Steller: Revitalize Tucson, but view election billboards skepticaly

You know your campaign is getting under people’s skin when they sue you over it.

To that extent, local conservative gadfly Christine Bauserman and former state Sen. Frank Antenori can count as a success their dark-money campaign against the incumbent Tucson City Council members. Democratic Party activist and attorney Vince Rabago filed suit over their billboard-and-sign campaign last week.

Of course, rousing their opponents may turn out to be Bauserman’s and Antenori’s only victory in the city election they’ve joined. While the GOP put up a decent-looking slate of three council candidates, their performance so far has been lukewarm. Only Margaret Burkholder, already a school board member in the Vail district, seems to have grabbed the campaign by the lapel.

So, will this $50,000 independent-expenditure campaign work? It’s doubtful in a town that has rejected even promising Republican candidates recently.

Should it work? That’s what I’m here to figure out. So let’s go sign-by-sign and see if Revitalize Tucson is telling the truth or just being partisan with their anonymous money.

Billboard 1: “Who made Tucson the 5th poorest city in the US? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

There’s no doubt Tucson is a poor city, so arguing over exactly how poor might be seen as pointless quibbling. Still, that high ranking is not one we’re used to.

Tucson really woke up to its poverty problem in 2012, when the U.S. Census Bureau released rankings that showed it with the sixth-highest rate of people in poverty the previous year — at 20.4 percent — among 100 metro areas with populations over 500,000. That ranking improved the next year to the eighth-highest poverty rate, but new reports, detailing Tucson’s rate for 2014, have not yet come out.

The ranking that Revitalize Tucson’s billboard seems to be citing is one reported by CBS News and compiled by FindtheHome.com, a real estate website. It ranks cities by the proportion of people earning less than $25,000 per year. It’s a strange list, in that it also includes cities such as Boston and Indianapolis in its Top 10. And not coincidentally, it’s the list that makes Tucson look the worst.

Billboard 2: “Who let a few radicals hold downtown hostage? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

This is an apparent reference to the homeless “protest” at Veinte de Agosto Park downtown, which lasted from late 2013 to March 2014, culminating in the crowding of the sidewalks with tents and wooden “dream pods.”

This protest was allowed to go on largely because city officials believed that U.S. District Judge David Bury was prohibiting them from moving the homeless people from the park on First Amendment grounds. When the subject finally came up at a March 10, 2014, hearing, the judge scolded city arguments as “disingenuous.”

Only then did the city act to remove the pods and tents. So, while the council members relied on legal advice on how to handle those “few radicals,” it did turn out to be wrong and overly cautious. To that extent, you could say the council “let” them take over part of downtown.

Billboard 3: “Who gets $1.36 billion and won’t fix the potholes? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

Road conditions have been one of the most infuriating problems in Tucson, and conditions are still not great. A study that came out this year showed Tucson’s road conditions were the worst among 11 western cities.

But that study, based on Federal Highway Administration “roughness” measures taken in 2012, is out of date. Anyone who has driven around town knows that conditions have improved markedly thanks to a $100 million road-bond measure we approved in 2012.

Not only that, but the city this year found it had largely completed the promised bond work spending only $60 million, so the next $40 million is going into additional fixes. Potholes are being fixed, finally.

If you think voters should blame Scott, Cunningham and Romero for not fixing the roads sooner, you should also consider crediting them for fixing the problem now.

Billboard 4: “Why are we Arizona’s most dangerous city? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

This sign is based on an analysis of FBI uniform crime reports for 2012. Tucson had the most violent crimes per 100,000 population of any city in Arizona that year, with Phoenix in second place. Can’t argue with this one.

Billboard 5: “Who raises water rates four years in a row? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

Every year, Tucson Water estimates the revenue it will need for the next fiscal year. Every year lately the answer has been: more.

That additional revenue has come in the form of rate increases for residential users, especially for the higher-volume users, and some service charge increases. Although the City Council has usually chosen the least painful options, it has indeed repeatedly raised rates.

Billboard 6: “Who is paying $40 million for empty Sun Tran buses? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

Who IS paying $40 million? That’s a good question, because the answer is not the city of Tucson. The city pays $30 million from its general fund for Sun Tran.

But the emptiness of many buses is annoying because it speaks of waste. And the council has rejected some changes to bus routes that would have made them more efficient. So, to an extent, the “empty” buses are the council’s fault.

Billboard 7: “Who still can’t find the $230 million from Rio Nuevo? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

Saying “Rio Nuevo” and “$230 million” will always arouse the anger of some Tucson voters. But the fact is, nobody can “find the $230 million” because nobody is looking anymore because the audits are done and the criminal investigation is over.

We did waste way too much money on planning and evaluating projects that never got done — the Rainbow Bridge will always be the symbol of this. Some of the money probably was wrongfully pocketed along the way, but criminal investigators could not find the evidence to prove that.

It bears repeating, though, that the city hasn’t controlled Rio Nuevo since 2010 — as Antenori well knows, since he helped force those changes in the Legislature. And throwing out these buzz words isn’t much more than a cheap tactic at this stage.

Billboard 8: “Who lost jobs at McDonald’s and Grand Canyon U? Ask Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham and Regina Romero”

The short answer to this would be: Nobody.

Grand Canyon University considered building a new campus in Tucson but chose Mesa instead, thanks in part to City Council waffling. However, GCU still hasn’t built the Mesa campus, so it’s a bit unfair to say right now that Tucson lost something that doesn’t exist.

The McDonald’s reference is to an effort by the fast-food corporation to re-zone a property at Alvernon and 22nd Street and build a new restaurant there. However, it would have closed a McDonald’s down the street at 22nd and Randolph to move into this new site. So, while there might have been a few more permanent jobs at the new McDonald’s, it would largely have been a wash.

Of course, the Grand Canyon case isn’t that simple. Romero supported the idea of helping GCU build a campus on the El Rio Golf Course initially but later turned against the idea after facing neighborhood pressure. The university’s interest seemed sincere, and a campus in Tucson would have been a huge boon, but the lack of action in Mesa does raise doubts.