On Sunday, the Arizona Daily Star wrote an op/ed chastising the city and the Rio Nuevo Board for dragging their feet on a cooperative agreement that settles who owns what and who owes what so that both governments can move Rio Nuevo forward.
Today, newly appointed Rio Nuevo board member Jonathan Paton released a statement on the email newsletter left over from his Congressional campaign that states unequivocally he’s ready to fight.
Methinks having a pugilistic Paton on the board will only delay Rio Nuevo’s progress, not advance it. But maybe that’s the point in appointing him.
Here’s the text of his statement:
Friends:
As you may have heard, I was recently appointed to the Rio Nuevo oversight board. Back in 2009, I wrote the law to empower this board and take control away from the mayor and City Council after they burned through millions of taxpayer dollars and refused to even provide information on what they did with it.
I take this appointment seriously and plan to hold the city accountable. I have two main goals: Stand in the way of any efforts to grant the City Council amnesty for their gross mishandling of taxpayer dollars. And two, find free-market solutions to economic development downtown – not the tried and failed big-government approach we’ve seen in the past.
Obviously, this is ruffling the feathers of the downtown establishment.
As you can see from this piece that Fox aired, the voices of the status quo aren’t too happy about my appointment: http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/City-of-Tucson-Rio-Nuevo-board-relationship-likely-to-be-more-contentious-119071964.html
Keep up the fight for freedom!
Your friend,
Jonathan