Where are the workhouses? Where are the orphanages?
On June 21 the Arizona Republic editorial writer again stuck her nose into the south Central Light Rail issue but, unfortunately, her nose is growing, just like Pinocchio’s did when he strayed from the truth. In her attempts at trying to save the plan that many south Phoenix residents are now opposing, Elva made the statement that the transportation plan had passed “overwhelmingly” by Phoenix voters. The truth is that Phoenix scheduled the election at a time when only special interests would show up, August of an odd year (2015). The turnout was predictably low and, therefore, even though the measure passed, only 11% of eligible Phoenix voters voted for the plan, hardly the “overwhelming” support that Elva indicated.
In Sunday’s Arizona Republic (June 17) Elva Diaz makes the patently silly claim that those opposing the South Central Light Rail extension are doing so because they don’t want to let South Phoenix become “swanky” (her word) and they want to stop progress in South Phoenix. This is her explanation for why thousands of South Phoenix residents signed petitions to stop the light rail.
Come on, Elva. More likely, the petition signers object to the proposed restricted traffic on Central by closing two lanes to accommodate the train. Many businessmen see this as permanently harming their businesses, in addition to the disruption during construction. Also, when they look at the effects of light rail in other areas, such as the 19th Avenue extension they see additional crime and blight and don’t want the same result in their neighborhood.
Rather, South Phoenix residents opposing Light Rail probably want their tax money spent on their real needs, such as improving their roads. They are not so naïve as Ms Diaz alleges. And they are not opposed to progress or to “swanky” developments.
There is an article at least once a week recently about our impending water crisis and the fact that we may have to yield to California when Lake Mead gets a little lower. This is because we gave up our higher priority of water rights to build the Central Arizona Project (CAP), an idea whose economics never made sense. The CAP was, of course, politically popular, because who could deny the often-stated allegation that “we live in a desert and we need more water.” Based on that idea, our politicians bargained away our rights to a higher priority for water from the Colorado River.
Was there another option? Was there another voice? Yes. Frank Welsh (recently deceased), a lawyer and professional engineer, formed an organization in the early 1970s called Citizens Concerned About the Project (CCAP). I was one of his board members. One mission was to stop the planned Orme Dam which was to provide storage for CAP water, resulting in huge losses through evaporation and flooding the Ft McDowell Indian Reservation. We succeeded at that cause but failed at the larger battle. We frequently touted the lack of economic sanity of the whole multibillion-dollar CAP. Besides the gigantic cost of the construction, we also cited the waste of water through evaporation by transporting water across hundreds of miles of desert. We suggested such obvious alternatives as using our water allocation along the Colorado River or selling our rights to California. At the same time, we pointed out that Phoenix sits on a large amount of ground water that could support many millions more people, albeit with the sacrifice of agriculture.
The reason I mention this now because we should be wary of the long-term effects of huge government projects, no matter how wonderful they sound.
April 22 was the 14th anniversary of the friendly fire killing of Cpl Pat Tillman, a football hero and man of honor who gave up millions in potential earnings to serve his country. I watched the documentary movie “The Tillman Story” as I do every year on the anniversary of his death. The movie uses actual footage from that time and interviews with key people involved. It documents Tillman’s death and the beginning of a massive cover-up regarding the real reason for his death. The cover-up involved several of our most senior military officers.
The reason I suggest that we reflect on this incident is because I believe that senior members of the military should be role models for the rest of our nation and I am concerned that our military training is failing at this. There have been no obvious changes with respect to honor training since the Tillman incident. Frankly, changes that have occurred are in the wrong direction. For example, there is clear evidence from USAF Col (ret) Fred Malmstrom’s research of declining standards of honor at our military academies, the institutions charged with producing the most professional officers. Therefore, there is no reason to expect, if an incident like the Tillman killing were to occur today, that our senior military leaders would do anything differently than they did in the cover-up following Tillman’s death.
Our military training programs, especially officer training, need some analysis.
I realized during my time on the Citizens Committee on the Future of Transportation in Phoenix that the extension of the Light Rail along South Central did not make any economic sense but now the businesses along the proposed route are also realizing the damage that this extension will do and many of them have signed a petition objecting to the current plans. At the last meeting of the Phoenix Citizens Transportation Commission (the oversight group for implementing the sales tax passed in 2015) I suggested we reexamine this extension, but it will take a strong lobbying effort with the Phoenix City Council to get this done. So, let’s get on it before we waste hundreds of millions of dollars that could be better spent on roads and buses.
I have lived within a half block of Encanto Park for 40 years. Easter is always the most challenging weekend for park administration and for Phoenix Police. My compliments to both because this past weekend was the best ever. I am especially grateful to our Phoenix Police Community Action Officer Ben Harris and Downtown Parks Supervisor Julie Ebersole for their “hands on” commitment. I actually saw Julie out this morning (the Monday after) picking up debris from private property lawns surrounding the park. I have never witnessed this before and I was amazed. Thanks to all who are helping to make central Phoenix a great place to live.
Even though I have lived just a few blocks from the Arizona State Fairgrounds for over 40 years and have attended many events there, I had never walked around the entire campus until just the other day. I was appalled. The buildings are run down, paint is peeling, the landscaping is atrocious, and the surrounding parking lots are also in need of upkeep.
Can we fix it? I doubt it. There is no way any government entity can generate enough revenue for this. Instead of wasting more tax money, we should sell the land and the parking lots for a mega development of some kind. After all, where else is such a large parcel of land available in the center of one of the largest cities in the United States? Such a sale would generate millions of dollars and millions more in future tax revenue from the new use. And there is plenty of available land in Maricopa County…..or somewhere else in Arizona—after all, it is the STATE fairgrounds.
As Treasurer Jeff DeWit predicted, a federal judge has ruled against the use of state trust land that was mandated by Prop 123. The proper way to get additional money from the state land trust is to sell more land. This gets the land out of state management and into the taxpaying private sector.
Unfortunately, we have some bureaucrats in the State Land Department who think they can manage land better than private sector owners. That is nonsense. If it were true, these bureaucrats would be in the private real estate sector where their income potential is much higher.
Let’s increase state trust land sales and get that money working for our schools in the legally (and fiscally) correct manner.
I was not surprised to read in this morning’s Republic (Mar 2) that Arizona has the worst rate of pedestrian deaths in the U.S. I live in a residential area near downtown Phoenix and only a couple of days ago I was returning from an exercise walk during rush hour, so I went to the crosswalk on 15th Avenue across from the golf course club house. I stood there at the well-marked crosswalk while five north bound cars passed by. I then proceeded to walk to the center of 15th Avenue and stood there in the middle of the crosswalk while four more southbound cars passed me. No one stopped.
roymilleraz 