Hello, McFly?

You may remember the old movie Back to the Future. The premise of the film was that Marty McFly (Michael Fox) went back in time from 1985 to 1955. He then encountered his parents in the happy days of the 50’s. It might do us all some good to go back in time to get our perspective straight.

Imagine if we went back to 1955 and asked a few people if marriage should be between a man and a woman. They would probably look at us in disbelief and say “what else”? Well in our “enlightened” age we know that it can mean something quite different. And who knows what it will mean in the future if we keep going down this road.

Proposition 102  states that marriage is between a man and a woman. Why is that important? Because courts in Massachusetts and California have taken it upon themselves to redefine marriage to include same sex couples. We must first understand where marriage came from before we try to redefine it. In Genesis, the chapter in the Bible that begins “In the beginning”, God established marriage when He said that a man should leave his mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. You have probably heard this scripture quoted at weddings that you have attended. So if you are going to redefine marriage you are changing what God designed.

Opponents of prop 102 have tried to turn Say Yes to Marriage into an anti-gay issue. This is not about homosexuality, it is about marriage. The way the proposition is worded in the ballot is also deceptive as it implies that voting 'no' will keep the marriage laws that we currently have in place. The problem with this is that the courts could easily redefine marriage as they have in other states such as Massachusetts and California.

God designed men and women differently. He did it with purpose so that we would complete one another, physically, mentally and emotionally, this is the one flesh relationship (marriage) that He introduced to us in Genesis.  Voting yes for proposition 102 simply affirms that marriage is between a man and a woman. I encourage you to Say Yes to Marriage.

Depression or Recession?

Is it a depression or a recession? Either way, I think most people would conclude that we have hit a down cycle in our economy. It may take years to absorb the real estate that will be absorbed by banks and other lending institutions. And sending 700 billion dollars a year to purchase our oil from unfriendly countries has not helped the trade deficit.

In the face of all of this negative news we are seeing the federal government scramble to plug the holes in the dike and stop the flood of negativity. So what about our local government? You would hope that they would realize that we need change to stimulate our local economy. For years our community has floundered because of the inept and corrupt way that our leaders have governed.

I remember meeting with some Phoenix business people a few years ago. At the end of the meeting I asked them, “so what do you think of Tucson?” One of the men looked at me and said “do you really want to know?” Then he went on a rant “we love Tucson. It is like a waste water treatment plant, they are great to have outside of the city. You guys take all of the businesses we don’t want and we have 95% of the high tech businesses. Your roads are terrible and you don’t have sidewalks…” At about that moment I began to tune out. There has always been this rivalry between Phoenix and Tucson. They look down on us because they perceive us as being more like Mexico than the U.S. and we say that “we don’t want to be like Phoenix”.

What does that mean? We don’t want to have a vibrant business community, good roadways and, of course, quality growth? Tucson does work more like Mexico than the U.S.A. Mexico is controlled by an oligarchy. They restrict opportunity and make it difficult for anyone not a part of the elite to ever become successful. That pretty much describes Tucson. We are known as an unfriendly city for business. But, that isn’t altogether true. If you are a part of the “club”, those that are connected to the right people or hire the right consultants, business is good. Keeping the bar high and making it difficult for businesses to come to Tucson assures those businesses that are here less competition.

The politicians that are in power seem to care less about bringing in businesses that would bring higher employment for the people they serve, than they do about retaining power. The cronyism, nepotism and corruption in our city rival what you would see in any community in Mexico. What it inevitably does is create a permanent underclass, and in the case of our politicians, gives them a constituency that they can manipulate. If they really cared about the poor, they would want to lure companies to come to Tucson that would pay the people more than the politically charged “living” minimum wage that they are forever trying to raise.

Perhaps if their constituents were able to get a $20 an hour job instead of minimum wage they would no longer be dependant on them? That illustrates the challenge, they would rather have power than actually help the people they were elected to represent. We have been having meetings with city council members and business people to try to stimulate dialogue and to change the culture of our city government. Whenever a problem is brought up about city departments by a business person the standard answer is “call your councilmember to solve it”. Council members should not have to wield power over bureaucrats to get projects moving. The city council has encouraged bad behavior in government employees to retain their power in granting favors to business people that seek their help.

In the last meeting I heard something from the council members that might be encouraging. We were told that the department of developmental services was now under the direction of the city manager. The city manager has been instructed to make the department more customer service oriented. This department has been one of the biggest bottlenecks in our community. If this is truly happening then it could make a huge difference. I would like to hear from developers as to whether there has been a change in the culture at the department of developmental services. This truly would be change we could believe in.