Republican candidates for Tucson City Council held a news conference Friday to discuss a delayed downtown development, but it quickly turned confrontational when the developers and their supporters showed up.
The three candidates, Margaret Burkholder, Bill Hunt and Kelly Lawton, held the publicity event on Gadsden Co.’s private property on West Congress Street.
Gadsden bought the property from the city and has exclusive rights to develop it if it meets certain performance criteria, which the Republican candidates say the company has failed to meet after multiple time extensions.
The City Council should hold Gadsden accountable for a lack of progress in developing the site and shouldn’t have accepted excuses from the company, Burkholder said in a speech.
The candidates called for the council to end a 2008 deal with the company to develop an affordable housing project near the new streetcar line.
Burkholder told the Star she is considering a lawsuit under the state’s gift clause, which prohibits governments from giving benefits to private companies if they don’t have a direct public benefit.
The candidates hadn’t asked the company’s permission to be on the vacant lot, and a company official asked the candidates to remove campaign signs from the property. Gadsden supporters crashed the event, many wearing shirts or carrying signs for the campaign of incumbent Democrat Regina Romero.
Things got heated when Burkholder’s husband got into a scuffle with a Democratic supporter.
Two young women wearing Romero T-shirts and holding signs supporting incumbent Democrat Shirley Scott tried to stand behind the Republican candidates as they were giving speeches. Burkholder’s husband stepped in front of them holding a Hunt sign.
One of the Democratic supporters pushed Burkholder’s husband, and he then told her not to touch him or he would call police regarding the assault.
Later, following short speeches by the candidates, Menlo Park residents quickly put the candidates on the defensive.
“People like to use (the neighborhood) for their political purposes, they like to say nothing’s been done, there’s nothing over there, the West Side’s no good — and it’s not true,” said Mac Hudson, a Menlo Park resident, past president of the neighborhood association and a former staffer for Romero.
He invited the candidates to talk to people in the neighborhood and to explore the area to see the progress.
Hunt, who is running in Ward 1, where the Gadsden property is located, said he appreciated the neighborhood’s input.
“The City Council has failed to act for seven years to develop this,” Lawton said.
There is $1.2 million wrapped up in the project in the form of performance bonds that could be used to help pay for fire and police service, he said. “We need to put that money to work for Tucson,” Lawton said.
The candidates previously said they do not support one-time spending to help solve Tucson’s ongoing budget problems.
Gadsden CEO Adam Weinstein said the candidates’ statements were misleading and inaccurate.
He said the performance bond is $240,300, not $1.2 million, because the company has satisfied some of the city’s requirements and the amount has been reduced.
Weinstein said the candidates were clueless about “a very proud neighborhood” and how much discussion and cooperation his company has put in with neighborhood activists about making the development sensitive to the culture and history of the place.
He also said the candidates showed they are “totally out of touch with the economic reality” of downtown development.
Weinstein said the latest delay in the affordable housing project came because a state agency didn’t approve low-income housing tax credits for the project but the company will apply again next year.
Candidate Burkholder said it should raise eyebrows when voters consider the campaign contributions given by the downtown developers to council incumbents.
