Cloth Cash Trough
Tucson, Arizona. Clothmeister Glenn Lyons was unavailable at his Downtown Tucson Partnership office today because he'd caught a plane back to Calgary to rake in extra cash above his $130,000 cloth gig running essentially a Partnership of Ward 6, the City Manager's Office, and their various "private sector" enablers. This is the guy that fired the director of Tucson Downtown Alliance so he could create a $60,000 cloth gig for the wife of a city council member's chief-of-staff. Apparently he supplements the city salary on Tucson's nickel in Canada. He's returned to Alberta on a regular basis since the fall, teaching real estate development classes.Despite brutal city budget woes, butchering a Youth Employment Fund, and questionable Rio Nuevo hanky panky, cloth cash flow remains healthy. Perhaps Dr. Richard Florida could accompany them with some Rio Nuevo consultants to discuss "creative class development" in the Mediterranean. When is TREO's excursion to explore the Albuquerque resorts?
posted by x4mr at 3:05 PM
12 Comments:
X4mr citing the Wall Street Journal?
Back in the day, when you said you were Independent, I cracked up. You seemed as liberal as Blog for AZ.
In the last few months your posts have moved to the center in many ways. You want competent government.
Know that some of us to your right want the same thing.
Anonymous:
Liberals and progressives should want competent government as much as anyone (and surely most of them do). Why is x4mr's desire to see competent government considered incongruous with his political leanings?
There are liberal and conservative commenters on both this blog and TucsonChoices.com; what is uniting persons of disparate views is a growing recognition by all thinking and caring citizens that Tucson is off-track and sliding ever-faster toward an abyss. Regardless of how much government one is comfortable with, we should all expect and demand that whatever government we have be effective and efficient.
Don't forget, TREO's cash flow is strong because of "aggressively managing expenses at 75% of budgeted projections".
As in, not spending it on economic development, but hoarding it to build a war-chest.
TREO is the moral equivalent of the psychopath who sneaks into a hospital and murders all the newborn babies by poking his thumb in the tops of their skulls.
TREO was given tens of thousands of dollars to support a program that helped crippled youth get entry level jobs. TREO kept every penny for itself and destroyed the program.
Funding slime is crime.
How much of the Downtown Tucson Partnership's budget comes from the city and ultimately from us taxpayers?
Isn't some of their funding from the businesses downtown and some of it from the city? Anybody know details on this?
How much of a salary did the guy Lyons replaced make?
I think Tucson should prepare itself for being exactly what it is. The window of opportunity has pretty much slammed shut given both the state of the economy and the city's dismal failure in leadership.
I can't even imagine what kind of miracle it would take to turn things around for Tucson. I just don't see anything out there. The citizens are clearly fed up.
Sad.
I don't know if any town has such a pathetic of suits that claim to be leaders. I assume you saw the Star article on how Phoenix is looking to make good on the termination of TIF funds.
"The city government in Tucson is dysfunctional in almost every dimension," said Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler. "And the idea that we would trust them, even in some reconfigured state, with $500 million to advance the economic growth of Arizona, I would find astonishing."
While other cities make progress, Tucson's city council has infested the town with lard buckets like Snell, Shelko, and Lyons. They do NOTHING year after year after year, absolutely NOTHING.
Of course it's corrupt, and Jonathon Paton is absolutely right. It is totally embarrassing.
Of the Downtown Tucson Partnership's ("DTP") proposed 2009/2010 annual budget, totaling over $1,600,000, the Downtown property owners will provide about $400,000 in the form of mandatory property assessments. This money is collected along with normal property taxes.
The DTP expects city government to provide all the remaining $1,200,000 through some creative new accounting dreamed up by Mike Hein. Over half the funds will be paid by having the DTP take over management of all of the city's parking meters (stretching from Downtown to the UofA).
Doug Kennedy, who has stolen money from the non-profit parking lot at Block 175 for 20-years can be expected to count the cash from all the city's parking meters. He does it over his kitchen table and swears the count is accurate, even though he makes the deposits himself and doesn't allow witnesses to the counting.
Teya Vitu will take over the DTP's web site duties after the Citizen folds next week. He'll join former Citizen employees Cara Rene and CT Riverre in collecting paychecks from both the DTP and Nina Trasoff's city council office. Cara Rene, wife of Nina's chief of staff, CT Riverra, collects a full-time paycheck for a part-time job. All their jobs involve shoveling money from "auditable" city departments into "unauditable" DTP coffers. Hein despises accountability; Nina despises everyone who isn't in her tight circle.
For overseeing this operation, Glenn Lyons now makes nearly three times the salary paid to his predecessor ($60,000/year)when all of Lyons' various forms of benefits are added to the raw salary and bonuses. And, he too, can still work his old jobs in Calgary.
Don't be surprised to see Mike Hein acting as a paid consultant to the DTP soon (if he's not already). An even more likely possibility is that the DTP will soon declare itself insolvent when the legislature destroys the Rio Nuevo TIF funding, Hein is fired for countless deceptions, and all the transfer payments to DTP are cut-off.
Harry carry would be the honorable thing, but nothing in Hein or Trasoff's make-up suggests honor.
I am amazed at the superior quality and depth of the information posted here compared to MSM. The regular paper seems completely unable to match the kind of information posted just in the comment by Policon, obviously someone who really knows what is happening.
I don't know why, but the comments here seem "smarter" and more solid than the comments people post after articles in the paper.
I'm impressed and infuriated at the same time. Why is this intolerable situation tolerated? Why isn't Mike Hein being arrested? How can this Kennedy person help himself to thousands and thousands in cash with no oversight?
People should be going to jail, and the public remains deaf, dumb, and blind. This is sick.
Anon (10:21 p.m.) -- it's cause smart people are reading this and contributing and CARING about Tucson. Now, I only have a BA and a dozen graduate credits, but I'm a professional writer, so hopefully I'm worthy to be among all of you! I've directed a lot of my thoughful friends to this blog and I know they are lurking, and beginning to spread the ideas shared here.
It's a movement, growing slowly.
Please, God, let someone worthy step up to run in Council wards 3 and 6, not the guy who burns the Mexican flag downtown...
What's MSM?
Scarlett:
MSM is Main-Stream Media.
Yes, keep spreading the word. Also, direct your friends to www.TucsonChoices.com. Its content may be more conservatively-oriented than some of x4mr's readers would like, but at least it's keeping an eye on local matters.
After the Citizen goes away in 10 days, these blogs will become more important than ever in raising awareness and informing people in Tucson. Perhaps there could be a way to raise some funding to occasionally hire freelance investigative reporters to write exclusive articles about the doings of local government for one of these blogs.
Robish, D'oh! Thanks. Guess I'm a little too close to the subject to recognize the tree.
I do read TucsonChoices.com as well.
We all need to know what everyone is saving.
Thanks.
SL
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