The Inside Tucson Business has been running a great series of stories picked from the last 20 years of the Tucson area’s business stories. The sad thing is the lack of true change. Development Services, headed by longtime bureaucrat, Ernie Duarte, is still a roadblock to many a small business owner in Tucson. Go to talk to CeeDee’s Jamaican Kitchen(just opened a few months ago) on Speedway and Swan about the hell they dragged him through. It took him about 18-20 months to open a restaurant that was previously a restaurant!
You take this department’s pathetic track record and combine with things like extortion payouts to Skrappy’s and $5,000 Temporary Revocable Easement application fees for signs and you really did earn the Arizona Small Business Survey’s(2008, link) ranking as Arizona’s unfriendliest municipality to operate a business in.
From insidetucsonbusiness.com:
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” City working to streamline development review process. In response to the development community, the city of Tucson is revamping its Development Services Department.
June 28, 1999
“This move brings the city’s review process to the next level,” said City Manager Luis Guitierrez. “It’ll bring substantial efficiency, customer service and predictability to plan reviews.”
The Development Review Center was first conceived in the mid-1980s as a way to bring together all reviewers from the various departments involved, (such as solid waste, water, fire, planning and engineering) into a single facility. Before that, anyone applying for a building permit would have to go from building to building and to the various departments to have a plan reviewed.
Now: The City’s development services department has long been scrutinized by the business community. This move was helpful to speed things along, but it remains an issue with the development community.”
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Memo to City Council: Fix the basics out there to help the small biz owner and then stay out the way. Screwing the true base of your economy(they employ most of the citizens) while thowing money to the glory-hogging wimps over at TREO is helping to steer your city into the toilet.
I know having martinis with Snell, Welsh and now Guymon is a little more glamorous, but roll up your sleeves and actually make it happen for small business. You’ll be glad you did.
