The defeat of the Pima County bonds on Nov. 3 revealed a systemic problem with how the $815 million bond election was formulated and then presented to voters.
“Opposition to road bonds strongest in … suburbs,” said the Arizona Daily Star’s front page on Nov. 10. So, why did the “suburbs” oppose the bonds?
When I first heard County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry present his concept for a Pima County bond election to build the Sonoran Corridor (which would link Interstates 19 and 10 and protect and enhance the site of our largest private employment base) and other roads of regional significance, I agreed, but offered an alternative route.
I expressed the position that roads like the Sonoran Corridor should be financed and implemented through the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and its sales-taxing authority, not by the county.
At the recent election, respecting the efforts of the Bond Advisory Committee, I voted for all of the bond proposals, with some reservations.
I did so because I thought the community needed to get out of its funk, show leadership and deal with its economic malaise and infrastructure deterioration. The majority, especially those in the “suburbs,” felt differently.
But we now need to get past this and show ourselves and those who bring about jobs and prosperity how to move on. Foremost, we must come up with a way to get the vital Sonoran Corridor project and other job-creating projects financed and built. I think we should do so through the RTA system.
When the RTA plan evolved more than 10 years ago, I was privileged to be its first chair. I worked on the 2006 RTA election structure knowing the inherent problems we faced. We developed a regional transportation plan through establishing both a technical management committee and a 34-member county-wide RTA citizens’ advisory committee selected by all of the cities, towns and the county.
Each of the RTA’s nine jurisdictions unanimously endorsed the plan. Thus, all of the cities and towns and the county collectively and consensually collaborated — through the RTA — in carrying out these vital first steps. This ensured that all parts of the county — cities and suburbs alike — would first have to approve the plan and the financing mechanism before there was a public vote.
County voters responded in 2006 by passing the RTA $2.1 billion plan and sales tax with about 60 percent of the vote.
Let’s recall the basis — the raison d’etre — for why the RTA was reconstituted more than 10 years ago. It was recognized that our way of doing regional infrastructure through county and other bond issues had too often failed. A feeling was prevalent that projects promised during previous bond elections were either not fulfilled or delayed unnecessarily.
The RTA understood this deep voter skepticism and sought to assuage voters by mandating this would not again happen. To its credit, the RTA has basically achieved this promise, with a caution to follow through on voter-approved projects.
We will have to, at some point, extend the RTA’s taxing authority, set to expire in 2026. Going forward — as we must — and the sooner the better, the RTA should begin to formulate a plan to accelerate and extend its sales-taxing authority with an updated plan. Its principal new components should prioritize maintenance of regional roads and construction of essential regional infrastructure, such as the Sonoran Corridor, as well as carry out voter-approved projects.
Individual jurisdictions, like Tucson, Oro Valley, Marana, Sahuarita and Pima County, must also plan for bond issues to take care of their growing unmet and myriad pressing needs.
The RTA system successfully implemented in 2006 should be emulated. In doing so, let’s remember the lessons learned from the successful RTA election in 2006 and the recent failed bond election: Systems matter — greatly.
