Summer is over and now the Tucson City Council must answer a couple of big questions.
Do they want to go ahead with a half-cent sales tax election in March? And do they want to proceed with the next 20 years of funding as a member of the Regional Transportation Authority?
The Council will take up both at their Tuesday afternoon study session.
The sales tax plan was put together to complement the RTA Next plan. It doesn’t replace it, City Manager Tim Thomure said.
That’s a bit of a turn. The City Council’s most recent discussion of the RTA revealed a deep skepticism about remaining on board. When I type “deep skepticism,” I may be underselling it. The Council seemed ready to bolt. Not a single councilmember said they were eager to stick around as a part of the multi-jurisdictional taxing body.
And a sales tax plan developed by city staff has been resurrected. This past spring, the Council put a phantom sales tax election on the ballot for the summer but (publicly) had no idea what the money would be spent on. It was just a quality-of-life tax plan without any “there” anywhere in sight. So it — and “it” was a bit of a gambit to bring pressure to the RTA negotitations — got pulled.
Now, it’s back. And the idea is to devote 65 percent of tax revenues to public safety and 35 percent to social services, including gap financing for private developers seeking to build more affordable housing projects.
A more detailed breakdown looks like this:
Actually, the line blurs between community investment and public safety and that represents a pragmatic shift in the Right-Left argument about crime prevention.
For years, the Right dug into a skull-crushing approach to turn Dirty Harry into a verb and do the dark stuff that needs to be done but can’t officially be condoned.
Meanwhile, the Left believed if society just built parks and provided a couple of boys and girls clubs, a community could hug its way out of crime.
I exaggerate for effect, but only a little.
The approach Tucson is taking under Police Chief Chad Kasmar (under the direction of the City Council) to disrupt crime with public investment, while focusing community policing efforts on high-crime areas. It’s a both-and model that proves wisdom enlightens a strong police presence integrated with social spending.
It’s having an effect where they’ve tried it.
The Council approach to housing emphasizes gap financing, helping private developers build private projects with public money and under public constraints.
If the city helps a project with a loan needed to make a project work, the city can then demand the housing units be sold at affordable prices while the loan is being paid back. Developers don’t have to build affordable housing with restrictions if they don’t take the city’s money.
The city is spending more than $50 million to refurbish Tucson House and its 358 units. I think it’s clear the city can’t use public money to get the community the tens of thousands of rental units required to bring down costs.
Looking for ways to encourage the private sector to build a bunch of units is the only way to go.
And the rents for a two-bedroom apartment run $1,200 a month. That’s what the household making 60 percent of median income can afford.
The plan would also be to rehabilitate and maintain the existing housing stock and pay impact fees for developers doing affordable projects.
It’s important to remind people Arizona is a low-tax, low-service state. Arizonans get what they pay for and they aren’t paying for expansive social services. There’s no assertive state program to help people facing housing insecurity.
The biggest federal program provides vouchers (Section 8) to people to find their own places to rent. However, landlords are increasingly skeptical of Section 8 and don’t like to rent to those folks. The council banned discrimination against voucher holders, but landlords still gin up use other ways to keep those tenants out if they choose.
So there’s no state program. The major federal program is failing.
Then there’s Housing First, which is great so long as there is housing. Tucson is short on homes.
There’s no way to address homelessness without resources and on this, the city is the government of last resort.
Transportation, on the other hand, is a local issue that local government must handle.
In 2006, voters approved a 20-year half-cent Regional Transportation Authority sales tax to fund a plan that would help build out a road and transit plan across the county.
That tax is about to run out and Tucson-area local governments are trying to hammer out a 20-year extension.
The City Council has not been happy with how the money’s being divvied up. In fact, councilmembers haven’t been happy the whole way through the process. They were afraid the process would be stacked against the city and Tucson residents wouldn’t get their fair share.
As the plan stands now, Tucson would get just over 50 percent of the RTA money, though Tucson generates about two-thirds of the sales tax.
The RTA Next plan is using a highly skeptical revenue model that anticipates a very shaky economy during the next two decades. Last time around, projections were off because the estimates failed to predict the housing bubble bursting and the Great Recession.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. But a 100-year flood can happen two years in a row.
Retired Gen. Ted Maxwell, who serves as the state representative on the RTA Board, has come up with a compromise.
Say the worst doesn’t happen and the RTA collects a pretty standard amount of money for a given 20-year stretch in Tucson. In that case, the RTA would collect an extra $330 million. Tucson would get $220 million of that, lifting its share to 55 percent. That just happens to be Tucson’s share of Pima County’s population.
Defensible.
No, it’s not a dollar out for every sales tax dollar into the RTA. Here’s where I point out that a chunk of those sales tax dollars are being paid by Marana and Sahuarita residents shopping in Tucson.
Sure, they are using Tucson roads but the trip starts on their roads. How much do we really want to quibble?
The whole region would benefit from a community-wide approach and a community-wide funding mechanism that looks at the whole system.
One problem with the compromise is that the RTA Board has yet to agree
to it. A meeting scheduled for July didn’t happen, so the board won’t
discuss the deal until after the Tucson Council meets. So why would they
say “yes” to an offer not yet officially extended? Why not just punt? City
councils love to punt.
If the Council proceeds with the RTA Next plan, then it can use its half-cent sales tax to deal with acute problems facing the city right now. Again, the program would require a vote of the people.
The city staff is asking the Council to consider these things. I like what they are being asked to mull because it deals with traffic, crime, housing and homelessness all together and not forcing one problem to compete against the other for attention.
The City Council will also vote Tuesday on an update to the city Fire Code, which is a locally amended version of the 2024 International Fire Code.
An interesting local amendment is the requirement for fire watch standby personnel where people gather and the city decides public safety requires one.
The fire watch personnel “shall be off-duty city of Tucson firefighters,” according to the proposed amendment.
I’m not going to snark about people who run into burning buildings but I’m presuming this is necessary and not just opportunities for firefighters to make a few extra bucks.
The changes are pretty specific.
The new code would define a mid-rise building as at least 4 stories, with occupied floors more than 50 feet high but less than 75.
A board of appeals will be establish to to hear and decide objections to violations. Members of the Fire Code Review Committee will make up the board.
Other changes include new rules concerning commercial kitchens, inflatable amusement devices (raises more questions than it answers) and inspection, testing and maintenance of fire alarms.
Tucson has a shortage of medical workers and the Council will vote on a $6.3 million match of federal funds to maintain training programs to help with staffing at local hospitals and medical facilities.
The Council will vote to approve the payment to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Arizona’s Medicaid program, which will trigger a 2 to 1 match from the federal government.
Medical internships, residencies and sub-specialty trainees will be the beneficiaries of the program, as are those who do medical training.
Leases & $300,000 bathrooms
In Sahuarita, the Town Council will be looking to lease space at the SAMTEC building to a Southern California 3D printing company.
ATAG Inc., has told the town that the plan is to hire 20 full-time workers with a payroll between $1.5 million and $2.1 million.
The town will rent 4,500 square feet of the Sahuarita Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Center to ATAG, if the council approves the 10-year lease.
ATAG will pay a base rent of $0.65 per square foot (just south of $3,000 a month) after having the rent abated for the first eight months. Rent for the next three months will be deferred to the 60th month of the lease.
But wait. There’s more. Sahuarita will also pay the company $236,000. That includes a free-and-clear reimbursement to the company of $157,000. Sahuarita will also provide an additional $49,566 reimbursement for other improvements, which the tenant must pay back back with a small assessment on the rent.
On top of that the town will install a heating and cooling control unit at a price not to exceed $30,000.
There’s also a clause in the lease demanding immediate reimbursement if the company vacates the lease. ATAG can terminate the lease after four years without penalty if it remains in Sahuarita.
Should the company’s plans pan out, the deal isn’t terrible. It will provide a home to an existing, relocating business in a field that has a growing track record and extraordinary top end. 3D printing could be revolutionary, although don’t be shocked if every garage attached to a private home has a printer in the not-too-distant future. That would make these companies the mainframes of the computer industry, with a day that will come and go.
I’m not a lover of relocation deals and you shouldn’t be either.
California’s tax and regulatory regime is a bit of a mess and companies are looking to flee. Might as well catch a couple escaping down Interstate 10.
If Cali is the worst of libtard politics, it still towers over Mississippi and West Virginia, which are the ultimate expression of right-wing, low-tax or oligarchical governance.
What’s proving to be less of an amazing deal concerns the installation of a new $1.5 million splash pad at Anamax Park.
Back in March, I snarked out a little on the price of this project, which included a $260,000 rest room. It seemed like a lot of money for a water amusement that didn’t include pirates.
Well now the project has gone $80,000 over budget and the town staff is asking for a budget transfer to pay for the added costs. This includes $33,000 additional dollars for the $260,000 rest room, which makes it a $293,000 rest room.
What the hell kind of bathroom is this? Look, I get that laying services like water and sewer don’t care about the kind of facility they are serving. A 500-foot electrical line costs the same if its going to a 12-bedroom Foothills mansion or a park in Sahuarita.
But no one recognized people get highly cynical about government because of six-figure bathrooms. Maybe overestimate and bring it to the council once, rather than saying “hey, remember that quarter-million-dollar rest room? Yeah. Now we’re thinking more like $300,000. Just in case people forgot we are building a six-figure bathroom. We are.”
More to come on school boards later.