The Rio Nuevo District Board’s Chair, Jodi Bain told local radio host, Jon Justice today that despite critics complaints and erroneous news reports in the Arizona Daily Star that “the new Rio Nuevo board has spent barely a dime on downtown building projects but is closing in on $1 million spent on lawyers in its first 18 months of existence,” the District has stopped the money bleed and managed to save the taxpayers over $3 mil, while over $16 mil of Rio Nuevo District funds have been spent on the TCC, despite having to hire lawyers to sort through the City’s failures.
The District’s Board inherited over ten years of a troubled Rio Nuevo history with many contracts, agreements, incomplete projects, leases and other legal and financial issues. As a result, the legal bills have mounted due to the actions of the City and City officials.
However, complaints by critics like Councilman Kozachik about legal bills have been challenged by the District, “Much of the legal fees incurred over the past twenty months by the Rio Nuevo District were generated in response to the City’s lawyers, Councilpersons, and the District’s efforts to allow for information to be made public. It did not have to go down this way. We asked for cooperation from the beginning but have ended up ferreting out information sometimes by accident. We have been called liars and many efforts have been stonewalled at every turn,” according to District Chair Jodi Bain.
The District provided the legal bills to the Star, which has published them online. Those legal bills show that in one month alone, the District was forced to spend monies on legal fees for work with Mayor Rothschild’s firm on 7/16/2010, 7/19/2010, 7/20/10, 7/26/2010 x2, 7/29/2010 x2. At the same time they expended monies for responses to City Councilman Steve Kozachik on 7/2/2010, 7/8/2010, 7/12/2010, 7/17/2010, 7/18/2010, 7/19/2010 7/21/2010, 7/23/10, 7/26/10 on the Rialto matters.
Attorneys and accountants were hired to sort through the incomplete information on the District’s history of including contracts, debt instruments, bond packages, surveys, reports, project construction documents, plans, or finances.
Lawyers have been hired at a greatly reduced rate by the District. Their work included the proposed hotel, the TCC expansion, depot parking garage project matters, the Fox and Rialto Theaters and acting as part of negotiating team with the City of Tucson.