The Hotel bed tax was a poor idea at conception as it will force visitors of Tucson to choose to either not come or to find hotels that are located in the county or surrounding areas that will be cheaper on a per night stay in these tough economic times, so I would support eliminating the bed tax.
What internal cost cutting measures would you direct the City Manager to take to reduce spending?
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What plan or plans do you have to help stimulate the economy?
Focus on a local first plan for all purchases that need to be made by the City—provided that their costs are in line with what we can get elsewhere, and concentrate on business development. The first step is to be more open and inviting to businesses looking at Tucson as a place to call home. We need to welcome them and convince them that Tucson is going to be a good place for them to do business and grow. We will need to improve the quality and conditions of our roads and get them back to an acceptable state of repair. The longer we delay the upkeep and maintenance of our roads the more it will cost us in the long run. Also, when interested companies look at relocating to Tucson, they look at how safe and clean of a community they will be bringing their businesses and employees to. Tucson needs the additional resources provided by Prop. 200 to attract these businesses to the area. However, if we raise taxes to do it—considering our already incredibly high tax rate—we will be shooting our efforts to attract and expand Tucson’s business community in the foot.
What are you plans to address downtown development?
We need to make the permitting and approval process quick, easy and straight-forward. We need to make Tucson a haven for businesses of all sizes. Long-term, business growth–job growth–and the resulting sales tax revenue is the only way we will be able to balance the budget and erase Tucson’s deficit problems. . Building a thriving and active downtown entertainment and housing district has benefited cities across the country. Unfortunately, our plan has been–to put it mildly–drastically mismanaged. We’ve already spent a vast amount of money with almost no return on our investment. A good example of a better approach to this problem is Portland, Oregon. Portland instituted tax breaks, zoning privileges, and other incentives for developers who wanted to renovate or build new structures –particularly housing–inside it’s downtown and commercial warehouse districts. Part of this approach was a “concentric circles” zoning scheme which provided these incentives, initially, only to development inside the downtown area but which, once that area had been fully developed, extended the incentive zone out in ever-widening circles throughout the city. This encouraged developers to build up, not out–creating greater efficiencies in terms of city services, public transportation, etc. The key to this approach is that they were able to reinvent their downtown area without significant public expenditures. Long-term, this approach also created a vastly improved tax base as citizens and companies (particularly tech companies) took advantage of the higher quality of living created by these measures. We can do much the same thing here in Tucson, focusing on housing and new green-energy and water technology companies, particularly in light of the fact that the State Legislature recently passed laws granting state-tax benefits which should be matched here at the local level to entice green businesses to choose Tucson over other cities in Arizona. (Although I would like to see these cuts extended to ALL business, as Arizona in general – and Tucson in particular – have some of the highest and most restrictive tax and zoning regulations in the country as they relate to business and manufacturing concerns.)
Do you support the City creating a new Professional Services tax?
I do not support this as it is a double tax to the self employed individuals who are already pay some of the highest tax rates—as individuals—into the system.
Do you support the City reintroducing the renter’s tax?
No, this was not a well thought out idea in the first place; it will be a pass-along tax as many investors will simply wait till their current leases end and then simply pass it to the tenants, hurting those who can afford it the least. Also, many investors currently subsidize the amount they receive in rents to pay their mortgages and if we continue to burden them even further this will cause a glut of foreclosures reducing the value of the surrounding homes in the neighborhoods, ultimately hurting the everyday homeowners of Tucson. When new potential investors look to purchase homes they will look at the rent roll in the city and then purchase in the county instead—further reducing the property tax revenue received by the City.
Do you support the Public Safety First Initiative?
If so, how will you pay for it and are tax increases part of your proposal? Yes I fully support the PSFI and there is currently no need to raise taxes nor cut any current programs. There are several areas in the current budget that are operating at outrageous deficits and those areas need to be brought up to be self sustaining or perhaps looked at for farming out to the public sector. We need to be looking at ways to become more cost efficient in the way we are currently doing things especially in areas that run at an extreme deficit.
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