Exist Kind explores all the ways we could, can, and do exist more harmoniously with each other and our environment. A friend of ours once mused that the phrase "Exist Kind" is a term to be used in place of "mankind" so as to represent the value of all of existence. contact me at existkind@aim.com.
Since the dust settled on the last
local election and the temperature rises on the next one, it is time
to remind Tucson Ward 1 councilwoman Regina Romero that a
record-breaking chunk of the vote did not go to her. The people thus
told her that the issues Beryl Baker ran for are important to the
people Romero represents. I feel she must respond to this. She
represents the people who voted for her and her opponent. It is
evident that most of the people who voted for Beryl Baker voted
outside of their party, and they will vote again. Beryl said herself
that if a lot of people were to vote for her, then the issues she
wants to address are as important to them as they are to her. That
is, she would effectively represent the population of Ward 1. Recall
that she received 34.04% of the vote, which may be a loss by a large
margin, but an unprecedented percentage for her party in Pima County.
It would be logical to conclude that such a large percentage would
have to come from more than just registered Green Party
voters—members of the Republican and Democrat parties, other
parties, and independents would have to have also cast votes for her.
Indeed, I have spoken with people coming from various walks of life
who all said that they voted for her.
If this inspires you to contact
Councilwoman Romero, I am providing you with her contact information:
I was driving down Park Avenue in the midst of the U of A campus one day and hit a cluster of potholes that caused a rumbling, bouncing, and bucking that was reminiscent of Armageddon. Indeed, it seems an omen for very bad things to come for Tucson if we don't fix our crumbling infrastructure. In the city's current fiscal condition, one must realize that there soon won't be any money left to make repairs.
John Kromko has some ideas for using Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) funds that were allocated to projects we don't need, based on projections that simply did not come to pass and will not for a long time. These projections were made back in 1987. Instead of waiting for these outdated projects to launch and use up that money, John wants to use money that already exists to fix our streets. He and Kent Solberg said that to fix them, it would cost $68 million and that money simply does not exist to try and meet even half our needs. It is likely to require another round of raised taxes that will actually harm our tax base, which is were the money comes from in the first place. Are you following the logic on that? I'm not.
An example of an outdated RTA project is the widening of Broadway Boulevard. The projected traffic estimates did not come to fruition and to proceed with the project would demolish 115 business and historic structures that are currently add to the tax base for the general fund. This plan would also cost $79 million that the county and city do not have. The bottom line is that there are some planned projects based on projections that, with the many changes in our economy, have completely changed. RTA executive Garry Hays, however, disagrees with this idea. He says there is no way that the RTA monies should be used in any other way than what was planned years ago.
Steve Kozachik has his own plan for the use of existing RTA monies. He says that the RTA has become something that the voters did not choose: a shadow government. He also said that the voters have a right to re-evaluate how tax dollars are spent as time changes. It is not right for the RTA to feel that the taxpayers cannot have a discussion about changing how their tax dollars are spent.
Mr. Kozachik and Mr. Kromko have ideas on how to reallocate money from the RTA to fix our roads. I am sure their plans differ in some ways, but these two very different people with highly different views have a strong common denominator: The RTA has unused money previously allocated to projects that ended up being unnecessary, so the money should be used for the very pressing need for road repair.
As a side note, the streetcar project might have been best delayed until another time because the city and county do not have the money for even simple things like road repair. Also, the streetcar project is too small-scale to actually make any kind of difference in public transportation. From what I gather, it was basically a special-interest deal in which things passed and were allowed to happen as the result of appeasing each special interest. Since it is too late to stop the project with all the tearing up of roads going on, I guess we need to embrace the “Big Toy” and hope that in forty years it actually becomes something that serves the city rather than a mere conversation piece. It would have been nice to have made the Sun Tran bus system into a very good one that serves the city well. I have ridden the bus and can think of a list of things that need to change before it is a truly useful system. Additionally, it's likely that the streetcar construction will stomp out many businesses during these economic times when the broke city needs to maintain its tax base as much as possible. On June 21st, the Arizona Daily Star reported that Sharks Nightclub had closed after being in business for twelve years on Congress Street. It survived the finicky downtown economy, the always-depressed Tucson economy, and the failing national economy, but not the invasion of the streetcar construction. It's probably just the first business to go under during this phase of development.
How will Tucson revive with crumbled roads? How will we attract the vision of Tucson having high-paying jobs, such as high-tech green jobs? Jobs that will enable the children of families living here to actually be able to stay in here after graduating from the U of A and have a living wage instead of the chronically financially-depressed culture we have always had? ou might say, “Good! That will mean less people will live here.” No, I say, if we allow this city's infrastructure to crumble it will mean that more poor people will live here, as has been the case in the past. We will just grow into one big, hulking, impoverished, cheap city. Depressed neighborhoods will become slums and we will get that big-city slum feel instead of the almost town-like friendly city we have somehow managed to hold onto.
Residents from neighborhoods in Pima County have launched a petition demanding that the county fix the dangerous potholes in the roads, but the county says it does not have the money to do so because the city has spent the money from the general fund on other things. This is Tucson's neverending problem. Once money gets into the general fund, it can be spent on anything.
Back to John Kromko and Steve Kozachik's separate but similar ideas on redirecting the existing RTA monies to meet the needs of fixing the potholes. This might make it possible for the city to allow the county to have some of its money back. The problem is that it seems Steve Kozachik is not getting traction on this and is not likely to succeed. I think it is time to contact our elected officials and let them know that we want them to use RTA monies that already exist, rather than hiking our taxes which is unlikely to solve the problem, but rather prolong it with a quick and dirty fix that will not last. It would be good to also tell them that if they can't do it, we the people just might do it with an initiative that, in all honesty, might be better than going with Kozachik's plan because of all of the deals that politicians have to make with everyone to get anything done. This way might cost us a white elephant.
I ask you to consider contacting John Kromko at jkromko@dakotacom.net and let him know that you would like to help him get an initiative off the ground.
If you think about: 1) the full weight of plans that are no longer needed costing us money we don't have, 2) hurting our tax base when we have no money, and 3) the long-range cost of having the most crumbled streets in any major US city—It makes sense to take this very seriously and take action. Our future depends on it. It is more important than a politician holding onto his or her job for a few more years.
Below is the link to a video of John Kromko explaining his initiative during a segment of my show back on March 10th:
