Hi. I am Tucson’s Ghost Giraffe. I’m haunting the City of Tucson’s government.

One of the things that fascinated me was all those people living in the Catalina Foothills out in the County who complain a lot about Tucson but won’t annex into the city limits. If they don’t want to annex into the city than they should shut up about Tucson’s politics.

According to my jungle drum sources, if all the Catalina Foothills were to annex into the city of Tucson, that would give the Republians a majority of voters in the city. Thinks what could happen then. Especially if you are a Republican fed up with the liberal Democratic agenda downtown.

But did you know you pay the same water rates inside Tucson as the foothills people do? Now most cities charge 25% or even 50% more for their water utility service outside their city limits as an inducment to annex into their city. How come Tucson gives foothills residents the same water rates as in-city residents? Are they afraid of them?

We need a really good fight between the flatlanders and the hill people here so I propose Tucson raise its water rates 50% to Catalina Foothils residents.  Make those rich people who look down on Tucson pay more for water…or they can annex into the city and take over city government…their choice. Tucson’s liberals could  soak the rich here.

One of the reason higher water rates are justified to foothills residents is because they are not in the city, Tucson does not get state revenue share for the people out there, and they don’t pay city property taxes. Inside the city water customers generate state revenue share to the city. Plus I heard the law says cities can charge more for water to people outside their city limits.

So what do you  think?

Should the Foothills resident get a break on their water bills?

Or should Tucson raise water rates in the Catalina Foothills by 50%

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More from Tucson Ghost Giraffe:

Tucson Ghost Giraffe suggests moving City Hall to El Con

Tucson Ghost Giraffe talks about zoo

Tucson ghost giraffe haunts City Hall

Hi. I am Tucson’s Ghost Giraffe. Remember me? I was the one they fed oleanders to.

I’ve decided to haunt Tucson’s City Hall. You know…remind them there are more important things than sky bridges and aquariums. I mean, if you can’t even feed your giraffes safe food what kind of city are you running here?

I see where the City Manager resigned effective a year from now and wrote a 7 page letter blaming everyone else for his problems. The city council fired him effective Friday. That’s cool. 

So the first issue is who is going to run the city now that Letcher is gone?.

I’m sending an oleander plant down to City Hall to put on the City Manager’s desk to remind whoever gets the job that it is the little stuff that counts.

Michael Letcher, Tucson City Manager, resigned effective August 2012.

That’s right…his resignation is effective one year from now.

If that is not an excellent example of what has been wrong with the city of Tucson, if the Mayor and Council accept this resignation on those outrageous terms than you all really will understand what’s wrong with Tucson’s city government.

Tucson government basics: The city has 6 council members and a mayor. The mayor runs meeting and votes only to break a tie.

The Tucson charter puts the city council in charge of city policy…and implementing city policy is put in the hands of a city manager. The city council hires and fire the city manager who serves at the will of the city council majority.

Basically the city council is supposed to tell the city manager what the council wants done, and leave the administration of that up to the city manager and city staff.

However, in the 1980s  the city manager’s office usurped the policy role of the city council because Tucson’s elected officials were so busy mired in trivial pursuits, they wouldn’t understand “policy” if it ran them over on the street.

The policy options of the city council were manipulated by the city manager’s office. Elected city officials were never given all options, nor any kind of realistic views of the pros and cons of all possible policy options.

This is how the city ended up pissing away $230 million on Rio Nuevo with virtually nothing to show for it.

This is how the city’s ParkWise program has ended up as another scandal.

This is how the city can’t avoid feeding oleanders to its giraffes.

There is no one at the top of the pyramid saying this is what needs to be done and this better be done right or we’ll fire your ass.

Letcher has no civil service protection. At best he gets a few month severance pay if the council terminates him immediately. They should.

Between now and January the city can be run with an acting city manager until the election sort things out.

It is time for a sea change at city hall…which will only come if Republicans get two more council seats and the mayor’s chair. Three Democrats and three Republicans puts Rick Grinnell, if he is the next mayor, as the deciding vote.

Or, Tucson can continue to work really hard being a third class city run by Democrats who could care less what happens in Tucson east of Alvernon.
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Letcher notes in his resignmation email:

Unfortunately, I cannot change the current political and media climate in this community that focus more on blame than resolution. I know now that I can only go so far in changing the organizational climate of the city that has not seen consistent City Management since Joel Valdez.

Yep….and I worked for Joel Valdez 1974 to 1978 and here’s what Mr. Letcher is missing…..remember there was a police fire strike, and a recall over water rates in that time frame?

But Lew Murphy held solid as Mayor and Joel Valdez held solid as city manager.

Why was that”?

First Murphy had a vision for Tucson and knew his way around  even though the council majority shifted radically.He could get things done even if his majority Democrats fought. Muprhy was the last leader Mayor Tucson has had. He made it his point to know everything Valdez was up to and supported Joel to the ends of the earth.

When the majority Democrats drove the city off the cliff with their screwed up water rate hikes Valdez reconstructed the process by which city water rates were figured out…taking away the staff control over the process and putting more community input into the decision.

The city busted the police fire strike.

Ever since then Tucson has had a series of weak minded liberal mayors who pandered to all sorts of fringe issue communities and let the city continue to wrap itself in a spiderweb nightmare of regiulatory bullcrap. The staff took over the city.

Valdez ran the city for the benefit of the people…and even if he couldn’t count to four, he did what was right.

Since then city managers have pandered for votes from  officer holders with no vision of the entire city. These office holders have been too easly dazzled with statistics and expensive out-of-town consultants. City management in Tucson has become a medicine show act.

Anoither thing Valdezx diud that subsequent managers did not…Joel had a Deputyt city manager named Bill Ealy who ran all the infrastructure side of the city…public works, water…and Joel oversaw the services side of the city. There were not a lot of assistant managers.

Ealy was also Joel’s Enforcer. People feared Ealy. Screw up in a department and he’d have the department head in his office in a second, and if that department head didn’t fix the situation, he or she was gone.

Now when something screws up down the ranks there will be a study commission that will wander around until the offending staffer leaves town for a better job somewhere else.

Tucson needs a city manager who has an ax in the corner of his or her  office and who will be able to use it without some city council member throwing a snit fit.

 See also:

No lame duck city managers; fire Letcher, hire new manager in January

 Text of Tucson city manager Mike Letcher’s resignation email to staff

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Developer files claim against Tucson for $112M

A Scottsdale shopping mall developer filed a $112 million claim against Tucson for breach of contract after the city tried to sell nearby land for commercial development, despite restrictions against it.

More…

COMMENTARY: What the Star does not do is put this story in its broader context.

The news that Barclay Group is claiming $112 million in damages is just another example of how spectacularly the City of Tucson has failed to grasp a document called a “development agreement”.

Tucson has been playing at being a real estate developer  for years…mostly via Rio Nuevo…but not exclusively so.

What the City has tried to do is promote whatever ideal development its staff believes is good for the city by making special deals  with land developers.

Sometimes these deal involve selling land the City owned…such as the Thrifty block on Congress downtown….for $1 so a development would have a head start. That deal resulted in an empty lot.

Often the land owned by the City is significantly discounted like the deal for the Mercado on the west side of the Santa Cruz River at Congress.

Or the deal involves giving a developer a break on development costs like the retail project at Irvington and I-19.

Pile all the development agreements up that Tucson has engaged in for the last 10 years and what you have is probably one of the worst records of any American city in real estate development.

If a private company had done as many of these stupid bad deals, the managers would have all been fired.

I would guess if you polled the top 10 real estate development lawyers in the state (anonymously) …you would find everyone agrees Tucson is terminally stupid.

First off Tucson is a bunch of  babes in the wood when it comes to understanding what one can or should get away with.

Barclay should never have gotten an agreement from Tucson putting a covenant restricting development on City owned land north of Irvington. For Tucson to have agreed to that…when it was giving away all sorts of free infrastructure to Barclay….borders on criminal negligence.

Then on top of this to try and sell the land for a Sam’s Club without having disclosed the covenant….this is malpractice straight out.

How does a city government piss away $230 million in Rio Nuevo? It starts with the belief  that the gang at 250 West Alameda are some kind of real estate development geniuses.

Over and over they have proven to be screamingly incompetent.

But you don’t see the city council firing the city manager nor do you see the city manager firing anyone and everyone that has gotten Tucson’s body part in the wringer on its failed real estate scams.

Why is that?

I think the answer is simple…the garden variety Tucson city council member (expect Steve Kozachik) has no clue about how real estate development works.

They cannot tell the difference between a really competent  real estate development attorney (presumably the ones who represented all the real estate developments who have screwed Tucson) versus their own grossly incompetent staff.

At this point serious change is needed at Tucson City Hall….a wholesale shift of council majority away from the Democrats who have run the show into ther ground.

A new council majority will result in firing the current city manager and really fumigating City Hall  to get rid of all the incompent line staff that have run Tucson into the ground over and over again pretending to be developers.

My dad used to say there were two things that were waste of time…trying to get your neighbor’s dog to stop pooping in your yard and telling someone how they should vote.

But, the curse of a columnist is we always think we can make a difference throwing some words around.

Tucson has a very important primary election coming up as an all mail ballot.

For reasons only those deeply embedded in Tucson’s life and culture can explain, the Republicans failed to get a candidate with enough signatures on their petitions to get on the ballot.

So up popped businesman Rick Grinnell who threw his hat in the ring as a Republican  write in candidate.

A guy like Grinnell is exactly what Tucson’s city hall needs… a pro-business advocate.

If you are a Republican and you live in Tucson, I urge you to write in Rick Grinnell on your ballot and mail it in. He needs over 1,000 write in votes to advance to the general election.

Tucson needs a vigorous debate about its future.

For more information about Rick:  www.Grinnell4Mayor.com 

Incredible to read about how the Reid Park Zoo giraffe got accdentially fed oleander and died. Gene Reid is rolling over in his grave right now.

I used to take my kids to see the giraffe at that zoo. Very very sad. I hope there is a public memorial.

Like anyone who has lived in Tucson for one day is told oleander is poisonous, along with black widows and scorpions.

Then come to find they have oleanders growing at the zoo….like is this nuts or what?

And now they’re begging for donations to pay to remove the oleanders.

Last I remember the Tucson zoo is part of the City of Tucson governmental empire…the same bunch that blew off $230 million for rainbow bridge and aquarium plans for Rio Nuevo.

If you all haven’t figured out yet that there is something top to bottom wrong with the way the City of Tucson runs things…which can’t even feed a giraffe….then better get down on your knees and pray because it is not going to get better.

From the Arizona Daily Star June 5, 2011:

Josh Brodesky: Destiny, power are at center of stink over wastewater plant

Marana, with its visions of growth, wants to build out across the valley and into neighboring Pinal County. But to control its own destiny, it must control its own sewage.

Only in Arizona can one town’s destiny be inextricably bound to sewage.

“The reason they want the plant is because in Arizona, the law is the treater of the wastewater owns the effluent,” Huckelberry told me.

And effluent has value. It can displace the use of drinkable water for irrigation. It can replenish aquifers and generate state credits. It can help to assure water supplies for the development Marana craves.

More…

And there is lots more about this story…..

COMMENT:
Some historical context…I was directly involved in some of this…

Back in the 1970′s there was a lawsuit between city of Tucson and Pima County Sanitary District # 1 whereby Tucson was challenging Pima’s ability to be in the sewer business outside the city limits to the northwest.

As a general rule in Arizona cities provide both water and wastewater service inside and can do this outside their city limits.

Tucson, through a series of condemnation and purchases, was headed in the direction of being the regional water provider in eastern Pima County…with as much water service area outside its city limits as inside. Tucson was building a water empire as it were.

But the control of growth density is more a function of sewer service…without a sewer system an area can only be developed at 1 home per acre or larger lots…to get 4 homes per acre you must have a sewer collection and treatment system.

Thus the northwest area was growing like mad because Pima was expanding its sewer system out there…which at the time was served by 3 private water companies–Metropolitan Water Company, Canada Hills Water Company and Rancho Vistoso Water Company.
Neither Marana or Oro Valley had taken on the role of being municipal water providers.

As noted in the Star article, under Arizona case law (John F Long case) he who owns the wastewater treatment plant owns the effluent it produces.

In 1977-79 Tucson negotiated an intergovernmental agreement with Pima (finalized in 1979) whereby Tucson turned over its sewer system inside its city limits to Pima, dropped its lawsuit against Pima Sanitary District #1, and pushed for and got an amendment to state law allowing counties (only Pima) to go into the wastewater business. No other county in the state has this authority and never will. I handled the wrap-up of the lawsuit between Tucson and Pima and wrote the language that became state law giving Pima sewer authority.

The 1979 Intergovernmental Agreement between Tucson and Pima County was concentrated on the ownership of the effluent…Tucson kept ownership and control of 90% of the effluent in Pima County wastewater treatment plants…whether the wastewater originated from Tucson Water or elsewhere.

Pima subsequently got peeved over Tucson’s control of the effluent…because Tucson was allowing large amounts of effluent to be discharged into the Santa Cruz River triggering ADEQ and EPA mandates to upgrade the Ina Road and Roger Road wastewater treatment plants at a cost of hundreds of millions….and Pima could not sell the effluent to help pay for these upgrades.

Tucson refused to budge on effluent control.

Tucson has constructed one of the country’s largest reclaimed water systems and has been moving strong for decades in reuse of effluent.

In the 1990s both Marana and Oro Valley had elections and their voters empowered the towns to go into the municipal water utility business. Marana promptly bought out the Cortaro-Marana municipal water system, and other private water companies. I represented Marana in the negotiations to buy out CMID.

Oro Valley bought Canada Hills and Rancho Vistoso Water companies. I represented the two water companies in their sale to Oro Valley.

Metropolitan Water Company was initially bought by Tucson and then they sold it to the newly formed (then) Metropolitan Domestic Water Improvement District.

So…by the end of the 1990′s Tucson’s ambition of being the regional water provider had been broken by Marana and OV going into the municipal water business and taking control of their water destinies. Tucson gave up a portion of its empire in the Northwest Area when it sold Met Water to the district.

Meanwhile Tucson had gotten control of the Continental Ranch water service area and agreed to serve what is now called Dive Mountain…both now inside Marana’s town limits.

Marana has been fussing with Tucson in an effort to buy out Tucson’s Continental Ranch and Dove Mountain water systems so Marana can control all water service inside its town limits…and Tucson has fought this. Similar issue…how much does Marana pay for system which were built with money from developers…not Tucson ratepayers.

Legally Marana has the authority to condemn Tucson Water’s utility systems inside Marana’s town limits.

Back to Pima….there are lots of frustrations with Pima’s decisions about wastewater plant locations and effluent access. For example, in Vail that development wanted its own wastewater treatment plant in Vail so the effluent could be used to irrigate the golf course there. Pima County said no and forced the developer to connect Vail to the regional system…thus wastewater from Vail ends up at the Pima treatment plants on the northwest side of Tucson under Tucson’s control.

In Sahuarita Pima County demanded that wastewater from that project (Rancho Sahuarita) be put in a pipe through or around the San Xavier Indian Reservation so that effluent would also end up on the northwest side of Tucson and under Tucson’s control.

Sahuarita fought this and managed to get an EPA 208 plan amendment and went into the sewer business…the only city or town in Pima that has this authority.
Sahuarita is now moving towards an election to empower that town to be in the municipal water business and buy out Rancho Sahuarita water company. If that happens Sahuarita will be the first town in Pima with both control over water and wastewater. Obviously Marana is headed in the same direction and you can bet OV will follow.

Note…it is the norm in Arizona for cities and towns to have their own wastewater systems…Pima is the exception.

Efluent is hugely important as a water resource..either as a substitute for potable water use on golf courses or as a source of groundwater replenishment credits.

In Prescott Valley that town sold off its effluent recharge credits and raised $20 million or so to fund its wastewater treatment plant.

There are 2 sources of renewable water here…CAP and effluent.

He who controls wastewater and effluent controls growth.

Thus we have Tucson controlling effluent for its benefit and Pima controlling wastewater plant and sewer system access inside other jurisdictions…this is not the norm in Arizona.

Both Pima and Tucson have visions of being in control of growth and development in eastern Pima County…and attack Marana, OV and Sahuarita because these areas are competing with Tucson and Pima over growth control.
While there are obviously political interests behind both the Pima government and city of Tucson about growth control…this is a jurisdictional war with the emerging towns. Put directly…Tucson and Pima and residents of neighborhood activists in central Tucson are never going to control the destiny of the surround area outside Tucson’s city limits. That is precisely why new towns get formed…so local residents control their future…not someone else far away.

We’re about 20-30 years behind what happened in Maricopa county with the emergence of strong satellite cities around Phoenix which had their own water and wastewater control, annexed a lot of land for growth, and built Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler…etc into powerhouse communities in their own right. By 2020 one or two of the Phoenmix satellite cities will have more people than city of Tucson.

Besides the water and wastewater fights there is athird one been going on for a long time…incorporation of new towns outside Tucson…Tucson has had a state law based 6 mile “kill zone” in which they could block incorporation of new towns. Tucson has always fought against creation of new towns on its edge.
Years ago legislation was passed (at the urging of Pima County interestingly) to open the door to new town creation here…but the courts shot that down at Tucson’s urging.

New legislation was passed last session to remove the 6 mile kill zone so Vail and several other new towns could incorporate on the fringes of Tucson…besides Vail think Catalina Foothills, the Northwest area, Drexel Heights., Picture Rocks…Corona de Tucson….

Interesting the existing towns all have ambitious annexation plans and probably land on Tucson’s side of not wanting it to be too easy for new towns to incorporate.
But there is not an alliance between Tucson and the existing towns because Tucson took Pima’s side in the wastewater/effluent fight and blocked the PAG 208 plan amendment for Marana to be in the wastewater business.
Instead of creating the obvious alliance of southern Arizona cities and towns to look out for municipal interests…Tucson has gone its own strange way thinking it is the only city in the region and fighting against all the other cities and towns.

One of these days Tucson is going to finally figure out that trying to control effluent originating from Oro Valley, Marana and Green Valley/Sahuarita is not worth the political damage at the state lkevelst and take the side of the existing towns and unite to bust Pima County out of the growth control business. Tucson needs to side with Marana to and break up Pima’s regional wastewater deal in favor of town control. The only question is when that finally happens.

There are lots of interesting side effects to this fight… we have more people living in unincorporated areas of Pima than Maricopa county does…and as a consequence the cities and towns here do not get as much state revenue share as do valley cities. Pima has tried many times to get an urban allocation of state revenue share for the unincorporated areas here and failed…because the state-wide municipal interests see what happened here as an aberration and will never change state law. Instead the state response is to try and figure out a way to allow more new towns to incorporate. here.

I anticipate eventually a change in annexation laws to make it easier for existing cities and towns here to annex the surrounding urbanized areas. For example, whever a city or town is providing water service to an unincorporated area it can automatically annex that area, or charge double the water rates and connection fees. If anyone wants out…they would have to have 50% of the voters to sign and 51% of the property owners by number and valuation….that’s my guess based on a fire district de-annexation law.

Pima’s record for wastewater plant siting…and the loss of effluent from the non-city of Tucson sources…is a major problem and the towns are dug in to get that control.

And there are lots of nuances about “cost”….people in Green Valley pay a regional rate for connections to the sewer system and for user fees treatment even though they are served by a primitive lagoon system…not a huge new plant…so they are subsidizing Tucson and other Pima residents.

And if the bulk of all new wastewater treatment capacity is being funded from connection fees (these are impact fees) and not from sewer user fees…Pima’s argument fails in Marana. Pima’s sewer users did not pay…the developers did.

And so what if sewer connection fees in the surrounding towns ends up higher than what Pima charges…a claim Pima makes to oppose Marana.

So what if Pima’s fees have to go up because they lost the ability to charge new development in Marana or Green Valley for the cost of upgrading the Roger Road WWTP and Pima’s fees increase? Growth must pay for itself whatever the cost.

Indeed probably over all costs will increase to new development in Pima as well as in the towns if they are in the wastewater business…so what?

The homebuilders won’t like this…but taxpayers and ratepayers should love this.

The real deal is control of the effluent for renewable water supplies…Pima does not control the effluent…Tucson does…and no one is going to let Tucson control effluent originating with town water utilities.

Tucson needs to quit aiding and abetting Chuck Huckelberry’s growth management kingdom and start thinking like a city…and recognize its future lies in working with surround cities and towns.

Huckelberry has turned into a self-appointed growth control czar and actually counties should have very little to do with growth management as this is why we have cities and towns.

That will probably happen when Rio Nuevo builds a new convention hotel downtown or when the next ice Age begins…whichever comes first.

UPDATE 6-10-11: Marana fails to get sewer-plant OK

Marana fails to get sewer-plant OK

…Thursday’s vote was 4-3, with Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup abstaining. Honea and representatives from Sahuarita and Oro Valley voted yes, while representatives of Pima County, South Tucson, the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe voted no.

More…

Interesting Tucson abstained in the PAG 208 Plan vote, South Tucson and the two Indian nations joined with Pima to kill Marana’s amendment.

I fail to see why the Tohono O’Odahm and Pascua Yaqui Indians have any say in wastewater decisions outide their reservation boundaries.

David Brooks, colunist for the New York Times, observed “…cities thrive because they host quality conversations, not because they have new buildings and convention centers.”

Interesting thought for the City of Tucson to consider….