DRAW EARLY, SHOOT SELF IN FOOT

posted by James Reel

    The University of Arizona is going after nearly all the Rio Nuevo tax increment financing money earmarked for development west of the freeway—money that’s supposed to cover a lot of things that have nothing to do with the UA’s museums. Get a load of this, from today’s Arizona Daily Star:

    Its request of $166 million for the Science Center and $62 million for the new state museum total $228 million in Rio Nuevo money—more than the city had suggested it intended to spend on the entire West Side.
    Alexis Faust, executive director of the UA's Flandrau Science Center, said the funding request demonstrates the UA's commitment to Rio Nuevo because the university would pay $10.6 million in operating costs per year on both structures. On a per-year basis, Faust added, the operating costs are more than the city's cost to build the structures.
    The request also said that if the UA pulled out, the attendance at West Side museums would fall about 30 percent to 40 percent.
    "We need to fully fund the West Side campus and museums," Faust said. "The Science Center is like an anchor, like a Nordstrom is at a mall. You really need the anchor tenant in a redevelopment."
    [City Manager Mike] Hein called the UA's Friday request "poor political brinkmanship." He said he was "stunned they would take such an aggressive approach so early in the process" and suggested Faust is trying to "either stir the pot or corner the market."
    "The biggest impediment to the UA Science Center succeeding seems to be the UA Science Center staff," Hein said.

    Read the Star story, and then take a look at an article I wrote on the subject for this month’s Downtown Tucsonan.
    UA officials have never really understood how despised the university is in some corners of the community. Nearby residents hate the UA for eating neighborhoods and treating their blocks as a dump for overflow parking and partying student residents. Some taxpayers think the UA is full of lazy, unproductive professors who pursue useless research (especially in the humanities), teach way too few students on their own and leave the real work to underpaid grad students. Grad students think they’re underpaid and overworked. Undergrads grumble that undergraduate education is neglected in favor of graduate programs and faculty research support. These opinions are by no means universal, nor are they necessarily fully supportable, but they are common. And the UA isn’t making any points with the community with what looks like an attempt to blackmail the city into funding its off-campus development program.
    Whatever may or may not be wrong with the UA, one thing is certain: Its leaders are dreadfully out of touch with the community, except when it comes to major fundraising campaigns. Speaking of which, it might be a good time to launch a campaign for the new cultural campus west of the Santa Cruz, because Mike Hein obviously isn’t going to stand for what looks like the university’s attempt at extortion.