Sunday, May 29th, 2005...11:29 am
Edifice Complex
Well, my brother found out about my blog and told me “You’d better not make any personal attacks on my colleagues!” Geez, here I was hoping to do that. Of course, he hasn’t said I can’t make personal attacks against him. Feel free to post suggestions in the comments section.
Eric wanted me to write about Bob McMahon’s plans to put a high-rise apartment building on the current site of the main library. I haven’t paid much attention, since I think the plan is a non-starter. Many downtown property owners are already tweaked that the city has opened up so much new space and many of their tenants are moving to those new spaces. I can’t imagine that any of them would be happy with that many new residential spaces competing with their own complexes.
I saw an interview with City Manager Michael Hein on Arizona illustrated and he was asked about this plan. He offered nothing resembling an opinion on it. This is understandable, since he can’t express an opinion until four members of the Mayor and Council tell him what it is. McMahon may feel that he “appointed” Mike Hein, and now it is time to get what he wants. This is probably overreach on this part.
McMahon may come up against the institutions that frustrate many developers in this community. In any city, you have ad hoc groups of activists who oppose a road project or who fight to preserve an old building. Because of the official structure of the neighborhood associations and the network of citizen boards, the people that folks love to blow off as cranks or NIMBYs in most communities have actual institutional power (Full disclosure: I’m one of those cranks that serve on a board). I don’t think that McMahon has any interest in bringing these people into his plans, and that may be the downfall here.
I’m hoping that that is what, in the end, turns Fred Ronstadt out of office. As you see by the blogroll, I am supporting Nina Trasoff. Don’t get me wrong though, Steve Farley would make an excellent councilmember as well. I don’t want to say that either would be better than Ronstadt, since that would be extremely faint praise. You may have read a few weeks back that Fred’s more famous cousin Linda Ronstadt came out for Trasoff. Linda has been a Democrat for a long time (she dated Jerry Brown at one point), but what prompted this was the plans for a big box store in Linda’s neighborhood. Linda and her neighbors couldn’t get a hearing from the guy. If his most famous relative can’t get into the office, what chance do the rest us have?
There are numerous instances of Ronstadt not only being dimsissive of complaints, but even becoming angry when talking to citizens who disagree with him (even screaming at one neighborhood association meeting). Did anyone explain to Fred that sometimes the people that pay his salary have the right to tell him when he is full of it?
In this week’s Range column in the Weekly, Jim Nintzel claims that there are “moderate legislators” mad at Janet Napolitano for breaking her agreement with the leadership. I can’t think of any moderate legislators who have any love for their party’s leadership, so I find this hard to believe.
4 Comments
May 29th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
I like the idea of a new tower in the downtown area with housing, shops and a high end restaurant. I just hate the location that he picked. The land around the downtown library is one of the few public open spaces downtown. It is good open space not only because it gets used, but also because provides a clean view of the Pima County Courthouse. We don’t need one more tower crowding over it, much less three. There seems to be a fair amount of private land downtown that doesn’t get a huge amount of use. Why doesn’t he go after that before setting the bulldozers against the hill where we light our community Christmas tree.
June 1st, 2005 at 10:57 am
Just do it—post something about Tom so we can all point and laugh!!!
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:40 am
Is there any danger of a house of worchip going up downtown? Seems Rio Nuevo has included a little something from every category except that one. Just imagine what Tucson would be like if some of us stopped praying for it.
June 9th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Well…there is that Cathedral…
Leave a Reply