By a vote of 5 to 1, with Cody Ritchie not voting due to a stated conflict, the Rio Nuevo board agreed to begin negotiations on a sale and development agreement with Nor Gen and owner, Allan Norville for the 8.5 acres located adjacent to the freeway between Congress and Cushing Street, where the Greyhound bus terminal is presently located. Board member, Mark Irvin, cast the sole ‘no’ vote, and read the following into public record, that received a rousing round of applause from the audience.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to explain my vote which is to cancel the RFP and restart the process.
Perception is reality.
This is especially true given the current situation involving the behavior of Board Member Moore at our last meeting. To be blunt, the community is appalled and so am I.
Most members of this board have worked diligently to be open, transparent and to address and repair the past issues of community trust that this volunteer board inherited.
Mr. Moore in particular appears mired in the past and his past actions in not voting for the AC Marriott Hotel, the improvements to the TCC and other actions speak for themselves.
Just when real progress was being made on so many fronts, one of our members has once again made it all about himself and given the Board a bloody nose once again in the process.
I feel he has intentionally tainted the process.
I for one am tired of these shenanigans and I would hope that the Attorney General investigates this attempt by Mr. Moore to fix or rig our RFP process. To be blunt, it is both obvious and unethical.
Today, we can either allow for a tainted process to move forward or to terminate it and start over. Although the delay does not excite me, I think the latter is the right thing to do.
The RFP process is not the issue, but rather Mr. Moore is the issue.
It seems obvious that Mr. Moore has violated the procurement process with one goal – award Nor-Gen the RFP without giving an honest evaluation of the other proposal.
In the process he has violated the spirit and intent of our RFP process and stacked the cards in favor of one party. This goes against the instructions we were all given and the oath we all signed when we elected to undergo this procurement process. All of those documents are on the District’s web site and available for the citizens of this state to review.
Having been on this board since the Arizona Legislature took control of it over 4 years ago I have seen many outbursts and personal attacks by Member Moore that were obviously written by others.
I have been personally attacked by him and listened to him spread false truths not just about me but, about others who disagreed with his position.
Last week was not the first time that I have had to sit and listen to a manifesto presented by Mr. Moore be read into the record that was obviously written by others.
In having someone else wordsmith a speech for him about an active RFP process violates that process. Advocating for one party, before the rest of us had voted also violates our rules and I commend our Chair and our attorney for putting a halt to that last week.
Mr. Moore giving Nor-Gen two perfect scores of 1,000 in both the written and oral presentations, while giving Peach Properties a 700 and a 70 seems questionable.
If all the rest of the board’s scores were calculated on last week’s presentations, minus what Mr. Moore scored, the difference was 635 points and Peach Properties would have won that round by 135 points.
By Mr. Moore scoring Nor-Gen with a perfect 1,000 points and Peach Properties a 70 on the last round was a swing of 930 points on his scoring alone, versus 635 points for everyone else combined.
I do not know what relationship Mr. Moore has with Nor-Gen but he showed his cards very early on who he supported, when he invited Nor-Gen into a settlement meeting between the District and the City of Tucson a few years ago. That tarnished the settlement process back then between the parties and made local news then too.
For someone who makes statements about transparency and fair dealings, Mr. Moore also showed the community how he was going to score during a June 26th radio program when he was on with John C Scott. During that show, Mr. Moore said that Nor-Gen was going to build a 125,000 SF permanent facility to house a portion of the Gem show and meet other community needs. That plan was also going to include a 250 room hotel and a 1,200 space parking structure. The RFP response from Nor-Gen is void of those stated objectives, which is surprising given it included both their parcel and the District's in their proposal.
Mr. Moore has been highly critical of our legal expenses as well but, the community should know that the District has already incurred somewhere between $4,400 and $5,100 in legal fees related to Mr. Moore’s outburst last week and I would expect that cost to grow.
Finally, I want to touch on the Gem Show.
This board is making major improvements to the TCC Arena to enhance the Gem Show and overall fan experience for that and other venues. We know the importance of the Gem Show to this community and have been proactive in finding solutions. Other improvements to the TCC are in early discussions. The District’s roughly $8 million investment and show of good faith has brought millions of investments into the TCC from the City of Tucson and has built a lot of goodwill between us too.
The District worked diligently earlier this year with Nor-Gen to address the drainage issues on both their site and ours, which are adjacent to each other, only to be left standing at the altar.
Then, we later voted to address Nor-Gen’s need for parking by making serious accommodations on the District’s property.
Nor-Gen has stated the City of Tucson has failed to issue it a permit but I understand that only 1 permit has been requested and it was for “grading” the site. The City can speak for itself but I am not convinced that the City is an obstacle.
Likewise, Nor-Gen has claimed that the UA is going to be doing museums on his site but no one, including President Hart (of the University of Arizona) has approved any such move.
Although I appreciate all Nor-Gen has done in adding to the Gem Show every year, their track record over the past 30-plus years in building a permanent structure speaks for itself.
I hope I am wrong and that Nor-Gen, if they are the successful party, does a timely development that everyone can take pride in. Regardless of the outcome, I will do everything I can to ensure that whoever the successful party is that we move forward with them in a timely manner. Even if I do not like a decision I will follow the decision of the majority.
As stated at the beginning, the room broke into rousing applause after Irvin’s remarks as they expressed what so many in the room believed - the process was tainted and had an all too familiar stench of cronyism.
But there was no further discussion to terminate the RFP and many from the public, real estate developers, professionals, and others left disappointed that they weren’t given a chance to voice their opinion before the vote was taken.
The board will now proceed to negotiate terms of a development agreement with Nor Gen, but may terminate those negotiations and proceed with negotiating with the second proposer if Rio Nuevo and Nor Gen fail to reach an agreement. The Executive Committee and legal counsel are to meet with Nor Gen for these negotiations and yet again, Alberto Moore insisted that he be at those meetings, despite the fact that it violates Arizona Open Meeting laws to have a quorum of the board meeting on such a committee. Moore kept insisting 'he wanted to be there' like a child wanting his way and wouldn't be reasoned with.
Moore did apologize for speaking out of turn at the last meeting about his preference for the Nor Gen project and then proceeded to read his prepared speech again. This time there was no applause at the end. In fact Mr. Moore left the meeting when it ended with head hanging low, very low.