The following letter appeared in the July 1 Explorer. We surely agree with the letter writer.
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Why does OV give money to outside groups?
According to your article on June 24, Oro Valley is giving $61,930 to the Greater Oro Valley Arts Council, $40,000 to Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities and $25,000 to Critical Path, with the total outside group giving reaching $277,717.
Perhaps this could be justified in a year of excellent economic growth, although I cannot understand why government funds art instead of the marketplace, but in these times it seems irresponsible at best.
The sum of $61,930 could pay for more than one teacher for a year.
I fail to see the logic of the Oro Valley Town Council giving any money to any outside groups when they were looking at cutting police a month ago. Sometimes it seems like every level of government has lost its collective mind.
Respectfully submitted, Lynne St. Angelo, Oro Valley
19 comments:
Lynne....The ROI (Return on Investment) for TREO is undeniable.
Your so smart and all knowing (BS), how much of a return did OV get from TREO?
"Undeniable," I think unexpalinable.
Do your own homework. I have done mine and provided the information in previous streams. Knowledge is a wonderful commodity. Go get some.
Mr. Cox, why don't you enlighten us here again? What is the ROI on TREO?
OV Mom....Asked and answered. It will do you good to seek out information on your own. It's a great learning exercise.
Once again Cox proves he is like a Christmas Turkey--- Full of ****!!!
End The Handouts said it all. Cox is nothing other than BS!
I see. So TREO is a big money hole that certain factions of the Council use to demonstrate their fiscal irresponsibility.
And I though he was referring to Broad Shouldered!!!!!
thought
As I thought, BS.
TREO is a waste and we need to End The Hand Outs.
Let Cox tell us any DIRECT benefit Oro Valley got for the tens of thousands of dollars we threw in TREO's pot.
There's one "indirect" benefit I know about. Mayor Loomis got to go with TREO et al on a one week sojourn to Germany & Switzerland.
Certainly, that was a "great" benefit to the taxpayers that picked up the tab of about $11K.
"RETURN ON INVESTMENT?" ZERO!!!
"End The Handouts" says it all with END THE HANDOUTS!
So far all I hear is lip service. You (three of you) are just too lazy to look for the info or even call TREO and ask for the documentation. What this really proves is that you don't care to know and that you would rather sit back on your collective arses and gritch.
Cox---Once again you continue to be so damn evasive. Why not enlighten those of us that have no awareness whatsoever as to what OV gets from TREO, other than talk.
I've been to their web site. They have great charts about all kinds of things. Nowhere did I see one sentence saying how or whar Oro Valley gained as a contributor to TREO.
They list the major projects since their inception in 2005. The ONLY TWO in Oro Valley are Ventana Medical & Sanofi-avantis. Both of them were here well before TREO came into being. If you wish, you could also include AFNI, who has been here for years by the Foothills Mall and has a small work force.
Who might be benefiting? Tucson with 20 new businesses or expansions and Sierra Vista.
Check it out here.
http://www.treoaz.org/TREO/media/docs/Impact%20Since%20Inception%20as%20of%20Sept08.pdf
I was at the council meeting recently when both Joe Snell Pres, & CEO and David Welsh VP gave the council lip service, and asked for only $45,000 instead of the $50K we had been giving them. How magnanimous!!!
What I stated is fact. Not the BS Cox continues to hand out to our readers.
Art
Art and others.....
I posted a rather lengthy discussion point several weeks ago.
In that, I quoted facts from two studies. One was from the Arizona Department of Revenue.
In part it stated that while jobs may be created in Oro Valley, Tucson, unincorporated Pima County, Marana, Sahuarita,or where ever in the area, a healthy number of those people will purchase a home in Oro Valley. It went on to talk about the spending habits of people (they spend 82% of their pretax income and of that amount 29% is spent in the community in which they reside). That equates to sales tax revenue. There is also a spin off from those jobs referred to as indirect jobs. Those are jobs that are created as a result of additional families moving here. Over the past 36 months or so, TREO has been responsible for 5000 jobs in the Tucson metropolitan area. How many of those folks bought in Oro Valley and are spending their money in our retail stores?
TREO published a pamphlet titled TUCSON:JOB ONE - Creating High Wage Jobs in Uncertain Economic Times.I suggest you get this publication and read it. You may, just may, learn something.
And those are the facts.
Lastly, I would suggest that you question your two idols, Latas and Garner and ask them why THEY recommended that the partnership between Oro Valley and TREO continue to be funded. You may not believe what I present but I would think that even you, Mom and the idiot Endthehandouts might believe your annointed ones.
The information is there if you just put forth a little effort.
Joe Friday must be turning over in his grave.
If these are the FACTS Cox is relying on, he must be the IDIOT, not Endthehandouts!
Cox can believe what he wants. Oro Valley needs Hi tech jobs--period!
Crap about Tucson getting the jobs, and maybe some the workers buying homes in Oro Valley is just more BS.
Cox writes: "How many of those folks bought in Oro Valley and are spending their money in our retail stores?"
Why not tell us, "brillant one." You seem to know everything else.
Cox promises to give us information. That's not information. That's more BS!
Art...You have convinced me of one thing. You are simply a stupid human being. I had up to this point given you credit for having a little sense. I was wrong
Everyone I talk to tells me that "it is useless to discuss anything with him". They are absolutely correct. I now believe that you simply don't have the mental capacity to comprehend information given to you.
By the way you never did let us know what you and the motorcycle officer were discussing the other day when I drove by. I hope he used small words so you could understand.
Cox, you are so entertaining that I can't help myself. You should go into the fertilizer business; you do very good spreading the manure.
You’re head is like a circus clown car, clowns keep coming out of your head and we wonder if it’ll ever stop.
Tucson HAD it's chance. In order to build a viable 'region' there has to be a MAJOR core within it's center; I can't see any of that within Tucson. Certainly there are going to be businesses that for one reason or another will land there (Tucson) and here, and Marana, too. But, in short, Tucson seems to be more interested in stretching Rio Nuevo on for years and years with some entity or entities seemingly profiting from getting nowhere with it, and more recently, becoming preoccupied with the notion the notion of 'taking back' some of baseball's trend towards centering itself in the Phoenix/Glendale area.
Margaret Mead once said of Oakland, California, "there is no there, there"; I believe that similarly the same can be said of Tucson. Without vibrant 'growth' in Tucson, I do not believe that there can be much growth in the Region as has been the case in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Texas et al; unfortunately, Tucson, aside from the UofA, is little more than, especially in appearance, an over sized 'cow town'. Does this affect
the desirability of Oro Valley as a business community? YEP!
We simply can't just brag that we have Ventana and Sanofi; after all these two companies were established here through
UofA people and simply 'grew up' and expanded and/or were aquisitioned here because of it.
It appears to me that in past years there was no real plan developed as to what the 'soul' of Oro Valley could have been. Could it have been developed as a hospitality/resort center, a mecca for boutiques, restaurants, and upscale shopping along with, in such case, arts, cultural, and recreational facilities?
Instead we sit atop a couple of major bio-med firms along with a few 'sideshows' and have gotten it planted in our minds that this area
is the future of Tech and Bio-sciences. And, in our disjointed attempt to grasp onto 'something', Oro Valley has sacrificed one of it's most precious assets, the sheer beauty of what this valley once was and therefor, in part, it negated some of which The Valley could have been.
Now, perhaps I have gotten away from the original topic of this stream HOWEVER, I guess I am trying to put in perspective that TREO, Tucson, Pima County, the Chamber of Commerce, cannot seem to make a 'whole' out of this scenario. Can we, the People of Oro Valley do for ourselves that which is possible and that which is desirable and do so without the above named 'groups'?
When we have a representative of a study group state that our library is the "crown jewel" of Oro Valley and that some unknown gentleman chose Oro Valley over Tucson because 'across the world he heard that the OV library was primo', then folks we have a problem; and, when a certain Councilmember after one of the meetings bellowed out (outside of the building) that [we need to ditch the library and let the County have it] and then, a couple of weeks later did an about face because his 'friend' presented the 'case' for retaining same, then folks, we have a problem.
We need visionaries and realists, and inventive architecture that will compliment the 'lay of the land' and yet offer uniqueness, not same-old same-old accompanied by 'slab' buildings. If we don't find a way to get there, this town is doomed to mediocrity.
Tucson was a cown town, Tucson IS a cow town and Tuscon will always be a cow town. It is just like Fresno, without the charm.
Tucson could have been a real show place, such natural beauty squandered..Oro Valley is right behind Tuscon on the road to ugly sprawl.
Zev has it exactly right.
To quote:
"It appears to me that in past years there was no real plan developed as to what the 'soul' of Oro Valley could have been. Could it have been developed as a hospitality/resort center, a mecca for boutiques, restaurants, and upscale shopping along with, in such case, arts, cultural, and recreational facilities?"
Paradise lost.
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