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May 30, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topic: Arizona legislative wrap-up with democratic leadership;
Mesa citizens vote on Arizona Cardinal's stadium
In-Studio Guests:
Chris Cummiskey, Senate floor leader;
Marion Pickens, Assistant House Democratic leader;
Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker;
Alan Kaufman, lawyer for the group Stand Against the Stadium Site;
Jan Hibbard, treasurer for Valley business owners

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," state lawmakers enjoying some time off now that the session is over. We'll take a look back at the session with democratic leadership. The signatures are in, and it's almost a certainty that Mesa citizens will get to vote on kicking the Cardinals stadium out of their city. That is, if it even comes to a vote. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. It has been a week since state lawmakers wrapped up their session. Definitely one of the toughest sessions in a long time. Last night we looked back at the session from the perspective of Republican leadership. Tonight we talk to democratic leadership. Here now to talk about the just-ended session is senator Chris Cummiskey: , Senate floor leader. Also with me is representative Marion Pickens, Assistant House Democratic leader. Representative Pickens, was there a lot of exhaustion at the end of this session?

>> Pickens: I believe there was. It wasn't that it was such an intense session, which it was, but also we had come into the regular session on the special session which was trying to deal with '02 and right into the regular session trying to figure out what we were going to do with no money bills and trying to decide how to cut almost a billion dollars out of the '03. So it took a lot of mental energy to get through the session.

>> Michael: There is a lot of comment and a fair amount of empirical data to suggest that the budget wasn't really balanced; it simply was unbalanced for next year. What's your read on that?

>>Pickens: There were a number of things that the Democrats felt we needed to include in the budget this year. You know, we value education, environment, healthcare and we just wanted to be sure that those things that the people have told us for a long time have to be part of what we do for the State of Arizona were included in our budget as a priority. That was pretty tough to do, knowing that we had to cut elsewhere, or look for other ways in which we could balance that budget. So, yes, we have put things in the budget now which provided -- or is going to -- the consequences are going to be some debts for the following '04 and that's pushing it all away. I kind of think it's like a tsunami... it's the -- this wave is coming at us and we're going to have to have the consequences later.

>> Michael: Senator, if this was my own personal checkbook, would I liken to it kiting a check?

>> Cummiskey: I don't know if you've kited your check. You've certainly deferred some of the payments. That's what happened with this budget. When you set aside K-12 education, we said we didn't want to have any intense cuts to K-12, the governor said she didn't want cuts to corrections, the house didn't want revenue bonding, when you set the parameters, we were left with a fairly limited set of options and so that's why I think you saw revenue bonding light or some other term for it, which was this lease-purchase for schools. You also saw the K-12 rollover which is delaying payments to schools by one day into the next year. Sweeping in funds that had excess surpluses, in an effort to try to shield public safety, education other and areas of the budget that all of us for the most part agreed we didn't want to touch.

>> Michael: Are you breathing a sigh of relief, though, that you don't have to be there next year?

>> Cummiskey: Certainly term limits in this case is beneficial for me. In reality I think last night your guests, the Senate president, overstated -- I think there is a problem with next year's budget, but I also think that the reality is that as the economy improves over time and I think most economists agree we're in a pretty strong position in the long run, that the cyclical nature of the economy will once again rebound but the structural issues, I think, have been highlighted for future legislators to examine.

>> Michael: Representative Pickens, should the legislature have stepped forward and done something on Indian gaming instead of punting that one to the voters?

>> Pickens: I think so. I think so. And it's true, that there were things -- parts of it that people didn't like. There may have been flaws in there. But I believe that the legislature should have provided the leadership to approve that, to back the governor, and to avoid what's going to go on the ballot. We shouldn't have passed this off as we do so many things to the voters to help them -- they're going to have to try to figure out now what kind of gaming we should have and they're going to be many things on the ballot besides Indian gaming.

>> Michael: What happened in the house? It cleared the Senate, although one vote shy of the 20. The feeling was that there was 31 votes there. The question was, was there 40? Of course, it ultimately turned out, I want to say one of the votes was 28 or something. What happened?

>>Pickens: I think that when people began to see that there weren't enough votes there they just voted no. There wasn't enough know mental going to get an even 31. We forced the issue. We forced the vote. We wanted a recorded vote there in the house. So that's what happened. I think it was kind of a protest.

>> Michael: Speaking of the what happened category and I'll go back to the representative in a minute, but the no-call bill passes the Senate unanimously, if memory serves and fails not once but twice in the house. That was at least for me, I thought, one of the biggest surprises of the session.

>> Cummiskey: For the sponsors as well. The bill passed the Senate and those of us who were advocating for it thought we had a pretty good handle on the house and it got over there and what we had -- while we had satisfied most of the business interest concerns about the bill there were still three major entities out there lobbying against and it I think that the misinformation that was proffered really centered around the fine of what constituted a fine and this notion it was $10,000 per day was not accurate. But that resonated, I think w house members and gave those individuals just enough of an anchor to oppose it. We had 38 votes the first time it was voted, but because we put a cap in the bill, on the fees that could be charged to the telemarketers, we needed to get a higher threshold at 40 and we couldn't get over that hurdle.

>> Michael: Representative Pickens, what is your feel on that? Why did it fail?

>> Pickens: I believe that the lobbyist has a longer period of time to lobby for or against it and those that were lobbying against it had a lot of influence for a number of different reasons.

>> Michael: In particular the newspapers association?

>> Pickens: Right.

>> Michael: Legislators little concerned about people who buy their ink by the barrel as the old expression goes?

>>Pickens: I think there were -- also the feeling that we were closing out some jobs that could come in Tucson -- to Arizona. I don't know exactly how many that would have provided, but there was enough -- you know, it's hard to pass something. It's real easy to defeat something. All you have to do is give enough doubts, and people say, oh, well, maybe we ought to wait. But, I'll tell you, we had so many e-mails and after we didn't pass it, irate e-mails about why did you not pass that? You come to my house and take my phone calls from me. So I think the legislature is going to have to deal with this again.

>> Michael: I know that was a disappointment for you. Was there another key disappointment in the just-completed legislative session?

>> Cummiskey: I think -- one of the areas we passed on, which I think we will regret, was the area of prescription drugs for senior citizens. I know "Horizon" spent a lot of time talking about that. It's a major issue that's gone largely undiscussed at the legislature and I'm not quite sure why, other than the influence of the pharmaceutical companies arguing for a federal solution as opposed to a state by state but we thought we crafted a pretty good discount plan this year that would have provided seniors with an opportunity to get some relief overall and the 15/15 failure of that bill on the senate floor was a tough one to have go away.

>> Michael: Representative Pickens, what about from the democratic house lead irship standpoint, was there a keep disappointment in this just-completed session?

>> Pickens: I don't remember any key disappointment. We were focused on the budget to be sure the programs that the Democrats backed were funded, at least to an extent that they could continue. Our major effort was the employee salaries, which we knew was going to be a problem in this legislate -- in the '03 budget and we faced up to that. We realized that that was going to be there, but I think we still were able to pull off a balanced budget, even in spite of that.

>> Michael: Representative Marion Pickens, thank you very much for joining us. Senator Chris Cummiskey, good to see you again.

>>> Michael: Just a month ago Mesa city council approved a deal with the Tourism and Sports Authority to put the Cardinals stadium in Mesa. That deal was then given a stamp of approval by the TSA, but we now that at least 17,000 Mesa citizens are not happy with the council's decision. That's how many signatures have been handed in to refer the council's decision to the ballot. We'll talk to the Mayor of Mesa and representatives from the two groups that filed the signatures but first Mike Sauceda tells us about the referendum effort.

>>Reporter: Over 10,000 signatures being hauled into Mesa city hall by the group stand against the stadium site. The signatures are way above the just over 4,000 valid signatures needed to put the Cardinals stadium issue on the ballot in Mesa. Signature gathereders are hoping to stop the stadium being built in Mesa near the intersection of the 101 and 202 freeway.

>> Larue Gates: Our biggest issue was the site where it was. We are the neighborhood group. We do have some issues, other issues, with the funding and the 302 and our biggest issue was that the siting was wrong and the city council was not listening to the people when we were complaining about it.

>> You got it. I recognize these people. We're going back this way.

>> Reporter: The signatures handed in Wednesday weren't the only ones. Just the day before a group called Valley business owners handed in about 7,000 signatures in a separate effort to put the stadium on the ballot. Once the signature have been counted and validated, which could take two weeks, an election will be either held in September or November. Mesa voters will decide whether to reject the city council agreement with the Tourism and Sports Authority that resulted in the TSA approving the stadium site in Mesa. But because of legislation approved by state lawmakers, once the signatures are value -- validated the Mesa site could be history. The legislature give the TSA until September 12th to pick a site. But if Mesa voters reject the Mesa site in a September 10th election, the TSA would then have just two days to pick a new site. And if the election is not scheduled until November, then the Mesa site automatically could go away. What's the TSA going to do?

>>Brad Parker: All of these questions are the big questions that the TSA board needs to address and they'll be addressed in a meeting in June where we'll get a lot of input, we'll see what's going on, we'll know by then if the signatures have been validated. So a lot of the questions that you and I are talking about today are the big questions that they're going to have to discuss. I think probably generally what you've seen us do in the past is always have a back-up site, and, in fact, multiple back-up sites are probably the prudent thing to do. So if I had to hazard some speculation here, which it's hard to speculate o but if I had to hazard, I would think that the board would want to take a look at having multiple back-up sites to the fort McDowell site in place before September 10th.

>> Reporter: Parker says one advantage the TSA has is a lot of groundwork in picking sites has already been done.

>> Brad Parker: We have done a lot of work with fort McDowell already and taken a look at structuring a memorandum of understanding. You take a look at the stadium itself has largely been designed. Would it just have to be tweaked a little bit for each individual site. So there is a lot of work that's been done. It's been completed. We know the elements that would be involved in a memorandum of understanding with other sites.

>> Reporter: If the TSA doesn't pick a site by September 12th, the legislation requires the stadium issue itself to go back before Maricopa County voters. Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano thinks the stadium will go down in flames.

>> Neil Giuliano: I don't think there is any question if the TSA is not able to get this done by September 12th and the issue of building the stadium or not goes to the voters in November, it will be soundly defeated.

>> Reporter: The legislation allows Indian tribes to participate in the stadium chase and the Gila River Indian reservation has express add possible interest in getting back in the game. But calls to the tribe for comment were nenever returned. But what about Tempe?

>> Neil Giuliano: The same areas of Tempe had had been talked about in the past could come back if the Mesa situation unfolds, as it might, if the Gila River Indian community is not able to respond and do something with the TSA, then you would be at the point of saying, let's go back and look at the possible locations, whether it's in the area of north of the original site in the -- you know, the Papago area over there where Phoenix municipal stadium s or maybe it's looking at the relationship with Arizona State University. We really don't know, and we really don't know what scenario is going to unfold until those other situations are dealt with.

>> Reporter: Back at city hall, Tom Jacobson, a member of S.A.S.S., says he wishes the council would get back to regular business.

>> Tom Jacobson: If they're already 40 some million in the hole, how are they going to be able to fund the stadium? They can't even fund their arts center. They can't even fund the aquatics center. And our city is going to pot. Now they want to cut back on police and fire and provide a stadium for this millionaire? I don't think so.

>> Michael: Here now to talk about the Cardinal stadium issue in Mesa is the Mayor of that city, keno Hawker, Alan Kaufman, lawyer for the group stand against the stadium site, and Jan Hibbard, treasurer for Valley business owners. Welcome to all of you. Mayor, let me playoff the last comment there. Is there any connection between a cut in services in Mesa and funding for the stadium?

>> Hawker: No, there's not. The stadium is funded by the parking of vehicles around the stadium site and by ticket sales that will take place from patrons of the stadium. So the site itself is self-contained, and it funds itself. The $38.5 million that will be required of the host city to provide the infrastructure is fully paid back by people that park to go to the games and buy tickets there. So it will not impact any other city services.

>> Michael: Now, as I understand it, the TSA, since the petitions have been filed, does have the right at this point in time to pull the plug on the Mesa site?

>> Hawker: Yes, they do. That was part of the memorandum of understanding between the TSA and the City of Mesa, and if they -- the signatures are certified, they have that option.

>> Michael: What do you expect them to do? What are you asking them to do in terms of timing?

>> Hawker: Well, my preference would be to allow the election to take place, to have Mesa as the number one site, let an election take place on September 10th, because I'm very confident the signatures will, in fact, be certified, and let the citizens of Mesa understand that this is a different financing deal. This is no money from taxpayers in Mesa, you're not going to have to pay for this and we've -- we also have several checks in there to limit our liability and exposure. As having the TSA actually back up the revenue payment that we will have to incur to finance the $38.5 million.

>> Michael: Alan, as I understand it, your group's concerns are primarily the neighborhood issues?

>> Kaufman: Those are among the principal concerns. They're also worried about the financing as well.

>> Michael: What are those? Articulate those concerns.

>> Kaufman: They're worried about what some of the neighbors south of Bank One Ballpark have been dealing with recently, which is a lot of noise, a lot of cars parking in their neighborhood, beer bottles being thrown, a lot of nuisances. It's something they don't want to see happen near their homes.

>> Michael: What about the financial issues?

>> Kaufman: The financial issues, we appreciate what Mayor Hawker just said, but these kind of tax increment financing packages that recapture monies spent at the site really don't work. All they do is to divert money that otherwise would be spent somewhere else in the state or in the city and then the state and the city would get its tax cut, but here it all remains in the site and stays with the TSA.

>> Michael: Jan, I understand that your group primarily thinks the city got a bad deal on the stadium?

>> Jan Hibbard: Our group is primarily concerned with the financing agreement, the actual resolution that will go to the ballot 7822, you take a look at it, most stadiums have a shelf life of 20 years, we're going to look at bonding that's going to be 30 years, and could be up to 35 according to resolution 7822, up to 9%, and we're looking -- my great grandchildren, you know, being liable in that last 10-year period if they're not here. Also looking in the M.O.U. where the funding for dismantling the stadium doesn't start until the 20th year and a shelf life of 20, we don't even have any funding at this point.

>> Michael: Do you see any value at all with the fact that the City of Mesa is getting, let's call it a $300 million, asset with some trappings surrounding that, I suppose, sort of a trickle-down theory of stadium economics?

>> Hibbard: My understanding from the Diamondbacks and their stadium, the Bank One Ballpark, is that trickle-down theory only works within the stadium itself. It's not going to generate business outside and into the neighborhood, and we're so close to Tempe and to Scottsdale that people will tend to gravitate towards that area after they leave the stadium. So I don't see a lot of benefits for the citizens of Mesa, plus we're going to be -- we're going to be the bottom line. Even though the TSA is saying in the memorandum of understanding that they will back up the revenue stream, if the TSA isn't there, if the Cardinals isn't there f we don't have a stadium in 20 years, who is going to back it up. The bottom line is the citizens of Mesa will back it one a general fund.

>> Michael: Mayor, I'll governor you an opportunity to respond to both. I think there's two big issues on the table. Let's go first with the neighborhood concerns. They're saying a stadium is very disruptive to my neighborhood. What do you say?

>>Hawker: I happen to be one of the neighbors. I have a lot that looks out right on where the stadium will be built. I respectfully disagree with that. The stadium is going to be right up next to the freeway. It's going to be mitigated with an existing park, a lake that stays there on the site. We are also have planned at a cost of about $2 million to reroute 8th Street so that that residential street will actually go by the stadium to mitigate any traffic concerns that those neighbors have. It's a great location with two major freeways so the access in and out is spectacular. Most of the games with the sellout crowds f that does happen, will be on Sundays, so I'm not really as concerned about the neighborhood mitigation. We will continue to track their concerns, noise walls if we want to build one, we should have done that when we widened Dobson and we didn't on 8th Street. We would probably go ahead and make that wall and construct it. But I think we've listened to their concerns and are actively trying to mitigate them.

>> Michael: Alan, certainly don't mean to minimize people's concerns, but there is a lot of activity in that area, including but not limited to, two major freeways, as the Mayor points out.

>> Kaufman: Sure. The Mayor is absolutely correct. There is also a beautiful golf course there, a beautiful park there. That's what folks would like to keep.

>> Michael: Does the park stay?

>>Hawker: Yes, does it.

>> Kaufman: It stays but there wouldn't be parking allowed on certain days depending on what days it's being used. The intent is not to use it only eight days a year but perhaps up to 200, so the nature of the imposition, particularly from rock concerts and Lord knows what else, would be significantly different and probably worse than what otherwise might be the case with the Cardinals game.

>> Michael: Aren't you going to find the anymore bee phenomena almost anyplace you place the stadium?

>> Kaufman: It's possible you might, but that's why we have a referendum law in our constitution. This is an opportunity for the people to speak rather than simply have six members of the city council, well intentioned though they might be, make this decision. That's simply too important to left to those six individuals.

>> Michael: Let me go to the financial aspects. You got an asserted 20-year revenue stream supporting 30-year bonds. It's a bad deal for the City of Mesa. What do you say?

>> Hawker: No, when you look at the tourism and sports authorities' spreadsheets and look at revenue projections, it's a $1.6 billion project and we've concluded that there's a lot of room in their operating and maintenance budget to cover what we want to do in Mesa and have them as a back-up guarantee. If you want to say that the whole program is going to go away and you're not going to collect car rental taxes or taxes on hotels, then all of the programs, the youth sports, the cactus league, all of that would also disappear. And that is not -- that has not been the case. The state is behind collecting these revenues for a period of time. That's what we're basing our financing on, is those assured revenue streams.

>> Michael: How much City of Mesa investment is in the facility?

>>Hawker: There will be none. The $38.5 million that we have to pay up front is fully supported by the revenue coming back from ticket sales and cars parking on 20,000 spaces. The 9% mentioned for a bond rate was done that it could not exceed 9%. Our average bond rate is 5% or less. So that was just a clause that was thrown in. We are not going to be selling these things at 9%.

>> Michael: Jan, I talked to councilman what he land about a month or so ago, I think it was right around when Mesa passed it, he said they had done conservative revenue projections that were going to support more than adequately the infrastructure investment that Mesa has got. Why do you disagree?

>>Hibbard: Conservative according to whose terms? Understand I'm a CPA. I understand how you put together projections and projections are based on assumptions and the assumptions can fall apart in the long run. Take, for example, the .55 user fee -- or -- they call it a facility user fee. That they're proposing to put on the activities at the stadium. Already we have people, other cities, are complaining they weren't offered that deal, that this is a sales tax, it's not a user fee, and if you look to the memorandum of understanding, they're comparing it that we can't go over the 1.8% Phoenix sales taxes is why we're implementing the .55, and whether you call it a facility user fee or call it a sales tax, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

>> Michael: But aren't you hosing the people who go to the game instead of, you know, hosing the residents of Mesa Generally?

>>Hibbard: And that's good?

>> Michael: Isn't that the objective?

>>Hibbard: If you want to take appear step further, instead of using any tax revenue at all, why don't we have the stadium be self-financed by the group -- by the people that want it and charge user fees all the way down the line?

>> Michael: That was a question at least temporarily that I think the voters decided a year-and-a-half ago. They may see it differently in November. I'm not quite sure. Do you think the City of Mesa is hanging out exposed on the financial aspects?

>> Kaufman: I agree with Jan. There is no way to tell. These projections may be optimistic, they may be pessimistic. The point is they're unknown. We had no difficulty getting signatures throughout the City of Mesa. This is not an NMBY issue. We had hundreds of volunteers from every ward, every precinct. This is something that has energized the people of the City of Mesa and I think you can see it here tonight. If it were this simple we wouldn't be sitting here.

>> Michael: Go ahead.

>> Hawker: I respectfully disagree. Our numbers are based on an average attendance of 46,000, that's what they were projected on. In fact, we got criticized by the TSA and other individuals by being too conservative, so what we did was midway through the process is we will flip it, you guarantee that you'll cover any shortfall underneath the 46,000 and we'll let you take the position of assuming any liability then for our bond debt on the 38.5. And they agreed to do that, but only if they could get 75% of anything above it. So what we did is, if we're going to be criticized, we gave away some of the revenue that we could receive from the stadium in order to assure our taxpayers that they would not be held liable for any of the bobbed debt.

>> Michael: Just about out of time. Mayor, what is the City of Mesa's timetable in terms of certifying the signatures, making a decision on the election, those kinds every things?

>> Hawker: I would say we need to know by June 26th, that's the last dated to pull and it not let it go to the ballot. If we don't pull it by then, it's going to cost us $60,000 that's not refundable from the county elections.

>> Michael: Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker, thank you for joining us. Alan Kaufman, good to see you again. Jan Hibbard, our thanks to you. If you would like to see what's coming up on "Horizon" or view a transcript of tonight's show, visit the Channel 8 website at www.kaet.asu.edu, then click on the word "Horizon." Tomorrow on "Horizon," please join us for a look back at the week's news with local reporters around this very journalist round thing. This week they will talk more about the Cardinals stadium vote in Mesa, the request by counties for an extended election deadline, and I suspect legislative hangover. All of and that probably more on Friday's edition of "Horizon." Thank you for joining us on this Thursday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.