no-go without Tucson. So Dahl’s got a lot of power. His seat, though, is getting hotter by the passing week.

There’s also been a long-time complaint about how Moghimi afforded
(or has failed to afford) flexibility to projects in the city.

“I am not comfortable going forward with the current leadership,” Dahl said of Moghimi.

Dahl told me he’s not ready to talk about tanking the RTA but he’s also not comfortable moving forward without more confidence.

Original RTA plans called for North First Avenue to be widened between East Grant Road and East River Road. Then the Tucson realized it didn’t need First widened. It needed to be modernized with new traffic signals, pedestrian and bike paths.

So it wanted to make a change. The problem was, voters had approved a widening and not not a modernization. Moghimi started an involved public process through PAG and the RTA to switch over from what voters approved. Drama ensued.

Something similar took place with East Broadway, and the row with the RTA rankled former Councilmember Steve Kozachik. 

Moghimi’s relationship with the city has suffered through these fights.

For his part, Moghimi said the changes were made and his team did it the right way. Drama was just part of the process.

“It was a significant change to a voter-approved scope and required careful consideration by the RTA Board before it was resolved,” Moghimi said.

Dahl either wants Moghimi gone or assurances that the relationship will improve.

Sure. Moghimi is willing to sit down, but he makes no apologies about how he’s done his job over the decades.

“Our goal to serve the public and make sure we honor their wishes. And I have done that with integrity and honesty for nearly 30 years,” Moghimi said.

Moghimi likes to use the word “integrity” in discussing his work. The city folks should avoid questioning his integrity if they want to build a better relationship.

Hey, there’s just only a couple billion on the line.

Maxwell is approaching this with a bit of political genius. He’s saying (paraphrasing) “Hey, you don’t have to say ‘yes’ to the final product because we don’t have a final product. But we need to take a rough draft to the community for feedback and this is as good as it’s going to get. Let’s just take it out to the public and see what they think.”

The RTA has a time crunch, because the plan is to hold a May 2025 election to re-up the half-cent countywide sales tax to pay for the project list. So they need to get cracking.

If Maxwell can keep the momentum going, the Council will find it harder to say no. The deeper the RTA goes into the process, the harder it will be to sink it.

To be clear: I’m not applying motives to Maxwell. I’m just describing a reality I think Maxwell understands.

Ooooh, shiny!

The city staff have come up with the second bit of force in the squeeze.

Tucson’s “deep staters” have developed a boffo sales tax plan they want the Council to take to voters in a March election.

They have crafted a precision defragging program that goes right after the bugs in Tucson’s system: Crime and homelessness. The plan will cost $56 million and will be paid for with a half-cent sales tax.

The plan takes a smart approach to crime, with hard investments in things Tucson police need (cruisers and a new crime-fighting aircraft I seriously want to know more about). New housing will also be paid for out of the funds.

Councilmembers loved this idea. They ate it up. Cunningham said the plan changed the shape of his noggin.

“If you would have told me that we had put a sales tax on the ballot and that I would have supported it, I probably would have crinkled my head,” Cunningham said, except that it addresses the problems most troubling the community. “When people ask us: ‘What are you doing about fentanyl? What are you doing about the unsheltered?’ Well, this is it.”

The plan really is a smart approach to address two of Tucson’s most pressing anxieties because of how it mixes hard and soft power, working together to create better, safer neighborhoods.

However, it’s meant to complement the RTA. If the city decides to reject the RTA Next plan, it will have to do its own half-cent sales tax and so much for the staff’s smart new program.

How many half-cent sales taxes can the city ask for? And I do think voters know who is asking for what. Lord knows they like rejecting Pima County bonds.

I would think that roads would be a priority over even issues like crime and housing. Transportation is a first-order service the city must deliver before other things above the kind of social services in the new tax plan.

This is especially true if Tucson is going to have a high-density home construction boom required for affordable housing. Density comes with congestion. Tucson would want the transportation planning happening side-by-side with new homes.

And finally, a regional system is far superior to a hodgepodge of transportation planning. Make the whole system work together for cars, bikes, pedestrians and transit.

I’d like to see the surrounding cities and towns join Tucson on a regional land-use planning effort but one thing at a time, I guess.

How to say no to billions

So now, Dahl risks saying no to $2.4 billion and $1.3 billion for the city of Tucson. Oh, and yeah. The city will be left to address both perceived crises with shrinking budgets because former Gov. Doug Ducey’s flat tax is depriving local governments of cash needed to provide vital services.

If I’m Dahl, I realize I probably shouldn’t put the kibosh on the RTA all by my lonesome. I’d want want someone else to join me. Also, I don’t see Dahl as the kind of guy who is on the Council to blow things up.

Then again, it may not all be on Dahl. Councilmember Karin Uhlich held her tongue during the meeting. Is that good or bad for the RTA? I’ve watched Uhlich do her thing for almost 20 years. I don’t know that Dahl has gangsta in him. I know Uhlich has zero problem playing Capone if she thinks she’s being dealt dirty.

On the other hand, she’s close to Romero. They’re allies going way back. So she might just be following the mayor’s lead. Romero herself is looking increasingly comfortable with a flower in her lapel and a cat on her lap, doling out favors on the day of her daughter’s wedding.

How the RTA and sales tax measure play out in the coming months is going to be fascinating.

I know that I would have said 30 days ago, “RTA Next is dead.” Now it’s coming around to consciousness. That’s something to see and keep watching.