Phil Gordon and Michael Nowakowski, Don't Tax Our Food

We are kicking off the petition fundraiser to BURY the new Phoenix Food Tax.

Time is short and we need paid petitioners. Your donation will get us there. This is going to be tough without lots of help. The city stacked the deck, giving us only 30 days from passage of the ordinance to collect 10,000 valid signatures. It's possible to get it done but not without paid petitioning help. We were the only group committed or perhaps pig headed enough to challenge this ordinance. Make a principled stand.

Now it's your time to step up.

1) Make a donation in any amount by clicking here: PAYPAL or at our web site. http://www.notaxfood.org
2) Phoenix residents can sign a petition. Download a petition for circulation.

Thank You,
Jim Iannuzo, chairman

Phoenix Libertarian Party

Join us Thursday and Friday at 6:15 pm for a kickoff rallies and petition pickup at:
Sign A Rama 3375 East Shea Blvd. Phoenix, AZ 85028, 602-595-5451

This editorial is the first of several within the next two weeks about Phil Gordon's mismanagement being responsible for the dilemma Phoenix has of not enough revenue to cover the expense of running a city including providing essential services to Phoenix residents.

Phil Gordon, and Council members Thelda Williams, Tom Simplot, Claude Mattox, Michael Nowakowski and Michael Johnson approved the tax on a 6-3 vote. Each of these voting for the food tax should be tarred and feathered. More on this next week.

Council members Sal DiCiccio, Bill Gates and Peggy Neely did the right thing and dissented.

Hispanic News joins with Libertarians to prevent the food tax from being implemented.

This is not a Libertarian or Hispanic issue nor Republican, Democrat or Independent tax revolt because a 2 percent food tax will have an adverse impact on all low and moderate income Phoenicians.

Petitions are now being circulated to collect the required signatures. Petitions are available at many grocery stores and most public libraries.

Petitions are being collected by volunteers and paid professionals.

Become part of this Tax Revolt 2010: No Food Tax with your signature on a petition and a donation to pay the paid professional petition circulators.

If you want to be part of this No Food Tax, Tax Revolt 2010, add your email address at the top of this page.

What Leadership can do!

San Antonio River Walk, Texas:

5.1 million tourists in 2008

4.7 million tourists in 2009

The River Walk proclaims itself the "Number One entertainment destination in Texas," with 5.1 million visitors a year. Paseo del Rio's Executive Director Greg Gallaspy says that number stayed constant in 2008, with more than 900,000 people attending events produced by the association including the Fiesta de las Luminarias when the walkway is aglow with candle-lit bags, a mariachi festival, and a floating Mardi Gras Parade.

2009 was still a banner year with a regional marketing plan replacing a national plan. Numbers decreased but remained in the high 4 millions. Final 2009 numbers are due later this month.

Phil Gordon and Michael Nowakowski, Don't Tax Our Food

PHOENIX (By Jon Garrido, The Jon Garrido News Network) February 16, 2010 — The Urban Land Institute defines a successful city tourism development strategy as one that identifies key nodes for dense commercial tourism growth using a framework of phased public infrastructure, private investment, leveraged private funding, and critical mass development that achieves the primary goal of building significant scale to attract regional and national tourism.

Successful cities include: Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Mass., 20 Million annual tourists; San Antonio River Walk, Texas, 5.1 million annual tourists; Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah, 5 million annual tourists, and SeaWorld San Diego, San Diego, Calif., 4.26 million annual tourists.

The above compared to downtown Phoenix with less than 50,000 annual tourists is like the contrast between white and black and even the 50,000 number is dubious because there is no official number. Why? No one likes to admit failure so this number is not available to the public.

The crux of the problem

Everyone knows there is less revenue to offset costs but the question everyone should ask, "Why is there not enough revenue?"

Certainly the national recession is a factor but Phil Gordon has been at the Phoenix leadership helm for 13 very long years and seven of these years as mayor.

More than enough time to steer Phoenix to grandeur but instead — Gordon is a dismal failure.

Gordon does not understand economic development, has no vision and economic development application requires more than hype.

Now to bale out Gordon's failure, Gordon and Michael Nowakowski want Hispanic mothers to serve less food to their children because Gordon and Nowakowski want to steal a portion of their children's food.

Is there no shame? Apparently not! And to make matters worse, Nowakowski has the gall to proclaim the food tax will benefit Phoenix residents — "We're investing in our kids, we're investing in our seniors, we're investing in our libraries and our parks. We're investing in our future," claims Nowakowski.

Such nonsense: anyone with a brain cell will never believe such bunk!

Worse yet, it sounds like something deceitful, an empty pretense that is purported to be genuine. In other words — a disgusting sham!

The food tax is a cover up to the truth.

The reason Phoenix is in such dire straits is because there are no tourists visiting downtown Phoenix.

Phoenix desperately needs tourism.

Tourists are absolutely essential to income. Any novice can readily see tourism is the economic engine of any large city.

The primary revenue for the City of Phoenix comes from sales taxes: 2% from all sales, 5% from hotel room sales and 4% from car rentals.

Tourists spend about $495 per day in Phoenix.

(Note: A person from Mesa going to a Phoenix Suns game in downtown Phoenix is not a tourist. There is no hotel sales tax or car rental tax paid to the City of Phoenix.)

If the number of tourists in downtown Phoenix went from 40,000 to 5,000,000 per year, there would be substantial revenue to the City of Phoenix. Why 5 million? This is the number of tourists that annually visit the City of San Antonio.

This is the crux of the problem of why there is no revenue causing the City of Phoenix to significantly cut programs and services which translates into fewer Phoenix staff and, in particular, fewer boots on the ground providing police and fire protection.

Instead there are continuous diminishing services due to the significant loss of revenue to the City of Phoenix because of squandered opportunities.

The few tourists that come to Phoenix spend $500 per day on purchases but income from hotels and car rentals is the tourism foundation to increase income by generating other sales that tourists purchase.

This failure of revenue points to one individual: Phil Gordon for his lack of vision and leadership. For thinking public facilities alone will some how bring tourism is a thesis doomed to fail; however, public infrastructure coupled with private development works such as San Antonio did with a small creek in the downtown area that was transformed into a river walk lined with hotels, restaurants, mercado and Mexican villages. This is tourism development extraordinaire realizing tremendous tourism revenue for the City of San Antonio.

Building a medical school or university branch will never achieve the goal of Phoenix becoming a tourism Mecca and thus a world class destination.

But then, the infilling of land parcels with public facilities in downtown Phoenix is "instant gratification" and provides the illusion of economic development. It is not. It is all smoke and mirrors and comes under the heading of — hype.

Gordon is all about hype with no substance. (The next in this series: The Mirage in the Desert: Gordon's Downtown Phoenix and Gordon's Folly with Dubai).

Downtown Phoenix

Instant gratification projects of just gobbling up empty parcels each time eliminating land parcels that should have been used for tourist developments are filled rather with a medical school, vacant land for a proposed teaching hospital, research facilities, ASU campus and sports facilities none of which will ever contribute to a vibrant downtown Phoenix.

All of these are grounded on hype and grandstanding but none of these add to the bottom line of substantial additional revenue for Phoenix.

Not even high rise residential or commercial buildings will ever make any measureable contribution to increase revenue to the City of Phoenix in comparison to a major tourist attraction.

None of the users of these facilities stay in hotels or rent cars.

There may be some significant beautiful and extremely functional public structures such as the $600 million expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center but if not fully used, the only fitting label is the Phoenix Convention Center is a white elephant or rather white camel may be more appropriate.

301,475 conventioneers did visit the Phoenix Convention Center in 2009; however, less than 40,000 stayed in Phoenix downtown hotels.

50 thousand tourists in downtown Phoenix is a grain of sand on the beach. We need 5 million tourists to become a success.

To further dramatically illustrate the total failure of downtown Phoenix to attract tourists, there are no official figures available from any official data source because no one wants to add visibility to dismal failure.

In comparison, the City of San Antonio, which has population characteristics similar to Phoenix, had 5.1 million tourists in 2008.

In a telephone call last week to the City of San Antonio, downtown San Antonio 2009 attendance numbers are not yet finalized; never-the-less, tourist numbers remain close to 2008 numbers due to a major national marketing change of direction to regional marketing brought about by the national economy going southward.

Tourism is crucial and is the basis for successful cities. This understanding and realization that students, downtown workers and even downtown residents will do nothing measureable to provide revenue to the City of Phoenix from hotel sales, car rentals and other incidentals tourists daily purchase is tragically what is lacking in understanding on the part of Phil Gordon, the rest of the Council and even worse, professional economic development staff that are paid to have this expertise; unfortunately, selling trees and lucky charms is their idea of economic development success.

No one at the City of Phoenix

No member of the Phoenix City Council or City Manager or any of his staff and certainly, not one department head can point to any development in downtown Phoenix that can be classified as a major enticement to attract tourists to downtown Phoenix.

If any city official offers a rebuttal to anything I have written, first begin by establishing a baseline to measure success. The only base with any validity is to provide the number of tourists to downtown Phoenix who stayed in downtown hotels and rented cars. Someone more clever that me asked the most profound question ever asked, "Where's the beef!"

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," there is no downtown Phoenix attraction. It means the true value or quality of something can only be judged when it's put to use or tried and tested. The meaning is often summed up as: "Results are what count...it's not how you start, but how you finish."

How Phil will finish

Gordon has been at the Phoenix leadership helm for 13 very long years with seven of these years as mayor. More than enough time to steer Phoenix to grandeur but instead — Gordon is a dismal failure using revenue as the baseline measurement, for not understanding economic development, for his lack of vision and application but mostly for his lack of leadership in guiding city staff to advance Phoenix to the pinnacle as a world class tourist destination.

Instead of selling trees and lucky charms to Dubai, Gordon should have long ago directed city Economic Development staff to conceptualize a major mixed use private sector development with the biggest use being a major tourist attraction for downtown Phoenix. If Gordon had done this, Gordon would have succeeded as Mayor. Unfortunately, time has run out for Gordon.

During his tenure at Phoenix City Hall, Gordon focused heavily on revitalizing downtown Phoenix with public structures rather than private sector projects required to achieve genuine revitalization. Gordon and other members of the Phoenix City Council have put more than $1 billion into the city's core, investing in projects such as the $600 million expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center, the construction of a new $350 million Sheraton hotel, and the creation of a downtown $220 million Arizona State University campus and let us not forget, $35 million for a colossal failure of a tiny empty park in front of the ASU downtown Phoenix main building.

Gordon has also been a staunch backer of a controversial $1.1 billion multi-modal transportation system. Now part of the budget cuts are directed to cutting transportation services. Another catch 22!

Gordon's tenure as mayor will be remembered as leaving Phoenix with a massive deficit after already significant cuts in program and services, the final epitome of failure is to require low and moderate income Phoenicians to bale out Gordon's failures.

The way Phil Gordon rushed the approval to tax food purchased by low and moderate income Phoenicians is reminiscent of Richard Nixon's Saturday night massacre. Gordon put the food tax increase on Tuesday's agenda with barely 24-hours notice and before any of 15 public budget hearings were held.

As Gordon announced the food tax, Council chambers were packed with city employees pressured by Gordon and to no one's surprise, all city employees back the tax increase.

To compound this heavy food tax burden on poor people by using a scare tactic to frighten voters that without the food sales tax, the City of Phoenix will be forced to eliminate police and fire protection throughout Phoenix is clearly transparent. Gordon's use of firefighters and police officers as props to stage a Saturday night massacre goes beyond the pale.

The Phoenix Convention Center

The Phoenix Convention Center expansion opened in January 2009, tripled the size of the area once known as Phoenix Civic Plaza but the convention center's balance sheet tells a very sad story. The center has been forced to cut its own operating budget, its revenue is falling and it is soon expected to struggle to make payments on its construction debt.

The financial picture is bleak because Phoenix taxes provide 80 percent of the convention center's revenue. Receipts from the taxes that fund the center are falling and are expected to generate $34.8 million this fiscal year, 30 percent less than previous projections.

The center is having trouble paying the $14.9 million annual payment on its $300 million city debt. The city and the state split the original $600 million cost. The center is paying the city portion of the debt with surpluses from past year's convention-center funds.

Just 20 percent of the convention center's operations budget is funded by income from conventions, such as rental fees. The convention center's financial woes pose a challenge for cash-strapped Phoenix, which already is poised to cut tens of millions of dollars in city services to help close a $240 million budget shortfall.

The convention center's budget is separate from the city's general fund, so its financial problems don't affect city services. But if the convention center ends up in bigger financial trouble, ultimately the city is responsible.

The center's financial health is critical for tourism, but then, the sad fact is there is no tourism in downtown Phoenix. And without a major tourism draw in downtown Phoenix to occupy family members as husband or wife attend a convention, Phoenix will never achieve a vibrant downtown.

This is why the Phoenix Convention Center is becoming a white elephant. Without a major tourist attraction in downtown Phoenix, this grand building will never achieve full utilization.

This is why all major convention centers in the United States are located as part of a major tourist attraction. All conventioneers select conventions based on entertainment activities as part of a convention center or in close proximity.

This is why the Phoenix Convention Center is like a white camel in the middle of the desert with nothing of scale around it. Only a handful of diehards in the world will visit a white camel in the middle of the desert with nothing around it.

But then, conventioneers will always have Scottsdale and there goes our hotel sales tax revenue.

The Economic Development team

In other cities, when the Mayor and Council are clueless on vision, the City Manager may be relied on for leadership. This is not the perceived role for the current Phoenix City Manger or any of the other deputy and assistant city managers who more or less earned their stripes from Phil Gordon and obviously, have become visionless clones of Gordon.

Prior to becoming city manager, David Cavazos, as a deputy city manager, was the driving force in Gordon's downtown Phoenix non-tourist projects.

Cavazos was also responsible for the City of Phoenix economic development department.

On November 30, 2009, Don Maxwell, the Community and Economic Development Director stated they (Mayor Phil Gordon; David Cavazos, deputy city manager; Don Maxwell, the Community and Economic Development Director; and Community and Economic Development Assistant Director Roberto Franco) remain confident Dubai is still a good place to do business, even after the Middle East emirate's investment arm announced it would not be able to pay creditors on time for some of its nearly $60 billion in debt. (The next in this series: The Mirage in the Desert: Gordon's Downtown Phoenix and Gordon's Folly with Dubai).

Word of Dubai's debt crisis came seven months after Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and His Excellency Hussain Nasser Lootah, director general of Dubai City, signed an agreement to promote foreign trade and investment between the two desert cities.

Given the credit crunch, Maxwell said Phoenix officials will postpone future trade missions to Dubai, but he said the partnership is already bearing fruit: Dubai imported some Palo Verde trees from a Phoenix nursery and Charity Charms, a Phoenix-based maker of charms for nonprofit groups, received a $13,000 order from a Dubai group shortly after the agreement was inked.

If selling trees and charms is held up as evidence of successful economic development, it appears the blind are leading the blind.

Instead of selling trees and lucky charms, Economic Development staff should have long ago conceptualized a major mixed use private sector development with the biggest use being a major tourist attraction for downtown Phoenix. Unfortunately, selling lucky charms to those in Dubai is their idea of economic development.

The proof is the eating of the pudding

The Phoenix Economic Development team of Cavazos, Maxwell and Franco should be fired and replaced with economic development professionals such as the City of San Antonio has in planning and creating a highly successful economic development tourism engine that draws 5 million tourists annually to San Antonio to constantly replenish San Antonio's income stream rather than having Phoenix's poor people have to ante up an additional 2% tax on food to bale out the mismanagement of Gordon, Williams, Simplot, Mattox, Nowakowski, Johnson, Cavazos, Maxwell and Franco.

None of the above understand economic development but if Gordon had understood economic development and had a vision, he could have been a successful mayor. But Gordon has none of these characteristics and it is Gordon who is now twisting arms to push through a 2% tax on food.

This should send a message to all Phoenicians, the only way to turn downtown Phoenix around is with a new Mayor who with a new creative economic development team can create a vibrant downtown tourism center to generate revenue.

All staff in the City Manager's Office and Economic Development Department should start looking for a new job because when a new Mayor is elected, a new team with economic development success history will be required. Selling trees and lucky charms is not successful economic development.

Then with new revenue realized from tourism, the City of Phoenix will not have to lay the heavy burden of increased taxes on the backs of low and moderate income Phoenician mothers to provide less food for their children's supper.

This is absolutely shameful. And let us not forget the five Council persons who support visionless and leaderless Gordon.

What I find most heartbreaking is to have Councilman Michael Nowakowski, an Hispanic American, be an ardent support of the food tax.

This reinforces what many of us already know, Michael Nowakowski is clueless on what it takes to manage a large city which includes how to generate significant revenue.

Apparently, it does not also matter to Michael, if nearly 50% of Phoenix residents are Hispanic and of these 50%, a safe assumption would be 70% are struggling to make ends meet, every dollar paid in city food taxes is a dollar taken from the mouths of children, unemployed, and marginal employees.

It appears Michael has sold his soul to the devil. I can only guess what the payoff is? Whatever the case, Michael has betrayed all Hispanics. Soon the devil will be gone and Michael will be forever remembered as the ardent support of the food tax on poor Hispanic mothers.