In his State of The City address Mayor Bob Walkup had a message for the Catalina Foothills: Annex or Incorporate. Our communities are losing out on state revenue sharing… money which goes to incorporated areas.

The message was directed at other unincorporated areas as well, Vail, Green Valley and Casas Adobes…but it was the call to the foothills that grabbed the attention of the local press.

Some historical perspective is needed here. If you are a relative newcomer you probably don’t know that in 1997 there was a major move to incorporate the Foothills as an independent city.

Other unincorporated communities moved to incorporate, as well. Groups in Casas Adobes, Tanque Verde, and Tortolita organized incorporation campaigns, but it was in the Foothills that a kind of battle royal ensued.

(Journalism sidebar: The Star’s current political beat writer, Rhonda Bodfield, covered the story then.)

From this distance it’s hard to determine exactly what the motives behind the incorporation movement were. At the very least it’s safe to say that the organizers wanted to put paid to any possibility of annexation by the city.

Rightly or wrongly folks viewed annexation as costing them money in higher taxes. They also feared that joining the city would lead to to denser housing zoning. The foothills were then predominantly Republican and saw no future in being swallowed up by Democratic Tucson.

(Since then the state of Arizona has changed our election laws so that each city council rep will be elected on a ward by ward basis and not city-wide.)

The pro-incorporation forces had no really clear idea of what the long term costs of incorporating would be. Their opponents argued that the pro forces thought governing a city would be something like running a very large homeowners’ association; almost, but not quite, like something that could be done by volunteers working in a storefront office.

When the vote was held the incorporation forces were soundly defeated in every single precinct. It became clear that becoming your own city might be more trouble and expense than it was worth.

(The other incorporation efforts failed as well.)

All that was then, and this is now. No one fears being annexed because there is no such thing as a ‘hostile annexation.’ Before the Foothills could become part of Tucson,  fifty percent plus one of the properties involved would have to sign off on it; as would properties representing fifty percent plus one dollar of valuation.

Become part of the city? It might be a really good thing, but it ain’t goin’ to happen.

Text of Walkup speech.

RIP Adult Education

The Data Port recently received a note from Melisa DeNinno who is the Communications Coordinator for Literacy Volunteers of Tucson. It was ominously headed: Arizona Plans to Plummet to Fame.

“The budget cuts Governor Jan Brewer is proposing are painful, but one will earn us national recognition.  Not only will Arizona have one of the highest high school drop-out rates in the nation, if the proposed cuts are approved, GED classes and testing will no longer be offered in this state.  Arizona would become the only state in the country without this service.”

Paula Stuht, Vice President of Business Development of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, adds:

“The economic impact of NOT educating the nearly 800,000 Arizonans who do not have a high school diploma is enormous.  The elimination of Adult Education will prevent the development and re-training of a prepared workforce that we urgently need to attract and keep existing businesses in Arizona.”

“Without a GED it is nearly impossible to go on to further training or to get a job.  70% of welfare recipients and 65% of the state prison population don’t have high school diplomas.  18% of all high school diplomas issued in Arizona in 2008 were GED diplomas, nearly 1/5 of Arizona’s high school graduates.

GED grads earn $5,000 more per year on average, resulting in approximately $70 million additional taxable income in Arizona.  Arizona benefits from over $8 million in additional tax revenue from GED graduates which is almost double the return on investment.

If the Governor’s recommendation to totally eliminate its $4.6 million adult education program is ultimately approved, Arizona will sacrifice $11 million of federal funds for adult education that are directly based on the state’s commitment to maintain its funding level.”

Arizona plans to set a new record.

“Not only will have one of the most abysmal drop-out rates, we will effectively dismantle the only entry point into immediate employment and job training for the approximately 22,000 adults that are served by Adult Education annually.  At a time when more than 1 in 5 people in Pima County is living in poverty can we really afford this?” says Ramón Valadez, Chairman of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

Cutting Adult Education and the GED will not help the state’s deficit, it will deepen it.

Republican Policy Makers

An old Russian proverb goes this way: To a man whose only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

The Republicans in the state legislature are a one-tool party and that tool is the tax cut. Want to stimulate business? Cut taxes. Need to balance the budget? Cut taxes.

There is, in all honesty, a corollary to this principle: If the hammer won’t work, pull out the nail. Cut services to women, children and the poor; cut health care, education, and public recreation facilities.

After years of Republican tax cutting Arizona is beginning to feel like some down-at-heels fourth world backwater. No one likes paying taxes but if we spread the cost over all of us the pain will be less than if we have to pay privately for such things as our children’s education.

Most importantly, we won’t be letting any of our fellow Arizonans fall through the cracks in a decaying health and education system.

It’s simply outrageous that the Republican legislature hasn’t been able to solve our budget problems, but the reason is clear to everyone but a Republican. If first cutting taxes and then cutting services won’t work it should be clear that doing the same thing all over again won’t work, either.

“Well, that didn’t work, let’s do it again.”

Good Grief!