2003 League of Cities President's Report

Mayor Elaine Scruggs

Aug. 27, 2003

It’s hard to believe that it has been one year since we last gathered for our league’s annual conference. As usual, a lot has happened in Arizona’s 87 cities and towns during the past year. I would like to begin my report by sharing with you just a very few of the good news highlights from around our state.

Tempe was named an All-America City by the National Civic League.

Lake Havasu City received the National Parks and Recreation Association’s Excellence Award for its “Teen Break” program.

Prescott’s economic development staff won the Small Organization of the Year award from the Arizona Association for Economic Development.

“Surprise Progress” was selected as one of the nation’s top community newsletters by the City-County Communications and Marketing Association.

Our league treasurer, Apache Junction mayor Doug Coleman, received the East Valley Partnership Cox award for “Excellence in Leadership”.

The Town of Gilbert remained the fastest growing large community in the United States.

And how about the Chandler National All Stars who made it to the Little League World Series representing the western United States—and won our hearts along the way.

And, we can’t go without mentioning a current project right here in the Town of Paradise Valley, where a larger-than-life-sized bronze statue of senator Barry Goldwater is being created.

Congratulations to all of you—and to all of the rest of Arizona’s cities and towns—where good things are happening each and every year. I would like to invite all of you to send the league news of the accomplishments, honors, and awards that are most important to you so we can share your good news with all our members.

Well, as we act like tourists here in Paradise Valley this week, we realize that it is not just Arizonans who appreciate our Grand Canyon state. Thousands of people from cities and towns around the country realize our state's beauty and opportunity. These folks don't just realize it; they pack up and move their families here every month!

The pace of growth in our state shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. It is both an exciting and challenging time to be a part of leadership and management of local government in Arizona.

But with exceptional opportunities come commensurate challenges.

For the past year and continuing into the present, our cities and towns have been experiencing some of the largest budget shortfalls in our history. At the same time, we are tasked with providing more services to more residents while taking on the new responsibility of homeland security. In short, we have been having to find increasingly creative ways to do much more with much less, and to do it well.

We have worked both proactively to keep our communities safe and running smoothly - and reactively to respond to unexpected challenges and disasters.

In fact, just this year alone, Arizona cities and towns have had to respond to 33 wildfires. Thirty-three! Wildfire has been so prevalent and devastating that chances are, your community has either been directly impacted by its wrath, or you have offered resources and a helping hand to a neighboring community that was affected.

The “Kinishba” fire in the White Mountains and the Aspen fire in Tucson have only recently been suppressed after destroying more than 100,000 acres of our precious Arizona forest.

We know that we must remain vigilant and continue to support healthy forest initiatives and federal, state and local coordination to combat this ferocious problem.

But most of all, we thank our brave, tireless firefighters who continue to work relentlessly to contain fires that still burn. We owe them immeasurable gratitude for protecting our residents’ homes and their well-being.

In this light, it is truly appropriate that this year’s conference theme is: local government serving citizens 24/7.

Whether you define 24/7 as “all of the time” or “around the clock”, it literally means non-stop. And local government truly does work non-stop for the citizens of Arizona—whether it’s fighting wildfires, building and maintaining roads, making sure our water is clean and delivered to households and businesses, or ensuring laws are enforced and our citizens are safe.

Just imagine if a citizen dialed 911 and heard a message that said, “I’m sorry but your police department is on break right now, please leave a message and we’ll return your call as soon as possible.”

Or if the water plant posted a closed sign on the front door and sent employees home for a three-day weekend.

Well, all of us in this room know that those types of things just will not happen in our cities and towns.

We may come from different corners of the state, with different populations and different demographics, but we have one thing in common: we serve our citizens without fail, 24/7.

And the two prominent themes in this year’s conference will reflect the issues most on our minds—24/7—in cities and towns all across Arizona—emergency preparedness in our communities and financing all the services required in today’s municipal government.

All day Wednesday and Thursday you can choose among sessions planned to provide creative ideas about how to save money and sessions to help us better anticipate and carry out our roles in a disaster situation.

We will also hear from various dignitaries throughout our conference. Our governor, Janet Napolitano, will speak to us during our Thursday luncheon program. Senator John McCain is making time to visit us again this year, and will speak to us on Friday morning. And at Friday’s closing session, we will hear retired Air Force Captain Brian Udell relate his inspiring story of survival against all odds.

We have worked hard to put together a conference that will provide useful information for you to take back home, and also times to socialize and exchange ideas with colleagues.

But before we go forward with this year’s conference, I would like to take just a few minutes to give you a report on some of what your league has been doing all year.

As always, the league staff members spent a lot of time working on our behalf at the state capitol.

Cities and towns fared pretty well during an extremely challenging legislative session; the seventh longest in state history. We faced some tough battles—from protecting our right to use eminent domain as a redevelopment tool to making sure that state shared revenue was not used to balance the state's gaping $1 billion budget hole.

We owe a great deal of gratitude to our staunch legislative supporters. It's these friends of local government in Arizona who help keep us out of harm’s way at the state legislature. They understand that cities and towns are already struggling with budget shortfalls and being hit this year with a $70 million dollar reduction in shared revenue.

However, we were not without surprises this year.

At the very end of state budget deliberations, a proposal was made to take a portion of municipal court collections to help balance the state budget. While an effort to solve the issue in a trailer bill was not successful, we have been promised that this matter will be favorably resolved by our legislature.

Despite the dedication of a great portion of staff’s time to the legislative area, the league still provided the many services and programs, which are of immense value to our members.

To assist our newest members begin their tenure as local elected officials, the league recently held its sixth annual “Newly Elected Officials Training” in conjunction with Arizona State University. More than fifty newly elected officials participated and learned about topics that included “How to stay out of hot water” and “The basics of city government in Arizona.”

I just have to tell a quick story the opening segment of this orientation program in June. To get folks to get to know each other a little better, Cathy asked each person to introduce themselves, tell a little about why they ran for office, and then say how long they had been in office. What surprising answers we heard to that last question!

Over 2/3 of the attendees had been in office for less than a month. But two new council members from Chino Valley amazed us all when they said they had been sworn into office around 9 pm the night before - yet there they were in downtown Phoenix for an 8 am league orientation program!

I want to commend all those newly elected officials who put such high value on learning as much as they could as quickly as they could. Their arrival in Phoenix literally within days or hours or their taking office is a strong testimony of how valuable the league is as a resource to all of us.

Let’s take a moment to welcome our newest members. Will those elected officials who are attending a league conference for the first time please stand? We look forward to getting to know you over the next few days and supporting you in your positions throughout the year.

During this past year, our league provided staff support to the Municipal Finance Forum, a cooperative venture with the Arizona City/County Management Association, to convene a group of city/town managers to discuss current and future issues affecting financing municipal government. This work has gone hand-in-hand with the league's work monitoring and working with the governor’s Citizen’s Finance Review Commission and the Tax Reform for Arizona Citizen’s Committee at the legislature.

In addition, staff visited more than 30 member cities and towns. Trips were also made to the unincorporated communities of Arizona City, Black Canyon City, Dewey-Humboldt, Maricopa, San Manuel, Tonopah and Tubac to provide assistance and answer questions regarding municipal incorporation.

And let's not forget that our Strong Cities Make a Strong State program turned three years old this year. This program is a great success and has involved every Arizona city and town in some way. The Strong Cities program has been a catalyst to help us inform our residents and legislators of the vital importance of city and town services—and how these services are integral to Arizona's quality of life.

Having quite a number of legislators with a municipal background has helped in this regard. The list is impressive and growing:

• Senate President Ken Bennett is a former Prescott city councilman
• Senator Carolyn Allen is a former member of the Scottsdale planning & zoning board
• Senator Linda Binder is a former vice mayor of Lake Havasu City
• Senator Harry Mitchell is a former mayor of Tempe
• Senator Victor Soltero is a former mayor of South Tucson
• Senator Jay Tibshraeny is the former mayor of Chandler
• Representative Bill Arnold is the former mayor of Goodyear
• Representative Lucy Mason is a former Prescott city councilwoman
• Representative John Nelson is a former Phoenix city councilman
• Representative Bob Robson is a former vice mayor of Chandler

Please make sure to take a moment during the conference to personally thank these legislators who understand the role of local government first-hand and work with us at the state legislature.

Also during the year, we held our 2nd annual Cities and Towns Day at the capitol, which was a terrific success. More than 400 gathered under the big white tent on the senate lawn to meet and discuss issues important to our cities and towns. We came from Fredonia and Bisbee, St. John’s and Lake Havasu City. We were also pleased to have an address from Governor Napolitano and meet members of her staff. We came with a message of "Leave Our Shared Revenue Alone" and left knowing that message was heard and understood by many of our legislators.

In just two months, Arizona’s cities and towns will participate in the league’s 2nd annual Cities and Towns Week October 20–26, 2003—designed to collectively showcase the vital role that local government plays in the lives of our residents. More than 50 cities and towns participated last year by passing a resolution or hosting a community-wide event. We hope to have all 87 cities and towns participate in this event in 2003.

These are just a few of the highlights from the past year. As we move into 2004, we can be sure the challenges will not get easier. But we know we have the will and the commitment to survive and provide the best quality of life we possibly can for our citizens. The league is a resource available to all of us to help us. And we have each other to call upon for ideas, support, and help when needed.

By working with each other—and with our Arizona League of Cities and Towns—we will continue to be the best we can be—delivering essential services and providing leadership for the citizens of Arizona—24/7.