Downtown TIF for TAT
Tucson, Arizona. Tossed for dead down a hole by a roach, I learned on the descent and encountered an October 2004 piece featuring an excited Karen Thoreson about a project called Rio Nuevo, "We’re getting messy here, and it’s a great feeling!"Intriguing.
The reader can read the piece that discusses numerous projects now to be funded by the exciting Tax Increment Financing, except for the odd circumstance that Arizona was the only state without a tax increment financing law.
Step forward a year to November 2005, and we have Karen's update on what has occurred. A few months later, on 4/12/2006 Rob O’Dell starts scratching his head with Rare funding method sets Rio Nuevo tax area apart noting that across the nation the TIF idea is to use funds from increases in property taxes from new development to fuel improvements in the area where those developments are taking place. Well, it appears that our very unique system involves not property taxes, but sales taxes, and not from areas in close proximity, but from a rather tentacle like set of paws stretching across the community. Sales taxes at Park Place Mall head downtown for the fabulous new arena, hotel, and enhanced convention center we now enjoy.
Oh, wait.
Those fine developments coming soon in Downtown TIF for TAT - The Sequel.
posted by x4mr at 12:32 AM
9 Comments:
According to that Wikipedia entry, TIF is defined like this:
"TIF is a tool to use future gains in taxes to finance the current improvements that will create those gains."
So the question is, what has the City of Tucson done with the TIF that it has been collecting for several years to create future gains in those sales tax increment revenues?
The second question is, how has the city allocated its future expectation of TIF (funds generally created at the malls on Broadway) so as to create future gains in those incremental sales taxes?
In other words, what have they done to this point, and what have they committed future TIF funding to, that will result in a substantial yield of new sales taxes in downtown?
The answer to both questions is unfortunately similar: not a damn thing! They are not committed to bringing in new commercial development in downtown, because they think they can just live off the easy money that is flowing in from Park Place, Target and Home Depot. They are pre-spending money that will come in from businesses on Broadway east of Campbell all the way to Park Place.
In fairness to my "not a damn thing" comment, they did do a smart thing spending a very small percentage of the money to get the Fox Theater reopened, and even less to get the Rialto reopened.
Other than that, well, not a damn thing still holds.
The sexual innuendo of Karen Thoreson getting "messy" is just exquisite.
Most of them are so arrogant and full of themselves. However, they have heard of this blog, and the smartest of them are sighing that they shouldn't have let that pig (Snell) take x4mr's funding and shut down SAIAT.
If they had let x4mr keep running his little institute, employers will still be developing their workers, and x4mr would be blogging about the war in Iraq, Giffords, border excursions, and movie reviews.
Now he's drilling into TIF, and that's a gate. X4mr is also starting to earn his "Independent" credentials as he cuts into the onion, layer after layer. Certain Republicans, as much as Democrats, are enjoying this blog.
I look forward to the next "TIF for TAT" post. You can tell he's just getting started.
I'm sure that Republicans are enjoying this blog. While the Republicans have screwed up the country, Democrats have screwed up Tucson.
Cigar Man, do the movers and shakers who are sighing about giving x4mr all this motivation and ammunition really refer to Snell as "that pig"?
I love it.
I feel that the people of the Cloth have no real interest for the economic development of Tucson. Where ones interest lies, so does their values, and if they have no value associated with Tucson’s development, then they are just leaches sucking the life out of our city, while maintaining their pathetic existence getting fat on our tax dollars, leaving us nothing but a hickey, of our crappy downtown that is an embarrassment to all the citizens that live here.
I have been recently educated by a fellow blogger on what and how the TIF program works (thank you). X4mr’s post shows all of the programs that are going nowhere. I would like to know what has been done with all of the money. More importantly how much money has the Rio Nuevo already received in TIF money, and how much has been spent. Who has accountability for all of the money, and are the records made public. It would be great to post the Rio Nuevo financial report here on this Blog, it would be a great resource to reference.
I would bet, just like everything else that goes on, that millions have been spent with nothing tangible to show for it. I have also heard through the grape-blog, that some good citizens of Tucson were instrumental in extending the time period for receiving the TIF funds, I would like to congratulate them for what they did for Tucson, I just hope that the morons utilize this once in a lifetime opportunity, and do something productive that we can all be proud of.
I would be fired if my identity were known. I am a Marana insider, and I can tell you that they are fed up with TREO rhetoric.
The "cloth fest" they held last month was worse than pathetic. It was embarrassing. Marana is going to start holding TREO to account for producing real results for the money they are given.
Oro Valley may follow suit.
There is an article in the paper today about how hard JTED is struggling to connect with companies about employment and programs for the students.
SAIAT had the connections with companies. It trained their workers. A major JTED person (Dr. Vaughn Croft) was the chairman of the SAIAT board.
TREO shut SAIAT down. When Marana asks TREO why, get your "Shovel Ready."
"...the smartest of them are sighing that they shouldn't have let that pig (Snell) take x4mr's funding and shut down SAIAT."
I was so entertained by the above comment from Cigar Man.
I can just see these guys sitting around commiserating about how stupid they were and how X4mr has made it his mission in life to get even and what if people find out that they don't produce anything and get rid of those who do. And this mountain of worry could have all been avoided by just letting X4mr have his lousy 132K or whatever it was. On top of all that they can't figure out what to do about a mad blogger or how to set up their own blog. No, wait, they can't do that. What would they blog about?
Hahahaha. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in their offices....
x4mr- Let's have a little fun. What's say we put a spot light on the naked emperor? Pull back the drape while he's talking in his big-voice microphone. No conspiracy theories, just facts about past behaviors, current alliances, and predictors of pending community harm.
As a nearly self-taught Java script-master, can you invent a means to add a section (or link) to your website where tipper bloggers can create a WIKIPEDIA describing the backgrounds of members of the cloth (TREO) and supergroup (DTP)? Besides describing members, can we score them on a local POLItical and eCONomic toxicity scale of our own creation? (1 to 10 Index: He/she regularly puts self-interest ahead of community; Profound history of back-room power grabs; Past efforts/ideas proved successes/failures, etc.)
Below is the list of board members of the "Supergroup" to which Rob O'Dell referred, taken right from their Downtown Tucson Partnership's web site. And below that, TREO's board, from its website.
Is it possible to begin filling in an involuntary resume for each member, using our collective knowledge to create mosaics for each individual.. relevant information about their history, affiliations, ambitions, political contributions, etc, etc? Objective and subjective information, corrected and revised by constant peer review?
If knowledge is power, it would seem that concentrated knowledge of these individuals, exposed to the light of day, would be very powerful indeed. Let's get a few more "something else" expose's into the public record, shall we?
If "PowerPedia" works, and we eventually add in the other major power elite groups (SALC SoAz Leadership Council, PCIC PimaCo Interfaith Council, PCDP PimaCo Democratic Party, etc), and then cross-sort for multiple hits, and darken the lines between the most toxic power connections, would we not be literally mapping the source of our miseries? Wouldn't cutting the supply lines at just the right spots be a whole lot easier with a clear map?
Downtown Tucson Partnership
Board of Directors
Merchants/Retail Council:
Bob Wadlow, Subway
Carlotta Flores, El Charro Café, Stillwell House
Beth Dell, Beowulf Alley Theatre Company
Neighborhoods/Residents Council:
Jeff DiGregorio, Iron Horse Neighborhood, Armory Park Neighborhood
Mac Hudson, Menlo Park Neighborhood
Rick Luyties, El Presidio Neighborhood
Arts, Culture & History Council:
Nancy Lutz, Tucson Pima Arts Council
Bill Ponder, Arizona Historical Society
Susan Gamble, Santa Theresa Tile Works, Warehouse Arts Management Organization
Office/Employers Council:
Steve Lynn, Tucson Electric Power Co., UniSource Energy Corp.
Larry Finuf, Wells Fargo Bank
Michael Crawford, Mesch, Clark & Rothschild
Property Owners Council:
Mike Kasser, Holualoa Company, Pioneer Bldg. & 1 E. Congress
Ron Schwabe, Peach Properties, Williams & Dame Development
Richard Oseran, Hotel Congress
Tucson Heritage:
Bob Vint, Vint & Associates Architects
University of Arizona:
Leslie Tolbert, University of Arizona
City of Tucson:
Mike Hein, Tucson City Manager
Pima County:
Chuck Huckelberry, Pima County Administrator
Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities:
Larry Hecker, Hecker & Muehlebach
Downtown Development Corp.:
Doug Kennedy, Downtown Development Corporation
Community Directors:
Michael Keith, Contemporary West Development
Michael Chihak, Tucson Citizen
Roger Karber, Centro Nuevo Partners, TDA Outgoing Chair
John Humenik, Arizona Daily Star
Don Bourn, Bourn Partners
Rick Myers, Retired; Southern Arizona Leadership Council
Kanella Conklin, Kanella’s
Renee Morton, Home Style Galleries
Steve Quinlan, Long Realty
Colleen Niccum, Raytheon
Jerry Dixon, Rio Development, Mercado District at Menlo Park
TREO Board of Directors
Honorable Robert E. Walkup, Co-Chair
Mayor, City of Tucson
Represents: The City of Tucson
Honorable Sharon Bronson, Co-Chair
Acting Chair, Pima County Board of Supervisors, District 3
Represents: Pima County
Frances McLane Merryman, Secretary & Treasurer
Vice President, Wealth Strategies Group, Northern Trust, NA Represents: Private Sector
Daisy Jenkins
Vice President, Human Resources, Raytheon Missile Systems
Represents: Private Sector
Steve Christy
Chair, Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce
Represents: Private Sector
Richard F. Imwalle
Chairman, Bank of Tucson
Represents: Private Sector
Robert E. Cashdollar Jr.
President & CEO, Apache Nitrogen Products, Inc.
Represents: Private Sector
Dr. Robert Shelton
President, University of Arizona
Represents: Education
Dr. Roy Flores
Chancellor, Pima Community College
Represents: Education
Honorable Paul H. Loomis
Mayor, Town of Oro Valley
Represents: PAG Appointment - Small Jurisdictions
Jim Kolbe
Member of Congress, 8th District of Arizona (Retired)
Of Counsel:
Larry Hecker
Attorney, Hecker & Muehlebach, PLLC
Policon,
Your comment correctly anticipates that this blog is on a collision course with real names some of which have already appeared in both stories and comments.
I will have to think about both the technical and practical aspects of your idea. I am not interested in tossing hand grenades (and I'm not saying that is what you suggest).
The short term next steps involve clarifying some facts. It's time to show some numbers. Coming soon.
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