Tea Party Tall Tales in Tucson

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rhonda Bodfield of the Arizona Daily Star fact checked, in a roundabout manner, the wild claims being made by the "Republican" candidates for Tucson city council and their Tea Party supporters. Tea Party organizers, Dems square off at downtown events. Here is her fact check reformatted:

Claim: Members of the Tea Party criticized the City Council's February decision to lease the building to the Museum of Contemporary Art for $1 a year.

Fact: The museum, which plans to move into the building in the next few months, was the sole bidder for a five-year lease that can be revoked with one year's notice.

Claim: "If I had known about it, I would have doubled that offer. It would have made a great Tea Party headquarters," said organizer Trent Humphries.

Fact: Lou Ginsberg, the city's director of real estate, said … The request for proposal was advertised on the same day for three weeks in a row in The Daily Territorial. "That is standard practice for anybody looking for real estate transactions," he said. "That was open to everyone and everybody, and the fact is we had only one response."

Claim: Tea Party organizers have said the Tucson Police Department wanted the two-story fire building next door for its own use, and that the Department of Homeland Security wanted to buy it for millions.

Tucson Police Officers Association President Larry Lopez said members of his department, whom he refused to name, made verbal requests of city officials to use the fire building for several things, including housing a backup 911 system.

He said the request was quietly denied behind the scenes. He also charged there was never an appropriate bid process for the lease of the headquarters.

Fact: City Manager Mike Letcher said in an interview the city never had an offer from Homeland Security to rent or purchase the fire headquarters.

Letcher, who was an assistant city manager at the time of the lease, said he wasn't aware of any verbal discussions. "All I can go by is what I've got documented, and there was never any formal request made for those uses."

Lou Ginsberg, the city's director of real estate, said … the request for proposal was advertised on the same day for three weeks in a row in The Daily Territorial. "That is standard practice for anybody looking for real estate transactions," he said. "That was open to everyone and everybody, and the fact is we had only one response."

In addition to these Tea Party tall tales being false and fully debunked, the GOP candidates added some of their own.

Steve Kozachik denied that he made a pitch to get hired on with the Rio Nuevo arena project and wanted to oversee the construction of the arena and then stay on as building operations manager when the project was complete. David Safier has the e-mail and has addressed it here. How serious was Kozachik about wanting that Rio Nuevo job?

Ben Buehler-Garcia, then part of the Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation in 1999 (he left the board in 2004), suggested the renovation of the theater would cost as little as $3.5 million. Buehler-Garcia said at the time the foundation hoped to do the renovation privately. "It's not our plan to saddle the city with any debt," he said then.

Fact Check: In 2002, the renovation project had grown to $8.5 million when it received a $3.5 million infusion of Rio Nuevo project funds. In the five years previous, the foundation had only raised about $3 million in contributions, including $1 million in federal grant funding.

The project shot up to more than $13 million by the time it opened. Earlier this year, the city had to take over day-to-day operations of the theater and "loan" workers to keep it open because it had gone through most of its cash.

The Fox's financial situation also calls into question how the foundation will repay the $5.6 million loan the city gave it in 2005 to help finish renovations after fundraising efforts fell flat. Fox Theatre lost $1.4 million in 2 years

A private investment failure resulted in a mult-million dollar obligation to the City of Tucson.