A new scheme to finance a downtown hotel is being promoted by developer Garfield Traub. This time the developer proposes that a real estate investment trust from Chicago buy bonds to finance the hotel, a Tucson Convention Center Expansion, and a new parking garage. The only problem with this deal is that the City of Tucson taxpayers would be on the hook for $230 million to back up the bonds.

If the hotel-convention center plan is such a good deal, why can’t it be financed entirely by private investors without taxpayers being on the hook? Let private enterprise take the risk and reap the rewards, if any.

I also wonder if the Tucson City Council has heard of the “Gift Clause” in the Arizona constitution. The “Gift clause” AZ constitution art. 9, § 7 states: “Neither the state, nor any county, city, town, municipality, or other subdivision of the state shall ever give or loan its credit in the aid of, or make any donation or grant, by subsidy or otherwise, to any individual, association, or corporation, or become a subscriber to, or a shareholder in, any company or corporation, or become a joint owner with any person, company, or corporation, except as to such ownerships as may accrue to the state by operation or provision of law or as authorized by law solely for investment of the monies in the various funds of the state.”

The City should take note of what happened to Tucson Electric Park, the county-owned baseball park built and maintained by county taxpayers. Professional baseball has abandoned Tucson. An article in the Arizona Daily Star says, “The county-owned baseball facility is home to a stadium and practice fields, but nobody plays there any more, since the Tucson Sidewinders and spring training have packed up and moved on.” The article goes on to say that the park might be seeking a new name. I suggest Pima’s Folly.

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, my westside neighborhood experienced approximately 30 short power outages during the very windy day and evening. Each would last from 30 seconds to five minutes. That made work on a desktop computer very difficult. By the way, my neighborhood has all underground utilities.

I inquired of TEP to see what was happening and what they were doing about it.

This morning I received a call from TEP spokesman Joseph Barrios. He said that overhead lines leading into the neighborhood carry both high-voltage transmission lines and lower-voltage distribution lines. Slack in the lines caused them to touch and short out, tripping circuit breakers. The breakers would automatically reset.

Barrios said that if this happens more than four times, the TEP crews search out the cause. Apparently over time, the lines stretch, resulting in too much slack. Barrios said that crews have now tightened the lines and installed “separators” which hopefully will prevent future problems, at least for a while.

Although the power outages were inconvenient, I appreciate that TEP crews got to work to identify the problem and that Mr. Barrios telephoned me with an explanation.