RIP Prop 414

It wasn't even close … A new budget fight … And a touch of sweetness.

Tucson voters made their voices heard loud and clear on Tuesday night, decisively rejecting Proposition 414.

The proposed half-cent sales tax hike aimed to raise $800 million over the next decade for police officers, firefighters, public safety-related infrastructure, housing initiatives, and community programs – but voters said they couldn’t afford it.

Nearly 70% of voters rejected the measure in yesterday’s special election, according to preliminary election results. Roughly 25% of the city’s 305,0000 voters cast a ballot in the special election.¹

Our own internal reader polls – which we are the first to say are not scientifically accurate – had subscribers telling us they supported the measure. Almost half of readers who responded said they supported Prop 414, while 21% opposed it and 30% said they couldn’t vote in the city-only election.

The measure had strong backing from Democratic leaders like Mayor Regina Romero, Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, County Attorney Laura Conover and others.

But it drew a broad coalition of opponents that included business and anti-crime groups that didn’t like the tax, alongside local socialists and mutual aid groups that objected to the measure’s heavy emphasis on police funding.

Michael Guymon, president and CEO of the Tucson Metro Chamber, said the voters sent a crystal clear message that they want the city to use its existing budget to focus on core services.

“I am very pleased the voters supported our message of fiscal responsibility without the need to raise taxes on our community’s most vulnerable individuals,” stated Guymon. “More work remains as we continue to collaborate with the City to support public safety, and the coalition we built is ready to engage in those important conversations.”

The Chamber led the opposition to Prop 414 and spent more than $180,000 to defeat the measure.

The No Prop 414 Coalition, which included mutual aid and community groups, said on Tuesday night that they wanted the city to revisit its priorities before sending another initiative to the voters.

“We hope city leaders will take away from Prop 414’s failure that if they are going to ask working families in Tucson to pay higher taxes, they must allocate tax revenues to programs and services that actually benefit Tucsonans – housing and services, mental health resources, better education, better public transit, and reduced community harms, instead of systems that do not solve our problems or reduce harms– like increased policing and surveillance,” the No Prop 414 Coalition said in a press release.

The group said it planned to work with Tucson elected officials to advocate for a better solution focused on the needs of the community.

Romero, speaking to a small group of supporters Tuesday night, vowed that the Council would start work on a new solution next week.

“I want to again thank the voters of Tucson. They have been very clear that this particular initiative was not exactly what they wanted,” Romero said. “But I do have to say that both politics in the federal level and the state level and the uncertainty of what's happening in our economy, the mass firings with the federal government and what's happening in our state, I believe did affect how voters reacted to this half-cent sales tax.”

The measure would have increased the city’s sales tax rate to 9.2% and generated roughly $80 million per year for roughly 50 projects, ranging from increasing capacity at local shelters to buying new airplanes for the police department and building new fire stations.

Prop 414’s defeat will not deter the City Council from trying again, Romero told supporters on Tuesday night.

“We are ready to go back to the drawing board and put something together that the voters will approve,” Romero said. “It will be hard. Let's not kid ourselves. It will hurt.”

She also invited those who fought the proposal to come to the Council meeting next week.

“I will ask those that ran the no campaign. I want to see solutions. You have said no. Show me your plan,” she said. “We want to hear the solutions that you have for our community.”

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Whatever those proposed solutions may be, we’ll be right there keeping tabs on them for you.

Now that voters rejected Proposition 414, every single dollar in the city budget will be under renewed scrutiny.

We’ve dedicated this bite-sized budgeting space to keeping tabs on taxpayer money and the local budget process as the city wrestles with economic uncertainty related to federal funding and the possibility of a national recession.

That uncertainty now includes grappling with the failure of Prop 414 and the continuing issues it had sought to address.

Not to mention the uncertainty of the upcoming RTA Next proposal the city hopes to send to the ballot in November. The Regional Transportation Authority is a 20-year half-cent sales tax for transportation infrastructure that expires next year. But voters’ rejection of Prop 414 last night does not bode well for its future.

Not to mention, the City of Tucson doesn’t have the funding to commit millions of dollars to finish projects that were delayed as part of the 2006 voter-approved RTA.

These projects are likely going to be shifted to the proposed RTA Next, but at a cost: the number of city-related projects that end up on the ballot as part of RTA Next might be smaller.

The city also has a ticking clock on keeping buses free to ride, with available funding running out for the service set to expire next year. It is expected to cost approximately $10 million a year. The Council also is getting pressure from one of its unions, which is asking the city to come back to the negotiating table for a new contract.

To top it all off, Tucson officials are also projecting to end this fiscal year with a $13 million budget shortfall, while only having about $7 million in its rainy day fund.

Looking for a deal: Gov. Katie Hobbs came up with a compromise proposal for the Arizona Starter Homes Act, one of the biggest pieces of housing legislation in the works right now. She wants to include a provision saying some of the new homes would have to be owned by people who actually live in the house, instead of investors, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer and Bob Christie report. A competing bill from Tucson-area Republican Sen. Vince Leach would have been less restrictive for cities, but it never got a hearing.

No longer needed: Federal immigration officials are shutting down a facility on Los Reales Road that housed migrants for the past four years, KGUN’s Craig Smith reports. Just a few weeks ago, officials were busing migrants from the facility to the Tucson International Airport, where they boarded military cargo planes headed to Guatemala. But officials said the recent drop in border apprehensions means facilities like the one in Tucson are no longer needed. The closure will lead to 34 employees at the facility losing their jobs, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports.

Working out the kinks: Tucson officials and nonprofits are trying to meet in the middle on how to bring food and resources to unsheltered people, the Arizona Daily Star’s Divya Gupta reports. Aid volunteers aren’t happy about having to get a permit to give food at parks, as well as the hurdles they have to deal with to get one. City officials want to smooth out the permitting process, but they also want to make sure people stay safe.

Step right up: Tucson officials are trying to find someone to serve as a city magistrate, the Sentinel’s Bianca Morales reports. The four-year term pays $155,000 and you’d oversee cases involving petty crimes and misdemeanors, among other duties. The only catch is you have to be a lawyer for the past five years.

A helping hand: The push to make part of the Santa Cruz River an urban wildlife refuge is getting a bump from a conservation group that plans to donate $600,000, KJZZ’s Matthew Casey reports. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation wants to fund research and mapping to see where the refuge should be located on the river and how best to use each part of the refuge.

This one is more likely to make you smile than laugh out loud.

The benches and the tables at the Claire Weeks Terra del Sol Park are freshly painted and now adorned with the hand prints of children living near the park in Ward 2.

The facelift for the city park comes a few months after a gunfight broke out nearby and spilled into the neighborhood pocket park. The Tucson Police Department believes that 80 shots were fired during the gunfight, but there was only one minor injury.

The city’s parks department donated the paint and Councilman Paul Cunningham’s ward office paid for painting supplies, Eegee’s and pizza. About 30 families from nearby neighborhoods came to the park last weekend to help repaint it.

Cunningham said the idea came from a family living close to the park, but he was more than happy to organize the event.

1. A 25% turnout rate puts turnout for Prop 414 right in the middle compared to previous spring special elections.