This past Tuesday, the Council voted to prevent new cell phone towers and waged a war on errant shopping carts. Fimbres said his office had received “a lot of phone calls and emails on this issue.” Fimbres explained that the City developed a committee to address the “safety issues” that present “a danger in themselves.” He argued that the City needs to address the pressing issue. “We need to look at holding people accountable. People that use the carts, take them off the premises, need to return them when they can.”
Fimbres discussed his most recent newsletter in which he said that Ward 5 is experiencing a “renaissance” with the “development of 23,000 in new retail space at The Bridges including a new WalMart and Costco. Fimbres was especially proud of Ward 5 saying, “and we even got our own In-N-Out Burger now.” Fimbres also touted the 75 jobs created at Costco and 12 jobs created at a new Peruvian restaurant.
He said that Goodwill Industries, which sells second hand items, opened up 4 new stores which he said “equates to about 70 new jobs. We even got dollar stores, General Dollar and Family General which equates to 50 new jobs. So things are happening and I didn’t even talk about the QuickTrip. They were going to build 30 in Pima County, the first two were in Ward 5.”
Fimbres spoke excitedly about the $1 million that Rio Nuevo agreed to give Mission Gardens in its recent settlement with the City.
In 2007, the City estimated the cost of the Garden at $350,000. Residents had been promised a revitalized area that would house the Birthplace of Tucson. Instead, $18 million later, all they have is Mission Gardens with a few wilting fruit trees from Spain, an outhouse, an adobe brick wall, and a broken Ocotillo fence. Most of those trees were paid for with grant money.
According to the most recent audit commissioned by the Rio Nuevo District Board, the Garden’s cost is $2,052,935.78. Of that, “supporting documents were not provided for $1,802,667.40 of expenditures related to this project.”
The Intergovernmental Agreement between Pima County, the City of Tucson and the District, which was recorded November 14, 2001, required construction of the Mission Gardens portion to be completed within 5 years of the effective date of the IGA (November 14, 2006).
“According to the City of Tucson’s Flow of Funds, expenditures on the Mission Gardens project did not begin until the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009,” the auditors noted.
Fimbres did note that the City does not have much money and “we have to stretch every dollar we have.”
Fimbres will face Mike Polak in this November’s general election.