With money from local business people and editorial support from the two daily newspapers, the major incumbent county officers were re-elected easily.
Democratic Supervisors Richard Elías, Sharon Bronson and Ramón Valadez will serve another four-year term, as will Republicans Ann Day and Ray Carroll.
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So were Republicans Linda Arzoumanian, the county school superintendent, and Beth Ford, the county treasurer.
Voters will be asked next November to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to buy vacant land, erect government buildings, modernize sewage-treatment facilities and provide other capital improvements.
We might even be asked for more money to link deputy sheriffs, police officers, firefighters and other first responders to a system allowing all of them to talk to each other during emergencies.
Maybe there will also be more money to finish the joint city-county courts building at Stone Avenue and Alameda Street downtown.
Business owners with ties to construction will see big increases in impact fees for new buildings, as well as higher charges for permits, inspections, rezonings, plan reviews and other county services.
Despite the current real estate slump, the assessor’s full cash values on property for 2010, which you’ll receive in about four months, will probably go up.
I’ll explain why in a future column.
And it’s almost a cinch that all parts of Pima County’s total tax rate will rise next July. The county wants more money, and neither the assessor nor the rate-setters on the Board of Supervisors will have to worry about voter retaliation until 2012.
Kolbe deserves some credit
Jim Kolbe, the former GOP congressman, can take some credit for the first two terms of his replacement, Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
She followed Kolbe’s example from the 1980s when she ran for her first term in 2006 by lining up big-hitters from both parties as early as she could, tapping them and their friends for campaign money, and working non-stop for a year on her first campaign.
Once elected, she followed Kolbe’s pattern of returning to Southern Arizona almost every weekend to meet with voters, attend functions and raise money for her second term.
When Kolbe narrowly lost to Democrat Jim McNulty in the district’s first election in 1982, he never stopped running. He was everywhere in the district every week for two years while McNulty took care of congressional business in Washington.
Kolbe’s strategy paid off with a win in 1984, and after that he won every two years until retiring in 2006.
Finally, Kolbe didn’t officially endorse Republican Randy Graf two years ago or Tim Bee this year. He appeared at Bee’s election night party, but he also showed up to congratulate Giffords for her win, just as he had two years ago when she beat Graf.
The curse continues
U.S. Rep. Morris K. Udall, who represented Southern Arizona for 30 years, often joked that because of Sen. Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential loss and his own Democratic primary defeat in 1976, Arizona was the only state where mothers cannot tell their children they might grow up to be president.
Since then, former Gov. Bruce Babbitt lost his bid for the Democratic nomination, and now Sen. John McCain’s defeat keeps the tradition going.
But all Arizonans should be very proud of McCain’s statesmanlike concession speech on election night.
If he had used that style throughout his campaign, he would have made a better showing.
Contact Steve Emerine or e-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. 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 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and from noon to 1 p.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 690-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.
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