And stupidly.
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry talked of halting baseball and softball for thousands of youngsters and adults until taxpayers come up with $1 million to install new lights for the park.
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In a display of tortured logic, Huckelberry proclaimed that if the county begins operating the sports park, it must immediately replace the lights because they violate the county’s Dark Skies Ordinance, which was adopted in 1973.
The lights apparently weren’t a problem when Grotto-Walker Park LLC leased the park from the county in 1984. They didn’t stop Tucson Sports Park LLC from subleasing it from Grotto-Walker in 1997.
But Huckelberry now says it’s THE issue because the county shouldn’t violate its own light-pollution ordinance.
Well, Mr. Huckelberry, if the lights have been in violation for 34 years and nobody (including astronomers) blew the place up, couldn’t we wait a year or two more to replace them?
You could include the funds in next year’s county bond election. What’s another million dollars in your $700 million plan?
Oh, I remember. You’ve included money for park lighting in past bond elections, but you haven’t spent it at Tucson Sports Park.
Besides, the county is also considering extending the nearby Ina Road sewage treatment plant into Tucson Sports Park. Deciding to do that would be another reason to postpone new lights. It also would require building new ballfields somewhere else.
There must be some reason Pima County does so much to gain fame for mishandling its sports facilities. I just can’t figure it out.
County employees have been unable to grow quality grass at Tucson Electric Park for most of the past nine years. During a Tucson Sidewinders homestand earlier this month, they couldn’t even take care of removing some really smelly garbage from behind the third-base stands.
The Chicago White Sox will move their spring training operation from Tucson to Glendale as soon as possible, and the Sidewinders’ Pacific Coast League franchise is headed to Reno in 2009.
County officials have shown little concern about losing either team.
Meanwhile, local horse-racing fans have been told the county’s historic Rillito Racetrack at North First Avenue and River Road will be converted to soccer fields in 2010. As of now, no money for a new track will be in the 2008 bonds.
What’s good for soccer will be bad for Tucson. We’ll lose a million dollars or so in economic impact and some great publicity if racing and its fans stop coming here each January.
Spring training and its fans bring an estimated $30 million annually to Tucson in February and March. The Sidewinders and minor league rehabilitation and training operations bring a few million more.
Amateur events for soccer, basketball, baseball and softball, track and field, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, fencing, curling and other sports contribute $17 million throughout the year.
If county attitudes don’t change, however, more events could move elsewhere.
I wonder why the politicians we elect to run Pima County love spending millions to buy vacant ranches and desert land for animals but show so little interest for investing in sports and recreation for people.
E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Steve Emerine, a Tucson resident since 1960, has run Steve Emerine Strategic Public Relations since 1994. He is a former local newspaper reporter, editor and columnist and served as Pima County Assessor from 1973 to 1980. He is a regular Monday guest on the John C. Scott radio talk show, which airs from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays on The Jolt KJLL 1330-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.
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