What a horror story Rio Nuevo has become. It's tempting to liken the state-run Rio Nuevo Board to the monster in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein": an ugly and misunderstood creation, shunned by the public, that turns on its creator.
But a more fitting analogy for the downtown development entity would be to simply think of the board as a zombie, mindlessly wreaking havoc on the public at large. The proof is in the legal fees. It's in the $25 million claim Rio Nuevo has filed against the city. Instead of building a conference hotel or an improved convention center downtown, Rio Nuevo has only built enmity.
What a waste of time this has been.
After filing a $25 million claim against the city over needed repairs at the Tucson Convention Center, Rio Nuevo Chairwoman Jodi Bain said, "We are trying to work together, and we need the community to remember that."
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That's a head-scratcher, since the claim torpedoed the flimsy mediation talks between the two sides. But really, what else would you expect from the captain of a rudderless ship?
Bain keeps insisting the claim is nothing more than a formality, preserving the district's right to sue down the line.
This is true. But Hizzoner, Jonathan Rothschild, noted Bain said the same thing about an earlier $47 million claim the district filed against the city. But that formality - she called it an olive branch - turned into a lawsuit.
"They can always withdraw this $25 million notice of claim, but that's not the behavior I have seen," the mayor said. "From the perspective of the person representing the taxpayers and the city of Tucson, this is not a step in the right direction."
Well it is, if the right direction means walking in endless circles.
When the state grabbed the Rio Nuevo reins in 2010, the hope was it would clean up the meandering mess the city had created. But here we are, a little more than two years later, and the state-run version of Rio Nuevo looks a lot like the city-run version: aimless and conflicted, a source of community indignation and embarrassment. Somehow Bain and Co. took the roughly $230 million the city spent on Rio Nuevo with little to show for it, and made it all worse.
How? Maybe they don't get that along with the outrage of the city's (mis)handling of Rio Nuevo, there is a strong community desire for something positive to still be done.
Their record is nothing unless you count nearly a million bucks in legal fees - $870,000, we reported in January - and downtown landowner Allan Norville crashing a private mediation session.
In that light, who can blame Jonathan Paton for leaving the Rio Nuevo board - even if he played a key role in creating it.
After a little more than a year on the board, Paton's last meeting was Wednesday. He is running for Congressional District 1, and Rio Nuevo is a political tar pit: Get stuck in it, and you will become a fossil.
"The main thing is that I am focusing on my congressional campaign, and it's a big district," Paton told me. "I think the citizens of Tucson need somebody that can devote the kind of time that it takes to fix a lot of these problems."
It's here the Frankenstein analogy is at its best before giving way to zombies. In both Rio Nuevo and Frankenstein, monsters are unnaturally brought to life. Their creators had good intentions - someone needed to intervene with the city's handling of Rio Nuevo. But in Frankenstein, the monster has good intentions only to be shunned for its ugliness, which makes it destructive. Here, Rio Nuevo is just ugly, destructive and no one knows the board's intentions.
Did Paton know about this most recent claim against the city?
"No," he said. "I don't have the time to focus on a lot of the things that are happening. I think that is probably a good reason why I am leaving in the first place."
How many other board members were out of the loop?
"I think we have to have won the bad-timing award," board member Mark Irvin said. "I would have just approached that differently. I was surprised about the timing of that."
Paton's departure means there are now two openings on the Rio Nuevo board. Carlotta Flores recently left the board as well.
"We need some new dynamics on that board," the mayor said.
We need more than that.
Every good horror story needs a hero. But this is Rio Nuevo, which means the community just gets hosed. Instead of a hero, we get a stack of legal bills.
Rio fatigue. I get it. Contact Josh Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com
On StarNet: Go to azstarnet.com/rionuevo for special reports and audits on Rio Nuevo.
