WEBVTT 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.440 That drug investigation. And he will answer critics who claim Collins and 00:00:09.569 --> 00:00:14.036 Ortega grandstanded for political gain. Before we get to that discussion 00:00:14.069 --> 00:00:17.736 though, we have this background report. 00:00:17.769 --> 00:00:25.769 It was the beginning of a nightmare for the 00:00:56.579 --> 00:01:02.987 pretty nice. Yeah, it's open to the public. I'll tell you. Ok, 00:01:03.020 --> 00:01:11.020 what is that? 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:43.176 Good evening? Welcome to Horizon. I'm Michael Grant. It's been about eight 00:01:43.209 --> 00:01:46.816 weeks since voters in Maricopa County defeated funding for the Rio Salado 00:01:46.849 --> 00:01:50.436 project. But now one city in the valley has plans to resurrect Rio Salado 00:01:50.469 --> 00:01:54.456 , but on a much smaller scale in a few minutes, we'll talk with Tempe 00:01:54.489 --> 00:01:58.076 mayor Harry Mitchell to find out about his city's version of the Rio 00:01:58.109 --> 00:02:02.507 Salado. But first, last spring, the sports world was shocked to learn that 00:02:02.540 --> 00:02:06.766 the Phoenix Suns squeaky Clean Organization was tarnished by alleged links 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:10.737 to drugs and gambling. Several current and former sons players were 00:02:10.770 --> 00:02:14.677 indicted and one popular son who had been treated for drugs earlier 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:18.916 testified against his teammates before a grand jury. That news made 00:02:18.949 --> 00:02:22.987 headlines leading the investigation. Maricopa County attorney, Tom Collins 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:27.225 and Phoenix police chief Ruben Ortega. Both men were not allowed to talk 00:02:27.258 --> 00:02:31.327 to the press after a judge issued a gag order on the case. But now eight 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:35.207 months later, county attorney, Tom Collins is ready to discuss what went 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:39.536 right and possibly what went wrong with the drug investigation. And he 00:02:39.569 --> 00:02:43.225 will answer critics who claim Collins and Ortega grandstanded for 00:02:43.258 --> 00:02:46.577 political gain. Before we get to that discussion though, we have this 00:02:46.610 --> 00:02:49.505 background report. 00:02:49.538 --> 00:02:54.146 It was the beginning of a nightmare for the Phoenix Suns. Back in April, 00:02:54.179 --> 00:02:58.297 the National basketball association confirmed the sons were suspected of 00:02:58.330 --> 00:03:02.866 major drug and gambling links. It was then described as the worst drug 00:03:02.899 --> 00:03:08.207 scandal to hit an NBA team. A grand jury was convened by Maricopa County 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:13.106 attorney, Tom Collins and in May. Collins and Phoenix police chief Ruben 00:03:13.139 --> 00:03:18.146 Ortega announced grand jury indictments of 13 persons in the Phoenix Suns 00:03:18.179 --> 00:03:23.616 drug probe including several current and former sons, players. Reporters 00:03:23.649 --> 00:03:27.797 asked for a copy of the police report on the investigation. Ortega at 00:03:27.830 --> 00:03:32.245 first said he did not have it. He then said Collins had it and neither 00:03:32.278 --> 00:03:36.745 would turn it over to the press after the media sued and got a copy of the 00:03:36.778 --> 00:03:41.446 report. Collins and Ortega were lambasted. The report revealed that the 00:03:41.479 --> 00:03:46.596 police at best had compiled rather weak cases of individual drug abuse and 00:03:46.629 --> 00:03:51.126 at worst, prosecutors had lied to the grand jury to support Ortega's and 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:56.457 Collins claims of having uncovered a major drug and gambling ring by 00:03:56.490 --> 00:04:00.636 September, all of the grand jury's charges against current and former Sons 00:04:00.669 --> 00:04:05.217 players had been dropped. Criticism of the Sons investigation was summed 00:04:05.250 --> 00:04:09.856 up by an editorial in the Phoenix gazette. The editorial said it was a 00:04:09.889 --> 00:04:15.446 prosecution unjustified by police investigation and that a grand jury may 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:20.096 have been misled into indicting people for crimes when there was no real 00:04:20.129 --> 00:04:27.026 evidence. They had committed them to 13 indictments. I think at least five 00:04:27.059 --> 00:04:31.046 dismissals, only one guy serving any kind of jail time. And that was a 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:35.906 fairly short stretch. I seem to recall 30 days or so. You can't be pleased 00:04:35.939 --> 00:04:42.236 with the results of this whole situation. Well, you're right. That's one 00:04:42.269 --> 00:04:45.507 point I wanted to cover here. I'm not going to try and tell anybody that 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:50.955 myself or the attorneys involved or the police are happy with the outcome. 00:04:50.988 --> 00:04:57.205 We're not what went wrong. Well, 00:04:57.238 --> 00:05:00.637 a number of things went wrong. It's sort of like one of these airplane 00:05:00.670 --> 00:05:05.877 accidents. You know, it's not any one thing you can point at. It's 00:05:05.910 --> 00:05:10.067 typically what happens in a drug case happened. In this case, a number of 00:05:10.100 --> 00:05:15.217 people changed their testimony, so that went wrong. And then of course, we 00:05:15.250 --> 00:05:19.395 had one witness who died in an automobile accident, so we lost that 00:05:19.428 --> 00:05:22.245 testimony. It was a combination of a couple of people changing their 00:05:22.278 --> 00:05:26.586 testimony and the death in the automobile accident. Ok, let me take the 00:05:26.619 --> 00:05:30.455 other side of that. A lot of people, certainly, people who have followed 00:05:30.488 --> 00:05:34.366 the case more closely than I have say, hold it. If you look at what was 00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:38.976 available in the grand jury process, the testimony of Walter Davis 00:05:39.009 --> 00:05:46.257 principally, you could easily tell that there wasn't going to be much 00:05:46.290 --> 00:05:54.290 physical evidence there that the case was strung together shakily at best. 00:05:54.449 --> 00:05:58.926 And really it wasn't, it wasn't a process of the case unraveling, it was 00:05:58.959 --> 00:06:02.687 a process of the case never having been there in the first place. Well, my 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:06.245 answer to that is, is a lot of people have said, well, you wouldn't have 00:06:06.278 --> 00:06:10.245 prosecuted these guys, but for the fact they were basketball players, you 00:06:10.278 --> 00:06:15.515 don't prosecute people when you don't actually have drugs and therefore 00:06:15.548 --> 00:06:19.765 you were only doing this for political reasons. Well, that's not true. We 00:06:19.798 --> 00:06:24.387 prosecuted several high profile cases in this community that these people 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:29.226 have forgotten about where we didn't have drugs. There's an attorney named 00:06:29.259 --> 00:06:33.926 Michael Master Vito who's doing 15 years in prison right now. There's Hal 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:38.546 Nevitt, the Scottsdale police officer who's doing seven years. There's the 00:06:38.579 --> 00:06:43.395 female Phoenix police officers, three of them that we convicted of drug 00:06:43.428 --> 00:06:50.026 charges and in none of those cases were their actual physical drugs. Ok. 00:06:50.059 --> 00:06:53.955 But did you have at the time you issued the indictments solid 00:06:53.988 --> 00:06:59.656 corroboration for, for example, Walter Davis testimony or did you bank on 00:06:59.689 --> 00:07:04.395 , for example, the perhaps very real possibility that certain of the 00:07:04.428 --> 00:07:09.236 indictees may turn against each other? Well, I think we banked on that to 00:07:09.269 --> 00:07:14.687 a certain extent as we would in any drug case, what we had going into the 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:19.187 case, we got into the case. I think some people think along the lines if 00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:24.075 we did this for political reasons that we targeted the Phoenix Sons as 00:07:24.108 --> 00:07:28.015 some kind of decision up front, we're going to make this a priority. 00:07:28.048 --> 00:07:32.895 That's not true. People are more familiar with the case know that we got 00:07:32.928 --> 00:07:37.127 into the case because we had had a previous case involving three people 00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:41.676 that we charged with gambling. During the course of that investigation, 00:07:41.709 --> 00:07:49.336 there was discussions about uh trading information for uh drugs and uh a 00:07:49.369 --> 00:07:54.717 particular bet on a Milwaukee game that was supposed to be under a total 00:07:54.750 --> 00:07:59.930 shaving under 122 total points or something, right? So that, that's how we 00:07:59.963 --> 00:08:06.930 got into the case and we didn't do it, as some people have said because we 00:08:06.963 --> 00:08:10.762 thought it was some kind of political benefit. As a matter of fact, my 00:08:10.795 --> 00:08:15.692 analysis was exactly the opposite. I thought from day one, that this case 00:08:15.725 --> 00:08:21.986 had high political liability for the reason that people identify with the 00:08:22.019 --> 00:08:26.846 team, the reputation of the city, all of those kind of factors that came 00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:32.015 out as criticisms later. I never discussed the politics of it with the 00:08:32.048 --> 00:08:36.385 police chief, but in my own mind, I certainly didn't perceive it as 00:08:36.418 --> 00:08:39.236 something that was going to be of any political benefit. But when you 00:08:39.269 --> 00:08:44.236 participated in that press conference, I think it was April 17, didn't you 00:08:44.269 --> 00:08:49.436 promise more at that point in time than realistically, an analysis of the 00:08:49.469 --> 00:08:57.469 grand jury case could deliver that being a major gambling problem and a 00:08:57.519 --> 00:09:02.895 larger, I think nationwide drug conspiracy, or at least a distribution 00:09:02.928 --> 00:09:06.375 conspiracy. Not just the kind of recreational drug use that I think it 00:09:06.408 --> 00:09:09.787 turned out to be, that's not to excuse it. But didn't you promise more 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:15.427 than that? Well, actually what I did in the press conference, first of all 00:09:15.460 --> 00:09:19.177 , there's been the accusation that because the police chief and I called a 00:09:19.210 --> 00:09:24.342 press conference, we caused the publicity if you go back and look what you 00:09:24.375 --> 00:09:29.502 find is is that the newspaper was writing front page top of the fold, big 00:09:29.535 --> 00:09:34.992 headline stories about this case speculating about it for a long period of 00:09:35.025 --> 00:09:38.992 time. Prior to that press conference, that press conference narrowed the 00:09:39.025 --> 00:09:45.247 parameters of exactly what the charges were. They did not involve gambling. 00:09:45.280 --> 00:09:51.487 All of the charges about gambling was speculation from so called sources 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:56.188 and so forth. Prior to that press conference, we have never charged 00:09:56.221 --> 00:10:00.019 gambling. That is how we got into the case. And the press conference did 00:10:00.052 --> 00:10:04.717 not involve that. Ok. What about the, isn't it an accurate statement 00:10:04.750 --> 00:10:08.787 though? To say that you left the impression if not the outright statement 00:10:08.820 --> 00:10:13.996 at that press conference that we were dealing with a drug conspiracy here 00:10:14.029 --> 00:10:19.356 of certainly larger proportions than just 56 former Phoenix Suns players 00:10:19.389 --> 00:10:22.986 stretching to other teams in the NBA, et cetera. And could that be 00:10:23.019 --> 00:10:28.236 supported by the evidence you had available on April 17? Well, if we came 00:10:28.269 --> 00:10:33.746 out of there with that, it was because we, we suspected or thought like 00:10:33.779 --> 00:10:38.076 you mentioned before, that some people would turn and give additional 00:10:38.109 --> 00:10:42.206 evidence and clearly we had some indications of that. That's how we got 00:10:42.239 --> 00:10:48.667 into the case. Now, whether that impression was given or not, I really 00:10:48.700 --> 00:10:53.096 don't remember that about the press conference, but I thought I was pretty 00:10:53.129 --> 00:10:57.616 careful to say no, that's not what we're talking about. We're just talking 00:10:57.649 --> 00:11:02.557 about these charges and, and this is the parameters because before that 00:11:02.590 --> 00:11:08.566 through speculation and innuendo, a lot of people had been named and 00:11:08.599 --> 00:11:15.547 charges speculated about that. We didn't allege another allegation County 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:21.486 Attorney's office blindsided Walter Davis into thinking it had a stronger 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:27.446 case on him than it really had in exchange for that. He took an immunity 00:11:27.479 --> 00:11:31.686 deal and testified when he, if he had really known what you had on him, he 00:11:31.719 --> 00:11:35.316 never would have done that. Well, my answer to that is what's wrong with 00:11:35.349 --> 00:11:41.025 that. That's ok. That's the way we do business. Uh And in the sense of 00:11:41.058 --> 00:11:46.436 when we're conducting an investigation, we attempt to get people to give 00:11:46.469 --> 00:11:52.667 us information. And uh, uh I'm sure Walter Davis did not know everything 00:11:52.700 --> 00:11:58.157 that we knew. And coincidentally that leads directly to another point when 00:11:58.190 --> 00:12:03.717 the grand jury transcript was leaked and all the reports were leaked. That 00:12:03.750 --> 00:12:09.846 was a factor that hurt our ability to press the case because suddenly a 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:13.775 lot of people who had made little noises through attorneys and so forth 00:12:13.808 --> 00:12:18.706 about being willing to talk to us. Once that information was leaked, we're 00:12:18.739 --> 00:12:23.986 no longer willing to talk to us and that hurt our ability to proceed. But 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:29.717 Tom in the interest of justice, is it very good for a prosecutor to 00:12:29.750 --> 00:12:36.096 misrepresent his case to a potential accused or for that matter to try to 00:12:36.129 --> 00:12:40.336 through that technique to put together strands that perhaps don't exist? 00:12:40.369 --> 00:12:44.246 Well, I don't, number one is, I don't think we tried to put together 00:12:44.279 --> 00:12:48.196 anything that didn't exist. We were trying to get the information to find 00:12:48.229 --> 00:12:54.157 out what they did and what did exist. And I, I just would have to say 00:12:54.190 --> 00:13:00.496 there was nothing that we misrepresented to anybody along the course. We 00:13:00.529 --> 00:13:03.986 may have set tight and, you know, and basically said to anybody that we 00:13:04.019 --> 00:13:07.456 interrogate, here's what we're looking into and they may think we know 00:13:07.489 --> 00:13:12.076 more than we do, but that's standard interrogation. Am I wrong or was all 00:13:12.109 --> 00:13:16.326 the evidence you ever had on Walter Davis? Really? His statements from a 00:13:16.359 --> 00:13:20.476 year, a year and a half before when he had voluntarily checked himself 00:13:20.509 --> 00:13:25.186 into the NBA drug treatment program. And, well, I, I don't know all of the 00:13:25.219 --> 00:13:30.125 details. I couldn't list at all. But, but yes, you are wrong in the sense 00:13:30.158 --> 00:13:34.417 that we did have information from the people that came through the 00:13:34.450 --> 00:13:40.066 gambling investigation about players, uh, you know, visiting these places 00:13:40.099 --> 00:13:44.037 and talking to these people and associating with them. It wasn't just 00:13:44.070 --> 00:13:49.246 Walter davis' statements or, you know, what came out of the fact that he 00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:55.496 had already come forward and declared a drug problem. Did you indict, 00:13:55.529 --> 00:13:59.135 given what we've discussed here? Did you indict prematurely? Might it not 00:13:59.168 --> 00:14:04.436 have been better to spend x amount of more time, whatever that may be? Two 00:14:04.469 --> 00:14:09.135 weeks, two months, whatever, using the grand jury as an investigative tool 00:14:09.168 --> 00:14:16.726 , perhaps trying to get people to turn, um instead of going with the 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:22.037 indictments in late April when the component parts of this case were not 00:14:22.070 --> 00:14:26.486 knitted together. Well, I, I think the component parts of the charges that 00:14:26.519 --> 00:14:30.505 we brought were knitted together. We don't bring charges unless we believe 00:14:30.538 --> 00:14:35.907 we have sufficient evidence to convict in a jury trial. That's our 00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:40.547 charging standard. And we thought that we had that. The problem was, is 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:48.226 these people's testimony changed after that. And people have said yes, you 00:14:48.259 --> 00:14:53.015 should have waited. Well, my response to that is waited for what all of 00:14:53.048 --> 00:14:55.856 the records are there, all the cases, there are all the testimony there, 00:14:55.889 --> 00:15:01.177 there was nothing to wait for, nothing was forthcoming. For example, 00:15:01.210 --> 00:15:08.057 Johnny High to corroborate Walter Davis testimony waiting for something 00:15:08.090 --> 00:15:13.657 like that waiting for perhaps the did, but he died. Well, Yeah. But I mean 00:15:13.690 --> 00:15:18.755 , I mean, in terms of the actual timing of the April indictment and the 00:15:18.788 --> 00:15:21.586 use of, I mean, you know, as well as I do that the grand jury is 00:15:21.619 --> 00:15:27.186 frequently used as the investigative means to build the case and make sure 00:15:27.219 --> 00:15:31.186 you get a lock solid before you commit more public resource to it. Well, I 00:15:31.219 --> 00:15:37.846 don't know, I don't think there's a lock solid proposition on any case And 00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:44.500 I think also that people who say the prosecutor shouldn't do this with 00:15:44.533 --> 00:15:48.951 this level of evidence. If you look back at all the level of evidence and 00:15:48.984 --> 00:15:51.581 what was released in the grand jury transcripts and what was released in 00:15:51.614 --> 00:15:55.682 the police reports. I would hate to think about what would have happened 00:15:55.715 --> 00:16:00.302 to the police and the prosecuting agency criticism wise, if we had not 00:16:00.335 --> 00:16:05.476 brought these charges, given the level of evidence that we had, we would 00:16:05.509 --> 00:16:11.265 have been subject to severe criticism, cover up special favors, all of 00:16:11.298 --> 00:16:15.395 those kinds of things that we've been subjected to for fighting release of 00:16:15.428 --> 00:16:21.467 the report and, and for proceeding in the case, we would have been more 00:16:21.500 --> 00:16:25.217 subjected to them. Had we not brought the charge? Why did you fight 00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:30.316 release of the reports, particularly when the reports were already in the 00:16:30.349 --> 00:16:36.275 hands of the press? Well, because as a prosecutor, I have an ethical 00:16:36.308 --> 00:16:41.866 obligation not to talk about the case that that's lawyers ethics, I can 00:16:41.899 --> 00:16:47.586 get a complaint from the bar association, the defense would make motions 00:16:47.619 --> 00:16:51.596 to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct. They would make motions to 00:16:51.629 --> 00:16:55.436 change venue and move the case out of the county to try it, which would 00:16:55.469 --> 00:17:00.395 cost the taxpayers a lot more money. There were all kinds of laws there 00:17:00.428 --> 00:17:03.846 that were just up in the air. There were the cases were pending, there was 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:09.357 pending grand jury matters. It was an ongoing investigation. There was no 00:17:09.390 --> 00:17:14.436 way that I as the prosecutor could do that. I can't come forward when the 00:17:14.469 --> 00:17:17.637 ethics say you can't talk about the case. And by the way, here's the 00:17:17.670 --> 00:17:24.246 report and the courts say that the prosecutor is the person responsible. 00:17:24.279 --> 00:17:28.097 They say the police and all the agencies work for you and we're going to 00:17:28.130 --> 00:17:33.305 hold you responsible. Now that's something that's not really true, but 00:17:33.338 --> 00:17:37.857 it's kind of a myth that the courts operate on. So I was in no position to 00:17:37.890 --> 00:17:42.996 do that. And I would, I will fight disclosure of these reports in any case 00:17:43.029 --> 00:17:48.246 , not just this one, but in any case, I don't believe for interest of 00:17:48.279 --> 00:17:55.127 people's privacy. For the fact is, is I am a stop at the grand jury 00:17:55.160 --> 00:18:00.276 transcript. Does it stop it? I think it stops with the police reports and 00:18:00.309 --> 00:18:05.206 the grand jury transcript. We, I'm after the, after the indictment comes 00:18:05.239 --> 00:18:10.256 down though, why, I mean, why doesn't, why can't the public in a manner of 00:18:10.289 --> 00:18:15.276 speaking means test once a person has been charged the sufficiency of the 00:18:15.309 --> 00:18:18.717 evidence behind that indictment because there is a means test. The means 00:18:18.750 --> 00:18:22.887 test is the outcome of the case which is conducted totally in public. 00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:26.805 That's the means test. And as a matter of fact, what the media wanted to 00:18:26.838 --> 00:18:33.676 do was set up their own means test prior to a resolution in court, they 00:18:33.709 --> 00:18:38.585 wanted to try the case based on the reports and based on the grand jury 00:18:38.618 --> 00:18:42.506 transcripts and either find the people guilty or innocent outside of the 00:18:42.539 --> 00:18:45.785 court system. And that's not the way our system is supposed to work. Tom 00:18:45.818 --> 00:18:48.906 only about 30 seconds left. And I apologize for cutting this this short, 00:18:48.939 --> 00:18:52.847 but I do want to get to one final point. Why not have done this back in 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:57.986 August July? And by this, I mean, talking publicly in August July 00:18:58.019 --> 00:19:02.637 petitioned the court to get out from under the gag order and clear up 00:19:02.670 --> 00:19:07.196 where the case was going at that point in time rather than leading leaving 00:19:07.229 --> 00:19:11.285 people under this cloud for this long. Well, I just didn't feel that I 00:19:11.318 --> 00:19:15.347 could do that because of the gag order, the ethics rules and the pending 00:19:15.380 --> 00:19:20.617 grand jury investigation. And I, and the fact that we would have had those 00:19:20.650 --> 00:19:25.075 motions to dismiss, change venue, all those kinds of ramifications. I just 00:19:25.108 --> 00:19:29.555 am in a position where I had to wait and, and I'm, I'm, I'm real glad I 00:19:29.588 --> 00:19:34.315 had this opportunity to, we appreciate you coming this evening. Take care. 00:19:34.348 --> 00:19:38.785 Thank you up next on horizon. The Rio Salado project has found new life 00:19:38.818 --> 00:19:42.137 in Tempe. We'll talk with Tempe. Mayor Harry Mitchell about the details 00:19:42.170 --> 00:19:50.170 right after this. 00:20:07.199 --> 00:20:15.199 It, 00:20:37.309 --> 00:20:41.397 the idea of making the Salt River a recreational green belt originated 20 00:20:41.430 --> 00:20:46.617 years ago as a class project at Arizona State University. Then it grew, 00:20:46.650 --> 00:20:50.805 eventually, it grew into the Rio Salado project and voters evidently 00:20:50.838 --> 00:20:54.785 thought that it had grown too much because they rejected it at the polls 00:20:54.818 --> 00:20:58.867 last November largely on account of its $3 billion price tag. But years 00:20:58.900 --> 00:21:02.186 before the Rio Salado development district was formed, the city of Tempe 00:21:02.219 --> 00:21:06.607 was quietly buying up the river bottom land and preparing the groundwork 00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:10.916 for its own version of the Rio Soto and Tempe's version has survived the 00:21:10.949 --> 00:21:17.256 defeat of the larger project on November 3rd. The Rio Salado project went 00:21:17.289 --> 00:21:22.377 down into the dust when Maricopa County voters overwhelmingly rejected it. 00:21:22.410 --> 00:21:26.575 But within days, the city of Tempe announced plans to go ahead with its 00:21:26.608 --> 00:21:30.976 own version of Rio Salado for the course of the last four or five years. 00:21:31.009 --> 00:21:37.887 Essentially, we have had to play down Tempe's version of Rio Salado 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:41.496 in favor of the larger Rio Salado development district. And now we no 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:46.526 longer have to, I think it survived because of a couple of reasons. One 00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:51.776 was the city has simply been dedicated to it for a long time with a firm 00:21:51.809 --> 00:21:57.746 commitment to do something with the, with the uh the Salt River as it 00:21:57.779 --> 00:22:04.026 flows through the city. I think the other thing was that circumstances 00:22:04.059 --> 00:22:09.367 brought a lot of favorable forces to play here. One favorable circumstance 00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:13.926 according to Tempe's Rio Salado Commission is the presence of bedrock on 00:22:13.959 --> 00:22:18.436 both sides of the river at Mill Avenue. This restricts the river and 00:22:18.469 --> 00:22:23.357 reduces flood problems. Another favorable circumstance is that few of the 00:22:23.390 --> 00:22:28.456 dumps in the Tempe river bed are believed to contain toxic waste. The city 00:22:28.489 --> 00:22:32.766 has already taken a lot of practical, practical steps to lay a foundation 00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:40.799 for it. Uh stopped using the area of the river for uh the city is dumping 00:22:41.608 --> 00:22:49.608 created now, I suppose 56 years ago, an overlay district surrounding the 00:22:49.989 --> 00:22:54.637 river on both banks to control the sort of development and begin to 00:22:54.670 --> 00:23:00.206 reshape what has traditionally been there to a higher standard. Parts of 00:23:00.239 --> 00:23:05.156 the Tempe Rio Salado are already underway. Construction has started at the 00:23:05.189 --> 00:23:08.986 ASU golf course next to the river on the south side of the river. In 00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:13.847 addition, there is property being bought up by developers east of Hayden 00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:19.196 road. The 00:23:19.229 --> 00:23:24.335 ground about 225 acres on the south side of the river is going to be 00:23:24.368 --> 00:23:27.676 available to the city of tie for developments, Parkland, the Rio. So Lotta 00:23:27.709 --> 00:23:32.186 Parkway is being funded currently by the city of Tempe and will be built. 00:23:32.219 --> 00:23:37.176 We know that on the south shore and on the north shore work has already 00:23:37.209 --> 00:23:41.476 begun on the Salt River project's Papago Park Center. This is going to be 00:23:41.509 --> 00:23:48.387 one of the premier mixed use master planned areas in America, striking 00:23:48.420 --> 00:23:56.016 architecture, open parkways, small streams and lakes. It is going to be 00:23:56.049 --> 00:24:01.217 magnificent. Some plans are still indefinite Tempe Beach Park, for 00:24:01.250 --> 00:24:05.976 instance, might become a conference center or an arts center. Several 00:24:06.009 --> 00:24:09.256 different possibilities exist. 00:24:09.289 --> 00:24:13.246 One reason for leaving parts of the plan loose is to prevent an 00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:17.436 overwhelming all at once. Bill like the one that doomed the large scale 00:24:17.469 --> 00:24:23.585 Rio Salado in Tempe, we're going to essentially do a piece meal. We're not 00:24:23.618 --> 00:24:27.347 going to start out to be able to do some of the things that we might like 00:24:27.380 --> 00:24:33.416 to do all at once, but we will do it slowly and we will do it combined 00:24:33.449 --> 00:24:37.736 with others. It won't all be government money. The difficulty is always 00:24:37.769 --> 00:24:41.637 going and asking people directly for tax money for something because if 00:24:41.670 --> 00:24:47.117 people feel the tax collector reaching for their wallet, they're always 00:24:47.150 --> 00:24:52.647 thinking about, uh, what do I get out of this? So in essence, we will have 00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:56.696 to do something which is sufficiently well devised that if we have to ask 00:24:56.729 --> 00:25:01.035 the people for money, they will want to give it. And with us to discuss 00:25:01.068 --> 00:25:04.746 this issue further is Tempe Mayor Harry Mitchell Happy holidays here. Well 00:25:04.779 --> 00:25:10.276 , thank you. How does the Tempe version differ if at all? I guess from 00:25:10.309 --> 00:25:15.246 what the tie portion of the Rio Salado might have looked like I really 00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:19.486 don't know Michael, other than I think that tie's portion will be quite a 00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:22.936 bit different than what people envisioned throughout the campaign for the 00:25:22.969 --> 00:25:25.506 Rio Salado project. Because a great deal has already been mentioned in the 00:25:25.539 --> 00:25:31.776 show of the land in the Rio and is already in government hands. It's 00:25:31.809 --> 00:25:35.825 already publicly owned. So there wasn't going to be a great deal of, of 00:25:35.858 --> 00:25:40.236 skyscrapers and people being relocated from their homes and new homes and 00:25:40.269 --> 00:25:44.406 businesses put in a great deal of it was going to be in the area of 00:25:44.439 --> 00:25:50.026 essentially a clean up and a lot of public uses. 00:25:50.059 --> 00:25:56.256 Ironically, is it perhaps an advantage for Tempe to a certain extent to be 00:25:56.289 --> 00:26:02.276 able to go back to its original plans that it can execute according to its 00:26:02.309 --> 00:26:06.746 own wishes and what it thinks is best as opposing as opposed to having to 00:26:06.779 --> 00:26:09.766 rely on the Rio Salado development district for that. Well, I think that 00:26:09.799 --> 00:26:13.026 we weren't going to really rely on it to begin with because Tempe's Rio 00:26:13.059 --> 00:26:18.467 Soto plan really set the basis for the district's plan. The Rio Salla 00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:22.035 Committee under the leadership that you saw Dave Hanna and the people that 00:26:22.068 --> 00:26:27.535 have been very energetically involved in our Rio Sola project. These 00:26:27.568 --> 00:26:33.236 people have set a plan that was the basis for the district's plan and was 00:26:33.269 --> 00:26:39.967 modified uh only slightly as a result of the um, um plan six or the, the 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:45.127 cliff dam being deleted. But I might also add the, um, there is a lot of 00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:50.887 districts plan could have been vetoed by a single city in each city, for 00:26:50.920 --> 00:26:54.325 example, whatever the district came up with, if Tempe didn't like it, we 00:26:54.358 --> 00:26:57.097 could say no, we don't want it. So we really were not going to be dictated 00:26:57.130 --> 00:27:01.045 to by the district plan at all. How much money are we talking about for 00:27:01.078 --> 00:27:04.746 Tempe's version of the Rio? Well, that's an interesting point because when 00:27:04.779 --> 00:27:08.736 , and I think one of the, the bad parts that occurred with the Rio Salon 00:27:08.769 --> 00:27:13.785 project, people saw it as a single project that there was going to be a 00:27:13.818 --> 00:27:17.016 groundbreaking ceremony, then there was going to be a ribbon cutting and 00:27:17.049 --> 00:27:20.597 it was going to be start and a start and a finish and there was going to 00:27:20.630 --> 00:27:24.416 be so many dollars to it. It's not that way. It's like all cities and all 00:27:24.449 --> 00:27:28.565 parks, it's going to evolve and grow. We don't really know how much is 00:27:28.598 --> 00:27:31.825 going to be involved because we're going to use some of the tools that we 00:27:31.858 --> 00:27:35.726 already have such as the overlay district that was mentioned, our planning 00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:39.585 and zoning tools and when people come in and want to rebuild, they say, 00:27:39.618 --> 00:27:45.387 well, just look what's here, it's run down, it's a trash area. We say, 00:27:45.420 --> 00:27:49.597 don't look at it now look what it's going to be like. And as a result, you 00:27:49.630 --> 00:27:53.347 put tougher standards. But then again, there's also a lot of public areas 00:27:53.380 --> 00:27:58.887 , for example, the au golf course, one full mile of the Rio Soto and will 00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:02.035 be a golf course. And then of course, as I pointed out the S RPS 00:28:02.068 --> 00:28:05.565 development on the north side from Mill Avenue west to the Phoenix City 00:28:05.598 --> 00:28:10.186 limits. And of course, also on the north side will be the extension of the 00:28:10.219 --> 00:28:15.217 East Papago freeway with the Red Mountain. And we hope that the Department 00:28:15.250 --> 00:28:18.156 of Transportation will do a great job of landscaping that along the north 00:28:18.189 --> 00:28:24.906 side isn't there though. Harry, I would think basic seed money, if nothing 00:28:24.939 --> 00:28:29.236 else, public sorts of funds that will be necessary to knit some of these 00:28:29.269 --> 00:28:33.217 various component parts together. Well, I don't know if it will be 00:28:33.250 --> 00:28:36.776 necessary to knit it together, but I think one of the things the city has 00:28:36.809 --> 00:28:40.835 done is to show that we're very serious about it by putting our own money 00:28:40.868 --> 00:28:45.315 up front. For example, at Hardy and the Rio Slaughter Parkway, we have a 00:28:45.348 --> 00:28:49.246 sign facility, a sign shop for the city that I think is an outstanding 00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:54.117 piece of architectural work and designed. We're getting ready to expand 00:28:54.150 --> 00:28:58.996 our service center at Priest and the Real Slaughter Parkway to show that 00:28:59.029 --> 00:29:02.426 we mean business that we're going to put 00:29:02.459 --> 00:29:06.406 up what we've been wanting to do. And we're also putting together in this 00:29:06.439 --> 00:29:12.877 current fiscal year, the improvement of the parkway Mayor Harry Mitchell 00:29:12.910 --> 00:29:16.315 Thanks for being here. Thank you. Tomorrow on the horizon, we will examine 00:29:16.348 --> 00:29:20.726 how officials are working to clean up the dust and soot that make up the 00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:24.006 brown cloud over the valley. I hope you will be able to join us for that. 00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:27.335 Thanks very much for being here this evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a 00:29:27.368 --> 00:29:35.368 pleasant one. Good night. 00:30:07.739 --> 00:30:11.186 If you have comments regarding this evening's Horizon program, send them 00:30:11.219 --> 00:30:17.719 to Horizon Channel eight Television, Arizona State University. 10 P 85287.