Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Several bloggers have noted that Gila Courier ran a piece that was supposedly an op-ed by Lisa Suarez that appeared in the Arizona Daily Star. It was noted that it included a cheap personal shot at City Manager Mike Letcher. After I went with the story, one friend said that I should go back and look at the piece that Gila Courier ran and see how many other discrepencies there were.

Of course, Gila Courier took the piece down, but someone posted their version to one of the comments sections of the Tucson Weekly. I thought it might be interesting to make a comparison between the two, but they bear so little resemblance to one another that it didn’t seem worth it. I’ve put the full text of the phony op-ed (which includes, in addition to the shot at Letcher, at least one unsubstantiated charge leveled at 200 opponents) after the jump. You can compare that to the real op-ed. Suarez denies that this was an early draft of her piece, so one has to wonder what the folks at Gila Courier were thinking when they put this piece up.

The only ones being handcuffed by Proposition 200 are the bad guys.

What began as a community-spirited effort by the business community to make Tucson a safer, better place to live has now been turned into a bitter and acrimonious battle full of deception, “Overzealous” remarks by city staff and ugly character assassination. Comparing Police Officer Larry Lopez to 1950s U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy was more than mean-spirited; it was a shameful, low blow to a man who risks his life every day to protect the citizens of our city.

So is this how we will go to the polling booth? Twisted by scare tactics including starving zoo animals, sky-high taxes and eviscerated social service programs? We hope not. We know this to be true: not a single council member has said they would vote to cut social service programs, close the zoo or raise your taxes. Be not afraid.

Proponents of Proposition 200 have been blasted because we haven’t identified a funding source for the Sustainability Plan already adopted by the city. We considered and then rejected the idea of including a funding source for two reasons: there is case law which indicates that any such directive would be unconstitutional and City Attorney Rankin agreed with our assessment.

The City’s Independent Audit and Oversight Review Committee report shows that funding the Sustainability Plan will cost just over $2 million dollars next year and will ramp up over the remaining four years. So where is the money going to come from? That answer can only come from our City Council. They have said our only options are huge tax increases or devastating cuts. We disagree. There are many other options. Our City Manager has refused to even discuss the possibility of new revenues which will come from our recovering economy. The City’s revenue stream dropped by more than $75 million in the last two years. The state of Arizona just released it’s “consensus revenue projections” (Joint Legislative Budget Committee report dated 22 OCT 09) through Fiscal Year 2013. Guess what? The State is demonstrating that our City can reasonably expect to receive $2 trillion dollars in revenues between now and then. More than enough to even cover Letcher’s vodka budget for a month.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the City Manager is correct … no new revenues for the next five years. Let’s also assume that the politicians can’t find four votes to “eviscerate city services” or to increase your taxes by any amount … what then? Well, there are even more choices our City Council can make but many of them revolve around rescinding political favors and changing their priorities. For example, the city can increase revenues by being more business friendly. Another example: the city could choose to spend the $64 million dollars they currently use to subsidize their pet programs on Proposition 200 and pay for it two times over. Which Is more important to you: subsidizing a bus rider .50¢ a ride or making sure an ambulance gets to your home in time to do any good?

Opponents of Proposition 200 have recently taken up two new themes: There is no “crime problem” in Tucson and, they refuse to discuss the importance of increasing the response times of our ambulances and fire trucks. They cite the recent decrease in crime and say that Proposition 200 isn’t needed. They don’t tell you that the FBI says that Tucson is one of only two cities in the country who willfully refuse to properly report their crime statistics. They also don’t tell you that 9 out of 10 crimes go unpunished … that’s right, 90% of Tucson’s criminals get away with their crimes – scott free. Those leading the charge to defeat Prop 200 are advocating for a “crime quota” in our community. Essentially they are saying that we should just accept the 217 rapes, 3,868 acts of Domestic Violence and 4,973 burglaries that went unsolved last year. 28 murderers walking our streets – No problem! They support allowing those bad guys get ting away with their crimes because paying for something else is more important.

Over 480,000 emergency 9-1-1 calls were made last year. Thats just slightly less than one call per resident (and more than one call per household). Thousands of those calls were for Advanced Life Support incidents, each of which demand extremely fast and consistent response times to insure that heart attacks, accident victims, strokes, drownings, allergic reactions, etc., are treated immediately. The result of a slower response time is obvious. Prop 200 increases response times by 66%, something that you will be praying for when it comes your turn to make that 9-1-1 call.

By now you should have a good feel for what the City Council and the “No” committee are about – It’s nothing less than the status quo for them. No hope. No change. Just preserve their power. Don’t you dare try to tell them what your priorities are. Trust them – they are the government and they are here to help you.

Crime, fires, heart attacks and car accidents know no political parties. Please set politics aside and think for a moment about your family. Ask yourself — if you have an emergency and need to call 9-1-1 how fast is fast enough? Is a wait time of nineteen minutes acceptable for a domestic violence call? Go to www.keeptucsonsafe.com and listen to what is really going on in our community.

Our First Responders have made a 9-1-1 call to you. All you have to do is vote Yes on Proposition 200.