Expecting politics in Tucson to be logical is illogical.
Expecting good government in Tucson is delusional.
A recent story in the Arizona Daily Star demonstrated both points. It was about the main library in downtown Tucson moving across the street from its present location.
Backdrop: Although the City of Tucson has a population of 542,629, it doesn’t have its own libraries. Libraries in the city are run by Pima County, which also runs libraries in the suburbs. (The total population of metro Tucson is nearly 1.1 million.)
Of course, the county also has normal county responsibilities, such as county courts, jails, and law enforcement in unincorporated areas. At 9,189 sq. miles, Pima County is huge and has a lot on its government plate without worrying about libraries.
As further backdrop, a political monopoly of the Democrat Party has controlled both the city and county for decades. Like all monopolies, whether political or economic, it has stifled competition, innovation, accountability, logic, and common sense.
A whopping 36 percent of metro Tucson is unincorporated county, encompassing nearly 400,000 people. When the City of Tucson’s population of 542,629 is added to this, it means that the uni-party controls about 86 percent of the Tucson metropolis.
Pick your analogy: Local government in Tucson is reminiscent of a) the Robber Barons at the end of the nineteenth century; b) East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell; c) the one-party government of Mexico that used to govern what is now Arizona; or d) all of the above.
Anyway, as the Arizona Daily Star story detailed, the Pima County Board of Supervisors (BOS), with the blessing of their comrades on the Tucson city council, have decided to buy the Wells Fargo building across from the main library and move the library into it. The Wells Fargo building has been vacant for over three years.
Why the move?
One stated reason is that it will be cheaper to buy the former bank building for $6.2 million and retrofit it than it would be to make necessary repairs to the “aging” library building, which was built by the city and is owned by the city.
Huh?
The library building was built in 1990; the bank building in 1958. How did a 35-year-old building fall into worse condition than a 67-year-old building? Who was responsible for maintenance, the county or the city? The story didn’t say.
Another stated reason for the move is that the current library is too big at 90,000 sq. ft. The 50,000 sq. ft. bank building is a more ideal size, according to the BOS. But an earlier news story of several weeks ago said that only 20,000 sq. ft. would be needed.
What’s the truth? A monopoly doesn’t have to say. It speaks the language of doublespeak.
An example of doublespeak is what County Supervisor Rex Scott, the chairman of the BOS, said about the expanded role of the downtown library, which is named the Valdez Library. Here’s a quote from the Arizona Daily Star story:
“The Valdez Library is more than just a lending library and administrative headquarters. It’s a community gathering space, a resource provider, a jobs center, a communications hub, a learning center, and a place of respite,” he [Scott] said in the news release. “It is essential to the life and vitality of downtown Tucson, and it was essential for the board to preserve that and do it in a way that was financially responsible and respectful to county taxpayers.”
Was it financially responsible and respectful to county taxpayers to let a 35-year-old library building fall into such disrepair that it essentially has to be abandoned?
If the library’s role is ever-expanding with no limits, then why move to a smaller space?
Speaking of roles, “a place of respite” is probably a euphemism for “a place for the homeless.” That’s certainly true for the library branch on 1st Ave. I once scheduled a meeting in that library’s conference room, thinking that it was a normal library for neighborhood residents, with maybe a smattering of the homeless. It was the opposite. It was more of a homeless shelter than a library for regular library patrons. Describing it as overrun is not an exaggeration. A cop was on duty in the overrun parking lot, and one was on duty in the overrun building. The conference room was grimy, dingy and in disarray.
The homeless should of course be treated humanely, but a discussion for another time are the reasons for Tucson having such a large homeless population, such high poverty and crime, such low K-12 test scores, and such a low-wage economy.
By contrast, just north of the City of Tucson is the unincorporated suburban area known as the Foothills. It is seen by locals as one of the wealthiest areas in the metro area, although it is not wealthy relative to truly wealthy areas in other cities. Part of Rex Scott’s district, the Foothills generates a lot of tax revenue for the county but doesn’t get much in return, other than crumbling neighborhood streets and even some dirt ones.
At roughly 30 square miles, the Foothills doesn’t have one public park, community center, senior center, swimming pool, dog run, tennis court, or ball field, except for ball fields at K-12 schools. It is an amorphous blob without a center, soul, or defining character.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Foothills residents, they might be collateral for a for-profit sports complex named Mosaic that will be built for hundreds of millions of dollars by a private developer. It will be built on the south side of Tucson, in the county, miles away from the Foothills.
Gleeful news reports didn’t mention this, but the developer will be getting loans from a New York finance company that specializes in a form of financing in which the collateral is the government agency sponsoring the development. If that’s the case with Mosaic—and news reports didn’t say—this would mean that in the event of the developer defaulting, the county will be on the hook, or more accurately, county taxpayers will be on the hook, especially Foothills residents who pay a disproportionate share of county taxes.
Foothills residents shouldn’t complain about being collateral—not that it would do any good to complain to the monopolists. After all, the munificent county has given them a library branch. It’s a dinky, claustrophobic library in a storefront in a strip mall.
It’s probably too small to have any books on logic or good government. That’s just as well, because they’d never be read in Tucson.
Mr. Cantoni can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.
And…who did you/they/y’all vote for? Hmm? Who?
The oblivious need the obvious fix.
Arizona’s armpit.
Well let me see here. Follow the money. Who owns the Wells Fargo building and how much has he/she donated to the democrats? I got the feeling that this was never about old and decrepit buildings, it’s about grift pure and simple.
Unlike almost all cities that thrive, Tucson’s downtown major function is government and lawyers, not businesses, not residences. This is just another acquisition and the reason downtown Tucson will always be a dump, a septic tank of tax dollars.