October 13, 2001

Hartmann, Ronstadt vie to form heart of council

Hartmann Ronstadt

To hear Gayle Hartmann tell it, Republican Councilman Fred Ronstadt is having something of an identity crisis.

"He's trying to make himself more like me," said Hartmann, a Democrat who's running against Ronstadt in Midtown Ward 6. She said Ronstadt has tried to downplay his allegiance to big business while portraying himself as a friend of neighborhoods and an advocate for managed growth.

"I don't believe Mr. Ronstadt has much if any experience there," she said. "There's a clear difference between us on issues that are important to the community."

Ronstadt, though, said he's perfectly happy with his own record on those and other issues he's faced during four years on the Tucson City Council. Hartmann, he says, is too liberal for his own tastes and those of Tucson voters.

"I think you're looking at another Walkup vs. McKasson election," said Ronstadt, referring to Republican Bob Walkup's victory over former Ward 6 Councilwoman Molly McKasson in the 1999 mayoral race.

"You have someone, i.e. me, who's for the most part moderate. I represent the majority of this community," he said. "Gayle is actually further past Molly on the left."

Semantics aside, the race between Ronstadt and Hartmann amounts to a battle for the heart of the council.

Ronstadt, the first Republican on the council since 1989, has helped Walkup steer the body away from its traditionally liberal moorings. The 38-year-old councilman, a part-time financial analyst for Compass Bank, has usually been an ally of Tucson's business leaders and of conservatives who bristle at the council's activist initiatives.

Hartmann, a 59-year-old archaeologist, is tighter with the environmentalists and Sam Hughes-area activists who supported McKasson in the heavily Democratic ward. Her calls for expanding public transit, promptly passing impact fees and embracing the county's land preservation plan put her at odds with the council's current majority.

Both have raised enough money to reach the city's general election spending cap of $80,000 with the help of public matching funds. Ronstadt received donations from developers, car dealers and other business leaders, though most of his money arrived in increments of $50 or less. Hartmann also received many small donations, with larger contributions from academics, environmentalists and other low-profile donors.

Hartmann has focused her campaign on critiquing Ronstadt's record. She supports the city's restaurant smoking ban, its living-wage ordinance and its so-far-futile effort to require background checks on the private sale of firearms at Tucson Convention Center gun shows. Ronstadt opposed all three.

Hartmann also criticizes Ronstadt for opposing the city's "big box" restrictions and for supporting an aborted agreement with developers of El Con Mall that angered some neighbors.

"My bottom-line position is that we ought to try to respect the rights of people who live in the city as much as we possibly can," Hartmann said. "We should not be widening roads and building big businesses that have a negative impact on neighborhoods."

Ronstadt said he worked with El Con area neighbors for two years to resolve concerns over the redevelopment of the Midtown mall. He said he approves of neighborhood protections in the big box ordinance but objects to restrictions on the sale of groceries in such mega-stores.

"We shouldn't go in and stipulate a retail mix or put in these anti-competitive amendments that compromise the rest of the community," he said.

Both candidates are hesitant to embrace a proposed half-cent addition to the city's sales tax to fund transportation improvements. Ronstadt said the city needs a dedicated revenue source for such projects, but he's holding out hope that a citizens committee studying the issue will find a novel approach. Hartmann said the sales tax idea "may be worth trying," particularly if the city and county work together.

Ronstadt said he'd let community groups decide how the proceeds of that tax should be spent. Hartmann said at least half the proceeds should be used to improve public transit, with much of the rest used to improve existing roads rather than build new ones.

Hartmann also said some of that money should be used to purchase and preserve open space, preventing developments that would create new traffic problems. "We have to recognize the connection between sprawl and traffic," she said.

Ronstadt calls that "extreme."

"The basic services that we are mandated to provide need to be addressed," he said. "Acquisition of open space is not among them."

Hartmann said the council should promptly impose impact fees on new homes built in the city to help pay for the infrastructure those developments require. Ronstadt said he supports impact fees in areas where city planners want to discourage development, but Hartmann notes that he hasn't visibly pushed for them during his time on the council.

Both candidates say they'd consider a hiring freeze to ease what City Manager James Keene predicts will be a significant budget shortfall next year.

* Contact Joe Salkowski at 573-4243 or at joes@azstarnet.com.

August 15, 2001

Growth, land use concern Hartmann

By Joe Salkowski
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Benjie Sanders / Staff Gayle Hartmann is critical of the Tucson City Council's reluctance to endorse the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.

Call it an annexation.

Democrat Gayle Hartmann, a familiar face in county land use battles, said she has jumped into the boundaries of city politics in pursuit of better government in Ward 6.

"I've been very concerned with growth and development and the overuse of resources in Pima County," said Hartmann, who also has been involved in the city's less frequent land-use issues.

"I have felt the city has not really played the role it should be playing along those lines. It would make a lot more sense if we were going down the same path."

Hartmann, a 59-year-old archaeologist, has been active in environmental issues since moving to Tucson in 1966. She chairs the county's Open Space Acquisition Review Committee and serves on the steering committee for the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, the county's plan to protect critical habitat for regional wildlife.

She also served on the Pima County Planning and Zoning Commission and was part of a community group that campaigned for the county's open space bonds in 1997.

"Gayle was single-handedly responsible for bringing together a coalition of people with divergent views to say we've really got to pass these bonds," said Raul Grijalva, Democratic chairman of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

Grijalva, a vocal supporter of land preservation, replaced Hartmann on the Planning and Zoning Commission after her term expired because he found her too willing to compromise. "She's a firm believer in the doable," Grijalva said, "and some of us are more committed to the possible."

But Eugene "Sonny" Rickles, who served with Hartmann on that commission, says she paid little heed to the economic impact of her land-use decisions.

"She's not just an environmentalist - she's a way-out environmentalist," Rickles said. "I just don't think that lady would be good for Tucson's economy."

Hartmann said her economic policies focus on Tucson's lowest wage earners. She criticized Ronstadt's opposition to a city policy requiring city contractors to pay employees a "living wage" of at least $8 an hour plus benefits. She wants to increase city funding for job training, diverting money, if necessary, from support for high-tech clusters.

"That spending is fine," she said. "But we have to be able to do better for people who are not going to work in those kinds of jobs."

Hartmann criticized the council's reluctance to endorse the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. She also said the city should push quickly to impose impact fees on new development.

"We've got to make growth start paying for itself," she said. "If we don't do that, we'll continue to drain the resources from the central city and have the kinds of transportation problems we face today."

Hartmann said she's skeptical of a proposal to ask voters in May to approve a half-cent sales tax increase to fund transportation improvements. May elections don't attract many voters, she said, and she'd want the council to dedicate at least half the proceeds of any such tax to improvements in public transit.

She said she would support such a proposal if it was "constructed properly" and contained provisions designed to limit urban sprawl.

"The goal is not to be pouring all the dollars into new roads, to be a little smarter than we have been," she said.

She supports the council's efforts to require background checks for private sales at Tucson Convention Center gun shows - a policy Ronstadt opposed. The city is appealing a court ruling that overturned the policy in May as a violation of state law.

Hartmann said she supports giving city funds to charitable causes, a practice Ronstadt has criticized. "It's good to be able to give small amounts of money to worthwhile groups," she said.

If the budget gets tight next year, she said she might support charging city residents a fee for trash collection to subsidize the cost of landfills. She said she would favor a "pay-as-you-throw" fee so that residents who throw away lots of garbage would pay more than those who recycle most of their waste.

"I suspect some kind of fee is necessary" she said.

* Contact Joe Salkowski at 573-4243 or at joes@azstarnet.com.

August 16, 2001

Neighborhoods define Ronstadt

Aaron J. Latham / Staff Ronstadt roughhouses with sons A.J., 6, left, and McCoy, 4. He has won over at least one "die-hard Democrat."

By Joe Salkowski
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

When Fred Ronstadt was elected to the Tucson City Council in 1997, neighborhood activist Connie Brannock was ready to wear a black armband.

But Brannock, a "die-hard Democrat," said the Republican councilman won her over by pushing the council to adopt new design guidelines for manufactured houses that spring up in existing residential neighborhoods.

"The very next day after my neighbors came to me to complain about this eyesore in our neighborhood, he came out himself to look at it," said Brannock, the former president of the Palo Verde Neighborhood Association. "I don't always agree with the way he votes, but I like him because he's willing to stand up and take a punch for a neighborhood."

Ronstadt, 38, says such responsiveness is the hallmark of his four years on the council. "I've raised the level of accessibility of the Ward 6 office," he said. He said he's encouraged residents to organize into neighborhood associations, and he's helped them share information through a coordinating group his office helped get off the ground.

Some residents questioned Ronstadt's devotion to neighborhoods after a dispute over the redevelopment of El Con Mall that boiled over into new city restrictions on so-called "big box" stores. Ronstadt opposed those restrictions and supported an aborted agreement with the developer that angered a number of nearby residents.

Ronstadt described those who complained about the deal as a "vocal sub-minority" and said he worked hard to bring the developer and neighbors together. "But it's not the responsibility of the city to go in and dictate what the retail mix should be, to tell people how they should develop their personal property," he said.

Sharon Chamberlain, president of the El Montevideo Neighborhood Association, said Ronstadt hasn't done anything to change the negative impression that dispute created among El Con-area residents.

"I don't feel like he has totally been in touch with the neighborhoods," she said. While an aide in Ronstadt's office has been responsive, Chamberlain said, "It doesn't come from his mouth, from his energy."

Ronstadt is devoting energy to development issues with a campaign mailer that touts his support for managed growth. By making the interior of the city more livable, he said, the council can discourage people from buying houses on the outskirts of town.

"It's the carrot method of managing growth rather than the stick method," he said.

He said he supports development impact fees, but he doesn't see them as a revenue source. Instead, he would like to impose them only in areas where planners want to discourage development. "They should be used to direct growth into areas where you want it to occur," he said.

Ronstadt said he would support asking voters to approve a half-cent sales tax to fund road improvements and other transportation needs if the city came up with a "very specific" plan about how the proceeds would be spent. "That's the only way the public would support it as well," he said.

Ronstadt said he's proud the council raised the pay of Tucson police officers, and he hopes now to devote more resources to the city's firefighters. "The Tucson Fire Department is stretched thin. We're at the limit," he said. "We need to get a couple more fire stations online, a couple more paramedic units online."

He said his priorities also include spending more time developing relationships with communities in other countries that have been designated as Tucson's sister cities. "We need to build those into business relationships that can help people living here and across the border," he said.

Ronstadt said he agrees with City Manager James Keene that Tucson needs to tap new sources of revenue to remain financially healthy. But he's reluctant to endorse any of the potential revenue sources identified by Keene, including a fee for trash pickups.

"Before we go there, we need to develop a case for that," he said. The city's Solid Waste Department should convince voters of the need for such a fee before he'll support it, Ronstadt said.

If the budget gets tight next year, Ronstadt said, he'd support eliminating city funding for charitable causes. "Why is the city of Tucson acting like a philanthropist when other needs in the community are going unmet?" he asked. "There's a balance there. Priorities need to be set."

* Contact Joe Salkowski at 573-4243 or at joes@azstarnet.com

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