A delicate balance
Kicking the can … Budget psychics needed ... And somebody put that together for you.
The Tucson City Council balked again about banning unsheltered people from sleeping in washes.
City officials are keeping an eye on their legal and financial exposure after Arizona voters approved Prop 312 in November. The measure requires local governments to reimburse property owners for money they lost if the city doesn’t do enough to enforce public nuisance laws – meaning cracking down on homelessness.
In January, the Council told City Attorney Mike Rankin to review city ordinances to mitigate future claims against the city under Prop 312. To that end, the Council was once again set to discuss a ban on camping in washes and public parks, along with cracking down on “prohibited activity on traffic medians,” which refers to the city’s panhandling ordinance.
But on Friday, they pulled the item from the agenda.
It was the second time in recent months that the Council was poised to ban camping in washes, but ended up bailing at the last minute. Last September, the Council was planning to make camping in washes a misdemeanor, but they pulled the item from the agenda in the face of public outrage.
At the time, local governments across the country were considering what they could do in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed local officials to crack down on people sleeping in public spaces.
Now they’re attempting to revive the discussion, prompted by potential budget hits under Prop 312. But as the Daily Star’s Tim Steller notes, Tucson’s property taxes are so low that any claims won’t amount to a huge hit to the city’s coffers.
Tucson officials have been struggling to address homelessness for a long time. The Council has taken a lot of heat over the past few years as city residents complained about unsheltered people sleeping in washes and parks, while advocates called for the city to devote more resources to helping them.
Finding that delicate balance between compassion and enforcement isn’t easy in a progressive town with a homelessness problem. And city officials are tight-lipped as to why the item was tabled.
But if you want to find a solution, you have to talk about it.
Legal battle incoming
The Council will talk with their attorneys behind closed doors about a possible legal fight with Tucson Electric Power.
TEP is trying to install new overhead transmission lines through midtown Tucson, as part of the Midtown Reliability Project. They need city officials to grant them a special exception to undergrounding requirements, but so far city officials aren’t budging.
Last week the city zoning examiner refused to sign off on TEP putting new lines above three major intersections, rather than putting them underground as required by the city.
And last October, the Council told Rankin to “compel TEP to comply” with all city rules, including “special exception requirements.”
Trump time
The Trump administration is still wreaking havoc on Tucson’s federal grants, and the Council will get an update on recent executive orders, as well as litigation that followed those orders.
The Council already gave Rankin the authority to enter into litigation if it’s in the best interest of the city.
Last, but not least…Bingo!
We had no idea the city issued Bingo licenses. The Council will be asked to approve a Bingo license for Arnette Creek LLC.
An address filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission for Arnette Creek LLC is the same address as Arnette Creek Watering Hole, located on the corner of 22nd Street and Kolb Road.
The state says the business can only have bingo nights up to five days a week, and the applicant indicated that they would not have bingo nights on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Over at Pima County
The most interesting item on the Board of Supervisors agenda was postponed.
The supervisors were going to discuss a recent ruling by a Pima County Superior Court judge that overturned a county gun ordinance. The ordinance required gun owners to quickly report when their guns had been stolen or face a fine of up to $1,000.
When the Supervisors approved the ordinance in March 2024, most were confident that it could survive legal challenges. The ordinance was designed to target straw purchases, where somebody buys a firearm for another person who isn’t legally allowed to own one.
The thinking among the supervisors was the ordinance wouldn’t infringe on anyone’s constitutional rights to own a firearm. County officials even asked the Arizona Attorney General’s Office if the ordinance was legal before voting on it.
But Arizona’s main gun lobby, the Arizona Citizens Defense League, and the Goldwater Institute sued the county. A judge said state laws barred local officials from adopting gun laws that are stricter than state laws.
We spoke to several supervisors who said they’d be willing to talk about the county’s next steps, but only after an executive session that was set for today. Officials said they expect the discussion will be brought back in a few weeks.
COVID decisions
In the wake of executive orders from President Donald Trump, Supervisor Steve Christy is asking staff to review personnel records related to COVID-19.
Christy said he wanted to know about any employees who were required to pay higher health insurance rates for not getting vaccinated or were rehired at a lower rate/position in light of the new executive orders.
He also asked for the status of any COVID-19 related litigation where the county is being sued.
There’s a lot going on, isn’t there? From homelessness to gun ordinances to executive orders, there’s no shortage of local issues you need to keep an eye on. Subscribe to the Agenda today and we’ll do it for you!
Tucson officials might be wise to hang a sign reading “Help Wanted: We’re looking for clairvoyant accountants to map out our budget. Psychics apply within.”
As we break down the city’s budget over the next few weeks, we thought this would be a good time to discuss an often-overlooked concept known as revenue forecasting.
The city’s current budget sits at a healthy $2.4 billion dollars and city officials are already hard at work calculating the size of the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Half the job is accurately calculating how much the city will receive in state-shared revenues, sales taxes, grants, proceeds from investments and other special revenues that come into the city. Will it be a 2% increase? 3%? 5%?
Generally speaking, officials are expected to make an informed guess on the city’s economic outlook for the next 15 months or so.
Getting this number right is crucial. The city’s rainy day fund isn’t big enough to necessarily handle a $100 million shortfall if city officials forecast a super optimistic 5 percent increase in revenues coming into city coffers next year. If they get it wrong, they have to cut back services, which could lead to layoffs or furloughs.
The same number - the total revenues coming into the city next year - will be the base budget for all city departments, from firefighters and police officers to the people working in the city’s transportation department filling potholes.
And while it’s easy to say the government should live within its means, focus on core services, and make “tough” choices, this largely ignores the reality of managing a city.
Let’s say the Council refuses to increase any city department’s budget as a demonstration of budget belt tightening. And then six months from now, the price of oil increases – and stabilizes – at 20 percent higher than current prices.
How do departments handle the increased costs? Maybe it’s easy for code inspectors who don’t have to drive a lot. What about the fire or police departments? They must respond to 911 calls and that means burning gasoline.
So being able to predict the future is part of how the City of Tucson - and every other municipality - builds their budget in Arizona.
Deep dive: Public health care, the courts, and the incarceration system are all intertwined in the story of a Tucson man who was diagnosed with mental illness and ended up in jail. The Arizona Luminaria’s John Washington and Arizona Public Media’s Hannah Cree scoured public records and checked in on the man for a year as he recovered from a dispute with his neighbor that led to him spending months in the Pima County Jail.
Tax cut talk: Just a few years after the largest tax cut in Arizona’s history, Republican lawmakers want more tax cuts, Capitol Media Services’ Bob Christie reports. The last tax cut helped lead to a state budget deficit, but that deficit is gone now. Now the Senate is pushing for more tax cuts, including a bill they approved last week that would cut income tax rates whenever the state has a budget surplus. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is not a fan of the idea, saying she’s “not interested in tying our hands like that.”
On the docket: The U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear a lawsuit today that could reshape how illegal cross-border firearms trafficking works in southern Arizona and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, the New York Times reports. Mexican officials sued U.S. gun manufacturers, claiming they were aiding cartels in Mexico that depend on guns smuggled from the U.S. The lawsuit has a long, winding history and now SCOTUS is poised to decide whether U.S. companies bear any responsibility for the widespread violence in Mexico.
The elephant in the room: A new sculpture at the Reid Park Zoo was designed to raise awareness of elephant poaching, KGUN’s Bri Pacelli reports. Local artist Pat Frederick calls the life-size sculpture of an elephant La Profesora. The elephant doesn’t have any tusks, a sign of how poaching for large tusks has altered the genetic makeup of elephant populations.
It looks like the National Weather Service is the next victim of the Trump administration’s DOGE purge.
We’re big fans of the NWS in Tucson, particularly the wealth of data they’ve gathered over the past century and the nice graphics they put together.
But it got us thinking about all the times we’ve heard people say they don’t need news outlets because they already get their news from social media. Guess what happens if you take away news outlets? There won’t be much news on social media.
As this hurricane chaser points out, you probably need the NWS more than you realize.
This reminds us of how we now prosecute the poor, how difficult it is to foresee municipal and state budgets, how much waste there is in privatization of schools and prisons, how we neglect the advice of scientists, doctors and other professionals and why paying taxes is not a privllege but a burden. Why is the wealthiest man in the world cutting the budget with no understanding of how government works. Governments are not supposed to make profits. The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis, is a short, well written book explaining how essential government agencies are.
Candid is good. We were all taught to tell the truth. Most of us do. Watch Chump lie through his teeth tonight. And get applause.