The Tucson City Council members contained their excitement last week as they talked about how to spend the cityโs $150 million surplus.
They talked soberly about long-term investments and the need to sustain any initiative they start. They spoke in a stream of acronyms: CSO, FTE, HURF, ARPA, HR and IT.
City Manager Michael Ortega also was in a guardedly celebratory mood.
โTo be sitting here having this discussion is something most people dream about,โ Ortega said. โItโs also a moment in time we have to take advantage of in a very positive way to celebrate, but not be reckless.โ
Indeed the plan he put forward to start spending the money was sober. It included:
Spending $6.5 million to upgrade the cityโs computer hardware, software and cybersecurity assets.
Hiring 50 new community service officers at the police department.
Adding two new brush-and-bulky crews to deal with the cleanup of homeless camps.
It goes on like that. Very dry, very measured, very responsible.
If I were to share that cautious mood, I would take that $150 million and split it, trying to solve our housing and crime problems.
That would be getting something serious done.
But really, you can overdo caution.
Whatever happened to dreaming big and living large? Whatโs up with all this prudence? So, to that end, in a spirit of whimsy and recklessness, here are my big ideas for blowing Tucsonโs $150 million.
Gondola/water slide
People used to talk about a gondola up the side of the Santa Catalinas, but how about instead we build it up the side of โAโ Mountain? That might be a little boring on its own, but for the hot months, we can build a water slide down the side of A Mountain. So people can either take the gondola up and either walk, take the gondola or slide down.
Of course, this is a borderline sacrilegious proposal for the site of Tucsonโs birthplace. To make the watery plunge fit Tucsonโs history, we could call it the Acequia Slide and have it splash land in a historically accurate agricultural canal.
And then with the leftover money, we can build a gondola up Mount Lemmon.
Raise the mountain
Mount Lemmon and the Santa Catalinas are impressive, but theyโre not as impressive as they were around 25 million years ago. Thatโs when, geologists believe, extreme heating under the Catalinas caused the underside of the rocky mountaintop to turn liquid, and the rocky top slid west. Eventually it formed the Tucson Mountains.
Donโt you think some of the Tucson Mountain peaks would like to return home after all this time? If we were to take, say, Wasson Peak and Cat Mountain, and transport them to the top of Mount Lemmon, it would serve multiple goals:
A raised and rebuilt Mount Lemmon Ski Valley could get enough snow to stay open for months.
The high-altitude species endangered by the warming climate would have somewhere higher to go.
The increasingly crowded mountaintop would have much more cool terrain for Tucsonans to explore.
Flood-escape zip lines
I wouldnโt want to ignore public safety. And in this season, our biggest safety problem seems to be flash floods. Over and over, emergency responders end up rescuing people trapped by flood waters in our washes and canyons.
Just the other day, a couple dozen Bear Canyon walkers were trapped behind raging floodwaters โ not in imminent danger but unable to get back.
We donโt have to stand for this anymore. The solution is zip lines. With $150 million, surely we can outfit every dangerous canyon and wash with zip lines at the crossing points. Those trapped can then simply zip to the other side and be on their way.
You may think these zip lines would be abused in times of low water. True. My solution is to hire some engineers to design a system whereby the zip lines would be locked until floodwaters hit a certain height and power. At that point, the trigger would be released, allowing stranded people to zip to freedom.
This is replicable, of course, at all our dangerous washes.
Tucson 250th birthday blowout
You may have heard the phrase โbuy experiences, not things.โ What Iโm proposing here is an experience like none of us has ever had.
Back in the day, one of the biggest events of the year in Tucson was the Fiesta de San Agustin, celebrating the cityโs patron saint. It was a blowout starting in late August that could last days.
To give you a flavor, the Weekly Citizen reported on Sept. 5, 1885: โThe streets were nearly deserted today because everybody had gone to the Park to view the preparations for the opening of the fiesta to-night. It will be a grand time and nine out of every ten people in the city can be found there.โ
Dancing, drinking, eating โ people were all in. As George Hand once described it during the fiesta in his famous saloon diary of the 1870s and 1880s: โI was drunk early and late. Drunk all day. Very drunk. Disgustingly drunk. Everyone is drunk.โ
But eventually the tradition petered out.
Now, the Tucson presidio was founded Aug. 20, 1775, and we normally celebrate it with some nice but comparatively tame festivities every year.
You see where Iโm going with this? Aug. 20, 2025, will be the 250th anniversary. $150 million would go a long ways toward a blowout like no one would ever forget. Music, rides, drinks, food โ everything could be free.
Yeah we have problems to solve, but maybe we should spend our money on an incredible experience!
Consolation prize: Geode drop
The consolation prize, for me, would be if the City Council used some pocket change to realize the idea I first came up with five years ago โ the Geode Drop.
This is a takeoff on the Pinecone Drop, which Flagstaff holds every New Yearโs Eve. (And that is a takeoff on New York Cityโs ball drop.)
Either to start the New Year or the Gem, Mineral and Fossil Shows, Tucson should put on a Geode Drop. Imagine a big gray imitation rock, initially large but unimpressive, that gradually splits in half to reveal a glittering, bejeweled inside as it glides to the ground.
This is my least reckless idea and the closest I can come to caution.
