The Daily Agenda: Money can't buy everything
Getting up to speed on campaign finance in Tucson ... Finance rules are still backwards ... Construction set to begin at former No-Tel Motel site.
It’s been a while since we dove into campaign spending, and with the Nov. 7 general election popping up on the horizon, we figured now would be a good time to get caught up.
First up is the failed attempt to get rid of Tucson’s weird system for electing city council members.
The Committee for the Tucson Election Equality Act had no trouble raising money for a ballot initiative to have city council members be elected by residents of the ward they represent, rather than a citywide vote, in the general election.
Their big-time backers put up more than $60,000 to get the initiative on the November ballot. That included $10,000 each from Jim Click, CEO of Jim Click Auto; and the Lopez Family Trust, owner of HSL Properties, according to the committee’s July 18 campaign finance report.
They also got $5,000 each from: David Mehl, owner of Cottonwood Properties; William Assenmacher, owner of WRA Investments; Ross McAllister, CEO of MC Companies; H. Coleman Davis, a retiree; and G.S. Jaggi, CEO of Iridius Capital.
On top of that, they got another $5,000 each from Town West Realty, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, and the Tucson Association of Realtors.
They spent most of that money on gathering signatures. Unfortunately for them, that effort was botched and city officials rejected enough signatures to keep the initiative off the ballot.
The problem was a simple mistake they repeated over and over, as the Tucson Sentinel reported July 11.
“Organizers of the effort failed to ensure that the signature gatherers properly identified their home county on the back of the forms as required by law,” Tucson City Clerk Suzanne Mesich told the Sentinel. “That was left off many, many sheets. Because the law requires that whole affidavit to be filled in, we knocked out those sheets.”
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The finance report shows the group paid $50,000 to Mesa-based Direct Contact, which is widely used in campaigns in Arizona, to help gather signatures.
The botched job gathering signatures by Direct Contact didn’t sit well with organizer Ted Downing.
“Who’s running this show? Rudy Giuliani?” Downing quipped to us.
Downing said they’ll try again at some point. (We’re on board with changing the system, or at least having a public conversation about its flaws).
Elsewhere in the world of campaign finance, the guy behind the mysterious mailers that targeted incumbent Democrat Lane Santa Cruz, who eventually beat Miguel Ortega in the Ward 1 race, responded to a complaint from the City Clerk’s Office in a July 31 letter.
Attorney Timothy La Sota said the clerk’s office did not have jurisdiction over the matter and what his group was doing was “issue advocacy,” not “express advocacy,” so they are “not subject to regulation of any kind by your office.”
“Having said that, in an effort to be done with this matter, my client includes the attached expenditure reports, but this is done by choice, not because of any legal obligation. And of course, no fine may be imposed,” La Sota wrote.
Those expenditure reports show La Sota’s non-profit Arizona Prosperity Initiative spent about $11,500 on postcard mailers and radio ads. Although La Sota claimed they were doing “issue advocacy,” they wrote “Miguel Ortega” in the field on the form for the candidate they were supporting.
As for the meat-and-potatoes of local campaign finance, the $43,000 incumbent Mayor Regina Romero has on hand is nearly three times as much as the combined total for Republican Janet Wittenbraker, Independent Ed Ackerley, and Libertarian Arthur Kerschen, according to campaign finance reports from early August.
A similar story is playing out in Ward 1, where incumbent Democrat Santa Cruz has about $46,000 and Republican Victoria Lem has about $2,700.
The financial situation is much tighter in the other two wards with elections this year, where all the candidates are within a few thousand dollars of each other.
Campaign finance rules remain as ill-advised as they were before the primary, so we’re going to run into the same problem with the general election: the Oct. 16 deadline for reporting campaign finances will come after ballots are mailed to voters on Oct. 11.
As a result, if voters cast their ballots before Oct. 16, they will have no idea who financed candidates or political action committees during the entire post-primary campaign.
Luckily, several state legislators subscribe to the Tucson Agenda. If any of them read this, it would be really great if they would draft a bill to fix this problem when the legislative session starts in January.
Wins and losses: State Sen. Rosanna Gabaldón reflected on the highs and lows of the 2023 legislative session in a Q&A with the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel. Gabaldón says wins for the state include housing, education and infrastructure funding, but there were also some missed opportunities.
“Water must be a non-partisan issue,” she said “It was disappointing that we did not find a meaningful water policy to address our long-term sustainable groundwater management.”
Breaking down the problem: With 15 jail-related deaths so far this year, Arizona Luminaria’s John Washington has broken down their nearly year-long investigation into the Pima County jail into seven important takeaways.
No-Tel no more: Construction is ready to begin on the city’s Milagro on Oracle project, Tucson’s first Low Income Housing Tax Credit project developed under the city’s new nonprofit, the El Pueblo Housing Development. Caitlin joined Mayor Romero and city and state officials at Wednesday’s groundbreaking at the site of the former No-Tel Motel and historic De Anza Motel. Milagro will include 63 units of affordable housing for adults ages 55 and older, and an additional 19 units for older adults transitioning out of homelessness.
“A project like this shows how we can nod to history while also centering equity and climate resiliency as we address present day challenges and opportunities while anticipating future needs,” Romero said. “Projects like Milagro on Oracle are an example of how revitalizing areas along our major corridors will uplift our entire community.”
Giving notice: Tucson Unified School District is sending letters to 29,000 people whose private information may have been accessed due to the Jan. 30 cyberattack, the Arizona Daily Star reports. Potential victims include current and former district employees, students, parents and their dependents, according to Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo, who said there was no evidence that the information was “misused in any way.”
Don’t drink the water: A city well on Tucson’s east side is out of service until next week due to E. coli contamination, the Star’s Tony Davis reports. The contamination was found only in a sample of groundwater, before the water was treated to remove the bacteria. This means Tucson Water customers never drank the tainted water.
E. coli in the water? We’d have a hard time finding a better example of why you need reporters to stay on top of local officials.
417: The number of subscribers who are paying for the Tucson Agenda. Less than two weeks ago, we asked you to help us get eight more to hit 400 before our two-month anniversary. You sure came through and we are very grateful.
Hats off to the detection and response team at Tucson Water. Prevention is ideal but detection is a must!
What steps have to be taken to fix the campaign finance system to correct the deadlines and make it more transparent? Is that a City Council decision? Also, I understand the issues with the local elections, but I don't understand why the developers and business people are against the current system. Tucson has six special taxing districts for businesses. There's plenty of pork available for corporations. Savvy businesses are locating where they can get multiple tax breaks for one structure. That seems "business friendly" to me.