inside tucson business 04/20/12

T.L. Roof & O’Neil hit 30Business affiliates built prominent construction firm

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Bombardier thrives on grounded planesOne-stop shop services jets with world-class talent

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$2 millionfor tumorsUA Cancer Center researching acid content of tumors

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Your Weekly Business Journal for the Tucson Metro Area

WWW.INSIDETUCSONBUSINESS.COM • APRIL 20, 2012 • VOL. 21, NO. 47 • $1

VISIONARYRETAILERS

PAGE 5

As CEOs embrace technology, malls chase grocers, big boxes and

good old socializing

U.S. approves fi rst accountable care organization in Southern ArizonaBy Christy KruegerInside Tucson Business

Arizona Connected Care this month was selected by an agency of U.S. Department of Health and Hu-man Services to be the fi rst federally approved accountable care organi-zation in Southern Arizona.

It was among 27 groups across the U.S. approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to participate in the Shared Savings Program under the 2010 federal health care reform act.

“We’re pioneers in this,” said John Friend, executive director of Arizona Connected Care.

Th e program provides measur-able improvements to the quality

of health care while helping to keep costs in check. With the federal ap-proval, Arizona Connected Care providers will work with patients who are enrolled in Medicare’s gen-eral fee-for-services plan.

Arizona Connected Care provid-ers include Tucson Medical Center, El Rio Community Health Center, Marana Health Center, Nogales’ Mariposa Community Health Cen-ter and more than 150 physicians in the region.

“What we’re building is to en-hance the services now that pre-viously were uncompensated,” Friend said. “For example, when a patient leaves the hospital, he goes home or to a nursing facility. Th ere was a weak system to support him

with post-acute care. We will have trained people to help as patients move from site to site, making sure the environment is safe and they meet their appointments.”

Friend also said the strategies will be supported by new technologies. Many providers have implemented electronic medical records, but the systems need to be improved and linked to one another, he said. “As a patient is sent from primary care to the hospital, it’s benefi cial if infor-mation moves with the patient.”

Arizona Connected Care will evaluate its performance, based on standards of care already in place in the health care industry, and submit reports to the government. Th e rate of hospital readmission is one area

that can be measured. “If readmission is too high – if the

patient didn’t have proper care at home or get the meds right, he might end up in the hospital. By managing the patient at home, re-hospitaliza-tion will be avoided,” Friend said.

When Arizona Connected Care is able to show increased qual-ity of care and reduced costs, it will be eligible to receive a share of the savings. Th e prize for the rest of us is the long-term sustainability of Medicare.

“If we don’t begin to control the rate of infl ation in health care,” Friend stressed, “we’ll use up Medi-care. Th is (program) keeps costs down. As we achieve good health, the by-product is less cost.”

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Poor roads may drive Tucson City Council to

PAGE 3re-examine priorities

2 APRIL 20, 2012 INSIDE TUCSON BUSINESS

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APRIL 20, 2012 3InsideTucsonBusiness.com

CITY OF TUCSON STREETS & MAINTENANCE BUDGETS, 20012012

Fiscal year

Total HURF HURF as % General Fund and COPS*

General Fund as %

2001 $21.43 million $20.72 million 97% $704,566 3%

2002 $21.59 million $20.89 million 97% $704,000 3%

2003 $21.91 million $21.60 million 99% - 0

2004 $21.57 million $21.13 million 98% - 0

2005 $46.86 million $22.74 million 49% $23.80 million 51%




2009 $24..09 million $20.34 million 84% $3.29 million 14%

2010 $18.77 million $18.20 million 97% $197,331 1%

2011 $20.74 million $19.86 million 96% $473,540 2%

2012 $21.24 million $20.66 million 97% $154,260 1%

*COPS: Certifi cates of participation, government issued securities Source: City of Tucson budgets

CONTACT US

Phone: (520) 295-4201Fax: (520) 295-40713280 E. Hemisphere Loop, #180Tucson, AZ 85706-5027 insidetucsonbusiness.com

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CARTOONISTWES HARGIS

Public Notices 6Lists 9Inside Media 10Profile 11 Meals and Entertainment 12Arts and Culture 12Briefs 14

People in Action 16Calendar 17Finance 18Real Estate &Construction 19Biz Buzz 20Editorial 20Classifieds 23

EDITION INDEX

NEWS

More than half of Tucson streets in poor condition, how did they get so bad? By Patrick McNamaraInside Tucson BusinessFirst of two parts.

Potholes, rutting, depressions, raveling, wash-boarding and all manner of cracking and deterioration line Tucson streets mak-ing the city a textbook for asphalt manage-ment.

Despite an annual budget of more than $20 million for street maintenance and re-pairs, more than 25 percent of major road-ways and as much as 55 percent of resi-dential streets are either failed or in poor condition, according to the city’s Depart-ment of Transportation.

Transportation offi cials say it would cost at least $20 million a year for 10 years to bring arterial and collector streets and intersections up to excellent condition. Add another $64 million per year over a decade to bring residential streets to the same level and $20 million each subse-quent year to maintain all streets at that level.

Th e decade-long undertaking would cost as much as $850 million.

How did things get to this point? Th e favorite target of local elected offi -

cials has been the state Legislature, which they blame for sweeping money from special funds under its jurisdiction to fi x the state’s own budget shortfalls. When it comes to roads they cite the loss of High-way User Revenue Funds (HURF), which primarily come from gas taxes.

“In order to balance the state budget, these funds have been swept,” said Tucson City Councilwoman Karen Uhlich. “Th e sweep of state funds of this type would typically have gone to road repair.”

Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild echoes the claim.

“Th ey have defi ned road repair as funding the Motor Vehicle Division and

public safety,” Rothschild told a group of residents at a town hall event this month at the Ward 6 city council offi ce. He was referring to the Legislature’s decision last year to pour more HURF money into the Department of Public Safety.

Although “sweeps” has become the prevailing pejorative in recent years, a re-adjustment in the state’s funding formula more accurately describes what has hap-pened.

For example, during the 2006 fi scal year the state allocated nearly $70 million to the state Department of Public Safety from HURF funds. Th e following year, the Legislature changed the formula and the DPS allocation fell by almost $54 million.

When the DPS allocation declined,

BIZ FACTS

On Tuesday (April 24), the Tucson City Council is scheduled to discuss various options to pay for fi xing and maintaining streets.

Transportation Department offi cials say they have more than 5,800 open work orders and a backlog of more than 4,000 repair requests for pot-holes. Their proposals to the council seek to fi nd a dedicating funding source that would not only address the current issues but to maintain streets so they don’t further deterio-rate.

STREETS continued on PAGE 6

Tucson has 9th highestsales tax rate, report fi nds

Among U.S. cities, Tucson has the ninth highest combined sales tax rate, at 9.1 per-cent, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation, based in Washington, D.C.

Th e report looks at cities with a popula-tion of at least 200,000 residents, calculating the combined sales tax rate levied by state, county, municipal and special taxing juris-dictions.

Five of the highest sales tax cities are in Arizona, topped by Glendale at 9.5 percent, followed by Phoenix at 9.3 percent, Tucson, Mesa at 9.05 percent and Scottsdale at 8.95 percent. Th e state sales tax rate of 6.6 percent is the same for all all Arizona cities, with the diff erences being in local taxes.

Birmingham and Montgomery, both in Alabama, tied for the highest rate, at 10 per-cent. Glendale was tied with Chicago and Se-attle for the second highest rate.

Among cities with reputations for having high sales taxes, New York ranked No. 14 with a rate of 8.875 percent, Los Angeles is 8.75 percent, San Francisco is at 8.5 percent and Honolulu is 4.5 percent.

Th e Tax Foundation acknowledged that sales taxes are only a part of an overall tax structure, noting that while Washington state has high sales taxes it has no income tax and that Oregon has no sales tax but high income taxes.

Pima College’s Flores out as of June 30

Pima Community College’s governing board on Tuesday unanimously agreed to end former Chancellor Roy Flores’ affi liation with the college as of June 30. In a three-para-graph letter Flores cited medical reasons for wanting to resign and begin his retirement.

Previously, Flores and the board had agreed to a plan that would have let him stay on the payroll another year, until June 30, 2013. But, according to the college, al-legations of unprofessional conduct were brought against him March 26 by a number of former and current employees.

“Federal and state law, college policy and common decency require PCC to keep the allegations confi dential. Th e college will not release the names of the individuals or the specifi cs of their allegations,” according to a statement.

Flores, who was chancellor from March 2003 to February 2012, has denied any wrongdoing.


NEWS

Macy’s CEO: Retail’s new path to purchase is ‘omnichannel’ marketing

By Roger YohemInside Tucson Business

Since 2006 and the depths of the Great Recession, Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren has guided the giant retailer through an overhaul of its core business fundamen-tals. Based on the fi nancial results, the re-forms have paid off .

In 2011, Macy’s overall sales grew 5.3 percent to $26.5 billion. Th at was on top of a 4.6 percent increase in 2010. Th e growth has continued into 2012, with March ring-ing up another 7.3 percent increase.

Th at worries Lundgren, a University of Arizona alumnus who returned to his alma mater April 12 and 13 to lead the Global Retailing Conference at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort.

“Th e strategies we put in place are working. Yet I realize you can’t sit still on good performance. I worry more when we’re performing well than when we’re not performing,” Lundgren said. “When you’re doing well, others are watching and they’re going to try and emulate some things. To stay out in front, you have to continue to move forward, continue to change to con-tinue to grow.”

Lundgren, who marks his offi ce door in New York with a sign reading “Chief Cus-

tomer Offi cer,” is obsessed with making customer-centric business decisions. Th e economy is still challenged and technol-ogy is changing the lifestyle and shopping habits of consumers, he says.

Th ose conditions have Macy’s execu-tive team trying to fi gure out where the industry is headed, where the opportuni-ties exist, and how his company is going to capture sales.

To achieve that, Macy’s is evolving again, re-forming their business. With a core strategy called “MOM” — an acronym from My Macy’s, Omnichannel and Magic Selling, Macy’s is turning its attention to a huge new market that is unpredictable and diffi cult to reach.

“So where do we go next? We have a big opportunity with the millennials. At 70 million strong, this will be the biggest group we sell to, bigger than the baby boomers. Instantaneous. Th ey always have a cell phone in hand. Th ey are constantly connected. We have to fi gure out how to connect with this consumer,” he said.

Millennials, aged 13 to 30, are the fi rst generation to incorporate technology into all aspects of their hourly lives. Th ey are easily distracted, multitaskers, Twitter in real time, sleep with their smartphones, text while on the toilet, and already are

abandoning Facebook as old technology.“Th is is a diff erent customer, requiring

us to do things diff erently to attract them. We must be the place of choice for this con-sumer,” Lundgren said.

Macy’s sales strategy breaks millennials into two groups: those 13 to 21 and 22 to 30. Th e executive team realizes that although they are proven experts in their specifi c fi elds of retailing, they don’t fully under-stand this audience.

How best to engage them? How do they shop? How can Macy’s stores be relevant? Many of the answers and sales tactics are coming from Macy’s own employees. Th ou-sands of millenials work in the company’s 800 stores.

“All our stores have this generation working for us. Asking employees who ac-tually live this lifestyle is one of the great-est opportunities we have to learn who this customer is and how we can satisfy their needs,” he said.

Macy’s core MOM mission will be ap-plied to shape the millennial retail eff ort.

As for the three parts of the MOM ac-ronym, My Macy’s is the company’s drive to “be local” in each store As one of the changes since 2006, “this localization of product has been a major part of our suc-cess,” Lundgren explained.

Terry Lundgren and wife Tina, with University of Arizona retail student Jill Moore, during an “innovative products” demonstration by Kraft Foods at this year’s Global Retailing Conference.

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Supervisors OK convertinga Kino fi eld to soccer

FC Tucson, a minor league soccer team playing in its second season and its fi rst in the Premier Development League, will have a home fi eld at Kino Sports Complex, thanks to a unamimous vote this week of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

In a quest to increase the number of fi elds considered playable for professional soccer, the FC Tucson’s management peti-tioned the county to allow them to use and manage a fi eld currently used for baseball on the north side of Ajo Way across from Kino Stadium. FC Tucson will also take over an adjacent locker room facility.

As part of the conversion from baseball to soccer, which began on Wednesday, the fi eld will have expanded bleacher seating for up 2,000 spectators. FC Tucson hopes to have the new facility ready to use in time for its fi rst game, May 19 against the Southern California Seahorses.

FC Tucson offi cials say they also want to partner with youth and adult recreation teams to use the new soccer fi eld.

Gina Trunzo, Mark Stineto co-emcee Up & Comers

Gina Trunzo and Mark Stine, cohosts of “Fox 11 Daybreak,” are the em-cees of the Up & Comers reception May 1 that will introduce the Class of 2012. Th e honorees were unveiled in a special section in the April 13 issue of Inside Tucson Business.

Wednesday (April 25) is the deadline to register for the reception via one of three ways: online at www.InsideTucsonBusiness.com/upandcomers, call (520) 295-4236 or email advertising director Jill A’Hearn at [email protected]. Th e cost is $25 per per-son.

Th e reception will be from 5:30-7:30 p.m. May 1 at the Lodge on the Desert. 306 N. Al-vernon Way.

Trunzo, who had been a weather anchor and entertainment reporter with KMSB since 2006, became co-host of the station’s new two-hour, 7-9 a.m. weekday, morning show when it was launched Feb 1. She has also been active in Tucson organizations including the March of Dimes, Leukemia and Lymphoma Association, American Red Cross, Th erapeutic Riding of Tucson and she is a certifi ed Tucson Ambassador, after undergoing training from the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Stine has been in Tucson six years and had been weekend news anchor on KOLD 13 before being named co-host of the morn-ing show. In fact Stine has to be a very early riser because he also co-anchors an earlier morning show, from 4:30-7 a.m. that airs on KOLD before the KMSB show starts.

2012

& COMERS

20

& COMEERRSUP


“You’ll see merchandise and styles here in Tucson that you won’t see in Chi-cago or Denver. Th e lifestyles are diff er-ent. We want consumers to embrace the store that has a lifestyle they relate to on a local level,” he said.

Omnichannel means multidimen-sional messaging, being everywhere that customers are. It covers all connections: online, social media, mobile devices, in-home traditional media, in-store shop-ping, concerts, special events and others. Whatever “path to purchase” a consumer uses, Macy’s wants to be in that path.

Magic selling “simply means never fail to astonish the customer. Th at’s easier said than done, so we are retraining all our 130,000 sales associates to step beyond their daily tasks and do whatever it takes to make the customer happy,” Lundgren said.

Technology has made many tradition-al marketing practices obsolete, forever changing the path to purchase. Every re-tailer is fi ghting for market share. As a re-sult, Lundgren is leading another round of changes, “reorganizing away from the traditional structure.”

“Th is is just the beginning, we have a lot more work to do,” he said. “Th e results will be found in how we respond to this opportunity.”

Contact reporter Roger Yohem at ryohem@

azbiz.com or (520) 295-4254.

Shopping malls have a bright ‘social’ future as retail, technology mergeBy Roger YohemInside Tucson Business

Shopping malls have a bright future by featuring some old-fashioned socializing while capitalizing on struggling strip cen-ters. As “the” gathering place, much like town squares of yesteryear, malls will pros-per regardless of how technology changes consumers.

“Th e mall will survive long term. It is still the best American pastime. And to make sure, we have started to be very focused on local activity, activity that people will come to,” said Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of General Growth Properties (GGP), at the Global Re-tailing Conference last week at the JW Mar-riott Starr Pass Resort.

Among its properties, GGP owns Tucson Mall and Park Place Mall. While in Tucson he visited the Chalk Art Festival at Park Place. To attract people “the old fashioned way,” most GGP malls stage some type of monthly community event such as the fes-

tival.“Everyone obsesses with social me-

dia, we’re putting the social into our malls. We’re not ignoring social media, we want diff erent programs so the mall is an activity center,” Mathrani said.

Nationally, malls will benefi t due to a proliferation of aging shopping centers. As Internet sales grow and big-box store anchors restructure and downsize, shop-ping centers will underperform.

“Best Buy is a 45,000 square-foot store where people go to view products but buy online. Th e suggestion I gave their CEO was downsize to 15,000 square feet and come into our mall because we actu-ally have foot traffi c,” Mathrani said.

Retail failures such as Blockbuster, Circuit City and Borders have taught developers a hard lesson: quit building. Growth will come “because we stop in-creasing our base,” said Mathrani.

“I am a big proponent of putting gro-cery stores into the mall. In fact, malls

should incorporate all uses. Grocery stores went into strip centers because it was con-venient, easy and there were so many of them. Th at is changing,” he said.

To complement their traditional tenants, GGP has drawn from strip centers, includ-ing retailers such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, REI and Whole Foods. Tucson’s Park Place is adding Tyco Electronics and Total Wine & More.

From April 2009 to September 2010, GGP was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganiza-tion. GGP has 130 malls, second-most in the U.S., and averages 94 percent occupancy. Mathrani was hired in January 2011.

“Over time, malls will continue to get stronger. Malls will thrive by bringing in all fragmented uses, whether it’s big box, fashion or foreign retailers coming here,” he said. “Th e American pastime of shopping is not going to go away.”

Contact reporter Roger Yohem at ryohem@

azbiz.com or (520) 295-4254.

GGP, owner of Park Place Mall, has a business strategy that promotes monthly events.

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This Week’s Good NewsBest buy right now

“If you want to buy low, foreclosure-riddled Tucson may be just the place,” says Forbes magazine. “It ranks on this list.” Th e list it is keeping is titled “Best city to buy a home right now.”

Th e rankings are based on a kitchen-full of data analysis by Realtor.com and Fiserve Case-Shiller on 146 metropolitan areas.

It said Tucson stood out because home prices have dropped 45 percent from the market’s peak.

Coming in at No. 2 was Austin, Texas, but it wasn’t a case of being slammed by fore-closures but because of its thriving econo-my is creating jobs that will accelerate home values.

Rounding out the top 10: Kansas City, Mo.; Baltimore; Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City; San Jose, Calif.; Raleigh, N.C.; Milwau-kee, Wis.; and St. Louis.

The Tucson

INSIDERInsights and trends on developing and

ongoing Tucson regional business news

Macy’s hires UA talent Just since January, Macy’s has hired 32

University of Arizona students, which makes it the largest recruiter on campus. Most of the hires are graduates of the UA’s Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing and the Eller College of Management.

Lundgren was back in Tucson last week to lead the annual Global Retailing Confer-ence. He proudly boasted of the recruits and encouraged other executives in the room in-cluding the Home Depot, PetSmart, Bridge-stone Firestone, Avnet, American Express, REI, General Growth Properties, Walgreens and Walmart, to follow his lead.

Plug-in car mileage If you’re in Tucson and have an electric car,

say a Nissan Leaf, you’re probably feeling good about reducing your carbon footprint. But by how much? Th e Union of Concerned Scientists released a report this week with the answer. Driving a Nissan Leaf in Tucson is the same as driving a gas-powered car that gets 48 miles to the gallon. Th at means it’s about the same as a Toyota Prius.

What? Electric cars have zero emissions, right? Th e scientists did their calculating based on how electricity is produced and a signifi cant portion of Tucson’s power is generated by coal.

In Colorado it’s worse. Driving an electric car there is the equivalent of driving a car that gets 33 miles to the gallon, one of the worst rates in the country.


PUBLIC NOTICESBusiness bankruptcies, foreclosures and liens recorded in Tucson or Pima County and select-ed filings in Phoenix. Addresses are Tucson unless otherwise noted.

BANKRUPTCIESChapter 11 - Business reorganization Curtis A. Ench and Mary J. Alexander, 1710 E. Waverly St. Principal: Curtis A. Ench and Mary J. Alexander, joint debtors. Assets: $823,382.00. Liabilities: $788,066.00. Largest creditor(s): Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Frederick, Md., $346,025.00. Case No. 12-07736 fi led April 12. Law fi rm: Eric Slocum Sparks

FORECLOSURE NOTICES Broadmoor Executive Center LLC 209 S. Tucson Blvd. 85714Tax parcel: 129-02-091B and 129-02-091D Original Principal: $1,150,000.00 Benefi ciary: Bank of Tucson Auction time and date: 11 a.m., June 29, 2012 Trustee: Ronald M. Horwitz, Jaburg & Wilk, 3200 N. Central Ave., Suite 2000, Phoenix

WMS Partners Limited Partnership 5997 E. Grant Road 85712Tax parcel: 110-16-048A0 Original Principal: $650,000.00 Benefi ciary: Bank of Oklahoma Auction time and date: 10 a.m., July 10, 2012 Trustee: Craig H. Kaufman, Quarles & Brady, 1 S. Church Ave., Suite 1700

LIENSFederal tax liens Ali Baba Enterprises LLC, 5401 N. Ventana Vista Road. Amount owed: $9,150.74.Goodspeed USA Corp., 7900 N. Snyder Road 7203. Amount owed: $15,431.96. Swim Girl Inc., 2470 W. Tom Watson Drive. Amount owed: $3,515.73. Art By God Inc., 1635 N. Oracle Road. Amount owed: $8,332.88. Autoworld of Tucson Inc., 2411 W. Wetmore Road. Amount owed: $5,984.63. Pony Express Concrete Curbs LLC and Jose J. Mendivil Jr., 4565 W. Teton Road. Amount owed: $40,528.64. A Dream Come True Preschool and Lopez-Fierro Investments LLC, 6163 S. Midvale Park Road. Amount owed: $6,734.58.Crystal Auto Glass Enterprises LLC, 2766 N. Country Club Road. Amount owed: $534,446.70. Simmons Home Design Inc., 2201 N. Camino Principal, Suite 101. Amount owed: $30,359.65. Drake & Son Auto & Truck Parts and Drake & Son Inc., 4220 E. Illinois St. Amount owed: $10,235.17. Venture-N Inc., 1239 N. Sixth Ave. Amount owed: $30,492.34.

State liens (Liens of $1,000 or more fi led by the Arizona Department of Revenue or Arizona Department of Economic Security.)Casa Vida LLC, 6334 E. Barnan St. Amount owed: $1,298.56. Rhino Linings of Southern Arizona LLC, 1802 W. Grant Road, Suite 104. Amount owed: $58,160.81.Amarsi LLC, 9642 E. 32nd St. Amount owed: $52,261.28. Athens Dining LLC, 6650 N. Oracle Road #111. Amount owed: $21,710.87. Dorado Painting LLC, PO Box 1808, 85702 (465 E. Delano St.). Amount owed: $5,148.21. Avila Concrete LLC, 4320 E. Illinois St. Amount owed: $21,850.65.Masonry By Design Inc., 4101 W. Barque Drive. Amount owed: $12,783.41.

Mechanic’s liens (Security interest liens of $1,000 or more fi led by those who have supplied labor or materials for property improvements.)Bluelight Electrical against Mahalo Properties LLC. Amount owed: $1,200.00.Oracle Control Systems Inc. against SPVEFRCMG Broadway Gardens LLC. Amount owed: $21,680.91.

the portion to cities, towns and counties increased by a nearly equal amount — $52 million.

By fi scal 2009, the state altered the for-mula once again, boosting the HURF con-tribution to public safety from $13 million to nearly $87 million.

At the same time, city and county shares of the HURF pie shrunk by $78 million. Th e legislature has maintained the higher fund-ing level for public safety since 2009.

Local HURF allocations refl ect those changes, with the city reaching a high-water mark of $50 million in fi scal 2006 and $49 million the following year.

In subsequent years the funding has fall-en, as Tucson received $43 million in fi scal 2011, the same level of funding as 2002.

But less than half of that money goes di-rectly into streets maintenance. Th e remain-der of HURF money gets dispersed through-out the city Transportation Department’s budget, to the non-departmental budget, paying for salaries and debt on previous roadway construction projects.

For the current budget year, the city De-partment of Transportation’s streets main-tenance sector has a $21 million budget, almost all of which comes from the HURF fund.

In addition to repairing roadway surfaces, the sector also maintains the city’s median islands, drainage ways, traffi c lights, street signs, roadway lighting and street striping.

More than $11 million of the streets maintenance budget goes toward salaries and benefi ts.

Th e condition of Tucson’s streets likely isn’t a phenomenon born of changes in the state’s funding formula alone.

City Councilman Steve Kozachik says much of the blame falls on City Hall rather

than the state Capitol. “Th e city is absolutely culpable for the

condition of the roads because we’ve let them go to hell,” Kozachik said, saying the city has for years not placed adequate emphasis on maintenance to prevent roads from falling into the state of disrepair that exists today.

Transportation offi cials agree that roads maintenance has not been emphasized in the past.

“Th ere’s never really been a dedicated source of O and M (operations and main-tenance) funding,” said Tony Paez, interim director of city transportation.

Paez said in the past the department was able to maintain a patchwork of repairs with the money it got, but the lower state funding levels have made that impossible now.

Defi cient funding has been evident for years, even at times when the city received record-levels of funding from the state, ac-cording to the city’s own fi nancial plans.

Th e city’s fi ve-year capital improvement

plan from 2006 identifi ed $3 billion worth of needed roadway improvements.

“Th is large backlog is the result of incom-plete infrastructure — minimal sidewalks, street lighting, and inadequate draining — that is the legacy of not imposing develop-ment standards, a lack of planning, and a continuous deferral of annual maintenance,” according to the section on unmet capital needs in the 2006 capital improvement plan.

Uhlich agreed that the changes in state funding alone can’t take all the blame for the city’s deteriorating streets.

“Even if the state hadn’t swept the funds, we would probably be having this conversa-tion,” she said.

Uhlich suggested the council might need to reevaluate spending priorities in the com-ing budget discussions for fi scal 2013 to re-fl ect priority on “core service” areas.

For example, the city puts little from the general fund into the transportation depart-ment. Th e general fund is the portion of the budget used to fund departments like police, fi re and others that don’t generate revenue of have alternative sources of income.

In the case of streets maintenance, the general fund makes up just one percent of the $21 million budget.

By contrast, the general fund contribu-tion to the Sun Tran bus system has grown from nearly $16 million in fi scal 2001 to po-tentially more than $40 million proposed for next year.

Uhlich said she and other council mem-bers would try to keep the subsidy to Sun Tran at a constant while working to fi nd so-lutions to the streets maintenance issue.

Contact reporter Patrick McNamara at pmc-

[email protected] or (520) 295-4259.

HISTORY OF HURF Fiscal year

Pima County

City of Tucson

2001 $38.65 million $46.22 million










2011 $38.97 million $43.30 millionSource: Arizona Department of Transportation

STREETS continued from PAGE 3

Where the pavement ends: The Tucson Airport Authority recently resurfaced its roads like this one on Plumber Avenue. The authority laid new asphalt up to where the city’s right-of-way begins.

Patri

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ara

Corrections

• Frederick Petersen’s last name was misspelled in a headline and on the front page of the Up & Comers special section in the April 13 issue.

• The website address for the Body and Sol Old Pueblo Women’s Expo is www.bodyandsoltucson.com. The URL was wrong under the “Biz Facts” associated with a story about the inaugural event that appeared in the April 13 issue.

• Contrary to information originally received and printed in the April 13 Meals & Entertainment column, the reverse happy hour at North restaurant is from 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays only.


By Patrick McNamaraInside Tucson Business

In cancer treatment, detection is just the fi rst step.

Researchers at the University of Arizona Cancer Center and biomedical engineering have been working to fi nd new, non-inva-sive ways of identifying cancerous tumors at the molecular level.

A research team led by Mark “Marty” Pagel, associate professor in biomedical engineering and chemistry, has won a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to refi ne magnetic resonance imaging technologies to monitor the lactic acid levels of cancerous tumors.

“Tumors are very metabolically active,” Pagel said. “Th e problem is we don’t know how much lactic acid is in anyone’s tumor.”

Th e lactic acid content of tumors is key to Pagel’s and his associates’ research. Certain tumors display diff erent levels of acid, which can determine the best course of treatment for a patient.

Lactic acid content is also important because as tumors produce the substance, the acid breaks down the surrounding tissue enabling the cancer to spread.

In conventional treatments, MRIs are used to locate tumors but are of limited use in discerning their make-up. If the research Pagel and others have begun proves a success, the potentially most successful treatments for cancer would be identifi ed early in the process.

“If we can tell a patient in three days that the chemotherapy isn’t working and get them on a diff erent treatment, that will help greatly,” he said. “We don’t want to wait three or six months.”

As Pagel explains it, tumors have specifi c molecular compositions depend-ing on where they occur and what type of cancer causes them. Th e process would be much less invasive than taking physical samples.

Th e diagnostic method Pagel and other researchers are working on would involve injecting patients with a contrast medium, specifi cally an already approved com-pound of iopromide typically used in X-rays and CT scans. Th at the chemical can be used in Pagel’s research is a signifi cant benefi t that likely will speed along the research and potentially enable any new treatment techniques discovered in the process to become available to patients sooner.

“It’s a huge advantage because now we’re ready for chemical trials,” Pagel said.

Part of the research will involve moni-toring the tumors in breast cancer patients.

UA researchers win grant to use MRIs to monitor lactic acid in tumors

UA associate professor Mark “Marty” Pagel at work in the laboratory.

NEXT GENERATION

Th e patients will be given a course of treatment that includes drinking baking soda, which has been thought to help in the treatment of certain cancers.

Baking soda may lower the acid levels in the body and tumors and slow or inhibit the spread of cancer. Pagel said the research would, in part, attempt to observe and record any changes in the acid levels of tumors in the patients.

Th e team has been experimenting with mice implanted with human cancer cells to measure the eff ectiveness of the process. Th e research has been at least four years in the making, Pagel said.

Trials in human patients will begin later this year in Phoenix.

Th e research will begin in Phoenix because of the availability of a specialized MRI machine. Pagel said the UA Cancer Center plans to purchase a similar machine soon so that research can continue in Tucson, which he said is ideally suited for the work.

“Th is research couldn’t be done at most other universities,” Pagel said.

Th e presence of medical and cancer centers, biomedical engineers, medical imaging facilities and graduate students to help conduct the research gives the university an advantage in this sort of research, Pagel said.

“Where else do you fi nd this environ-ment with all these disciplines within walking distance,” he said.

In addition to the federal grant, the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and the Phoenix Friends of the Arizona Cancer Center gave private donations to help fund the research.

Next Generation is a monthly feature

of Inside Tucson Business profi ling Southern

Arizonans on the cutting edge of developing

their ideas. If you’ve got an idea or someone

you think should be profi led, contact reporter

Patrick McNamara at pmcnamara@azbiz.

com or (520) 295-4259.

A lab experiment at the UA Cancer Center where researchers are working on an MRI method to measure acid levels in tumors.

Univ

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Ariz

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Univ

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SALES JUDO

Figuring out what to pay new revenue producers as they get in gearIt can be a challenge for employers to

build a compensation plan for new producers as they ramp-up their revenues.

Traditionally, most insurance agencies, real estate fi rms and automobile dealer-ships have gone with commissions only. On the surface at least, this practive would appear to make good sense.

If your new producers are any good, they’ll make enough money to survive and perhaps even to thrive. You, the employer, can aff ord to have them on board because they are paid directly out of the gross margins that they generate. If they don’t produce, you don’t pay them. In this system of Darwinian natural selection, you don’t even have to fi re them! If they don’t produce, they’ll quit and move on to other employment opportunities. Th is often results in what is called a “burn and churn” work environment.

Commissions can work even in cases where the job may be more of a hobby for a producer who has other sources of income from spouses, military pensions or “moonlight” jobs. You as the employer are still ahead of the game if a low-volume producer sells just a few policies, homes or cars a year to friends or relatives because the lower production of the bottom 90 percent is more than off set by the hyper-production of the top 10 percent. Just look to the real estate industry for confi rmation of this phenomenon.

Beyond that, there seem to be very few visible “hard” costs associated with “burn and churn” or “low volume” strategies for 100 percent commissions. After all, the costs of your human resources and training departments are all fi xed no matter how

many producers come and go. So are the costs of your sales managers regardless of the presence of low volume produc-ers.

Th is approach can be seductive, but we all know

that, while there may not be clearly visible “hard dollar” costs associated with “churn and burn” or “low volume” producers, there are usually large “soft dollar” opportunity costs. Th is is especially the case if you are attempting to build relation-ships with your customers and a positive brand image that leads to word-of-mouth referrals and to repeat purchases.

So, how can you build a “pay-for-perfor-mance” culture with less producer turnover and lower opportunity costs?

Begin with your selection processes for producers. First determine what kind of producer you need: a “Hunter” for pros-pecting and bringing in new accounts; a “Farmer” for retaining and penetrating existing accounts, or; a “Technical Special-ist” for closing prospects, servicing existing accounts and helping to sell new services.

Th en use a commercial profi ling instrument to make certain that a candi-date has the right profi le for the position. After all of the other interviewing and HR steps have been completed, apply the right mix of variable (commission) and fi xed (base) compensation for each type of producer.

In this case we’re building a compensa-tion plan best suited for Hunters. It begins with a reasonable base salary that declines as commissions ramp up during their fi rst year. It ends in the fourth quarter with a mix of 25 percent base and 75 percent commissions.

Th is particular example takes into account that new producers may take four quarters before they reach annualized revenues of $2.5 million (row 3, column 4). If all they received during their fi rst year was a base salary of just $2,000 per month and a commission of 3 percent, the good ones might not join the company to begin with. And, if they did, they might jump ship as soon as they found a company with a more reasonable fi rst year compensation package.

In order to prevent this, the plan designer estimated the “ramp up” revenues for an average new producer would be $63,000 in the fi rst quarter; $188,000 in the second; $438,000 in the third and $625,000 in the fourth quarter (row 2). At that point the producer’s annualized revenues would have reached $2.5 million. Please note these “ramp up” fi gures must be realistic and achievable. Th e plan designer has also determined through research that an average performer should be able to earn an annual targeted compensation of $100,000 (row 10).

In the fi rst quarter, new producers receive commissions of just $2,000 (row 5) and an elevated quarterly base salary of $11,000 (row 7) for a total of $13,000 or 52 percent (column A, row 11) of their targeted compensation. Note that in many U.S. markets this amount may not be enough to attract strong producers, and their base may need to be increased to a starting fi gure of $5,000 a month or higher. Another method that is frequently used involves off ering especially promising producers a “signing bonus” of $5,000 to $10,000 to tide them over as their revenues and commissions ramp up.

In the second quarter new producers are expected to generate $188,000 in revenues and $6,000 in commissions, which is $4,000 more than in the fi rst quarter. Th e quarterly base drops by $2,000 to $9,000 but the total compensation increases by $2,000 to $15,000, roughly 60 percent of targeted compensation.

Th e same process, where base compensa-tion declines as commissions increase, repeats itself in the third and fourth quarters.

By the end of the fi rst year new produc-ers should be up to speed and generating $208,000 in monthly revenues, $2.5 million annualized. Th eir quarterly commissions should have increased to $19,000. Th at, plus their quarterly base of $6,000 comes to a total of $25,000, which is 100 percent of their targeted compensation.

As the producer exceeds targeted revenues in 10 percent increments, the plan designer can add bonuses on top of the regular commissions. Th e designer should never cap producers’ compensation at some fi xed amount or decrease the commission percentage as their revenues increase, despite the stratospheric pay that a few hyper-producers will generate. Remember, this is known as a “rich man’s problem,” because the variable contribu-tion they generate exceeds by multiples of what they are paid.

In the continuation of the series on how to attract, retain and motivate — in other words, ARM — your revenue producers, in the May 4 issue we’ll tackle legal agree-ments with producers dealing with non-compete and non-solicitation provisions, commissions paid after departure and the reimbursement of expenses.

Contact Sam Williams, president

of New View Group, at swilliams@

newviewgroup.net or (520) 390-0568. Sales

Judo appears the fi rst and third weeks of each

month in Inside Tucson Business.

SAM WILLIAMS

SALES

FIRSTYEAR PRODUCER COMPENSATION1st Quarter 2nd Quarter 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter

1. Monthly $ revenues $21,000 $63,000 $146,000 $208,000

2. Quarterly $ revenues $63,000 $188,000 $438,000 $625,000

3. Annualized $ revenues $250,000 $750,000 $1.75 million $2.5 million

4. % commission 3%

5. Quarterly $ commission $2,000 $6,000 $13,000 $19,000

6. Monthly base compensation $3.5 million $3 million $2.5 million $2 million

7. Quarterly base compensation $11,000 $9,000 $8,000 $6,000

8. Total quarterly compensation $13,000 $15,000 $21,000 $25,000

9. Annualized compensation $52,000 $59,000 $83,000 $100,000

10. Annual target compensation $100,000

11. % of target compensation 52% 59% 83% 100%


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MEDIAMatt Russell’s ‘On Th e Menu’fi nds new radio home on KNSTBy David Hatfi eldInside Tucson Business

After nine weeks off radio, Matt Russell will return his weekly “On the Menu Live” show to the airwaves starting May 12; this time airing from 4-5 p.m. Saturdays on KNST 97.1-FM/790-AM.

Russell says he couldn’t be more excited about his return and the fact that his show will now be exposed to the much larger audience available on KNST, which is owned by Clear Channel.

“On the Menu Live” last aired March 8 on KWFM 1330-AM, where it had aired at 5 p.m. Th ursdays since 2009 (and before that was a show hosted by former Tucson chef Alan Zeman). At the time he pulled the plug on the show, Russell said KWFM’s management had “created an environment that makes it virtually impossible for us to continue working with them.”

After that, Russell said he had been in contact with several stations but the relationship with KNST “just felt right.” Although Russell had initially balked at the idea of moving the show to weekends, the 4-5 p.m. time slot made a diff erence.

“I’m in the sweet spot, it’s still happy hour,” he said.

Other than the new station and time slot, Russell said the show will continue to be high-energy, focusing on the latest trends in the food and wine scene in Tucson, featuring interviews with restaura-teurs, celebrity chefs and mixologists as well as “Tucson’s most colorful culinary characters.”

Remote broadcasts also will continue to be a part of “On the Menu Live.”

Th e move appears to be among a few other changes KNST is making to its schedule. Currently, KNST is airing the weekend edition of the Glenn Beck show from 4-6 p.m. Saturdays.

Attempts to reach station offi cials to talk about the potential changes were unsuc-cessful.

To be clear On the subject of Russell’s departure from

KWFM, last month he said the station had raised its price to him by 40 percent. As a point of clarifi cation, KWFM operations manager Alan Michaels says the station didn’t raise its rates for brokered radio shows but had found that “On the Menu” wasn’t being billed for the costs of doing the show at remote locations. Remote fees are typical in broadcasting.

From Russell’s point of view, he said the proposal to carry his show always included the fact that it would have remote broadcasts and was “presented as a package” from the very beginning.

Murrow Award winnersTucson TV stations were recipients of

fi ve 2012 regional Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association. KGUN 9 won three awards and KVOA 4 and KOLD 13 each received one.

Th e stations competed among what are considered small market stations in a region covering Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Th e winning entries:• Best newscast: KGUN for its 10 p.m.

newscast the night of Jan. 8, 2011, after the shooting at former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giff ords’ “Congress On Your Corner” event.

• Investigative reporting: KGUN for reports on Pima Community College’s handling of Giff ords shooting suspect Jared Loughner, who had been a student.

• Breaking news: KVOA for its coverage of the Jan. 31, 2011, crash of a Pima County Sheriff ’s Offi ce helicopter in which pilot Loren Leonberger was killed and three others were injured.

• Hard news report: KOLD for a report titled “Desperation in the Desert” on the trials of repatriation of illegal border crossers being returned to Nogales.

• Website: KGUN for www.kgun9.com.Th ere were no radio entry award

winners from the Tucson market this year.Th e awards are named after Edward R.

Murrow, who according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, is “the most distinguished and renowned fi gure in the history of American broadcast journalism” and “was a seminal force in the creation and development of electronic newsgathering as both a craft and a profession.” He was best known for his work at CBS from 1935 to 1961.

Close but no PulitzerTh ere were some impressive winners

among this week’s Pulitzer Prize winners. Th e Arizona Republic in Phoenix didn’t quite make it but was a fi nalist for its comprehensive coverage of the Jan. 8, 2011, shooting in Tucson that killed six and wounded 13, including then Rep. Gabrielle Giff ords. Th e staff of the Republic was recognized for its exemplary use of journalistic tools, including Twitter and video as well as written reports and features, to tell the unfolding story.

What does it say when a Phoenix-based news organization makes it as a fi nalist for a news story that happened in Tucson?

Contact David Hatfi eld at

dhatfi [email protected] or (520) 295-4237.

Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.


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PROFILEBombardier Tucson is one-stop shop for servicing jets By Alan M. PetrilloInside Tucson Business

An international company, Bombardier Aerospace, operates a maintenance facility for business and commercial aircraft at Tucson International Airport, building on a 35-year history of operation that began with Learjet aircraft completions.

Now employing more than 700 at the Tucson Aircraft Service Center, Bombardier has transitioned its operations into a full support facility for Bombardier business aircraft and airline regional jets, as well as comprehensive support and services for business and commercial aircraft custom-ers.

Stan Younger, vice president of the service center, said the Tucson facility is “Bombardier’s only wholly owned facility serving both commercial and business aircraft customers that includes a state-of-the-art paint facility positioning the center as Bombardier’s center of excellence for paint and refurbishment.”

Th e service center is able to segregate the diff erent types of customers to best apply the skill sets of employees and leverage effi ciencies of maintenance and refurbishment services, Younger said.

“On the commercial side, we’re more attuned to larger airplanes, like the CRJ 200, 700, 900 and 1000 models,” he said. “In that regard, we’re more of an airline-type maintenance facility where work is done in a controlled environment that allows more effi cient support.”

On the business aircraft side of Bombar-dier’s facility, the company works on smaller Learjet models and medium-sized Challenger and Global Express business jets.

Joseph Rivera, general manager of the Tucson Aircraft Service Center, said he has been hiring people to fi ll 56 open positions.

“Th e last two years have seen an increase in employment here,” Rivera said. “We’ve increased our work force while most other companies in our industry have not done so.”

Th e Bombardier service center, which operates around the clock, consists of 15 buildings, 10 of which are hangers. Seven of those hangers are dedicated to business work and three are for commercial, including what Rivera called “one of the biggest hangers around at 250,000 square feet.”

Bombardier’s technicians deliver a range of aircraft maintenance services, modifi cations, inspections, refurbishment, fl y-in repairs and aircraft-on-ground services.

Rivera pointed out that Bombardier is investing in the infrastructure of its Tucson facility.

“We’ve upgraded our fuel farm, which was a large project and investment,” he

said, “as well as renovating hangers and painting their fl oors. We also broke ground on a new perimeter fencing project that will help with airport security by giving us two lines of fencing between us and the airport runways, yet still allow our customers to have access to their aircraft.”

Younger noted that Bombardier also continues to seek ways to improve its business and work methodologies to become more effi cient.

“Life is a series of continuous improve-ments,” he said. “Every day we look at how to lean ourselves out, perhaps by shorten-ing the span of time of a maintenance event, which gives a customer more time to have the aircraft up in the air.”

Younger pointed out that one of the chief areas Bombardier has enhanced its capabilities at the Tucson operation is on aircraft refurbishment.

“It’s rare to have an aircraft maintenance facility where a customer is able to get interior refurbishment and a new paint job, yet not leave that one location,” he ob-served.

Rivera said the Tucson Aircraft Service Center is one of the few locations in North America that serves as a one-stop shop for avionics, maintenance and world-class interior refurbishment and painting.

“It’s a huge advantage and cost savings for the customer to get all the maintenance done in one spot,” he said.

BIZ FACTS

Bombardier Tucson Aircraft Service Center1255 E. Aero Park Blvd.http://us.bombardier.com/(520) 746-5100

Other Bombar-dier-owned service centers are in Hartford, Conn.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Wichita, Kan.; Dallas;

Macon, Ga.; Bridgeport, W.Va; and Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, Holland.

Younger said Bombardier considers the Tucson Aircraft Service Center to be one of its most important aftermarket locations, “which is why the company has invested time and money to make it a viable solution for our customers.”

Rivera said the Tucson location has engaged with local high schools to promote students getting into the industry, and also is involved with Pima Community College’s Aviation Technology Program in teaching airframe and power plant technicians. He called the PCC program “a big supplier of technicians for us.”

In addition to bringing PCC aviation technology program students through the Bombardier facilities on tours and for small workshops, Younger said the company is in discussions to partner with the PCC program to work out an after-school relationship where students get actual hands-on experience at Bombardier’s service center.

“We’re working closely with them on an internship program where the students can get immersed in the maintenance and service lingo and activities,” Younger said, “and perhaps get involved in some entry level work.”

Bom

bard

ier

Bombardier maintenance technicians inspect a Learjet 45

fl ap at the Tucson Service Center.


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Th e Tucson Jazz Institute’s up-and-coming TJI Ellington Band and the Arizona Road-runners will perform in the fi rst of the Tucson Jazz Society’s Jazz Under the Stars concerts at 7 p.m. tonight (April 20) at Tohono Chul Park, 7366 N. Paseo Del Norte.

Among its accolades, the TJI Ellington Band will perform May 5 at Lincoln Center in New York and has won a performance spot at California’s Monterey Jazz Festival in September.

Tickets for tonight’s perfor-mance are $20 each with $5 discounts for Tucson Jazz Society members and $10 discounts for students and active duty and retired military. Buy tickets online at www.tucsonjazz.org. General admission tickets will be on sale at the door but will cost $25.

Th is is the fi rst of four concerts in the Jazz Under the Stars series at Tohono Chul Park. Next week, April 27, national recording artist Neamen Lyles and Isaac Valenzuela with guitarist Jay Soto as guest artist will perform smooth jazz. Big Band Express and vocalist Crystal Stark will perform May 4 and “Triple Th reat Divas,” Crystal Stark, Julie Anne Boos and Katherine Byrnes, will perform with the All-Star Band led by Jeff Haskell on May 11.

Art galaTucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art

(MOCA) hosts its AIR (Artists In Residence)

Gala at 7 p.m. Saturday at the museum, 265 S. Church Ave. Tickets for the black-tie fund-raiser are $200 each and can be purchased online at www.moca-tucson.org .

History reborn Six landmark homes built in

the late 1920s and the 1930s in midtown El Encanto Estates will be part of a tour Saturday as a fundraiser for the Tucson Historic Preservation Founda-tion. Th e neighborhood is basically south of El Con Mall. Buy tickets for $35 online at www.preservetucson.org.

On April 27, four restored neon signs will be dedicated and

relit in ceremonies starting at 6 p.m. on Pima Community College’s downtown campus. Th e next morning, from 9 a.m. to noon, the foundation will hold its fi fth annual Historic Miracle Mile Open House and Tour showcasing the restored vintage motor courts and other sights of what was the northern gateway to Tucson before Interstate 10 was built. Two free shuttle buses will operate from the PCC campus during the open house.

Contact Herb Stratford at herb@

ArtsandCultureGuy.com. Stratford teaches

Arts Management at the University of

Arizona. He appears weekly in Inside

Tucson Business.

ARTS & CULTURE

Jazz Under Stars opens tonight at Tohono Chul

OUT OF THE OFFICEMEALS & ENTERTAINMENT

New concepts are coming to life on two restaurant sites. It looks like a space I happen to know intimately, the building at 3500 E. Sunrise Drive that was home to our Terra Cotta restaurant until we closed it in January 2009, is going to become Five Palms Steak & Seafood, according to an applica-tion with the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.

Th e building has been acquired by Nino Aidi, a restaurateur born and raised in Paris, France, who operates restaurants in Mexico, including Five Palms in both Obregon and San Carlos, Sonora.

Meanwhile up on Mount Lemmon, Sawmill Run Restaurant has opened in Summerhaven on the site where the Mount Lemmon Cafe, better known as the “pie shop,” used to be. Although the cafe building was one of the few structures to survive the 2003 Aspen Fire, it was closed in 2009 and torn down.

Property owners Bob Zimmerman and Jim Campbell brought chef/restaurateur Gabe Greenberg up to the village to help develop the concept.

Th e newly-built Sawmill Run is now open every day — 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Sundays and 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays through Th ursdays — serving breakfast, lunch and dinner items.

Sawmill Run hasn’t neglected its roots either, paying homage to the former Mount Lemmon Cafe with apple pie and cherry

pie available everyday.• Sawmill Run Restaurant, 12976 N.

Sabino Canyon Parkway, Summerhaven — www.sawmillrun.com — (520) 576-9147

Dine Out for Safety Th e Southern Arizona Center

Against Sexual Assault holds its 16th annual Dine Out for Safety event Wednesday (April 25), which means the 20 or so partici-pating restaurants will contrib-ute up to 20 percent of their proceeds that day to the center.

Participating restaurants include B Line, 621 N. Fourth Ave.; Cafe Desta, 758 S. Stone Ave.; Chad’s Steakhouse & Saloon, 3001

N. Swan Road; Dakota Cafe, 6541 E. Tanque Verde Road in Trail Dust Town; Don Pedro’s Peruvian Bistro, 3386 S. Sixth Ave.; Feast, 3719 E. Speedway; La Cocina, 201 N. Court Ave. in Old Town Artisans; Michaelango Ristorante, 420 W. Magee Road, Oro Valley; Noble Hops Gastropub, 1335 W. Lambert Lane, Oro Valley; Pasco Kitchen & Lounge, 820 E. University Blvd.; Pastiche Modern Eatery, 3025 N. Campbell Ave. in Campbell Village; Sparkroot, 245 E. Congress St.; and Zona 78, 78 W. River Road and 7301 E. Tanque Verde Road.

• Dine Out for Safety — http://dineout-forsafety.com/

Contact Michael Luria at mjluria@gmail.

com. Meals & Entertainment appears weekly in

Inside Tucson Business.

Foothills and Mount Lemmonrestaurants are reborn

MICHAEL LURIA HERB STRATFORD


TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

Gaming Google to get business; is it worth risk of getting caught?A few years ago residential real estate

appraisers found themselves in an extreme-ly diffi cult situation. Not only had a huge drop in home sales caused a huge drop in their business, but the government had stepped in and completely changed the rules by which appraisers got their business.

Before the banking-mortgage-housing crash, appraisers depended on their reputation and personal relationships to get work. After the crash, simply put, the government required appraisers to be selected almost anonymously.

Th e system one appraiser asked us for help with, in-use by a huge bank, was crazy! Pre-approved appraisers had to log in to a website to see if any appraisal work was available and if so, accept the job. Th e problem for our appraiser was that no matter how many hours he spent logged in every day, every single appraisal was already taken.

We quickly realized the problem wasn’t that our client’s bathroom break at 10:32 a.m. was precisely the moment at which an appraisal request appeared and was snapped up by another appraiser. Instead, some appraisers found a way to cheat. Th ey

purchased illicit software from an Asian company that automatically logged in every half-second of every hour of every day and grabbed any work off ered. Ca-ching!

Th e terms of the agreement with the

bank clearly stated that this approach was against the rules and could result in an appraiser getting blacklisted, but we learned that many appraisers in Arizona, Colorado, and other states did it anyway.

Today, business owners face a similar paradox in trying to drastically improve their Google ranking — getting onto page one of search results — in order to get the business they need to be profi table, or just to stay in business.

Th e book, “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies,” is more than 500 pages long and is in fact a simplifi ed look at the complex subject of search engine optimiza-

DAVE TEDLOCK

tion (SEO). We’ve studied books, read articles, attended seminars, subscribed to newsletters and used a wide range of techniques. Legitimate SEO involves dozens and dozens of techniques and never produces instant gratifi cation no matter how big the budget and intelligent the eff ort.

Th e fastest way to get page one search engine results is to scam Google by taking the exact approach Google warns against — by buying into a sophisticated link farm system. A “link farm” uses hundreds or thousands of websites, usually all of them fake, on which an organization is listed with a link to its website.

Retailer JC Penny is a notable example of a link farm user who benefi tted and eventually got caught. Google threatens to and has in fact punished cheaters by trashing their Google ranking.

Today, small organizations try the link farm system for a simple reason — they want to stay in business and be profi table. Th e risk of getting penalized by Google seems small compared to the benefi t of making money today.

Buying into a link farm system is no

guarantee of a page one listing, but it’s a huge step in that direction. What will happen, in the long run, to the organiza-tions who are cheating on Google?

Consider the fate of residential real estate appraisers who gamed the bank’s system. It took months for the bankers to realize that some appraisers were using robots to grab all the work. Appraisers who were playing by the rules complained. Th e bank’s website programmers revised the system to thwart the bots, identify the cheaters and warn them. Every appraiser I talked to ignored the warnings and kept sweeping in the work.

Is it a good idea to break Google’s rules, use a link farm, and hope the business rolls in? Is the possibility of getting blacklisted by Google worth the risk if it saves your business now? Let me know your thoughts.

Contact Dave Tedlock, president of the

website development and marketing company

NetOutcomes, at dave.tedlock@netoutcomes.

com or (520) 325-6900, ext. 157. His Technically

Speaking column appears the third Friday of

each month in Inside Tucson Business.

GOOD BUSINESS

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Mayor is checking off items on 180-day plan

Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild spoke with residents about his 180-day work plan at the Ward 6 council offi ce on Monday (April 16) saying progress has been made on initia-tives on economic de-velopment, neighbor-hood safety, open government and envi-ronmental issues.

“What we’ve tried to do in this 180-day plan was to do things that are realistic,” Rothschild said.

One of those things was to take existing funds from his offi ce budget to hire a small business advocate.

Other items in the works include reform-ing the city’s land-use code, which has been a sore spot for business owners and develop-ers for years.

“Our land-use code was and still is cum-bersome,” Rothschild said.

City offi cials have worked to update and streamline the code, Rothschild said, cutting from it more than 170 pages of redundancies and contradictions.

He said the city also has worked to maxi-mize its local contracting.

“I’m a big believer in hiring locally and purchasing locally,” Rothschild said. “And I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t.”

Rothschild’s 180th day in offi ce will be June 4.

GET ON THE LISTNext up: Architectural fi rms, Interior design fi rms, Engineering fi rms

Inside Tucson Business is gathering data for the 2013 edition of the Book of Lists. Categories that will be published in upcoming weekly issues of Inside Tucson Business are:

• April 27: Architectural fi rms, Interior de-sign fi rms, Engineering fi rms

• May 4: Defense contractors• May 11: Investment capital and lending,

Venture capitalists • May 18: Residential real estate fi rms,

Real estate brokers, Appraisers• May 25: Electrical contractors, Mechani-

cal contractors, Plumbing contractors If your business fi ts one of these catego-

ries, now is the time to update your profi le. Go to www.InsideTucsonBusiness.com and click the Book of Lists tab at the top of the page. New and unlisted businesses can cre-ate a profi le by following the directions.

Th e Book of Lists is a year-round reference for thousands of businesses and individuals. To advertise your business, call (520) 294-1200.

RETAILNo Tucson stores on Best Buy closures list

Best Buy’s store at the Promenade in Casa Grande has been identifi ed as one of the fi rst 50 the electronics retailer will close — and quickly, by May 12.

Th e company, which in February closed a store at Scottsdale Pavilion, said a store in Peoria is the only other Arizona store cur-rently on its list of closures, although it said it anticipates closing three other stores by the end of summer.

Th e company, which had 1,099 stores at the beginning of the year. says it is clos-ing stores in an eff ort to save the company as part of an initiative to save $250 million this fi scal year and $800 million by 2015. In Southern Arizona, Best Buy currently has three stores in Tucson and one each in Oro Valley and Sierra Vista.

Th e retailer said it is working with em-ployees at aff ected stores to either fi nd new positions elsewhere or off er a severance package.

LEGALAir Force helps withclaims from sonic boom

U.S. Air Force claims representatives are scheduled to be at the Murphy-Wilmot Li-brary today (April 20) to discuss legal claims related to a sonic boom that was reported over Tucson April 13.

Representatives will be available to dis-cuss claims and assist with fi ling them as well as answer questions about the claims process and provide forms.

To fi le a claim, residents are requested to bring:

• Proof of ownership of the damaged property (or a power of attorney from the owner)

• A receipt for the repair (if the repair has been made)

• An estimate for any repair needed (two estimates if it will cost over $1,000)

• Photographs of the damage (if possible)A claims team will inspect the damage at

your convenience.Th e claims representatives will be at the

Murphy-Wilmot Library, 530 N. Wilmot Road, from noon-5 p.m. Questions should be directed to the legal offi ce of the 355th Fight-er Wing at (520) 954-0146.

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE Newmark Grubb Knight Frankis new name for Grubb & Ellis

Commercial real estate fi rm Grubb & Ellis Co. is now Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.

Th e new name refl ects the combination of two fi rms owned by BGC Partners, New-mark Knight Frank and Grubb & Ellis, which was acquired out of bankruptcy.

Th e company will continue to operate in Tucson under the new banner with an offi ce at 3709 N. Campbell Ave., Suite 135. Th ere are about 15 employees in the Tucson offi ce.

POLITICSBarber strikes fi rst inspecial election campaign

Even before the vote tallies were com-plete in Tuesday’s special Republican prima-ry, Democrat Ron Barber issued a statement calling out Jesse Kelly on policies Barber said will benefi t the rich at the expense of the middle class.

Kelly won the primary garnering 35.6 per-cent of the 72,805 votes cast. Perhaps the big-gest surprise of the election is that former Air Force pilot and political newcomer Martha McSally came in second with 25 percent of the vote. State Sen. Frank Antenori was third with 22 percent and broadcaster and market-ing executive Dave Sitton got 17 percent.

Barber, former district chief of staff for Gabrielle Giff ords who represented the dis-trict until she resigned in January, was unop-posed in the Democratic primary.

ROTHSCHILD

Tim

Gla

ss


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SALC votes to back extension

of education state sales taxBy Hank StephensonInside Tucson Business

Th e Southern Arizona Leadership Coun-cil, the Tucson region’s business sector proponent for education, has voted unani-mously to back an initiative that would make permanent the state’s one-cent sales tax in-crease.

Th e temporary three-year tax approved by voters in May 2010 automatically expires May 31, 2013.

“It’s time to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to education,” said Ron Shoopman, president of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC). “And we’ve come to the conclusion, after years of study, that there is no other remedy for Arizona that’s going to work until we solve some of the cash fl ow problem that exists in our schools.”

Education boosters headed by Ann-Eve Pedersen, president of the Arizona Educa-tion Network, have started gathering signa-tures seeking to put a question on the Nov. 6 ballot that would extend the sales tax indefi -nitely, maintaining a combined state sales tax of 6.6 percent.

Th e group must gather 172,809 signatures before July 5 to get the initiative on the bal-lot, but Pedersen said they are already get-ting signatures at a record pace.

Th e initiative states that 80 percent of the expected $1 billion per year would be direct-ly dedicated to education, much of that is to fund a set of new state mandates on schools such as Move on When Reading, which re-quires third grade students to read at grade level before graduating to fourth grade.

Other reforms, including performance pay for teachers, a new district grading sys-tem and common course standards, are set to be implemented in the next few years, but don’t have a dedicated funding source.

“Th ese are pretty rigorous reforms that are coming online but there has been no resources attached to them,” Pedersen said.

“We’ve raised the bar for students and teach-ers, but we haven’t given them the pole vault they need to get over the bar, so that’s what we’re going with this initiative.”

Some of the income would also be dedi-cated to helping schools serving students of low-income families, pay for operations and infrastructure at the state’s three universi-ties, create community college and univer-sity scholarship funds, and invest in career and technical training in the community college system.

Additionally, the initiative declares that the Legislature cannot cut education fund-ing from other sources, eliminating what Pedersen calls the “shell game” lawmakers could play with money dedicated for educa-tion.

“Th at’s not to say (legislators) won’t try to monkey with the money,” she cautioned. “But we’ve really made this as bulletproof as possible.”

It’s not just schools that would benefi t from the measure. Of the fi rst $1 billion col-lected, 10 percent per year, or $100 million, would go directly to a state infrastructure fund.

Th e proposal also protects the Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) from the kind of dramatic sweeps it has experienced in re-cent years. Th e language makes sure money dedicated for repairing roads and highways is spent that way, which will help cities and counties, which are now picking up the tab, said Pedersen.

It’s this mix of education and investment in transportation infrastructure and educa-tion that made backing the proposal such an easy decision for board members of the SALC, said Shoopman.

Increasing the state’s investment in in-frastructure will create immediate jobs and build the transportation systems on which businesses rely, he said. And the state’s edu-cation system has been a major problem to business, especially the high-tech business-es, looking to relocate here.


A Celebration of Marketplace Excellence

Dale DautenAuthor of six books,

including The Gifted Bossand The LaughingWarriors

Key

note

Spe

aker

Tom McNamaraKVOA Anchor

Mas

ter

of C

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onie

s

Title Sponsor

PEOPLE IN ACTION AWARDS

In recognition of their professionalism, exceptional service and commitment to quality care in 2011, Oro Valley Hospital has named Cathy Flores, RN, Employee of the Year; Mike Zoucha, pharmacy director, Clinical Employee of the Year; and Mike Mumford, nutritional services director, Non-Clinical Employee of the Year.

Four Tucson-area Allstate Agents have received the Agency Hands in the Community award for their commitment to helping others in their area. With this award comes a $1,000 grant

from The Allstate Foundation for the local organizations where they volunteer. Alex Garcia supported Mentorkids USA Tucson, Inc.; Beatriz Parada-Bohon supported Tu Nidito Children and Family Services; Debe Campos-Fleenor supported American Heart Association, Inc.; and Craig Pretzinger supported Tumbleweeds Gymnastics Booster Club, Inc. To qualify for the grant, agents and personal fi nancial representatives must show evidence of volunteer work that has had a positive impact on the local community.

Pima Community

College instructor Dr. Dolores Durán-Cerda has been named Teacher of the Year in Arizona by the Arizona Language Association. The award recognizes teaching excellence and outstanding service in foreign language education. Durán-Cerda is a member of the World

Languages faculty at Downtown Campus, where she teaches Spanish. She is president of PCC’s Faculty Senate, serves as a campus honors coordinator, and is a member of the World Languages Academic Advisory Committee of the College Board.

IBM has announced the appointment of seven new IBM Fellows, a prestigious honor that has a direct correlation to the company’s innovation and technology leadership. Among the group is Vincent Hsu of Tucson. Hsu has a long history of innovation in storage system architectures, creating workload optimized solutions through intelligent data placements and championing IBM’s increasing success in growth markets. IBM Fellow is the company’s pre-eminent technical distinction, granted in recognition of outstanding and sustained technical achievements and leadership in engineering,

programming, services, science and technology.

APPOINTMENTS

Karen L. Burns has been appointed to business analyst for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), a business counseling, training and education service hosted by Microbusiness Advancement Center (MAC) in Pima County. Burns consults with commercial clients to create strategies to access debt fi nancing and restructure existing debt. Burns earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Arizona.

CATHY FLORES MIKE ZOUCHA MIKE MUMFORD

Now your business can tell Inside Tucson Business about new hires, promotions and special awards online. Go to www.insidetucsonbusiness.com and click the “People in Action” button. From there you can submit your announcement and we’ll publish it online and in print.

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CALENDARSPECIAL EVENTS

BBB Torch AwardsThursday (April 26)11 a.m. to 1 p.m.JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa 3800 W. Starr Pass Boulevard The 2012 BBB Torch Awards Luncheon will recognize three outstanding southern Arizona businesseRSVP: Sara Shambo [email protected] (520) 888-6161 Cost: $65www.tucson.bbb.org/torchawards

Tucson Means Business ForumThursday (April 26) 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.Tucson Police Department West Division 1310 W. Miracle Mile RSVP: David Higuera [email protected] or (520) 791-4711http://cms3.tucsonaz.gov/businessDescription: Learn how to do business with and in the City of Tucson. Hear from Mayor Rothschild and other city offi cials. Lunch provided by Blue Willow.

Tucson Dowsers May PresentationSaturday (May 5)1 to 3 p.m. Unity of Tucson 3617 N. Camino BlancoWrap-up gathering for the season includes a panel of experienced dowsers.Contact: Terry Klunk [email protected] or (520) 531-8039$5 suggested donation www.TucsonDowsers.org

REGULAR MEETINGS

Networking Club in Northwest TucsonAli Lassen’s leads clubFirst Wednesday noon to 1 p.m. Sullivan’s Steak House 1785 E. River RoadRSVP: Johnna Fox (866) 551-3720

Networking Entrepreneurs of TucsonNetworking breakfastFirst and third Wednesday 7 to 8:30 a.m.Hometown Buffet 5101 N. Oracle RoadInformation: (520) 240-4552

Northern Pima County Chamber of Commerce Monthly Membership BreakfastFourth Thursday of the month7 to 8:30 a.m.El Charro Café 7725 N. Oracle Roadhttp://the-chamber.com

Northwest Power Group (referral group)Mondays 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.Hilton El Conquistador Country Club,10555 N. La Cañada DriveRSVP: (520) 229-8283Cost: $50 one-time fee (fi rst two visits free)

Northwest Power GroupNetworking business groupEvery Tuesday 7:15 to 8:30 a.m.

Village Inn 6251 N. Oracle RoadRSVP: Don at (520) 777-4240Cost: Breakfast

Oro Valley Business Club Monthly LuncheonFirst Thursday of each month.Carrabbas Italian Grill7635 N. Oracle Rd.Information: www.scoretucson.org, (520) 670-5008Cost: $15 members and non-members

Oro Valley Kiwanis Club Every Wednesday

6:45 to 8 a.m. Resurrection Lutheran Church Outreach Center11575 N. 1st Ave.Information: Gary Kling (520) 818-3278

Pima Rotary ClubWeekly meetingEvery Friday except the last Friday of the month11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Chad’s Steakhouse 3001 N. Swan RoadInformation: www.pimarotary.orgNote: Bring your own lunch

Pima Rotary Club Monthly membership mixerLast Friday 5 to 7 p.m.Location variesInformation: [email protected]

Project Management Institute (PMI) Tucson ChapterSecond Tuesday of the month5:30 to 7:30 p.m.Hotel Arizona181 W. BroadwayInformation: www.pmi-tucson.org or [email protected]: $25 members, $30 nonmembers


TUCSON STOCK EXCHANGEStock market quotations of some publicly traded companies doing business in Southern Arizona

Company Name Symbol April. 18 April. 11 Change52-Week

Low52-Week

HighTucson companiesApplied Energetics Inc AERG.OB 0.06 0.07 -0.01 0.04 0.89CDEX Inc CEXI.OB 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.01 0.10Providence Service Corp PRSC 14.79 14.71 0.08 8.35 15.94UniSource Energy Corp (Tucson Electric Power) UNS 35.76 35.54 0.22 32.96 39.25

Southern Arizona presenceAlcoa Inc (Huck Fasteners) AA 9.95 9.90 0.05 8.45 17.96AMR Corp (American Airlines) AMR 0.48 0.50 -0.02 0.20 6.96Augusta Resource Corp (Rosemont Mine) AZC 2.59 2.64 -0.05 2.10 5.55Bank Of America Corp BAC 8.92 8.86 0.06 4.92 12.71Bank of Montreal (M&I Bank) BMO 59.69 57.93 1.76 51.83 66.64BBVA Compass BBV 6.80 7.14 -0.34 6.74 13.01Berkshire Hathaway (Geico, Long Cos) BRK-B* 79.74 79.05 0.69 65.35 86.91Best Buy Co Inc BBY 22.06 21.96 0.10 21.21 32.85BOK Financial Corp (Bank of Arizona) BOKF 54.20 54.22 -0.02 43.77 59.59Bombardier Inc* (Bombardier Aerospace) BBDB 4.10 3.93 0.17 3.30 7.29CB Richard Ellis Group CBG 18.34 18.27 0.07 12.30 29.88Citigroup Inc C 35.08 33.58 1.50 21.40 46.00Comcast Corp CMCSA 29.86 28.98 0.88 19.19 30.41Community Health Sys (Northwest Med Cntrs) CYH 24.03 21.38 2.65 14.61 32.24Computer Sciences Corp CSC 27.85 27.39 0.46 22.80 51.43Convergys Corp CVG 13.33 13.05 0.28 8.49 14.55Costco Wholesale Corp COST 88.07 87.32 0.75 70.22 92.10CenturyLink (Qwest Communications) CTL 38.40 38.12 0.28 31.16 43.49Cvs/Caremark (CVS pharmacy) CVS 43.60 43.75 -0.15 31.16 45.88Delta Air Lines DAL 10.53 9.91 0.62 6.41 11.60Dillard Department Stores DDS 64.29 62.37 1.92 38.99 64.84Dover Corp (Sargent Controls & Aerospace) DOV 61.04 60.15 0.89 43.64 70.15DR Horton Inc DHI 14.87 14.73 0.14 8.03 16.45Freeport-McMoRan (Phelps Dodge) FCX 38.29 35.78 2.51 28.85 56.78Granite Construction Inc GVA 27.77 27.47 0.30 16.92 30.49Home Depot Inc HD 51.81 49.75 2.06 28.13 52.15Honeywell Intl Inc HON 58.73 57.08 1.65 41.22 62.28IBM IBM 200.13 202.58 -2.45 157.13 210.69Iron Mountain IRM 29.22 28.89 0.33 27.68 35.79Intuit Inc INTU 61.43 60.03 1.40 39.87 62.33Journal Communications (KGUN 9, KMXZ) JRN 4.68 4.87 -0.19 2.69 5.72JP Morgan Chase & Co JPM 43.29 44.01 -0.72 27.85 46.49Kaman Corp (Electro-Optics Develpmnt Cntr) KAMN 33.67 32.70 0.97 25.73 38.40KB Home KBH 7.72 8.19 -0.47 5.02 13.12Kohls Corp KSS 51.01 49.23 1.78 42.14 57.39Kroger Co (Fry's Food Stores) KR 23.49 23.46 0.03 21.14 25.85Lee Enterprises (Arizona Daily Star) LEE 1.15 1.14 0.01 0.49 2.46Lennar Corporation LEN 25.55 25.75 -0.20 12.14 28.28Lowe's Cos (Lowe's Home Improvement) LOW 31.96 31.02 0.94 18.07 32.29Loews Corp (Ventana Canyon Resort) L 39.65 38.79 0.86 32.90 44.46Macerich Co (Westcor, La Encantada) MAC 58.62 57.13 1.49 38.64 59.32Macy's Inc M 40.13 39.39 0.74 22.66 41.27Marriott Intl Inc MAR 37.83 37.34 0.49 25.49 38.83Meritage Homes Corp MTH 25.96 25.52 0.44 13.68 29.32Northern Trust Corp NTRS 46.55 46.02 0.53 33.20 50.20Northrop Grumman Corp NOC 61.92 60.19 1.73 49.20 70.61Penney, J.C. JCP 33.87 34.43 -0.56 23.44 43.18Pulte Homes Inc (Pulte, Del Webb) PHM 8.37 8.39 -0.02 3.29 9.69Raytheon Co (Raytheon Missile Systems) RTN 52.93 51.51 1.42 38.35 53.20Roche Holdings AG (Ventana Medical Systems) RHHBY 44.47 42.00 2.47 34.02 45.65Safeway Inc SWY 21.92 20.19 1.73 15.93 25.43Sanofi -Aventis SA SNY 36.98 36.51 0.47 30.98 40.75Sears Holdings (Sears, Kmart, Customer Care) SHLD 56.01 58.66 -2.65 28.89 87.66SkyWest Inc SKYW 9.68 10.60 -0.92 9.63 16.92Southwest Airlines Co LUV 7.89 7.95 -0.06 7.15 12.44Southwest Gas Corp SWX 41.36 41.32 0.04 32.12 43.64Stantec Inc STN 30.94 30.69 0.25 20.96 32.79Target Corp TGT 57.38 57.20 0.18 45.28 58.95TeleTech Holdings Inc TTEC 15.77 16.06 -0.29 14.10 22.39Texas Instruments Inc TXN 32.72 31.99 0.73 24.34 35.98Time Warner Inc (AOL) TWX 36.22 35.72 0.50 27.62 39.24Ual Corp (United Airlines) UAUA 22.70 21.04 1.66 15.51 26.84Union Pacifi c Corp UNP 109.65 105.80 3.85 77.73 117.40Apollo Group Inc (University of Phoenix) APOL 35.92 36.26 -0.34 35.45 58.29US Airways Group Inc LCC 8.20 7.62 0.58 3.96 10.35US Bancorp (US Bank) USB 31.30 30.87 0.43 20.10 32.23Wal-Mart Stores Inc (Wal-Mart, Sam's Club) WMT 62.06 59.80 2.26 48.31 62.63Walgreen Co WAG 35.51 33.08 2.43 30.34 45.34Wells Fargo & Co WFC 33.57 33.62 -0.05 22.58 34.59Western Alliance Bancorp (Alliance Bank) WAL 8.51 8.69 -0.18 4.44 9.20Zions Bancorp (National Bank of Arizona) ZION 21.17 20.84 0.33 13.18 24.71Data Source: Dow Jones Market Watch

*Quotes in U.S. dollars, except Bombardier is Canadian dollars.

FINANCEYOUR MONEY

Th inking about converting toa Roth IRA? Weigh the factors

Th inking about converting to a Roth Individual Retirement Account (IRA)?

While many people will make that decision more from their hearts than their heads, one important question to ask yourself is, how long can you keep your money in a Roth IRA?

If you decide to convert, here are some other factors and strategies that will help you now and in the future:

Non-deductible contributions

Income limits prevent many people from making tax-deductible contributions to a traditional retirement account. In 2011, the maximum permitted contribution to a non-deductible IRA was $5,000, or $6,000 if you were 50 or older at year-end.

Th e Internal Revenue Service says when calculating the taxable and non-taxable amounts of a conversion, all of your traditional IRAs, including Simplifi ed Employee Pension (SEP) and Simple IRAs, must be included.

Here’s the bottom line: You cannot just withdraw or convert the non-deductible fund and pay no income tax, even if the non-deductible IRA contributions were kept in a separate IRA.

Any year you make non-deductible contributions, you must fi le Form 8606 which details the non-taxable portion of your IRA.

RecharacterizationA recharacterization will undo a Roth

conversion. It has been called the “do over option,” which can be exercised any time before the due date of your income tax return for the year of the conversion, including extensions.

Recharacterizations for 2011 can be made through Oct. 15, 2012. One of the most common reasons to reverse a conversion is that the portfolio’s value has declined after the conversion to a Roth IRA.

First, establish a new Roth IRA to hold each year’s conversion amount separate from any of your existing Roth IRAs. Th is will make it easier to identify the funds being recharacterized. If the funds are commingled, the recharacterization process can become more complicated.

Next, consider establishing multiple Roth IRA accounts if you are converting a large amount of money. If you have multiple asset classes in one Roth IRA, the tax eff ect of losses and gains are propor-tional to the account.

But if you maintain multiple Roth IRAs, each with a single asset class (examples:

U.S. Large Cap, Domestic Small Caps, Foreign Stocks, Emerging Market Stocks, Commodities, etc.) you can pick and choose recharac-terizations to take advantage of the tax break.

For example, assume you have $500,000 in your retire-ment account. You decide to convert $100,000 and set up four accounts, with $25,000 in each account. You can keep the best performers as Roth IRAs and recharac-terize the laggards back to traditional IRAs.

Tax bracket strategyWhat tax bracket will you be in the year

of the conversion?In choosing the “optimum” amount to

convert to a Roth IRA, you most likely would convert an amount that would be taxed at a rate equal to or less than your projected future tax rate.

For example, if you are in the lowest tax bracket, your strategy may require a series of partial conversions each year to remain in the 15 percent federal tax bracket.

Be aware: various deductions and credits, such as medical expenses and the child tax credit, may be impacted. Parents of students may fi nd that increasing adjusted gross income will reduce their eligibility for college fi nancial aid and scholarships.

Another important tax consideration is that you must make sure you have funds available in a non-retirement account to pay the taxes that will be due on conver-sion.

It is important to work with your tax adviser to evaluate all the results of a Roth IRA conversion and see if they will diff er if the conversion is shifted from one year to another.

Next January, the Bush era tax cuts are set to expire so this may be your best year to convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA at our currently lower tax rates.

Restrictions, penalties, and taxes may apply. Unless certain criteria are met, Roth IRA owners must be 59½ or older and have held the IRA for fi ve years before tax-free withdrawals are permitted.

Contact Drew Blease, president and

founder of Blease Financial Services, 7358 N. La

Cholla Blvd., Suite 100, at drewblease@

bleasefi nancial.com or (520) 299-7172.

DREW BLEASE


INSIDE REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION

By Roger YohemInside Tucson Business

In 1982 with assistance from W. E. O’Neil Industries, long-time Tucsonan Tom Roof opened his general contractor’s business as T.L. Roof & Associates Construction Company.

Over the years it thrived, building such landmark projects as the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain Resort, La Encantada shopping center, the Arizona Cancer Center, Joesler Village, Trico Electric Cooperative’s corpo-rate headquarters, and even telescopes on Mount Graham.

In April 2011, Roof’s company, formally structured as a subsidiary of O’Neil, changed its name to better align its business connec-tions with its Chicago-based corporate owners. Roof’s Tucson business became W.E. O’Neil Construction Company.

Th at was all that changed. Roof’s local executives, managers and employees re-mained in place, working out of their long-time base at 710 S. Campbell Ave.

Now celebrating its 30th year, the com-pany attributes its success to “operating with integrity and commitment to our busi-ness partners” said John Hobbs, president of the Tucson division of O’Neil Construc-tion. “Th e beauty in this relationship is that our customers get to work with local people with local decision-making power, people who live and work in our community with national experience and fi nancial strength behind us should we need that assistance.”

As a full-service contractor, the company also has built dozens of schools, retail cen-ters, churches, high-tech manufacturing fa-cilities, aircraft hangars, hotels and resorts throughout Southern Arizona and the state. Th e corporation itself operates nationally.

Roof came to Tucson in 1951. His fi rst

project in 1982 was for the University of Ari-zona, doing fi re safety improvements. Hobbs joined the O’Neil Companies in 1984 as vice president of operations in Phoenix. He became Tucson offi ce president in 2004.

During its 30 years in business, the com-pany’s clients have included the City of Tuc-son, Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson Electric Power, Cottonwood Properties, Tucson Unifi ed School District, Bombar-dier, Marriott Corporation, Caterpillar, Tuc-son Medical Center, Nature Conservancy, and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Business-friendly tourIn an eff ort to demonstrate its business-

friendly policies, Sahuarita town offi cials and business leaders will host a special eco-nomic development event May 2. Th e Com-mercial Broker and Economic Development Tour will showcase the town’s business, medical and industrial opportunities.

Mayor Duane Blumberg will host the event with Bob Sharpe, president of Rancho Sahuarita, and Jordan Feld, planning direc-tor for the Tucson Airport Authority.

Sahuarita is targeting regional business interests promoting that it has no impact

O’Neil Construction Company: 30 years under one Roof

THE PULSE: TUCSON REAL ESTATE

4/9/2012 4/2/2012

Median Price $140,500 $139,500Active Listings 5,899 6,014New Listings 329 348Pending Sales 477 442Homes Closed 192 194Source: Long Realty Research Center

WEEKLY MORTGAGE RATES

Program Current Last WeekOne

Year Ago12 Month

High12 Month

Low

30 YEAR 3.88% 4.125%APR 4.00% 4.25%APR 4.95% 4.95% 3.88%

15 YEAR 3.38% 3.50%APR 3.50% 3.625% APR 4.22% 4.22% 3.16%

3/1 ARM 3.00% 3.375%APR 3.00% 3.375% APRThe above rates have a 1% origination fee and 0 discount . FNMA/FHLMC maximum conforming loan amount is $417,000 Conventional Jumbo loans are loans above $417,000Information provided by Randy Hotchkiss National Certifi ed Mortgage Consultant (CMC), Hotchkiss Financial Inc. P.O. Box 43712 Tucson, AZ 85733. (520) 324-0000. MB #0905432. Rates are subject to change without notice based upon market conditions.

4/10/2012

Founder Tom Roof (left) celebrates the 30-year alliance of T.L. Roof & Associates and O’Neil Construction with president John Hobbs.

fees, no business license fees, no city prop-erty tax and a new streamlined process for permits, development plans and plats.

To tap interested companies, the tour will meet in downtown Tucson at Maynards Restaurant, 400 N. Toole Ave., to board tour buses. Attendance is free but limited to 55 people. To reserve a spot contact Sandy Kli-jian at [email protected] or (520) 299-8766.

4 home indices upAs an indication the home market may be

stabilizing, four of fi ve key measurements were headed in the right direction in March, according to new data from the Tucson Asso-ciation of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

Th e good signs included higher average and median sales prices, and an increase in total homes sold compared to February. Plus, active listings fell, a movement that fi rms up prices.

Th e adverse sign was a 14.6 percent jump in new listings. Th ere were 1,971 new list-ings in March compared to 1,720 in Febru-ary. Th e rise was not unexpected, as analysts have predicted for months that once prices began to increase, sellers who had pulled their homes off the market would re-list and swell the inventory.

Despite the increase, the overall condi-tions are looking better.

“It looks like the start of a small upward movement. Th ere are reports of good traffi c and good buyers. Th ere is a note of opti-mism,” said housing analyst John Strobeck of Bright Future Business Consultants.

For March, the average sales price was $168,153, a slight 2.2 percent increase over February. Th e median mark was even better at 6.3 percent, jumping $7,900 to $132,900. To-tal home sales were 1,387 compared to 1,019

in February, a 36 percent improvement.Th e Realtors reported an 8.6 percent de-

cline in listings, falling from 4,560 in Febru-ary to 4,168 in March. One year ago, there were 6,703 homes for sale.

Open houses galoreIn anticipation of next week’s Nation-

wide Open House Weekend, Tucson-area real estate agents are urging potential home buyers to prepare now to take advantage of the event. Analyze locations, research neighborhoods, and map out a plan to max-imize time and eff ort.

With regional prices show signs of stabi-lizing and increasing, “now is the time to buy in Tucson considering the historically low interest rates and favorable pricing,” said Phil Tedesco, CEO of the Tucson Asso-ciation of Realtors. “Th e statistics indicate inventory is dropping.”

Th e Nationwide Open House is April 28 and 29. Details and locations for the Tucson area are online at www.tarmls.com.

Lennar buys 29 lotsHome builder Lennar Arizona has pur-

chased 29 lots for $1.96 million in Marana’s Dove Mountain community from Miramon-te at Dove Mountain LLC. Th e lots are in the Preserve III development at the northwest corner of North Camino de Oeste and West Tangerine Road.

Th e acquisition is “another indication of our market’s real estate recovery and the confi dence builders are now beginning to regain,” said Will White of Land Advisors Organization who handled the transaction.

Sales and leases• Community Extension Programs pur-

chased a 6,380 square-foot offi ce building at 50 E. Croydon Park Road for $700,000 from Wells Fargo, represented by Rick Kleiner, Picor Commercial Real Estate Services. Th e buyer was represented by Doug Richardson, Tucson Realty & Trust.

• All Pro Hydrojetting and Pumping LLC purchased 6,929 square feet at 5959 S. Belvedere Ave. for $345,000 from Bank of America, represented by Rob Glaser and Brandon Rodgers, Picor. Mike Beck, Henry Zipf Realty, represented the buyer.

• Dr. Th ili Kulatilake purchased a 2,086 square feet offi ce/condo at 4574 N. First Ave. in Rillito Business Park for $300,000 from Guy Petersen MDSC Pension, repre-sented by Chuck Corriere, Keller Williams. Th e buyer was represented by Tony Reed, Long Realty.

Email news items for this column to

[email protected]. Inside Real Estate &

Construction appears weekly.

O’N

eil C

onst

ruct

ion


It’s hard to believe it was just three years that Circuit City threw in the towel and shut down. Th e nation’s two large format electronics retailers had duked it out and Best Buy defeated its nemesis.

Now look what’s happened. It’s Best Buy that’s on the ropes. So far the company’s four stores in the Tucson region have been spared but the fact is the company is on a fast-track to cut expenses and closing stores is sup-posed to save $250 million this year.

In announcing their planned cuts last month, Best Buy offi cials said they’re tired of being a showroom for electronics, only to have customers go off and actually buy products elsewhere.

I don’t doubt that’s an issue but at the same time, when was the last time Best Buy encouraged you to buy from them? I know it happens. Our daughter and son-in-law needed a new dishwasher and after shopping at two or three other stores found and bought what they wanted at Best Buy.

On the other hand a colleague told a story a couple of weeks ago of wanting to buy a particular camera for a trip. She had done her homework online and liked a particular model because it had the features she wanted and was small enough to fi t in her bag. According to Best Buy’s website, a nearby store had the camera in stock at a fair price so she went get it so she could have it now.

She resisted the clerk’s eff orts to sell her a diff erent, larger camera only to fi nd out that, despite what the website indicated, the store did not have the camera she wanted in stock. Th e store in Oro Valley had it in stock and the clerk told her she could go there. Th e clerk didn’t off er to help her get it. She left, ordered it from an online store, not Best Buy, and had it delivered.

Frankly, I’m old-school enough to think value when I shop. I’m still lamenting the fact that Roh’s Fine Home Electronics closed last year. Now there was a store that sold quality mer-chandise, had the expertise and competitive pricing, not mention the fact that it was locally owned.

Unfortunately, it’s getting harder to shop value. Th ink about that the next time you buy an airline ticket online. Th e default way to shop is by cheapest price, even if it means paying to check bags or wasting an hour or more taking a connecting fl ight. Th en, we wind up gloating that we bought a $79 ticket but complain because airlines treat us like cattle. What do we expect?

Curiously, one of Best Buy’s initiatives is to open more smaller stores in malls and promote service. It seems to me Radio Shack tried to do something similar but hasn’t fi gured it out.

Th is issue of Inside Tucson Business includes coverage by reporter Roger Yohem of last week’s Global Retailing Confer-ence put on by the University of Arizona’s Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing. Th e theme of the conference was “Innovat-ing Customer Engagement.”

It’s exciting to read what could be happening in retail. Much of it has to do with technology. If even some of it works, it might even be worth shopping again.

Contact David Hatfi eld at dhatfi [email protected]

or (520) 295-4237.

EDITORIAL

DAVID HATFIELD

BIZ BUZZ

Trying to fi gure outwhat shoppers want

EDITORIAL

Winning a battle, losing the warRepublican voters who spoke in this week’s special

primary election decided that Jesse Kelly is the candi-date they think should go up against Democrat Ron Barber to fi ll the Congressional seat vacated in January by Gabrielle Giff ords.

Sadly, unless something unexpected happens, most political strategists believe the Republicans have essentially ceded the June 12 special election to Barber, who was Giff ords district chief of staff .

Th at’s notwithstanding poll results released the day before Tuesday’s election saying Kelly would have a 4 percentage point lead in a head-to-head race with Barber. Th e same poll also said that two of the other candidates, Martha McSally and Dave Sitton, were within the survey’s nearly 6 percentage point margin of error. And state Sen. Frank Antenori wasn’t that far out of range, lagging a full 6 percentage points.

Although the poll was done by National Research Inc., a well-regarded Republican polling organization based in Holmdel, N.J., neither the Kelly campaign nor the National Republican Congressional Committee acknowledged ordering it, so we don’t know the motivation or whether anyone who counts believes it.

The significant margin of error probably has to do with the small sample, just 300 likely voters. Likely voters? That’s just it, who knows who are the people likely to vote in a June 12 special election? Turnout for such elections is often low, although this week’s turnout among all voters was a rather respectable 28 percent.

And when it comes to Barber, without a primary opponent his campaign was able to lie in wait while building a tidy war chest of nearly $550,000 that it began to unleash with a TV spot the day after the primary this week.

The Kelly campaign can talk about his name ID, but that $10,000 he’s got so far for a general election campaign will be overwhelmed pretty fast.

Th ere’s no question but that Kelly is more polished at campaigning than he was two years ago when he went up against Giff ords. But 2010 was an extraordinary election year for Republicans, regaining seats in districts across in the U.S. House of Representatives. It remains to be seen whether there will be similar sentiment for Republicans this year.

Th ere is also the unique circumstance of emotion surrounding this special election. Barber was wounded in the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting that hurt his boss Giff ords so badly.

Kelly is saying the right Republican words in this year’s campaign but in the primary he wasn’t saying them to, or engendering the support from, business leaders.

He will need to do that — and convincingly so — if Republicans hope to have any chance to defeat Barber in the June election to fi nish out the last seven months of what was Giff ords’ term in Congressional District 8.

If that doesn’t happen and political strategists turn out to be correct in forecasting Barber’s victory, there is a lesson Republicans need to learn — and quickly — be-cause the next primary election is Aug. 28. Th at will be for the newly drawn Congressional District 2 and Barber has said he intends to run again. As it stands now he will face a formidable Democratic primary challenger in state Rep. Matt Heinz.

In this case, three times won’t be the charm for Jesse Kelly.

Th at means Republicans who believe Kelly’s victory this week represents the future of the party will fi nd their celebration this week to be short lived. Th ey may have won a battle but they’re losing the war.

Republicans will need to get a candidate who can win in November.


OPINION

SPEAKING OUT

(With tongue in cheek) Th e importance of banning plastic bags Rumors are “fl uttering” like plastic bag

“birds” in Tucson’s trees that the city council is about to ban plastic bags. Fads rule! Apparently when San Francisco or Portland, Ore.,nix high density polyethyl-ene products, we must too!

At a recent city council meeting, a working group of both business people and environmentalists was established. Th ey are “to come back to Mayor and Council in six months with recommendations on how best to reduce consumption of single use plastic bags.” Th ey will also “advise the council on increasing current recycling and education eff orts.”

Th e establishment of a taskforce could mean there are not suffi cient votes on the council for a ban or that a more pragmatic solution for a community problem is being sought.

In 2009 the city established a plastic bag recycling program with Phoenix-based Arizona Food Marketing Alliance (AFMA). Th e idea was that consumers would recycle their plastic bags if it was easy for them to do.

Grocery stores, pharmacies, and other large retail establishments provide reusable carry-out bags for purchase, along with a container for customers to return their

clean plastic bags for recycling. Th e baseline estimate was that 182 million plastic bags are distrib-uted in metro-politan Tucson each year, according to the Pima Association of Governments.

What progress has occurred on recycling the plastic bags? In a Jan. 27, 2012, city memo the Arizona Retailers Association and the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance reported their Tucson members had recycled 674 tons of plastic bags and other fi lm products such as shrink wrap and plastic bags from cleaners. Considering 132,000 bags per ton, this equates to 89 million plastic bags for 2011. A year earlier, in 2010, 41 million plastic bags were recycled.

Local environmentalists scoff at these numbers because there is no way to verify them. Th ey believe the goal must be to decrease the use of plastic bags, and a ban is the best way to control usage.

Part of the discussion has been the

disincentive of charging a fee for the use of plastic bags. Th e man who washes my windows says he would pay a fee per plastic bag if the money were used to clean up litter and graffi ti.

Th e Southern Arizona Green Chamber of Commerce, Tucson Clean and Beautiful and the Environmental Education Ex-change have been educating the public on the importance of recycling and reusing plastic bags. Recently the Girl Scouts, in collaboration with Bashas’ stores, collected 100,000 plastic bags. Th e Komen Race for the Cure worked with Safeway to gather 10 cubic yards of plastic fi lm.

When I ran for offi ce, I promised voters I wouldn’t support city ordinances that couldn’t be enforced. Bans fall in that category.

Th e only place I’ve found in the world with a good reason to ban plastic bags is the island community of Lamu in Kenya where I visited in 2006 and 2009. Th e donkey is the sole form of transportation for residents of Lamu. It seems the donkeys were nibbling on plastic bags, which often proved fatal. Lamu wanted to clean up garbage and litter to attract more tourists. Lamu’s district administrator persuaded his council to

prohibit the use of plastic bags. Most Kenyans don’t shop excessively, so

the ban apparently has worked. Th e donkeys are healthier. Lamu is cleaner. Th e trouble is, tourists still think twice about visiting charming Lamu because its only a little over 100 kilometers south of Somalia and its pirates.

Tucson offi cials believe their plastic bag recycling program has had “modest success,” but more must be done. Retail and grocery clerks should educate customers about alternative packaging. If we oppose a ban, we ought to bring reusable bags to stores to decrease the use of high density polyethylene products. Th e responsibility for this litter dilemma is really ours.

If we were to conduct a poll, Tucsonans might suggest there are more important things than plastic bags for the council to consider. How about road potholes and weeds in medians? Th ere is the city budget, downtown redevelopment, and of course, the local economy.

Contact Carol West at [email protected]. West served on the Tucson City Council from 1999-2007 and was a council aide from

1987-1995.

JOE HIGGINS

CHRIS DeSIMONE

WAKE UP, TUCSON

Over the past three years, there have been signifi cant changes to improve the political and economic landscape of the Tucson region. Another one happened this week with the arrival of Brent DeRaad as the new CEO of Visit Tucson, or as it’s currently offi cially named, the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau (MTCVB).DeRaad comes from Scottsdale’s tourism bu-reau where he was the executive vice presi-dent. He is walking into a situation that is ripe for a turnaround.Scottsdale branched out with its own tour-ism brand in 1987. Tucson did the same fi ve years earlier, in 1982. Scottsdale’s brand has become known world wide. Tucson’s hasn’t. We’re excited about DeRaad’s arrival and are committed to helping him make this region a buzz worthy place so lots of travelers will visit, putting fresh money into our economy.Here is a blueprint for tourism success that will serve business owners and the munici-palities they reside in.

1. Visit Tucson must be “a rising tide (that) lifts all boats.” Th e perception of the previous MTCVB leadership was laden with resort favoritism and uneven distribution of new business opportunities. Smaller hotels,

restaurants and other businesses operating within the industry are desperate for an organization they can believe in and help. A sure-fi re way to get most of them in the boat will take a big picture, even-handed approach.

2. Airlift. Bill Holmes, chief operating offi cer at the Tucson Metro Cham-ber, is chairing a workgroup with the sole purpose of increasing airlift or airline service out of Tucson International Air-port. We have participated with the group that includes business owners, hoteliers, Visit Tucson and the Tucson Airport Author-

ity. Th e issue is a classic “chicken or the egg” situation. Airlines won’t add service until they believe there are enough travel-ers to warrant it but more than 1.3 million people from zip codes in the Tucson region fl y out of Phoenix Sky Harbor because there isn’t the service they want in Tucson. Th e volume is here but we need to convince both passengers and airlines to use Tuc-son International Airport more often.

3. Mea culpa. Pima County’s perfor-mance audit of the MTCVB last year cited the agency’s own board. For years, it was handpicked to be a cross-section of folks that came to meetings drank coff ee, nod-ded, and watched other markets eclipse the Tucson region. Th at attitude doesn’t need to be defended any longer. It’s OK to acknowledge some things weren’t so great and then we can all move on.

4. More advocacy for Visit Tucson. Previous leadership of the MTCVB was basically two guys justifying their existence with fl ow charts, spreadsheets and pictures prairie dogs. Tourism has an economic impact in the Tucson region of more than $2 billion a year. It’s our largest industry. All of the businesses in the tourism industry

need to communicate one-on-one with politicians and to the public at large that tourism pays the bills and employs 21,500 Tucsonans. We’ve learned the lesson — Major League Baseball spring training, LPGA, the Copper Bowl — what happens when we take these things for granted.

Tourism is a clean industry with as-sets that are already built. Th e assets just aren’t being used enough. Old Tucson isn’t closing for the summer because it wants to. It’s closing because it needs to survive.

Tucson’s tourism industry is ripe for a turnaround and the changes are encourag-ing. For DeRaad the opportunity is there to take the good things and maximise them as well as making some hard deci-sions about some things that aren’t work-ing so well. It’s vital to our economy.All of us throughout the Tucson region need to get behind DeRaad and the new MTCVB — Visit Tucson — to make it happen.

Contact Joe Higgins and Chris DeSimone at [email protected]. Th ey host “Wake Up Tucson,” 6-8 a.m. weekdays on Th e Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Th eir blog is at www.TucsonChoices.com.

Can Tucson get some tourism mojo from Scottsdale?

Tale of two cities: Tucson and Scottsdale tourism in the last 25 years

Tourism: Tucson’s No. 1 industry takes on new leadership

Sun shines on Tucson tourism again with new leadership

1

OR OR OR

2 3 4

CAROL WEST


Phone: (520) 295-4201Fax: (520) 295-40713280 E. Hemisphere Loop, #180Tucson, AZ 85706-5027 Internet: www.azbiz.com

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CARTOONISTWES HARGIS

InsideTucsonBusiness.com

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Make the news

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Facebook Likes: 2,423Did (or will you) participate in the Imagine Greater Tucson survey?

Yes 17% No 32% I haven’t heard of it or don’t care 51%

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Did (orImag

OPINIONGUEST OPINION

In tax week: How to say that paying taxes is a conservative valueAs we left our local zoo one day three

years ago, my son, then 8, asked what wealthy family had built all the exhibits, stocked them with elephants and monkeys and giraffes, then invited the public to come and enjoy them?

The family behind the zoo, I was happy to tell my boy, was actually our own. Acting alone, our household couldn’t have hoped to create such a wonder. But by chipping in a little money each year, and combining it with the money that thousands of other fellow residents contributed, we made the zoo possible.

As I mentioned to my son, the money that made our zoo was a special kind of payment called a tax. He was impressed that a community could be so clever, collecting a few dollars from so many purses and wallets to create something so wonderful.

“That’s a good tax,” he shouted, licking his ice cream cone in satisfaction.

This week I was thinking about my son as taxpayers across the country raced to meet this year’s filing deadline for their income taxes. When’s the last time, after all, that you’ve heard anyone mention a good tax?

I can be as grumpy as the next guy when it’s time to file my federal and state income tax returns – or when my local property tax bill arrives.

But as I’ve often told both of my children, quoting from Justice Oliver

Wendell Holmes, taxes are the price we pay for civilized society. Ever since his epipha-ny at the gates of the zoo, I’ve tried to teach my son, now 11, and his 16-year-old sister about many other things our taxes pay for.

The library where we get books for free isn’t really free at all; taxes keep the doors open. The streets we drive to school and the shopping mall didn’t sprout like toadstools in some fairy-tale past. Taxes built them, and taxes keep them repaired.

Taxes, I’ve told my kids, pay our soldiers and teachers and police officers, fund our local universities, and send our astronauts into space. Taxes help keep our food safe

and our water clean. Taxes pay for the parks where we play, and the scientists who explore the heavens and the sea.

When a local tax election looms, we discuss it at the dinner table, parsing out what our family might stand to gain if it’s approved, and how much it will cost us. Sometimes, our children accompany us into the voting booth as we cast our ballots. I’ve shown our kids my tax bill, so that they’ll know there’s really no free lunch.

When they spend their allowances on bubblegum, video games, or designer clothes, I remind my youngsters that they’ve become taxpayers, too, through the sales tax charges on their receipts.

What I’m attempting to do, I suppose, is help my son and daughter see taxes not as a textbook abstraction on a civics test, but as a practical reality of their daily lives – and something worthy of serious thought, not silly sloganeering.

My children have grown up in a political climate in which millions of people seem to reflexively regard taxes as a social evil. Taxes have never been popular, nor will they ever be. But the rhetorical absolutism

of the current campaign season has given too many of us, I’m afraid, the illusion that government either has no price tag – or that its price can be paid by someone else.

I am, by habit and virtue of residence in a red state, fairly conservative. As a journalist the whole of my adult life, I’ve also been vigilant in sounding the alarm about government waste and inefficiency. But I also embrace the conservative principle that citizens should pay their bills, including the cost of what their government provides.

To help create a political climate in which Americans can talk sensibly about taxes, we have to start by talking sensibly about taxes with our children. Many of us have already acknowledged the wisdom of having The Sex Talk or The Drugs Talk or The Bullying Talk with our sons and daughters when the right time comes. Maybe it’s also time to make The Tax Talk with our kids a part of the popular culture.

This week seemed as good a time as any.Danny Heitman, a columnist for the

Baton Rouge Advocate in Louisiana, is the author of “A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.”

DANNY HEITMAN


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May 5

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$25 per person*RSVP by April 25th

Register online at www.insidetucsonbusiness.com/upandcomers

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inside tucson business 04/20/12

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