A Vote for the City

It’s not every day and it’s not every place that gets to build a new city. But Phoenix is one of those places, and the March 14 bond election is one of those days.

As you know, Phoenix isn’t an old Rust Belt city that was set in stone four generations ago. It’s a young city where new ideas are welcomed, bold plans are dared and you don’t have to have a pedigree to be heard. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about Phoenix.

I’ve been reporting on this city and this Valley for 34 years, and I can’t remember a time as crucial as this. Here’s the bottom line: The decisions Phoenix voters make in this bond election will determine whether Arizona’s capital limps toward becoming just another big city or leaps toward becoming a great city.

This bond election will create ASU’s Downtown campus – an undertaking that few cities have ever attempted. It will also expand police and fire facilities, and give us a new crime lab. It will bring new parks, libraries and senior citizen facilities, along with street and sewer improvements. In all, seven separate items are on the ballot to cover major capital improvements.

Together, they’ll transform this city in more ways than anything has since the discovery of air conditioning around World War II.

Since I arrived in 1972, Phoenix has gone to voters nine times asking for bond money to move the city forward. So far – with eight elections under our belts – voters have approved $3.6 billion to support hundreds of capital projects.

We have a mountain preserve that will forever be saved from development because of bonds approved in the 1970s. We have the spectacular Burton Barr Central Library because of the bond approved in 1988 – that bond also gave us a brand new Phoenix Art Museum. We have the Science Center and Phoenix Museum of History, as well as the Herberger Theater and Valley Youth Theatre because citizens approved bonds to build them. We have fire and police stations all over town, all because of bond elections over the years. We also have community facilities and parks and sewers and a decent water system for the same reason.

In all of those elections, voters have rejected only $265,000 of requested bonds. That kind of record shows an overwhelming faith in the city’s bond requests. It shows a thorough appreciation of how the city goes about asking for this “mortgage-like” money. It shows how you build a new city.

So, it will surprise no one who’s watched this city in action that the $880 million bond request on the March 14 ballot is the product of Phoenix citizens saying that this is what we need, and the City Council saying that this is what we can afford without raising taxes.

In fact, that was the bottom line from the start: The city’s needs must be met without raising the secondary property tax already in place that repays these bonds. That’s the way Phoenix has operated for years, and the continual growth of the city has allowed it to make capital improvements within the existing tax structure.

With those marching orders, some 700 citizens volunteered hundreds of hours, meeting for several months in 14 subcommittees, to go through the requests from everyone who hoped to get a piece of the bond pie. That included virtually every department of the city, as well as dozens of nonprofit and community groups. Their requests totaled a whopping $3 billion – almost as much as voters have approved in the past two-dozen years. The subcommittees pared the list down to $850 million.

Then, a citizen-led executive committee headed by former Mayor Paul Johnson listened to all of the rationale and added another $8 million – mostly for police, parks and economic development. Later, the Council added another $22 million, including even more funds for future police stations in outlying areas, youth programs and a Westside park.

Knowing that, it’s easy to see why Mayor Phil Gordon bristles when opponents of the bond pretend it means a tax hike. “Don’t let anyone shape the discussion that this is going to raise taxes,” he said at a kickoff for the bond campaign in January. “It isn’t. As the mayor of Phoenix, I’m telling you, it isn’t.”

Of course, that doesn’t satisfy everyone. Opposition is coming from a group calling itself STOP – Stop Taxing Our Property – whose very name implies that more taxes are coming. They say they want the secondary tax to end, and one of their leaders is Randy Pullen, who has twice been defeated in his bid to become mayor of Phoenix – most recently against Mayor Gordon, who won in a landslide.

Frankly, I think the STOP group is disingenuous. Had they been more honest, they’d have turned their name around and called themselves POTS, for Phoenix Oughta Think Small. But Phoenix voters aren’t dumb, and they aren’t easily fooled, so I don’t think this group’s erroneous tax mantra will play. What’s more, voters have a long history of rejecting the idea of thinking small – the billion-dollar bond proposal of 1988 was, at the time, the largest single approval for cultural facilities in the country.

Opposition also is coming from community activist Donna Neill, who wants the money earmarked for the new ASU campus to go to the police department. I know and admire Donna in most things. She is a courageous woman who has devoted her life to making Phoenix neighborhoods safer. But this time, she’s just plain wrong. This time, I think she needs to learn to play nice with others.

I remember watching her on the government channel during the public hearing on the bond requests, and she actually said nothing else mattered: “If we don’t give police and fire what they need, I don’t care what you build or where you put it, it’s not going to succeed.”

I agree that we should be certain that our police and fire have what they need, but that isn’t the only thing that makes a safe city – not the only thing that makes Phoenix a place people want to live. In fact, if we were skimping on police and fire, Donna would have a point. But this bond proposal doesn’t skimp. City Manager Frank Fairbanks saw to that. He told other city departments to request less so there’d be plenty of money for our “first responders” and the new ASU campus.

As it stands, two different items provide money for police and fire. Proposition 1 calls for $177 million to “strengthen police, fire and homeland security,” while Proposition 2 provides $16.1 million for computers, radio communications facilities and technology equipment to improve police, fire and city responsiveness to citizens.

Approving those two items means Phoenix gets a new crime lab, three new rescue helicopters, much needed improvements to fire training facilities, new radio and computer equipment, a new family advocacy center and a new emergency operations center, along with equipping new and existing police and fire stations. There’s also money to improve response times for police and fire, which already are among the best in the nation. And, in an attempt to plan for the future, there’s money to buy land in outlying areas for stations and precincts that will be needed someday.

It’s important to note that strong support for all seven of the ballot items is coming from the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association and the United Phoenix Firefighters Association. Phoenix Firefighter President Billy Shields is sending out an electronic phone message asking people to support all seven bonds under the banner of “Building Our Future” – the leading business group that’s supporting the bond election.

They say you can identify your friends by those who are ready to write a check to support your cause, and Phoenix has some pretty good friends these days. The corporate community has contributed more than $700,000 to support the bonds. The top donor is the former CEO of Pepsi – Scottsdale resident Craig Weatherup. Others who have written substantial checks include Pinnacle West Capital Corp., the Salt River Project and the Hunt Corp. They’ve all said that the $880 million is a needed “investment” in the city of Phoenix.

Proposition 3 is the item that will not only create a Downtown campus for ASU, but also will help fund a University of Arizona School of Medicine, a UA School of Pharmacy, a life sciences research park and a Phoenix bioscience campus. It asks voters to approve $198.7 million.

Those of us who’ve watched Downtown struggle – against both neglect and the sabotage of the inner-city freeways, coupled with a lust for cheaper land on the outskirts – feel a strong new stirring with the thought of an ASU campus in the heart of the city.

The injection of students, staff and faculty – some 15,000 students are eventually expected – will make Downtown a thriving 24-7 environment that will spur the growth and development of the area, raise educational opportunities for future generations and greatly boost the city’s bio sciences industry, which promises to put Phoenix on the intellectual map.

We’ve watched two sports stadiums – financed by taxpayers – bring fans by the thousands into Downtown for games. We’ve seen that inspire a burst of new housing starts – for the most part, the only Downtown housing we’ve seen in decades. If that kind of growth can come from people heading Downtown now and then for a game or a concert, imagine the impact of students and others living there and making it their home. Imagine all of the new businesses that will start to serve their needs and how vibrant Downtown can become.

But this isn’t a plan that will only help Downtown. It will help the entire Valley. A major force behind the Downtown campus is Mayor Gordon, who can’t hide his excitement for what it can mean. “This is what will propel us into the future, and it will be a future unlike any we predicted,” he told a Downtown group last fall.

I think he’s right on the money.

Meanwhile, Proposition 4 would spend $120.5 million on new city parks and open spaces. Proposition 5 will spend $133.8 million for cultural centers and libraries – including two new branch libraries and technology upgrades in every single library branch in the city. Proposition 6 asks $85 million for affordable housing for families and seniors in revitalized neighborhoods. And Proposition 7 wants $147.4 million for streets and storm sewers.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most important elections Phoenix has ever staged. And everyone who’s eligible to vote should exercise that right and let their voice be heard. The future of Phoenix depends on it.