Tucson Weekly: Looking Ahead (December 4

Concluding A Two-Part Interview With Tucson's City Manager.
By Dave Devine
IN THIS SECOND part of a conversation with Tucson City Manager Luis Gutierrez, who celebrated a one-year anniversary in his top post last week, he reviews current city efforts to reduce poverty, prospects for once-a-week garbage service, and the future of the community.
Tucson Weekly: You've been concerned with poverty in the community for a long time and are now collecting data on it. What's your goal?
Luis Gutierrez: The effort stems from policy direction given by the Mayor and Council. They wish to reduce poverty in the community. First, we've looked across the organization in all the departmental budgets, trying to identifying where the relationships are to reducing poverty and trying to strengthen those efforts and those programs.
Currents This also requires a real hard look at understanding what poverty is. The Mayor and Council have indicated they're interested in holding a forum to discuss poverty reduction, and that will probably occur sometime in December.
We'll strive to develop the first plateau of that data base, hopefully leading to a baseline of information and knowledge about what poverty is in the community. Having established that baseline, the next step would be to work with the Mayor and Council to develop a more strategic approach to how we reduce it.
Out of the process will come some focus in future budgets to really meet the issue head on.
TW: Do you anticipate recommending that the Mayor and Council set some goals for reducing poverty?
LG: One of the things the Greater Tucson Economic Council's strategic economic plan implementation group has talked about is to establish some indicators of poverty and wage levels in the community, then to set forth a plan and a process to begin to measure how we're doing as a community to reduce poverty. I would envision that it would be a consideration of the Mayor and Council to identify some goals and objectives that they'd like to achieve.
TW: What's the status of the idea to go to a once-a-week garbage pickup combined with once-a-week curbside recycling?
LG: We do not have policy direction to implement any one-and-one program. I suspect that with new Council members coming on board next month, that will be a topic of discussion. It's not something that could be done in one year; it would take time to properly implement something like that.
TW: In 20 years, what do you think Tucson will be like?
LG: My vision is it will be a strong, vibrant community, but not without its problems and challenges. I believe the Mayor and Council have put policy in place in respect to strengthening ourselves from within.
We've launched some policy initiatives to strengthen the physical infrastructure side of our community, and I think that will make a real difference in the quality of life in our community.
We also have policy in place which will give us a strong downtown, one that will reflect our history and our culture and who we are as a community. Downtown is everybody's neighborhood. It's an important piece of a city. Our downtown looks pretty good and clean right now, but there isn't much happening here. Mayor and Council have put forth a posture and policy to really begin to make some changes and make some things happen.
The other important leg of the future city is the human side of the equation. That needs further work, needs future policy development, needs a perspective of coming together as a community, integrating resources in the community, to deal with our family and youth issues. But I think we're on a track and we have a focus to strengthen that human side of the equation.
We may have a few more roads--who knows, we may even have a freeway someplace over a period of 20 years. I think the vibrancy our community is going to be strong because of the track we're on and the policy development we've had. It's going to get better. There is definite focus on people, on human beings. I see a strong city.
Choose the Last Week link below to read Part One of this interview.

Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives