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The big debate: Rio Nuevo retrenchment

‘Saying the economy is to blame for the Rio Nuevo fiasco is like telling a teacher that the dog ate your homework.’ – Spirit of Zenger

The story: In an editorial, the Citizen applauds the city of Tucson’s decision to put on hold planned Rio Nuevo museums and to route rapidly shrinking tax revenue into the construction of a new arena and convention center-hotel.

Your take: The Citizen’s online community doesn’t buy the editorial’s contention that the worst-in-eight-decades economy is at the root of the downtown revitalization project’s economic woes. Readers blame city officials, who, as Spirit of Zenger puts it, “dropped the ball in nearly every way possible” on Rio Nuevo. Some representative comments:

• “Rio Nuevo is a sinkhole for taxpayer money. . . . Everyone involved should be fired and made to account for their waste of money.” Blythechris

• “The current economic situation has nothing to do with the state of Rio Nuevo. Rio Nuevo is a failure because of city government, the local developers and the sorry group that passes for community leadership.” 6495

• “If we . . . continue to show the state that we cannot handle simple projects, it will be a long time before we receive funding or consideration for future projects.” Thebigshmoog

• “(One hundred) million dollars and nothing has happened. No wonder Phoenix views Tucson as a city full of thieves.” mtrued

• “I’ve lived worldwide and all over the U.S. Never have I seen such a mismanaged city.” Ohiorat

• “No more Rio Nuevo! Keep downtown Tucson crappy! That’s how people here seem to like it!” fidel

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This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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