Last week, the Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry claimed in an article in the Arizona Daily Star that the County was going to have to spend an additional $12.5 million due to the City of Tucson waiting a year before pulling out of the project.
“They say the city’s abandonment of the project resulted in the county’s picking up the tab on about $6 million of architect and engineering fees, as well as about $2.7 million in excessive or unnecessary additions, plus around $3 million in interest on those items,” according to the Star.
“They never hinted they were going to leave until the last minute,” Huckelberry told the Star reporter.
Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik called the claims, “revisionist history.” The revision was forwarded by Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll, who told the Star, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Carroll added, “I’m not going to be anxious to do any more cohabitations with the city based on this project.”
Few in Pima County believe many of the incredible claims by Huckelberry and Carroll. Carroll’s last claim that Republicans support the increase in a gas tax stretches the imagination, and upon closer scrutiny, reveals that it is the chambers of commerce who generally support the regressive tax.
Scrutiny of the courthouse claims reveal a very different history than the one being spun by Carroll and Huckelberry today:
2004
Voters passed a $76 million bond for Courthouse Project. At the time, attorney Larry Hecker wrote in the Tucson Citizen, “By voting “yes” on all six of the Pima County bond questions May 18, voters will approve funding for a minimum of 115 important community projects” and a “county-city court facility that will provide for the efficient, effective and economical delivery of services to the public.”2008:
Planning stalled for three years due to archeology, remediation, utility removal and land acquisition costs totaled more than $17 million. As a result, there was not enough money or legitimate need to proceed with the original plan.2011:
“We got to that point where we had a building we couldn’t afford,” said Reid Spaulding, Pima County Facilities, in 2011.December 13, 2011:
In a memo to the City Council, dated December 13, 2011, the City’s Manager wrote, “The Pima County Administrator has proposed to the City of Tucson two options for proceeding to implement the Pima County Joint Justice/Municipal Court Complex (JJMCC.) The City was asked to “provide bridge financing for the construction of a shell tower for the JJMCC; this is termed Phase 1,” or the County would “delay implementation until after a future bond authorization can be put before the voters.”The City Manager wrote that “The County Administrator has stated there is no wrong or right answer regarding alternatives, and that there are risks for either continuing with construction today using temporary financing or delaying the project until voters authorize supplemental bond funding.”
December 20, 2011:
The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted in December 20, 2011, to move ahead with construction of the complex foundation and building shell to avoid up to $9 million in anticipated increases in the costs of materials without reaching an agreement with the City of Tucson.December 27, 2011:
Kozachik noted in his December 27, 2011 newsletter, “You, the City taxpayers, have been paying for this project since its inception through your property taxes. You have paid your “fair share.” The burden shifts to the County BOS to affirmatively direct the County Administrator to credit the City with the $12M improperly spent on the Superior Court facility, and some significant portion of the $17M in over design fees.”Kozachik claimed “The City (you) should be credited with money spent for reasons you did not authorize, and not charged twice for it. And you deserve a nicely designed landscape. In the alternative, there’s $30M left in the original bond allotment. The City is a 58% occupancy tenant in the not-yet-built joint facility. We have an arguable right to 58% of the remaining money – use that $17M to do tenant improvements in the City Courthouse and leave the County with their dirt lot.”
February 2, 2012:
In Memorandum dated February 2, 2012, County Manager Huckleberry wrote, “it is unlikely there will be a County bond issue in either 2012 or 2013, making completion of the building less likely to be reimbursed by a future bond authorization.”Huckleberry advised the Board that “both County Justice Courts and the City should be prepared to finance the full additional costs necessary to complete Phase One shell construction, which is under contract with Sundt. As well as a future contract amount of approximately $25 million for tenant improvements. Appropriate cost and repayment should be divided in proportion to each agency’s occupation of the building, which is approximately 42 percent Pima County and 58 percent City of Tucson.
“I will leave it to the Finance Manager to determine how these financial arrangements are accounted for in the budget and whether the $22.6 million advance to the capital program is viewed as a loan that becomes due to the General Fund and repaid in proportion by each jurisdiction,” and whether the tenant improvements that will follow should be repaid in the same manner with the County advancing all costs to be repaid by the City with the cumulative cost being divided between Pima county and the City of Tucson at 42 percent City and 58 percent County share being financed by an appropriate annual repayment in the annual Justice Court Operating budget,” wrote Huckelberry.
June 6, 2012:
In his June 6 newsletter, Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik wrote that the “project is now under way and we still haven’t worked out the details of an agreement with the County. We’re talking about asking voters to approve bonds to fix our roads. The County is maybe going to ask you to fund infrastructure to protect the interests of some of our most important private sector employers. All of those bond packages might be wonderful – but if the taxpayers feel we’re unaccountable and are not investing your dollars appropriately, they’ll simply vote “no,” and the region loses.According to City Council member Kozachik, the County not only threatened to build something voters “did not approve – a County only facility,” but “they toss out the threat that they will make the surrounding landscape an eyesore if the City doesn’t concede to what they call the City’s “fair share.”
June 2012:
Beginning at midnight on Friday, June 29, 2012, 4,000 cubic yards of concrete were poured to complete the foundation of the Pima County/City of Tucson Joint Courts Complex at North Stone and East Toole avenues. Sundt Construction is building the foundation and shell.The shell would be built according to Huckleberry for $50 million, and the interior will be finished “sometime later.” The estimate from Pima County at the time of the full cost was more than $170 million.
November 2013:
The Arizona Daily Star publishes claims by Supervisor Carroll and County Manager Chuck Huckelberry that “the city’s abandonment of the project resulted in the county’s picking up the tab on about $6 million of architect and engineering fees, as well as about $2.7 million in excessive or unnecessary additions, plus around $3 million in interest on those items.”
Pima County Communications department employs 9½ full-time and part-time employees. Despite the large spin machine and a willing press, pesky facts seem to thwart the County’s effort to revise history and demonize those who don’t play ball, or in the case of the City of Tucson, don’t pony up to cover the cost of their mistakes and take responsibility for their extravagances.