Nogales axes development arm

Director Nils Urman said he and his two-person staff will no longer have jobs after Tuesday, the final day of the 2008-09 fiscal year, after a majority of council members said they were dissatisfied with their efforts.

"The comments were that we hadn't done anything since we'd gotten started," Urman said of the department, which was formed in April 2007. "They said all we did was (help people with) taxes."

Though no official vote was taken, Nogales City Manager Jaime Fontes said dissolution was the consensus opinion of the council at budget hearings.

Eliminating the department will save the city about $350,000, Fontes said. Nogales' 2009-2010 general fund budget is projected to be about $26 million.

A special council meeting Wednesday to discuss the department's future was canceled after the four members in favor of its elimination — Arturo Garino, Nubar Hanessian, Esther Melendez-Lopez and Olga Valdez — did not show up, leaving the council without a quorum.

"Not all of us share the belief that we need to show our face to say we are in favor or not in favor of something," Nogales Mayor Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel told the 50 or so people who attended.

The absent council members could not be reached for comment. City Clerk Letty Robinson said most of the members — who are paid a nominal monthly salary of $25 — don't spend much time at City Hall and do not use city-issued cell phones. Their home phone numbers aren't listed.

Garcia-Von Borstel said the move to get rid of the economic development unit is counterproductive when the city should be working with the port authority to take advantage of the port expansion.

"We've worked so diligently and dedicated so much time on getting that project," he said. "To have it finally happen, and then see a department such as economic development disappear is such a mistake. This department has had a vision, has had directives, and has done some good work."

Work is expected to begin this fall on the $213 million expansion of the Mariposa commercial port, a project funded by federal stimulus money. It is expected to be completed by 2012.

"This is the largest project in Nogales history, and we have to take advantage of this," said JB Manson, chairman of the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz Port Authority. "There's a lot of ideas out there as far as what could be done, but it needs to be done as a group."

The project will create an economic boom for communities on both sides of the border, said Les Harris, director of the Maquila Association of Nogales, Sonora. To be done properly, though, he said it needs input from all local jurisdictions.

Elimination of Nogales' economic development department won't mean the city will lack input on the port project, however, as Garcia-Von Borstel is on the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County's Board of Directors.

Urman said his department spent its first two years focusing on maintaining and expanding existing businesses in Nogales, with the hope of concentrating on recruiting new business once the port project was completed.

Other efforts leaned toward community development, with the department providing free tax preparation help for 723 low-income families and securing a $42,625 state grant to buy a van for the city's paratransit system.

Urman said the weak economy, combined with Nogales' high turnover among top staff and elected officials, made recruiting new business quite difficult.

"In the last two years we've had four city managers, two city attorneys, three different sets of city councils and two mayors," Urman said. "The environment is not ripe right now to be able to attract."

Adding to that turmoil: Fontes, who would take on economic development duties once the department goes away, was informed by the council two weeks ago it won't renew his contract when it expires in April 2010.

While Port Authority Chairman Manson wishes the city had been more active in bringing in new business by now, he said getting rid of the economic development department can only hurt future prospects of attracting companies to the region.

"You have to have somebody on the ground selling Nogales for them to come in," Manson said.

Instead of a formal meeting Wednesday, Garcia-Von Borstel and Councilmen Ramon Felix and Cesar Parada held an informal discussion with residents. Those who turned out criticized the decision to scrap the department.

"This is the way that you quash a community," said Kip Martin, a Nogales attorney.

Said longtime resident Lee Ann Ayers: "I'm tired of just telling people I live here because of the weather."

"The comments were that we hadn't done anything since we'd gotten started."

— Nils Urman,director of Nogales' community and economic development department