This, an email from of our bloggers.
"The Naranja proposed park is going to be another Rio Nuevo (ref: Arizona Daily Star) Million Dollar waste of taxpayer money that we can't afford. We better save the money this park will cost to pay for the endless taxes that [Oro Valley] will no doubt find for the Oro Valley residents [who] thought they were moving to a great area. This pipe dream will not get my vote."
For those who don't know, Rio Nuevo is Tucson's "endless money pit of dead dreams" for a revitalized downtown.
23 comments:
My sentiments exactly. I read the Rio Nuevo article on Sunday and had flashbacks to Oro Valley Marketplace. Promised one thing...delivered another...to the tune of $23 million dollars.
Rio Nuevo...promised one thing...delivered another...to the tune of $77 million dollars.
Why should I believe that the Naranja Park will be any different? I'm really getting tired of paying for other people's delusions of grandeur.
What a ridiculous premise.
How so?
It's a FACT that Rio Nuevo hasn't produced what it promised.
It's a FACT that OVM hasn't produced what it promised.
It has all been a huge waste of taxpayer money.
The "ridiculous premise" was in selling these projects to the people as something that was somehow going to change the landscape for the better. Just like the premise for the Naranja Park.
Rio Nuevo is an idea, a conceptional plan with no firm financial parameters.
The Naranja Park is firm, set plan, with definitive financial parameters,and the money generated for the Park (the bond sales) MUST be spent for that specific purpose.
There is simply no comparison. It's just another silly attempt to mislead the public.
Thinker,
Yes or no. Has Rio Nuevo been a huge waste of taxpayer money?
Yes or no. Has the entire community benefited from it?
Yes or no. Were millions of dollars spent for someone's delusions of grandeur/idea/ conceptual plan?
VC....I have enough to worry about here in Oro Valley. I have no information about Rio Nuevo. However I will say this. I have yet to see a downtown renovation project be successful.
Thinker,
Go to Providence, RI and you will see an amazing downtown renovation project that was successful! Providence was a dying city filled with drunks and homeless people and empty real estate. Over a 10-year period, the downtown area was renovated, and produced, among other things, a river and riverwalk (the river had actually been previously paved over!), restaurants and condos along the riverwalk, train tracks that previously cut the city in half were relocated, the riverwalk leads to an outdoor concert amphitheatre, just across the road from this is a multi-level upscale mall with a Nordstrom anchor. Tens of thousands of people now come to this downtown area to see and experience "Waterfire". Go to www.waterfire.org. This revitalization then led to a whole host of upscale restaurants branching out from the epicenter of the development. Providence is the home of the best Italian food in the country.
It can be done if the right people are involved in the project. I'll take some flack for saying this, I'm sure, but I haven't seen anything out here that is run as well or is as buttoned up as the way things are run in the Northeast. The way some businesses are run out here, well, they wouldn't survive a month if they tried to operate the same way in the Providence-Boston-NY area.
VC...
I am glad to hear there is one. Now I can revise my statement to say that I have heard of one.
Life is different in the east and in the southwest. And as such, the style of doing business is different. I readily admit that trying to pick up a business in Tucson and placing it down in most eastern cities would not work. But the same is true for an eastern business moving this way.
Much of the same stuff was tried in St. Louis. It failed miserably and it does most of the time. Portland, Oregon has a nice downtown area that has survived but the majority of actiivity is in the outlying areas.
OV OT
You need to get out and see the world; especially since you have so many opinions about how right the capital actions of Oro Valley are. Have you not been to Baltimore Harbor - go there - it's extremely successful. Have you not been to downtown Charlotte, North Carolina - go there- it's extremely successful. Have you not been to Santa Rosa, California - it's extremely successful. All of these mentioned places were run down,almost dead decrepit cores of cities/towns; all are now flourishing, vibrant centers for commercial, recreational, amenity
activities. So, if YOU haven't seen a downtown revitalization that has been successful, the problem is not with the concept, the problem is with YOU not getting properly out and about.
If you want to speak with authority, OV OT, you need to go and experience that which is successful. On a similar note, you need to explore the cities and towns that have fooled around with multitudes of 'park' amateur sports venues, and additional 'fluff'; you might find that in many instances, THOSE DREAMS ARE THE FAILURES.
Rio Nuevo is simply what has become an amoebic kind of concept that seemingly floats around and goes nowhere; every day is a new day and another bright idea. This is not a universal enigma, this is a Tucson one.
However, I do agree with your assessment that RN and the Naranja Site are 'apples and oranges'. However, I do agree also with VC that the Naranja Park Site IS a delusion of grandeur. It also has drug on and on and therefor is a 'dated' concept, especially since we gave away a good portion of our money for EDAs, the economy is in shambles, the cost of bare necessities has gone up over 30% in the past couple of years, our storefronts are vacant, our income projections have fallen short, way short, and the mood of the people has become bit jaded.
Oh, and by the way, I read this morning that Ventana Systems is again expanding. How's about that company along with Sanofi Aventis and the Rodger Ford project, etc. pledging monetary support for the 'park'. After all, if their employees are going to bring the kids, how about them paying 'their share'; after all, aren't they bringing all of these $100,000+ salaries to our Town?
While I am at it, the 'professors' who originally put this concept together (yes, I know they had the input of thousands of residents) should have had contingency plans.
With all of their brilliance shouldn't they have reasonably known that the housing boom couldn't have gone on forever, that the historical realities of economics are that the good times flow and EBB, that growth is unpredictable, that demographics change, etc. But no, they have this plan in stone and the park has simply turned into primarily an over the top sports venue. By the time they might put in facilities that I might use, I probably will not be able to hobble over there to utilize them.
Sorry KIDS, life is NOT all about you!
OV OT, you beat me to my post - so, whatever. Life is life and people are people,OT, whether it be the Northeast, the Southeast, or the Southwest. If anything, Arizona is known as the land of land barons, developer greed, uncontrolled growth with out regard for life support, etc. Growth and development are ideally controlled by the 'lay of the land' and the entrenchment of a solid economic base foundation. Arroyo Grande, for example, does not meet those stipulations. We have limited road acess that CANNOT be improved much,people are complaining now of the time it takes to shuffle their kids to recreation facilities; how can we justify planting more families in the Northeast portion of AG as it would then be a 14+mile trip to the Naranja Town Park. 'Rapid transit', public transit - a totally rediculous concept for this area; it cannot work! What we needOV OT are some rreal thinkers who can learn to live within our boundries!
Thinker,
I disagree that a Northeast business style wouldn't work in the Southwest. Actually, that style of business would blow away the competition out here and the current businesses here would have to follow suit or they would go out of business.
Businesses out here don't even follow the set hours that they have posted on their store windows and most close by 1 PM or 2 PM on Saturday. So the customers would then go to the stores that are actually open! Customer service is all but unheard of here. Landscapers schedule you for Monday at noon and don't show up. Then they show up on Wednesday at 8 AM and claim that it was YOUR mistake. A tile company schedules an appt. to come to your house on Tuesday at 11 AM to give you an estimate. They actually show up and you think this is a responsible business. You schedule them to come back the following Monday at 9 AM to perform the work. You schedule your whole day around this. They not only don't show up, they don't even call you to explain. You never hear from them again.
So the landscaping company and the tile company from the Northeast who sets up shop in AZ and consistently shows up on time and has the courtesy to call you if they're going to be late would steal all of the customers away from those other entities.
I once called a bakery on the other side of town on a Saturday to ask what time they closed. The woman said 3 PM. I drove 30-40 minutes to get there, arriving at 2:20 PM. They were already closed! And what did the sign in the window indicate? That the Saturday hours were 10-3.
I could give you a thousand more examples of this type of behavior that I have experienced in Tucson. That's the mindset out here...manana. No one cares about being a professional or getting things done in a timely manner. Hence, Rio Nuevo never got off the ground.
Rio Nuevo receives its funds from a special district that snakes all the way down Broadway. Businesses in those areas have a portion of the sales tax they collect and send to the state given back to the district. There's no additional tax on anyone--not the businesses, not the homeowners in Tucson. Therefore, it's really not comparable to the Naranja Town Site which requires a vote of the people and the introduction of a secondary property tax with a real end date when the bonds will have been repaid.
It seems that bloggers want to compare struggling local projects to the NTS, funding for which hasn't even been approved. In addition, I hold nothing against the original Town committee and the plan that was developed. They had no way of knowing, in 2002, what the economic conditions were going to be in November, 2008, when the issue will appear on the ballot. Their charge was to come up with a plan that met many of the needs in the community (not ALL the needs--plenty of groups were turned away with nothing to show for their efforts).
The only question before us at present is putting in ballfields, play courts and infrastructure. After that, we can pick apart the rest of the plan and either approve it piecemeal, throw it out and start over, or approve the rest of the package as originally designed.
Boobie-babie
Yes 'they' had no way of knowing in 2002 what the economic conditions would be in 2008. Well, it's 2008 and the conditions are not good. I think 'they' thought that the Town could be kicked into submission under any and all conditions and therefor 'they' had no contigency plan; their mistake! The conditions are especially not good in that the voters are being asked to accept or reject the expenditures for a SPORTS park and wait indefinately for the other amenities. If this does go down in defeat, I WOULD suggest a rethink of the plan(s). Forget investing more millions of dollars into the 'think tanks', and form a committee (I have always found that, in business, smaller groups are more focused and less subject to bunches of hoopla) of local professionals, no 'professors', and formulate a realistic and encompassing plan, present it, and get it done!
Boobie-baby,
Were you one of the "38 stakeholders" who were involved in the original plan for this park?
Also, my main point about Rio Nuevo is that it's too easy for a bunch of bumbling idiots who THINK they know how to run things (but don't) to run a project right into the ground.
You said, "Businesses in those areas have a portion of the sales tax they collect and send to the state given back to the district." Key words here are "sales tax." That means that taxpayers have once again been swindled out of millions of dollars.
I'm having trouble lately trusting ANYONE to properly manage taxpayer money. Wasn't it something like $9 billion dollars lost and unaccounted for in Iraq?
Zev....Understand that this is not the end of my searching but I have visited the Baltimore Harbor area and found it to be pleasant. But after all it is waterfront property so I point out that this is not a typical 'downtown renovation." And in doing my due diligence on the Baltimore Harbor I came across this timely article:
What’s up with all these bodies?
by Matt Simon | July 14, 2008 at 9:02 am
Posted in Baltimore, baltimore crime, baltimore news, news
A new, disturbing trend is developing. Three dead bodies have been found floating in Baltimore waters over the past week. Just a few hours ago, police recovered a woman’s body found floating in the Inner Harbor, right next to the Maryland Science Center. (And no, they don’t think someone in the Body Worlds exhibit came back to life and snuck out.)
This comes just a few days after the body of a young boy was found floating about a mile away from the Key Bridge in the Patapsco River. Police believe it’s the body of three-year old Turner Nelson. Turner’s father made headlines in February when he told police that he threw the boy’s body off of the bridge. Prosecuters say he did it because his marriage to the boy’s mother was falling apart and he couldn’t stand to see him raised by another man.
Let’s not forget about the girl’s body found about a week ago in the Chesapeake Bay. She’s been identified as 17-year-old Severna Park student Emily Rose LeClare.
My question — to put it bluntly — what the hell is going on?
Thinker,
What does this story have to do with Rio Nuevo, other downtown revitalization projects that have been successful, or millions of tax dollars being squandered?
I know you're trying to make some sort of a point here, but I couldn't figure out what it was.
VC...In an earlier post Zev had pointed out how Baltimore had made a "downtown" revitalization project work. I mentioned that I had been there but I also went on line today to see if I could find any current information about the waterfront area. It is still popular from what I could gather but I also saw the article that I passed along to Zev.
I also pointed out that the Baltimore Harbor area is not a typical "downtown renovation" project.
OV OT
Each and every redevelopment should have one common thread and that is that they be adapted to the existing ambiance and already existing infrastructure. Yes, Baltimore Harbor has the water feature going for it, and other areas have their own 'lay of the land and existing structure and economic core' issues going for them; so, no matter where, a revitalization/renewal is going to be different in each and every place. That bodies were found floating in the Harbor is really a non-issue as crime permeates no matter where we are (I'll bet that there are plenty of undiscovered remains lying around in our surrounding desert; the desert is our friend and our enemy); so I find that revelation to be a non-argument. As to your statement that you have yet to see a downtown rennovation be successful, one must define what success is. Baltimore Harbor, Charlotte, North Carolina, Santa Rosa, etc. have all benefited GREATLY from their efforts. The money brought in by the attraction of multitudes of 'out-of-towners'is humungous (or however it's spelled)! And,just as a note, I would like to add that the football stadium built in
downtown Charlotte, a design masterpiece, was completely financed by PRIVATE interests.
I have mentioned only a few examples of the resurgence and resurrection of downtown areas; there are many more examples.
Tucson has and does continue to drag it's feet and simply spends money on more pie-in-the-sky idea and stall mongers. The core of Tucson is a run-down hole that seems only to pretend to have purpose. So be it!
Back to the NTS, I still have my
objections. And that wont change unless the initiative is voted down and the 'plan' becomes more all encompassing - WITHOUT the wait as well as the weight.
Well, yes, both Rio Nuevo and the Naranja Town Site bonds (as yet unapproved) use taxpayer funds. But the similarity ends there.
VC seems to believe that whenever tax funds are used for whatever purpose with which she doesn't agree, that the taxpayers have been "swindled." That's an interesting viewpoint.
Under the VC scenario, perhaps we could develop a ballot where each person could indicate exactly which service or program or department his or her tax money should go to.
(Although that was meant satirically, the irony is that we already do something like that--whether it's a voluntary contribution to public financing of elections on your IRS return or tax credits on your AZ return by donating to a school or programs for underserved children).
No, I was not one of the 38 stakeholders, and I have no particular stake in whatever goes into the Naranja Town Site eventually. I do believe in the democratic system of allowing the voters to have their say on this issue, and as I have stated innumberable times here, I don't believe it will pass this time. If it doesn't, I really don't know what configuration of amenities would ever pass if the voters turn down such basics as infrastructure, ballfields and playcourts. What will there be left to vote on--a tetherball pole?
I've visited
Baltimore's Inner Harbor at least a 100 times and I can tell without the presence of the Inner Harbor, Baltimore would be an even bigger mess than it is right now. The Inner Harbor is truly an oasis in the middle of a cesspool.
I've been to every city mentioned in this post and can tell you what happen in Providence is truly amazing, and Charlotte's downtown renewal project is a great success.
I think some of the nicest folks in the country reside in Tucson, but to say they are a little laid back is an understatement. The adjustment from the hustle bustle just get it done lifestyle of the East to the slow and easy does it lifestyle out here has been interesting and fun.
I just wish the citizens of OV would not be so dependent on government, and there was more financial transparency in our town's dealing with developers, contractors and suppliers. Living in a town as small as ours means even one person can make a postive impact or unfortunately a negative impact.
Turtle....Describe for me, if you will, what additional transparency you would like to see? I am curious.
Lack of complete transparency results in waste and corruption, distortion of the market, unfair advantages to select groups, and erodes public confidence. Do you think we have complete transparency in OV?
Lets just laser in on one aspect of complete transparency, and this would be in the area of procurement of contracts.
Complete transparency in procurement of contracts usually means well defined regulations open to public scrunity, clear standardized documents, documents containing complete information (which would include entertainment expenses provided to the town by the bidding contractor). Also, the bidding contractor must disclose any political contributions made to a council member or if they have any relations to any town hall employees.
This town has some real good employees and it is exciting to have a good council in place. Having complete transparency in place erases any doubts, concerns, or mistrust in our town dealings. It is proactive and helps stem negative reaction.
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