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Rio Nuevo bill deserves a vote in Legislature

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The fight in the Arizona Legislature over a bill that could generate roughly $1 billion for public works projects in Downtown Tucson has pulled back a curtain to expose a state torn by partisanship and populated by the politically bruised.

Unfortunately, it has also renewed the perception, held by some politicians in Pima and Maricopa counties, of two Arizonas — one dominated by Phoenix and the other by its taxing colony, known as Tucson.

The battle over Tucson's TIF (tax increment financing) bill, a proposal that would allow Tucson to retain a portion of the state sales tax for use on public projects, has been bloody and remains unresolved.

Setting aside for the moment what this bill will or will not accomplish, it seems to us that this unnecessary fight may end up having some value if in the end it gets our legislative leaders to shift their thinking and look at Tucson and the rest of Arizona in a new way.

It would be beneficial for the state as a whole, for example, if the leadership would see Tucson as a financial asset. The more Tucson can do to improve its infrastructure and promote economic development — two things that can be accomplished with passage of the TIF bill — the more jobs will be created. Jobs generate income for workers, but also for the state in terms of income and sales taxes.

In other words, if Tucson's fortunes improve, the state's fortunes do, too. This means more money in the state treasury for improvements in Winslow, Yuma, Prescott and Phoenix. This is another way of saying that an investment in Tucson is an investment in the welfare of all of Arizona.

Sadly, what we saw in recent weeks as the fight over tax increment financing in Tucson unfolded in the Capitol was a script that went something like this: "If we (we being some powerful legislators from Maricopa County) allow this bill to get passed, over the next 30 years Tucson will get to suck away $1 billion in state sales taxes that could have been spent in Phoenix."

Therefore, it follows, Tucson's gain is Phoenix's loss.

This line of thinking suggests that Phoenix is the place where things are really happening and Tucson is essentially a minor enclave, an outpost where people are more interested in the arts and humanities than in the kind of money that a major metropolis can generate.

This is, of course, an old myth and one that, with help from the leadership in the Legislature, can be put to rest.

Metropolitan Phoenix is an aggressive engine that drives the state's economy. In some ways, we have all benefited from the commitment to growth that Phoenix officials made years ago. We may not like the capital's traffic problems or its polluted air, but every community in the state has gained, directly or indirectly, from Phoenix's growth.

That said, there remains a problem with members of the Legislature who are trapped by their own provincial myopia, men and women who rarely venture beyond the Phoenix metro area and who seem to believe that if a community is not within the urbanized center of Maricopa County it simply isn't worth talking about.

If the community happens to be in Southern Arizona, where Democrats outnumber Republicans, there is all the more reason for Republican-dominated Maricopa County to ignore it.

We cannot see that there is any other reasonable explanation for the reluctance of the Legislature to approve the Tucson TIF bill. It isn't as though tax increment financing districts are a new or revolutionary idea in the United States.

The bill awaiting action in the Senate simply takes a law that the Legislature passed in 1999 and modifies it. The original law allowed the city to collect part of the sales taxes generated within a portion of the city over a 10-year period and use that income for public works projects, such as Rio Nuevo. The city is asking that the term be extended by 30 years.

Tucson's TIF was the last one authorized by the Legislature and it was supposed to go away in 10 years. But why should the Legislature balk at extending that period if the extension will lead to major improvements in the state's second largest city and eventually to more revenue for the state treasury?

The bill doesn't raise anybody's taxes and, unlike TIF laws in other states, the Arizona law requires that Tucson match dollar-for-dollar whatever it gains from the sales tax.

If the bill is approved, it will give Tucson a chance to borrow against the roughly $1 billion the TIF would generate over the next 30 years. It could accelerate public works projects, such as parking garages, an arena and road improvements.

Most of those connected to the legislative fight — including Senate President Ken Bennett of Prescott, who controls whether the bill even gets released for a vote this week — probably know that this is no longer a difference of opinion over what constitutes good public policy. It's been reduced to a contest over political power, strongly influenced by self-absorbed egos.

We hope partisanship will lose its legitimacy as a rationale for ignoring the needs of Tucson and other cities outside of Maricopa County. When that happens, the state as a whole will benefit.