Exposed: Councilwoman Trasoff’s sweetheart deal with MOCA

Hi everyone,

I would like to take a few minutes to update you on the press conference we held downtown on Monday, the purpose of it, and to follow-up with a report exposing the current City Council incumbents wasting of taxpayer money.

Please read the entire report and share it. It is crucial in understanding why the incumbents (Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich) need to be voted out on November 3.

The purpose of the press conference was to expose a sweetheart deal between the City Council and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in which MOCA was given a five-year lease of the old Fire Station One for only $1-a-year. This is a facility worth millions of dollars and will require yearly maintenance costs in the six figures and more than $80,000 in upgrades.

The Tucson Police Department had requested use of the old Fire Station One on 265 S. Church Ave in order to use it to properly store expensive vehicles and equipment. Given that Fire Station One is already equipped with the necessary technology and infrastructure for this use, upgrades would be minimal.

Larry Lopez, the president of the Tucson Police Officers’ Association, said that TPD informally offered to take over the building three times — in 2006, 2008, and 2009 — and was turned down.

City Manager Mike Letcher, who was assistant city manager back in 2006, said, “”All I can go by is what I’ve got documented, and there was never any formal request made for those uses.”

However, on March 7, 2006, the Tucson City Council unanimously by a vote of 7-0 approved Fire Station One to be used by TPD for the purpose of their headquarters/crime lab expansion.

Please see item 10, “Public Safety: Downtown Building Projects,” located between pages 13 - 16 for the full minutes of the City Council meeting in which the council, including incumbents Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich, voiced strong approval of the measure and unanimously voted in favor of it.

Incumbent Democrat Nina Trasoff, a member of the Neighborhoods, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee, praised the measure repeatedly back in 2006: “Council Member Trasoff praised staff for having worked with the neighborhoods, Barrio Viejo and Barrio Santa Rosa, to hear their concerns and keep them informed. She said she was pleased to see expressions of support from the two neighborhoods… Council Member Trasoff reiterated that she was pleased by the efforts to reach a conclusion, as the facility was certainly needed.”

So what happened there? Mike Letcher says the city halted the plans for a new, combined headquarters and crime lab because of the city doesn’t have the money. Fair enough. So wouldn’t it make sense to put some real effort into finding the most economical use of the building?

This is where the story begins to unfold.

Councilwoman Trasoff also serves as the Chair of the Rio Nuevo / Downtown, Arts, Culture and History Subcommittee. Essentially, she is in charge of leading the discussion and is highly influential in all decisions made regarding Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment and any arts projects that are funded.

Trasoff’s influence was crucial in making the $1-a-year deal happen. According to her election campaign website, Trasoff is “proud to have led the way in making this partnership a reality!” Yes, she is proud to have led the way in signing over a multi-million dollar building for $1-a-year!

Something obviously smells fishy here. How could the city lease a multi-million dollar building to yet another art museum for only $1-a-year?

Here is another very important fact that you need to know.

The Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District is under the jurisdiction of a four-member board that includes Chairwoman Anne-Marie Russell, executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)! That’s right — Nina Trasoff oversees that board that makes all of the decisions regarding Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment funding, and the chairwoman of that board is none other than the director of MOCA!

I think we can finally understand how MOCA got such a sweet deal for $1-a-year rent in a multi-million dollar facility!

City Manager Mike Letcher blamed “economic realities” for the decision: “What’s the rental vacancy rate in town? Let’s get real. We have problems renting facilities right now at market rent and everybody else does, too.” He also says that MOCA will be taking on the enormous expenses of renovating the building, not the City of Tucson.

How does MOCA intend to shoulder the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in yearly maintenance? Mark their words: “ALL of these operating and maintenance costs will be shouldered by MOCA with private support, with NONE of the money coming from the City of Tucson. ” Interestingly, they repeat multiple times that none of the money will come from the City of Tucson, and I believe that because there are multiple project funds (see full list) from which the money can be derived aside from the City of Tucson general fund that MOCA is referring to. They are being extremely careful with their wording on this one.

If not from the City of Tucson, then where? One such fund could be… the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District! And, as we all know very well now, the executive director of MOCA serves as the chairwoman of the district’s board, and Nina Trasoff oversees that board!

Or could the money come from a land-swap deal that Trasoff initiated with developers Scott Stiteler and Don Martin in exchange for money for downtown community groups like MOCA? The terms of the deal were this: “The Stiteler/Martin proposal calls for the city to give the developers $4 million worth of city properties in exchange for guarantees they will promptly complete the commercial development of properties they already own and spend $5 million on affordable housing and Downtown community groups.”

Essentially, Trasoff is giving away city-owned land for free in exchange for “private money” for downtown community groups like MOCA. Given that MOCA claims that they will be renovating the Fire Station One using only private money, you have to wonder if this is where that money is coming from.

It’s hard to say, because neither Anne-Marie Russell of MOCA nor Councilwoman Trasoff are answering as to where this “private money” is coming from. They need to answer to the public about this now, because if it’s coming from a land-swap deal or the Rio Nuevo fund, then they are being crooked in their dealings with publicly-owned property.

Certainly, the city could have rented the building for more than $1-a-year! In fact, MOCA was previously paying the city $550/month for rent (see item 2) at 174 and 191 E. Toole Ave, which are much worse locations. That’s 6600 times what it will be paying now.

The city continues to insist that the bidding process was open and competitive, yet MOCA was the only organization to apply. In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, Lou Ginsberg, the city’s director of real estate who is in charge of making these decisions 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.”

So Lou Ginsberg thinks that advertising the old Fire Station One in only three issues of one of the least read newspapers in Arizona is good practice for a city trying to lease a multi-million dollar building? And further, it’s even better practice to lease that building for only $1-a-year?

The Tucson Tea Party is informed that the true standard practice for this sort of “competitive process” is to advertise the property in The Daily Territorial to comply with legal standards, and then privately notify a favored lessee either directly or through intermediaries that the property is available. The favored lessee, in this case MOCA, submits a proposal and is accepted on the basis of being the only applicant. Given that the director of MOCA is also chairwoman of the Rio Nuevo board, which is overseen by Nina Trasoff, it is easy to see how this conversation would take place.

City officials, including Nina Trasoff who “led the way” in this sweetheart deal, failed the city of Tucson miserably. They should have actively sought out potential stakeholders (such as TPD) or private investors who could make more economical use of the building. They should have done everything they could to get the most money back for the city, yet they did not.

Instead, they gave the building away from $1-a-year. This is either incompetence or corruption, both of which are inexcusable.

Jeff Rogers, Chair of the Pima County Democratic Party, in a recent press release has laughably tried to defend the deal by saying that the old Fire Station One was too expensive to renovate in 2006, and that’s why TPD will not longer get the building. While the rumor that DHS wanted to purchase the building has not been backed up by paperwork, Rogers and Trasoff believe that MOCA’s new location will bring “hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in much-needed revenue to the city, while making sure that a prime piece of downtown real estate does not sit vacant.”

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue? Really? Of course, that’s after they spend hundreds of thousands on yearly maintenance and upgrades! These revenue predictions are so far out of this world that it makes you wonder if Jeff Rogers and Nina Trasoff have lost their minds.

The reality is that almost every development project the City Council has dipped its grubby hands into is running a massive deficit. The Tucson Tea Party has put together a detailed report of the nearly $200 million lost on Rio Nuevo, as well as the structural deficits running in most city project accounts so that you can see just how poorly managed our city really is.

The current incumbents on the Tucson City Council are not fit for service. This is now wildly apparent and well-documented. We MUST vote them out of office and encourage everyone we know to do so as well. The city is embroiled in a stagnant culture of corruption that must be remedied with new leadership.

Remember these names: Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich. And then vote against them on November 3.

The Tucson Tea Party will continue investigating this sweetheart deal and others in the coming days. Stay tuned and encourage everyone you know to vote!