The Daily Agenda: Bye-bye sales tax election, hello new zoning rules
Pima County officials worried about decorum at meetings ... Local families are going to pay more for school daycare, lunches ... Sheriff, county attorney candidates set to take questions.
Today’s news briefs come from the City of Tucson, Pima County, and the Tucson Unified and Marana Unified school districts.
The Tucson City Council is pulling the plug on the sales tax election they planned for this summer. They set up the election in February, but they never told the public what would be on the ballot. The idea hung around for a while, and city staff put a $40 million placeholder in the annual budget just in case. After the council missed the deadline to put the sales tax on the July 30 ballot, there was some talk of holding the election later this year. Instead, they’re planning to repeal the ordinance that set up the election at their meeting tomorrow. (Read the backstory in our election wiki)
The state Legislature made a bunch of changes to municipal zoning laws this year and now the Tucson council has until January 1 to update the city’s zoning rules. It looks like the biggest changes will be to accessory dwelling units (casitas). And there are quite a few of them. The city will have to allow two casitas on residential lots, instead of just one like the city allows now. The city won’t be able to require a parking spot for each casita or require the casita’s design match the primary structure. And the new state laws change the allowed height and size of casitas.
As for multi-family developments, city staff expect the rules won’t change much in Tucson. The deadline for the city to tweak zoning rules for “middle housing,” such as duplexes or triplexes, is January 1, 2026.
The Tucson council is considering giving a tax incentive to the developer of the former Chase Bank building downtown. The developer, Two East Congress, LLC, wants to open a venue for weddings and other events, along with residential units on the upper floors. If the council gives the green light tomorrow to move ahead with the Government Property Lease Excise Tax incentive, the next step would be an independent economic impact analysis.
The council also is considering a $150,000 affordable housing impact fee subsidy for Belvedere Terrace, a new project in the 29th Street Thrive Zone. The developer Newport SW, LLC plans to build 72 units for low-income seniors, including 22 units for elderly people who are experiencing homelessness.
Tucson and Pima County officials are reworking their agreement for a shelter that helps people facing eviction. The city and county set up the Craycroft shelter last summer at the former Knights Inn. Right now, the county pays the city about $40,000 in monthly rent. Under the new agreement, the city would hand off security duties to the county and reduce the rent to $32,000. The property was in pretty bad shape and the new agreement allows the city to make improvements and bill the county for the cost.
The Pima County supervisors also are discussing the Craycroft shelter agreement at their meeting tomorrow. They’re planning to use a new $3.5 million grant from the Arizona Department of Housing to pay for their eviction program at the shelter, which they say led to 85% of the 1,200 participants going on to “positive housing destinations.”
Supervisor Adelita Grijalva wants to update the rules of decorum at supervisors’ meetings. She referred to a letter from facilities safety staff that recommended prohibiting people from standing in aisles or walking “behind barriers intended for Pima County staff.” The letter recommended limiting the size of signs and allowing the chair (who right now is Grijalva) to recess the meeting if the chair calls for the removal of a member of the public. If anyone violates those rules, they wouldn’t be allowed back into the meeting.
The new recommendations come after a man said the supervisors should be put in front of a firing squad at the last board meeting. When the issue of unruly behavior came up last year, the board limited call-to-the-public and temporarily banned one woman from the meetings.
The big-ticket item on the county supervisors’ agenda is the vote on the $1.7 billion annual budget, along with a Truth in Taxation public hearing. Members of the public can speak their mind about shifts in how their tax dollars are spent next year and how they’re being taxed. (You can watch the meeting on the county’s YouTube channel)
Sunnyside families will pay more for daycare in the fall. School district officials say a minimum wage increase and the loss of pandemic-era funds forced them to raise weekly rates at the Ocotillo Learning Center. It’s a popular program and student enrollment grew over the past two school years at the center, which provides high-quality early childhood education to kids ages six weeks to 5 years old.
Last week, the governing board voted to raise the weekly rate for infants from $190 to $270; toddlers from $175 to $250 per week; and preschoolers from $160 to $225. The fee increase will help pay for the three teachers in each classroom, as well as breakfast, lunch and snacks for students.
Sunnyside officials are concerned about poor post-pandemic attendance, especially with high school sophomores. Students are showing overall improvement in state assessment scores, such as a 2% rise in test scores in science, English and high school proficiency. But there was a 1% drop in language arts scores. While most students are scoring better, district officials say there’s a correlation between students with lower test scores and excessive absences.
As you can see, local governments make all kinds of decisions from week to week. Upgrade to a paid subscription so we can stay on top of it for you.
The Marana Unified School District governing board approved raising the maximum price of a new elementary school coming to the Gladden Farms Community. The $40 million price tag will fund construction of a 90,000-square foot campus, with most of the money coming from bonds. The project is in the early stages and a completion date hasn’t been set yet, but Chief Financial Officer Daniel Contorno said regular updates will be provided on the district’s website.
Marana students will pay a little bit more for their lunches in the fall, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed lunch prices and decided the district needed to raise their prices to $2.92 per meal. The recommended price for school lunches in Arizona is $3.85 and prior to the increase Marana was charging $2.76 per meal.
The USDA recommended an increase of $0.10, but MUSD’s Director of Food Services Crystal Kalahar said the district decided instead to raise prices by $0.16. She said this will create stability for the district’s self-funded school lunch program and will help cover the costs of food, labor, benefits and equipment.
Double trouble: The Humane Society of Southern Arizona is dealing with its second scandal in less than a year, after it was revealed that animal control officers in Douglas had been releasing hundreds of trapped animals into the desert outside of town, the Arizona Daily Star’s Erika Wurst reports. The discovery of bags of cat corpses and strewn bones this spring led to a staffing shake-up at the Douglas shelter, while the HSSA was serving as a consulting agency. Kristin Barney, HSSA’s new director, says the incidents are troublesome, but the organization is on track to persevere over the next several months.
Candidate showdown: All seven candidates running for Pima County Sheriff and Pima County Attorney will participate in a forum tonight co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and NAACP, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel writes. Pima County Attorney Laura Conover and Mike Jette, her challenger in next month’s Democratic primary, will answer questions for an hour, after which the five candidates facing off to be the next sheriff will field their own questions for an hour. Caitlin will be at the forum and will report about it later this week or you can watch the 6 p.m. livestream here.
Financial fallout: In two years, Arizona has gone from a budget surplus of over $4 billion to a deficit around $1.5 billion, due largely to income tax cuts passed by the legislature in 2021, the Star’s Tim Steller writes. The Legislature and governor have had to negotiate deep budget cuts this year that will result in $28 million to the University of Arizona, a three-year delay of the expansion of the I-10 west of Phoenix, the transfer of $75 million from the state’s settlement with opioid manufacturers to prisons instead of substance use treatment centers and more.
Sound on: Caitlin was a guest co-host on Friday’s Bill Buckmaster show and chatted with Lea Márquez Peterson from the Arizona Corporation Commission. The trio discussed the public confusion about what the ACC actually does, maintaining energy reliability during the state’s hot summers, helping people pay their utility bills, solar and wind power, keeping the system safe from attacks, the increase of housing and what that means when it comes to utilities and more.
$5.6 million: That’s how much Pima County is going to pay Visit Tucson next year to promote local tourism. The county is sticking with Visit Tucson, while Oro Valley and Marana each decided to go their own way.
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Why am i not surprised that the state of arizona legislature has turned opioid funds from a preventative to a correctional — ie punitive— focus? One more reason to vote down ballot, even if your top ballot choices are sickening. And on another topic— would you all consider doing pieces on the big donors in our town (jim click comes to mind, along with humberto lopez and others) so your readers might know more about the mostly obscured hands on the levers of politics and economic power in Tucson? Thanks for your work!