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October 3, 2001

Host: Michael Grant
Topic: HORIZON's 20th Anniversary
Phoenix Civic Plaza Expansion
Producers: Paul Atkinson
Guests: Sheryl Sculley, assistant Phoenix city manager;
Brian Kearney, executive director and CEO of the Downtown Phoenix partnership;
Senator Lunn;
Keven Willey, editor of the editorial pages for "The Arizona Republic", reporter for the newspaper during the Mecham era;
Don Harris, former Republic legislative reporter and now a copy editor for the Arizona Capitol Times.

MICHAEL GRANT: Tonight on "Horizon," early voting in city elections around the state starts next week. We will take a look at a ballot proposal to expand the Phoenix civic plaza. And as "Horizon" celebrates its 20th year a look back at one of the biggest stories we've covered. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Coming to the Phoenix city ballot this November 6th, a proposal to expand Phoenix Civic Plaza. The ballot item, Proposition 100, authorizes the city to sspend $300 million from it own funding sources and an additional $300 million from state or other non-city sources to more than double exhibit and meeting areas at the civic plaza. Proponents hope the improvements will attract more conventions and sstimulate tourism here in the Valley. Starting Monday voters may cast an early ballot either through the mail or in person at Phoenix city hall. Joining me to talk about Civic Plaza expansion are Sheryl Sculley, assistant Phoenix city manager, and Brian Kearney, executive director and CEO of the Downtown Phoenix partnership. Welcome to you both.

SHERYL SCULLEY: Thank you.

BRIAN KEARNEY: Thank you.

MICHAEL GRANT: Now, Sheryl, this is not a bond election. This is, instead, to seek voter approval, I believe because of an amendment passed to the charter some number of years ago to actually do these kind of improvements to the Civic Plaza, right?

SHERYL SCULLEY: That's true, Michael. This is a proposition 200 vote where the voters are being asked to give the city authority to he can spends funds out of the Phoenix Civic Plaza fund to more than double the square footage of the Phoenix Civic Plaza and renovate the plaza that's there today.

MICHAEL GRANT: Obviously the first question that comes to mind is $300 million is still a considerable sum. Where does the city get the money to finance that kind of money?

SHERYL SCULLEY: The funds to finance this capital improvement project would come from the civic plaza fund, and back when the plaza was constructed in the late 1960s, the city council then set a special funding program to fund the Phoenix Civic Plaza convention center. There are dedicated tax revenues that go to support the plaza, for example, hotel -- a portion of the hotel and motel tax, a portion of the restaurant and bar tax and a portion of the sales tax on construction. As well as the user fees for those who use the Phoenix Civic Plaza. So that funding source has been in place for 30 years. The facility is just about 30 years old, and those would be the funds that would be used over the term of the debt to support debt service on -- up to $300 million to expand the plaza.

MICHAEL GRANT: So if I understand it correctly, it's not as if the city would pay out of current cash proceeds from those revenue sources that you have identified. Bonds would be issued and then those resources that you've identified would support the payment stream on those bonds?

SHERYL SCULLEY: Yes, that's true, but only funds out of the Civic Plaza fund, that is, it's an eenterprise option of th city. We're not proposing that any funds out of the city's general fund, that is, that portion of the budget that supports police, fire, parks, libraries, those kinds of activities, none of those funds would be used for civic plaza but rather those only dedicated to the Phoenix Civic Plaza.

MICHAEL GRANT: Brian, what does $300 million buy us, or possibly $600 million?

BRIAN KEARNEY: Well, either $300 million or $600 million buys us an awful lot and I think what's equally important to look at is what doing nothing does. There essentially is no status quo. Let me give you some existing numbers right now. Right now conventioneers that comes to the Phoenix Plaza that come to the Plaza generate $300 million annually in direct spending and support 8,000 jobs. Now, if that -- if we do absolutely nothing, those numbers do not hold up. We are losing market share very quickly because of expansions in other communities that we compete with. And those numbers will essentially shrink to about 50% of what they are now. However, if we expand the Plaza and we complete the full program, the $600 million expansion, those numbers will essentially doubled to $526 million in direct spending and once that filters through the economy in terms of indirect spending you will have almost $900 million in total impact that from kind of expansion.

MICHAEL GRANT: Brian, over the years, people, I think, generally have grown more skeptical of those kinds of studies and the multipliers and those kinds of things. How reliable are those numbers? How much of them are based on historic fact? How much of them are projection? How much of them have multipliers on them? Things like that.

BRIAN KEARNEY: The $300 million in annual spending that exists today is an actual fact. A study was conducted in late 1999 by Price Waterhouse Coopers which is a national accounting firm, they have a large convention center consulting practice, very well recognized in the industry, around the world, actually. The $300 million has absolutely no multiplier in it. That is direct spending that comes from convention attendees, convention and meeting attendees. MICHAEL GRANT: Restaurants, hotels --

BRIAN KEARNEY: Hotels, souvenirs. Exactly. Whatever money is spent in the Phoenix economy, that's what that number represents.

MICHAEL GRANT: Ok. And then the rest of it is an extrapolation from those numbers, assuming equivalent civic plaza booking days increase in Civic Plaza days, those kinds of things? >> Well, Price Waterhouse Coopers is also a part of that study conducted a market analysis as to where we would be if we expanded the Civic Plaza in terms of competition and what we would be able to capture and by expanding the Civic Plaza to essentially double its size, 500,000 square feet of exhibition space, 200,000 square feet of meeting space, the Price Waterhouse Coopers projected that we would see our direct spending increased to $526 million. I think what's important to note is that if you look at the last ten years or so in the convention market, there have been a number of new convention centers brought online. There's been a number of convention centers that have been expanded. But if you look at the demand figures in terms of the number of square feet that have been rented over that time, that number has far surpassed the increase in supply. So there is a large market out there that is not being tapped into right now.

MICHAEL GRANT: Sheryl, given the events of September 11th, the obvious impact on travel and tourism that is taking place currently, I could easily see a voter saying, gee, I'm not sure that this is the right time necessarily to incur debt and spend money on the travel and tourism business given the current climate. What do you say to a voter who's thinking those thoughts?

SHERYL SCULLEY: Well, the tourism industry is one of, if not the largest, industry within the State of Arizona, and perhaps now more than before we need to take a look at what imports those dollars into the state, and this is a long-term commitment. This facility was built 30 years ago, and this doubling of the square footage and renovating what we have is a commitment to the long term. We know that even though we're many - many economists are saying we're in a recession now, we're taking a look at our budgets, cutting back where we need to, this investment into the future is the long term for Phoenix. And we will examine and issue the debt as our budget allows us to do that. This vote on November 6th is enabling legislation. It basically gives us the authority to move forward with the project. Right now we're limited and cannot spend more than $3 million on this project. So we can't even move into design of the facility. And we think that based on our experience of the recession in the early '90s, we were able to actually get much more competitive bids for our public projects during that time because the contractors were very hungry to do work and there wasn't as much private work available. We were also able to sell bonds at a much lower interest rate at that time. So there are some advantages to that. We will weigh it all before we move forward.

MICHAEL GRANT: Incidentally, let me clarify one other financial issue here. Is the current revenue stream that you previously alluded to, is it sufficient and adequate to at least handle the city's $300 million share of it?

SHERYL SCULLEY: Yes, it is. This proposal before the voters does not include any tax rate increase. In fact, the language in the ballot very specifically states that there is no tax increase to accomplish this project. This is based upon Kevin, our finance director's projection, that's been reviewed by a citizens task force, a review of our financial capacity of the Phoenix Civic Plaza fund and our ability to service this ddebt with the current revenue stream.

MICHAEL GRANT: Brian, what kinds of conventions often is mentioned well, Phoenix, can't pull in a national political party convention, and some of the truly major conventions. Is this that what this expansion would open up, or you mentioned just simply staying competitive with the rest of the region. Is it more of the medium-size conventions? Both? What?

BRIAN KEARNEY: It's both, but it's certain -- it certainly will allow us to compete for the higher-end business that we simply cannot compete for now, and what I mean by higher end business, certainly are larger shows that -- and conventions that simply can't be accommodated in the size facility we have now, and the types of professional and trade associations that are very high-skilled type of employees, pharmaceutical industry, that type, biotech industry, that type of a thing, where you have people with lots of disposable income and lots of time on their hands when they're at conventions who tend to spend a lot of money. Expanding the convention center will allow us to accommodate those groups that we can't accommodate now. It will also allow us to accommodate more of the smaller groups that we currently can host at the civic plaza, but we can only accommodate one at a time right now. What happens in the convention industry is you have several -- you have a move-in period, which there is basically no economic activity, several days of a show and then a move-out activity where there is no economic activity. It's only during the convention.

MICHAEL GRANT: So you can stagger bet center.

BRIAN KEARNEY: You can stagger. Exactly.

MICHAEL GRANT: Brian Kearney, thank you for the information. Sheryl Sculley, our information to you as well. Voting starts next week. Phoenix residents have until Sunday to register to vote in the September 6 city election. Starting on Monday they will be able to cast an early ballot at Phoenix city hall. Monday is also the registration deadline for voters in other cities holding elections on November 6th. More election information available on Channel 8's website at www.kaet.asu.edu, click on "Horizon," follow the links.

MICHAEL GRANT: This month "Horizon" is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and as we take note of that, we'll take a look back at some of our coverage of some of the biggest stories during our 20th -- 20--year history. Probably the biggest story in Arizona during that time was former governor Evan Mecham. Mike Sauceda takes a look back on our reports during his tumultuous year and a half in office.

RADIO SONG: The Arizona seal was on the envelope. I'm the governor. Inside were the ramblings of a stupid dope. He's the kind of governor Hitler would have loved. Ev Mecham, he sent me a letter.

REPORTER: We've gotten several different stories. Can you tell us what a true version is?

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: Sam, when I make a statement, you hadn't better see what the truth is -- listen, don't you -- you are questioning my truth. I gave you the statement.

REPORTER: I most certainly am not Governor Mecham.

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: Don't ever ask me for a true statement again. Don't you ever!

CROWDS: Recall, recall, recall!

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: If you've got a few homosexuals and a few dissident Democrats trying to recall you, you know -- I've been listening to this for months.

FMR. GOVERNOR'S AIDE: And I can't understand why the governor did what he did. And I cannot condone his actions.

MIKE SAUCEDA: Some of former governor Evan Mecham's greatest hits. They ruled the headlines for years starting with his campaign in 1986 and through it all the racial slurs, the recall, the criminal trial, the impeachment, "Horizon" was there. Giving viewers our usual mix of in depth interviews and taped reports on the most controversial Arizona politician ever. Evan Mecham. On October 1st, 1986 a month before Mecham was elected governor, the controversy had already started. On the show that night, host Michael Grant talked to then political reporter and now editor of the republic editorial pages Keven Willey about a harsh statement made about Mecham.

MICHAEL GRANT: But first the retiring president of the Arizona state Senate Stan Turley lashed out at fellow Republican and gubernatorial candidate Ev Mecham calling Mr. Mecham an ethical pygmy.

KEVEN WILLEY: I think it's strong language for anybody to use that kind of terminology and to go ahead with some of the quotes that were in the stories, for instance, one was, "Ev will need to learn sometime along the line you don't build yourself up by tearing someone else down."

MIKE SAUCEDA: The day after the election with our coverage. Evan Mecham had done it, becoming governor after his fifth try.

MICHAEL GRANT: Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. As the Channel 8/KTAR daily public opinion poll conducted by behavior research center indicated would be the case as far back as last week, Republican candidate Ev Mecham prevailed in yesterday's balloting defeating Carolyn Warner and Bill Schulz.

MIKE SAUCEDA: Within four months after his election, probably sooner, Mecham's confrontational nature vast will he overshadowed anything he tried to accomplish.

ANCHOR: Last Thursday Governor Mecham held a press conference on education. By now most Arizonans are familiar with that press conference.

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: So I thank you.

REPORTER: Governor Mecham, what specifically has happened.

[ INAUDIBLE ]

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: Do we have any questions, please?

REPORTER: Governor, what has happened with this announcement --

[ INAUDIBLE ]

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: Do we have any questions now?

REPORTER: Why did you make this announcement now?

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: It's good of you to be here now.

REPORTER: Is the governor's style overshadowing the substance?

>> The substance of his program will be so clear in a relatively short time -- he's been in office 90 days, you know. I mean -- and so all we have to deal with is S style, but his direction is so clear and his substance of what he wants to do is so clear, that this will be looked back upon as an aberration. Now, he believes that.

REPORTER: The effort to recall governor Evan Mecham continues to gain momentum.

MIKE SAUCEDA: But it was not an aberration. The recall effort proved that. That recall effort was moving full team ahead. About a week later, Mecham was on "Horizon," defending his reputation which received national attention in a Doonesbury cartoons.

MICHAEL GRANT: Let's take the word pickaninny.

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: I never used the word pickaninny.

MIKE SAUCEDA: Mecham aide Sam Steiger pointed out the press had a lot to do with the negativity against Mecham.

SAM STEIGER: If you had been in this Valley only five years, and as, I guess half the Valley has and you read this paper every morning for seven or eight months, you wouldn't want to recall governor Mecham. You would want to shoot him. It is --

MIKE SAUCEDA: In early November, 1987, one year after his election, the governor was interviewed by the media in Tucson in an effort on his part to restore his name. "Horizon" regular Don Harris of the "Arizona Republic" reported one politician didn't think it was working.

DON HARRIS: Art Hamilton, of course, who is the house minority leader and a Democrat, he noted that the governorrer in was blaming everybody else for his problems. He said it was kind of like a trip through the land of Oz.

MIKE SAUCEDA: On January 15th, 1988, sitting on a brand-new set, Michael grant announced some heavy duty news.

MICHAEL GRANT: This afternoon special counsel William French presented to members of the Arizona house of representatives the report of his investigation into certain of the governor's activities.

MIKE SAUCEDA: Channel 8 ran full coverage of that with "Horizon" playing excerpts in an hour-and-a-half long special.

WILLIAM FRENCH: The conclusions seem to be clear with full knowledge of his obligations, Evan Mecham violates the campaign disclosure laws.

MIKE SAUCEDA: On April 4th, 1988, a historic day in Arizona.

MICHAEL GRANT: Governor Mecham has been convicted on impeachment charges. He becomes the 8th governor in United States history to be forced out of office through the impeachment process. Senator Lunn, welcome back to "Horizon."

SENATOR LUNN: Thanks.

MICHAEL GRANT: Your general reaction to today's developments?

SENATOR LUNN: Well, this is undoubtedly been the least comfortable experience that I or any of my 29 colleagues had ever endured or ever hoped to endure again. That's for sure. I don't think any of us had been comfortable with what happened or even or decision today.

MIKE SAUCEDA: "Horizon"'s coverage continued with the anticlimactic exoneration in a criminal trial. Our coverage and his impact on the state, did not end there.

FMR. GOVERNOR MECHAM: Me, hey, I did my best, I did a lot of good. That's what I was there for. When I'm out, I'm out. Let's look to other things. Not worry about it.

MICHAEL GRANT: Joining me tonight to talk about the story is Keven Willey, editor of the editorial pages for "The Arizona Republic" and, of course, a reporter for the newspaper during the Mecham era and Don Harris, former Republic legislative reporter and now a copy editor for the Arizona Capitol Times. That was a remarkable 17-month period. I don't think I can really think of anything that quite ever matched that, Don, can you?

DON HARRIS: No, it was -- I think there are some journalists who would like to see a Governor Mecham back in office just because it was such a wild time. Of course, the scene where he confronted Sam Stanton was unbelievable, and basically he said, don't ever ask me for a true statement again and I wrote the story, I was there covering it along with Sam and when I first heard it I couldn't believe what I was hearing,' replayed my tape and of course I did write to it explain he meant don't question my honesty. Sam told me afterwards they got very close and Sam said, if he had touched me, I would have had -- bought the biggest yacht with the settlement.

MICHAEL GRANT: John Kolbe, the Gazette and Republic political columnist, the outstanding one, there was a piece of tape there that was the famous nonperson when Mecham declared John to be a nonperson. He was a little upset with some of the copy. But you got declared a nonperson during the campaign. Right?

KEVEN WILLEY: That's right. This is a very little known fact, but during the campaign I and Sandy Tolan, a free lancer, coauthored an article on October 5th, I believe, of '86, which made the case that Evan Mecham had always called himself mainstream Republican and we were suggesting in the piece that here are examples of things that indicated he's a fringe Republican, not at all mainstream. His wife, a member of the John Burch society, his mentor, Cloen Skousen. But as a result of that, it was a very unpopular story at the time. At the next press conference that called at his Pontiac dealership, he had Sam Steiger call and inform the Republic not to send Keven Willey because she would be not allowed on the premises, and there was some controversy at the time because obviously this was his private property, property of his business, and so there was some controversy at the time whether he could do that and, in fact, he was able to do that. Whereas in John's case after he had been elected, the issue was slightly different in that he was governor, a public official and essentially banning John Kolbe from public premises. It was a little different.

DON HARRIS: I thought it was interesting, too, Mecham didn't say are there any other questions. He said, are there any questions. Like he didn't hear. Somebody else repeated. He said, are there any questions. No, well, thank you, and off he left.

MICHAEL GRANT: Was the press --let me go to the point that I laughed at with Sam Steiger on tape there. Was the press coverage fair? Were we in a feeding frenzy?

DON HARRIS: Well, some would say that there was a feeding frenzy. I think it was fed by Mecham himself who felt co-joust with the press and could win, and he would say just about whatever was on his mind, and seemed to enjoy the infighting, thinking that he was always going to come out the better, and I think as everybody knows, you don't pick fights with people who buy their ink by the barrel because you're going to lose.

KEVEN WILLEY: I think it was a fueled a lot by Evan Mecham's own actions. He was so awkward and bumbling and created some fodder, it was too easy. If there was a feeding frenzy, I think maybe it was an overreaction to what happened during the campaign, which was the campaign really wasn't covered that aggressively. I think there was the assumption on the part of the media, particularly people who had been here for a while everybody new Evan Mecham was kind of off the edge, he had run for statewide office six times, lost every time -- or five times until this time. Five times for governor, once for U.S. senator, he had wacky ideas. Nobody seemed to take him seriously in the press during the campaign. And I think we had so many Arizona newcomers who didn't know his history and when he was on TV or a public setting initially, he did reasonably well and there was a lot of baggage with Burton Barr and his famous statement about, well, I lied and then there's the whole Bill Schulz we have to get into in a little bit. I think when he was elected, the press sort of sat down and say we gave this kind kind of a free ride during the campaign and we need to be really attentive and aggressive here in our coverage.

MICHAEL GRANT: Don, interestingly, looking back, it was a remarkable series of events. Burt Barr, the long-time house majority leader, generally thought to be a shoe-in in the primary, beaten rather handily by Ev Mecham in that primary. This, then, pulls Bill Schulz back into the race as an independent, making it a three-way race. Ev Mecham, Carolyn Warner, Bill Schulz. Looking back on it, of course, you're always better when you're looking back than when you're looking ahead, because of, I think,a couple of the factors that Keven identified, as well as the core conservative constituency that Ev Mecham always had, the election result maybe should not have been that surprising in November of 1986.

DON HARRIS: Well, I think you're right. And I don't think it was surprising to Ev, because the day before the election I called his campaign headquarters to find out where he was going to be on the night of the election. And a voice answered, and it says Mecham for governor in. I said, Ev? He said, yeah, who is this. I said, Don Harris. Where you going to be tomorrow night? II'm going to be here. Why aren't you on out trolling for votes. This is the day before the election. He said, Don, we're going to win this. I said, Ev, you wouldn't be in it if you didn't think you were going to win. He said, Don, we are going to win. And I suspect that he saw polls that we didn't see and he knew -- he really knew he was going to pull it off.

KEVEN WILLEY: Or he was sounding just like every candidate before the election predicting victory and it happened by accident he was right this time. And a lot of the polls I don't think were that accurate because at that time Mecham supporters didn't always state their preference in the polls. So I think the results were kind of skewed. And you really weren't sure what was going to happen.

DON HARRIS: We published polls at the ttime showing Evan Mecham wa going to lose and I think that was faulty polling. That proved not to be true. Ironically the three way race you raised kind of repeated itself on the national level a few years later when you think about Bill Clinton, George Bush and a fellow by the name of Perot. So there was a similar dynamic going on in terms of how the vote breakout apportioned itself.

MICHAEL GRANT: Almost out of time. Major impacts on the state?

KEVEN WILLEY: Oh, I think significantly, particularly in the way the medium covers government now and covers the governor's office. I think as a result of what happened in governor Mecham's tenure governor Mofford and then Symington got much more aggressive coverage.

MICHAEL GRANT: Keven Willey, thanks for the trip down the memory lane. For more information about the topics featured tonight, please visit Channel 8's website at www.kaet.asu.edu. Move your curse you are to the lower left of the screen and click on "Horizon." You will find "Horizon" transcripts as well as information about upcoming program topics. Tomorrow, on "Horizon," a discussion with ASU president Lattie Coor about potential budget cuts, the ongoing impact of the terrorist attacks on ASU's campus community. Thanks very much for joining us on this Wednesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a pleasant one. Good night.