WEBVTT 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:06.040 my name is Duke Rider. I'm a senior advisor to the President, Arizona 00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:11.197 State University, former Dean of the College of Design and someone who 00:01:11.230 --> 00:01:15.906 spent a lot of time with Jim. Um or as he would save me as he took me out 00:01:15.939 --> 00:01:19.417 for breakfast, Duke, I can't hear anything. So I'm just going to talk with 00:01:19.450 --> 00:01:24.096 you for an hour and a half. It was the best talk I've ever had every time 00:01:24.129 --> 00:01:28.477 and uh he was full of enthusiasm for this place for this university, for 00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:33.337 his work and uh it was an honor for me to know him. Uh and it's an honor 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:38.376 for me to try to manage the next hour. We have a lot of really interesting 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:43.087 speakers who would like to share with you what they know about how this 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:47.417 project came into being. Uh and we're going to do that. What I also want 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:51.736 to acknowledge is I think what this represents is exactly what a 00:01:51.769 --> 00:01:55.527 university should be contributing to a city. Uh we should be 00:01:55.560 --> 00:02:00.107 conceptualizing ideas and working with to realize them and the city of 00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:04.557 course has been incredibly positive in the way it's supported Arizona 00:02:04.590 --> 00:02:07.686 State University. So this symbiotic relationship is much of what we're 00:02:07.719 --> 00:02:13.476 celebrating today as well. Uh I'd like to acknowledge some dignitaries who 00:02:13.509 --> 00:02:18.277 have not in the audience yet will be in the audience. Uh See Cape back 00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:22.117 there, nodding her head. We will have a former U. S. Representative and 00:02:22.150 --> 00:02:27.846 former mayor of Tempe Harry Mitchell here with us. Uh Current mayor Mark 00:02:27.879 --> 00:02:33.696 Mitchell will be here, former Tempe mayors, que Holman Neil Giuliano and 00:02:33.729 --> 00:02:37.976 Rudy Campbell the ladder or two I just saw and had a conversation with and 00:02:38.009 --> 00:02:41.997 the past president of Arizona state laddie court. Thank all of you. Thanks 00:02:42.030 --> 00:02:45.777 all of you for being here today. Also, I acknowledge my good friend 00:02:45.810 --> 00:02:49.476 Stephen temper, the Dean of the Herberger College of Design the Arts. I 00:02:49.509 --> 00:02:53.786 know he's here somewhere there. He is. Uh, and so we've got a lot of great 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:58.936 people here. The way that the day is organized in the next hour is we're 00:02:58.969 --> 00:03:03.756 gonna break the history of how this came into being into four sections 00:03:03.789 --> 00:03:07.566 which are represented on many of the boards that you see here Error. one 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:11.827 is gonna be how the students conceptualize this project with Dean Elmore 00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:16.906 and the faculty ERA two will be the rise of an organization to move this 00:03:16.939 --> 00:03:20.446 forward, which became Valley Forward. Now Arizona forward will have 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:24.346 representatives from those groups speaking to you then, error three, the 00:03:24.379 --> 00:03:28.136 Rio salado Development District. How legislation was written, how this 00:03:28.169 --> 00:03:32.876 moved through the legislature and how this thing was conceptualized and 00:03:32.909 --> 00:03:37.837 funding mechanisms conceived to make this happen Uh, era for the city of 00:03:37.870 --> 00:03:41.077 10 people who really took this on when maybe some of the other cities 00:03:41.110 --> 00:03:45.286 weren't quite ready and produced what you see today and I can assure you 00:03:45.319 --> 00:03:49.376 that there's gonna be an error of five. There's more happening here. So I 00:03:49.409 --> 00:03:55.577 wondered invite jerry and jim up to the stage 00:03:55.610 --> 00:04:00.686 and Jim Garrison. So we're gonna start with the era that had to do with 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:02.707 conceptualization 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:08.506 of the project from an issue studio standpoint. Uh, that was of course 00:04:08.539 --> 00:04:12.946 involving the class of 67. Uh, and I'm gonna read those members of the 00:04:12.979 --> 00:04:17.257 class that jerry wanted me to do that. It was led by Professor robert 00:04:17.290 --> 00:04:22.546 McConnell. There was jim Walton, satyr jerry, Atwood, obie, bowman, Greg 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:30.579 brown, bob calhoun Bill close Bill deal. Dave foot steve Freeman. Ben lee 00:04:30.699 --> 00:04:36.947 jerry of course MArco and I think his son is here today. Is that right? 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:42.996 Marcus, I'm glad to have you here. Uh, Leland Peters uh, ned Sawyer, jim 00:04:43.029 --> 00:04:46.296 Scalise and our intruders. So you imagine this is a group of young 00:04:46.329 --> 00:04:50.827 students uh given license to think about what this could be and you're 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:54.897 gonna hear from people who were there. And so I'm gonna start with jerry. 00:04:54.930 --> 00:04:58.676 If you could describe what the charge was, the students and what it felt 00:04:58.709 --> 00:05:05.106 like to be given that opportunity. Certainly. Good morning and thank you. 00:05:05.139 --> 00:05:11.887 Professor robert McConnell took the challenge from gmail more. Let's do 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:17.707 something with the river. And he brought it to our class of 16 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:22.306 enthusiastic want to save the world 00:05:22.339 --> 00:05:28.717 architectural students. He said to us students, your first project, this 00:05:28.750 --> 00:05:34.746 semester will be a class project. You're all going to be working on it and 00:05:34.779 --> 00:05:39.377 it will be Due in eight weeks 00:05:39.410 --> 00:05:45.406 and then he said there is a scar through the valley called the Salt River 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:51.906 fix it. He walked out of the room. Okay well 00:05:51.939 --> 00:05:57.546 there was a deafening silence for a short period and then we started kind 00:05:57.579 --> 00:06:01.926 of looking around at each other like that. And everybody that saw me and 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:07.866 everybody that I saw had a what the hell look on their face eight weeks to 00:06:07.899 --> 00:06:13.967 do a project like that. And we jumped in and we started, so that's how it 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.226 started. You might want to remind people what you were looking, what, what 00:06:18.259 --> 00:06:22.796 this was at the time as you observed that site. Yeah, that was the first 00:06:22.829 --> 00:06:28.007 step in the process of designing the was to research in order to solve a 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:34.447 problem, you have to understand the problem. And so we um we walked the 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:39.166 river in sections, we took a mile or two of it and we walked it. Want to 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:43.306 remind them how large the area was that you were looking at? We went as 00:06:43.339 --> 00:06:49.036 far as we could, but we hadn't actually defined the length of the master 00:06:49.069 --> 00:06:52.817 plan yet because we were still in the research stage, not in the design 00:06:52.850 --> 00:06:59.447 stage, but in the, we decided eventually in the master plan stage that the 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:04.457 project would be 200 miles in length. It would go from the granite reef. 00:07:04.490 --> 00:07:09.406 Damn easter here all the way to the gulf of California 00:07:09.439 --> 00:07:14.757 With a with an emphasis on the 40 miles from here to the confluence of the 00:07:14.790 --> 00:07:20.827 salt and the Hilo sort of a concentrated area because you can't do 200 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:28.860 miles of master planning in eight weeks or eight months. Uh, so, 00:07:29.170 --> 00:07:33.937 uh, we started researching after walking it. Someone was able to get ahold 00:07:33.970 --> 00:07:38.437 of an airplane, people fluid. We talked to everybody, the federal 00:07:38.470 --> 00:07:43.507 government, the Corps of Engineers, state county, all the local cities, 00:07:43.540 --> 00:07:48.317 Salt River project, Arizona, public service of the sand and gravel 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:52.496 companies who have a big vested interest. 00:07:52.529 --> 00:08:00.529 And in the process of researching, we uh, went to the library and found an 00:08:01.329 --> 00:08:09.329 old map that showed the real, the river labeled as the real salada instead 00:08:09.889 --> 00:08:15.087 of the salt river and that's where we adopted the name from. Okay, so jim 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:20.337 , you were a grad student, you were assistant to Dean Elmore and you 00:08:20.370 --> 00:08:23.976 helped to gather up the work that the students have done and put it into a 00:08:24.009 --> 00:08:27.127 report that turned out to be hugely influential. I want to talk a little 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:32.756 bit about that what you got. Well actually, I was 1/5 year student, I was 00:08:32.789 --> 00:08:36.356 a second year student when the fifth year student did degree of slaughter 00:08:36.389 --> 00:08:41.766 and actually every year did projects related to this Rios Lotto. We 00:08:41.799 --> 00:08:47.407 designed housing and a museum that was replaced in the real slaughter 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:53.396 arena when I was in second year, in fifth year, In the summer between 4th 00:08:53.429 --> 00:09:01.429 and 5th year Billy Garrett and I, their students, we're counseling 00:09:01.429 --> 00:09:06.657 incoming freshmen at summer and somewhere along the way. He never asked me 00:09:06.690 --> 00:09:13.116 if I wanted to To be involved with the real spot on three projects I think 00:09:13.149 --> 00:09:17.667 Dean Elmore always wanted this to be viewed as a student generated project 00:09:17.700 --> 00:09:25.077 for the real slow auto project. I was the only student and he paid me so 00:09:25.110 --> 00:09:28.787 that's probably something most people don't know that I was paid over the 00:09:28.820 --> 00:09:33.876 summer to draw the real slaughter three drawing from his program of what 00:09:33.909 --> 00:09:39.657 he wanted to see in the project. So from a group of students were very 00:09:39.690 --> 00:09:46.026 enthusiastic, enthusiastic for me working in the studio, all by myself, 00:09:46.059 --> 00:09:50.547 working on this project is quite a difference there and then that was 00:09:50.580 --> 00:09:54.917 generated. Dean Elmore actually wrote the report, found all the people to 00:09:54.950 --> 00:10:01.136 attend the meeting and november 1969 and officially turned the project 00:10:01.169 --> 00:10:03.807 over here. Also, 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:10.226 I assume uh Dean award was presenting that report personally. I'm sure he 00:10:10.259 --> 00:10:15.246 made some impassioned pleas for why we should keep it only made six Made 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:23.279 six panels, 6 groups that meant that day. Mhm The biggest challenge in his 00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:28.827 mind to overcome is how do you build a series of lakes that become a flood 00:10:28.860 --> 00:10:34.636 control channel? That was the number one issue that was on his mind and 00:10:34.669 --> 00:10:40.207 what he wanted to try and convince the people setting up valley forward 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:46.559 was that this was feasible. I think that's what he wanted to try and do. 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:48.639 Eventually the drawing that I drew over the summer Julian clark rendered 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:58.287 into the famous real slot brochure that was used for many years And, and 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:01.346 jeremy when you in the class completed the work and then we'll go on to 00:11:01.379 --> 00:11:06.157 the next panel. What did you think you had accomplished? Did you have any 00:11:06.190 --> 00:11:12.256 sense that the potential of what that group had gotten set in motion could 00:11:12.289 --> 00:11:15.787 result in this where you're looking at your work and say, well one artist 00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:18.917 students often work individually and each student presents their work to 00:11:18.950 --> 00:11:22.116 work as a group and I have accomplished some of this group. Did you have a 00:11:22.149 --> 00:11:25.006 sense of what you have done? 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:31.346 I'll tell you what I think most of the sense and that is that this project 00:11:31.379 --> 00:11:37.026 could be done. It was very ambitious and when we presented it, we got a 00:11:37.059 --> 00:11:41.437 few chuckles, you know, because we had barges going down the river into 00:11:41.470 --> 00:11:46.707 the gulf and into the, into the California. But there's huge natural 00:11:46.740 --> 00:11:50.697 resources west of here, Magnesite, tungsten, copper, silver, all kinds of 00:11:50.730 --> 00:11:54.927 stuff and there's no way to get it out economically, barge is the only way 00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:58.746 to do it. And that's why they were on the Mississippi and the Ohio and all 00:11:58.779 --> 00:12:03.537 those rivers. But anyway, we, we knew we had something there and we knew 00:12:03.570 --> 00:12:11.570 that if we could change it from a liability really a trash dump two, a 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:16.937 positive asset that instead of dividing the valley would unite all the 00:12:16.970 --> 00:12:20.947 communities of the valley that, that we would, we would have really 00:12:20.980 --> 00:12:24.907 accomplished something and 00:12:24.940 --> 00:12:32.940 this is the first step this late and you would have to be completely 00:12:34.100 --> 00:12:40.827 comatose not to realize what the benefits of doing something like this. If 00:12:40.860 --> 00:12:48.707 you think this facility would be here, if that lake wasn't there wrong, 00:12:48.740 --> 00:12:53.116 neither would state Farm, neither would the shopping centers can be 00:12:53.149 --> 00:12:58.606 marketplace, none of them. So the economic benefits we realized would be 00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:04.807 horrendous. Unfortunately, none of us had any money to buy property 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:11.707 and and we talked about it because we knew that it was possible that 00:13:11.740 --> 00:13:15.907 if it was developed when it was developed, the property values would 00:13:15.940 --> 00:13:21.106 skyrocket along along the edges of the, of the salt river and the ribbon 00:13:21.139 --> 00:13:24.726 cutting at noon. You will hear from the people who are heading up those 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:29.756 companies and the developers who have realized the benefits of this body 00:13:29.789 --> 00:13:32.967 of water when it's meant to land values and people working here and why 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.907 they want to be here jim you want to offer a final thought that might 00:13:35.940 --> 00:13:39.447 provide just a little more context. I just want to explain. There was 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:45.476 another real slide of the real slot on to project was in 1969 was a 00:13:45.509 --> 00:13:53.509 student generated project that was played in april 1969. The people I 00:13:53.610 --> 00:13:57.976 remember most working on it were the Twin brothers, the chapman Brothers, 00:13:58.009 --> 00:14:02.616 they should get some credit Because their focus was the 10 key piece of 00:14:02.649 --> 00:14:07.246 the real slaughter process. That's a nice piece. Okay, thank you very much 00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:10.726 for kicking this off. Really appreciate shovels and bill. Me and Roger 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:14.256 Swanson would love to have you come up to the stage. So now we're gonna 00:14:14.289 --> 00:14:19.677 move into the era as you've heard involves valley forward. Now Arizona 00:14:19.710 --> 00:14:24.577 forward and you've heard that the design the proposal for the real slide 00:14:24.610 --> 00:14:29.366 resulted in an organization of civic leaders to help move this forward. So 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:34.746 I'd like to start with Bill talk about how this all got going, how really 00:14:34.779 --> 00:14:38.907 this vision for this river launched this organization. 00:14:38.940 --> 00:14:43.167 Mhm. If that's what 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:48.626 after the first thing I have to do on behalf of Arizona forward is to 00:14:48.659 --> 00:14:53.736 apologize for Diane president who's not here today. And the reason she's 00:14:53.769 --> 00:14:58.687 not here is because she celebrated, she celebrated a big birthday. I'm not 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:03.557 gonna say to hell babe this weekend. But unfortunately when this was going 00:15:03.590 --> 00:15:07.616 to be scheduled, her family is scared for her in las Vegas weekend, 00:15:07.649 --> 00:15:14.606 celebrated her birthday. And what goes to las Vegas doesn't come back. 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:19.307 If my math is correct and I believe we really date the start of this whole 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:23.407 Exercise from about 1966. 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:29.276 And if that's true, then this whole thing is, Has been going on for 51 00:15:29.309 --> 00:15:34.506 years. Okay, let's fess up how many people in this room? We're really here 00:15:34.539 --> 00:15:40.937 51 years ago. I 00:15:40.970 --> 00:15:45.707 anywhere else in town. 00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:47.807 Um, 00:15:47.840 --> 00:15:53.927 family forward was a relatively new organization itself in 1966 It wasn't 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:59.077 my information and three local organizations who decided that to hear 00:15:59.110 --> 00:16:03.837 themselves more rich and more, uh, cloud. They should, they should combine 00:16:03.870 --> 00:16:07.616 the resources, hired executive director and try to be something. And 00:16:07.649 --> 00:16:10.657 that's really what valley forward was doing when all this happened over 00:16:10.690 --> 00:16:18.690 here at the university. And um, I'm not going to say because I don't think 00:16:19.269 --> 00:16:25.307 it's true that one of the 50 Year plan came out, I don't wanna call it, 00:16:25.340 --> 00:16:30.266 that came out that everybody just went gaga over the fact of the memories 00:16:30.299 --> 00:16:36.616 that it was a gorgeous thing. It was very imaginative. But the truth is, 00:16:36.649 --> 00:16:39.596 as soon as people begin thinking about it, they couldn't figure out how to 00:16:39.629 --> 00:16:44.037 do it. And it took a long time to try to get the community really call 00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:51.207 this around Around doing the project in somewhere. In 1969, there was a 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:57.886 major presentation given to the business community in phoenix and they 00:16:57.919 --> 00:17:02.856 fell right in line with the, the wonders of the project and basically 00:17:02.889 --> 00:17:08.457 assigned the responsibility getting things done or getting carried out to 00:17:08.490 --> 00:17:11.707 carry forward 00:17:11.740 --> 00:17:15.076 during the decade, roughly around that period. I don't really remember 00:17:15.109 --> 00:17:20.407 exactly how many times, but five or six times during that period, we shut 00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:27.046 down almost everything in this town by floods. Um, and downtown phoenix 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:32.437 was isolated once were blown out every bridge, I think in the, in the, in 00:17:32.470 --> 00:17:38.516 the valley between these Oliver and we basically downtown phoenix from the 00:17:38.549 --> 00:17:42.717 whole rest of the of the county for some period of time. And as a matter 00:17:42.750 --> 00:17:47.127 of fact, of course had developing railway railway system which was named 00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:52.256 the heavy d after Governor Evans wife uh to get people from this side of 00:17:52.289 --> 00:17:57.276 the river to the other side of the river where the economics were. So it 00:17:57.309 --> 00:18:01.306 was just for starters, 00:18:01.339 --> 00:18:06.427 people realized right away that just doing a flood control project and 00:18:06.460 --> 00:18:09.627 you're able to produce the results that we're looking for. It was not 00:18:09.660 --> 00:18:14.806 going to be easy. It also has about a billion dollar pressure something 00:18:14.839 --> 00:18:18.707 and nobody had a clue where to get that money. There was also of course 00:18:18.740 --> 00:18:22.897 the problem of this, this is one of the beauties of this thing is people 00:18:22.930 --> 00:18:27.117 appear have already indicated of this project is that it involves the 00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:32.266 whole community really. Um four cities, the county, God knows how many 00:18:32.299 --> 00:18:37.286 federal agencies, um all sorts of other stakeholders who owned land and 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:42.536 the along the river including the sand and gravel people somehow or other 00:18:42.569 --> 00:18:45.986 famous thing together and we had to bring all those people together into 00:18:46.019 --> 00:18:52.056 the thing. Um I think um I happen to be president of valley for work for 00:18:52.089 --> 00:18:56.836 two years in 1979 and 80, which happened to be pretty service symbol in 00:18:56.869 --> 00:19:03.617 here because he was in there time for you when we uh got to realize a lot 00:19:03.650 --> 00:19:08.197 of development district approved by the legislature and when we didn't get 00:19:08.230 --> 00:19:13.427 the funding source for which was the ultimate mhm problem for the whole 00:19:13.460 --> 00:19:21.460 for the whole project. Um but during that time I produced a RIO's Olympic 00:19:21.650 --> 00:19:26.976 committee, that organization runs by committees, it still does. Uh And 00:19:27.009 --> 00:19:32.207 that committee consisted of, well, was divided into two segments, really. 00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:36.617 Half of the committee was chaired by Jimmy Elmore and jim was served in 00:19:36.650 --> 00:19:42.967 charge of the realities of projects planning the stuff you had to do to 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:47.937 actually get get the thing don't. And the other half of the thing was was 00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:51.697 starting to build troubles. I'm sure most of, you know, something about 00:19:51.730 --> 00:19:55.306 del shovels. He was at one time, I think the owner of almost every 00:19:55.339 --> 00:20:00.377 apartment building in Maricopa County um which made in knowledgeable, made 00:20:00.410 --> 00:20:04.427 an original real estate developer and media rich, so he was somebody we're 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:10.867 gonna listen to. Um bill had a, I'm shortening this up. A lot of people 00:20:10.900 --> 00:20:15.467 had his own scheme for financing his project and he wanted to do it with 00:20:15.500 --> 00:20:20.907 something called tax increment financing. Um 00:20:20.940 --> 00:20:25.496 We didn't get that because we couldn't persuade people with different 00:20:25.529 --> 00:20:29.397 persuade people in the legislature that the project could be done that. In 00:20:29.430 --> 00:20:34.756 fact it panel great future if we got behind it and pushed it. And so we 00:20:34.789 --> 00:20:38.806 got the reason it was longer than open district passed by the legislature. 00:20:38.839 --> 00:20:43.717 We could not get financing our future, they didn't understand taxes, 00:20:43.750 --> 00:20:49.536 influence financing or didn't like it. The main problem was that, but 00:20:49.569 --> 00:20:55.226 financing was used in most places to take blanket real estate and make it 00:20:55.259 --> 00:21:00.746 valuable by giving it its own its own revenue source. And in Arizona, the 00:21:00.779 --> 00:21:04.967 Legislature was scared to death that if you actually did that somewhere, 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:08.687 those things would pop up in every study in the state. And so they're 00:21:08.720 --> 00:21:13.957 unwilling to take the thing too to that conclusion. Therefore, when we 00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:19.357 finally got to the point of the election, when timbre did and Dennis Davis 00:21:19.390 --> 00:21:25.887 with the proposition was put to the voters, It had a 25% property tax 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:30.326 attached to, which is not the most most popular kind of thing you could do 00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:36.177 in in this area in those days. I personally believe that the that it 00:21:36.210 --> 00:21:40.627 wasn't any republican anthem or about the project that killed it was the 00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:46.707 financial, they killed the taxes were just an effort. 00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:50.266 That's because as soon as we had no money for it, it sort of went into 00:21:50.299 --> 00:21:56.006 hibernation for a while. And the Tempe portion of the project, which is 00:21:56.039 --> 00:22:01.806 what we're sitting next to here became the and became the therapies for. 00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:06.357 And so roger you want to talk about your role and as chair of the Advisory 00:22:06.390 --> 00:22:09.697 commission sort of building off of what bill offered in and you were 00:22:09.730 --> 00:22:13.826 connected to the university Christine with Christine Wilkinson. And so you 00:22:13.859 --> 00:22:19.506 see both sides of this equation. Yeah, it was a very exciting time um 00:22:19.539 --> 00:22:24.546 having jim provided the vision for the project and from my background in 00:22:24.579 --> 00:22:28.796 higher ed, I think vision is one of the key elements of great leadership 00:22:28.829 --> 00:22:33.347 and also harry Mitchell appointing a group for the city attempting to move 00:22:33.380 --> 00:22:38.326 the project forward. Um We had a great group of citizens, about a dozen 00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:44.066 from all different areas. Um we grabbed onto it like a dog and bone. It 00:22:44.099 --> 00:22:49.276 was a great opportunity to try to translate concept of Jim and his 00:22:49.309 --> 00:22:55.397 students into this particular area, which was a little more limited than 00:22:55.430 --> 00:23:02.707 the full scope that was described earlier. Um We also looked at the 00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:06.617 physical nature of it and if you look at some of those pictures back you 00:23:06.650 --> 00:23:12.167 see what a terrible area it was at the time. So our first step was to 00:23:12.200 --> 00:23:16.947 translate from the general plan, a specific plan for the city of Tempe. 00:23:16.980 --> 00:23:22.417 And we spent a lot of time doing it, got a lot of input from citizens had 00:23:22.450 --> 00:23:27.967 meetings all over the place, we presented a conceptual plan for the city 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:33.407 of Tempe to the Planning commission and got totally alone out of the water. 00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:37.707 They were not happy with that. And so we went back to the drawing board, 00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:40.927 we did a lot of things, took it back, went through the planning commission 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:44.627 and then ultimately approval by the city council, what, what was the 00:23:44.660 --> 00:23:47.407 problem? 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:52.957 I think it was the major issues that have been brought up. Um, where is 00:23:52.990 --> 00:23:58.006 the funding going to come from? What is the technology for flood control? 00:23:58.039 --> 00:24:05.857 Um, how are you going to build the infrastructure I bridges and so forth 00:24:05.890 --> 00:24:11.236 over it? And those were certainly legitimate issues at the time. We didn't 00:24:11.269 --> 00:24:14.597 have the technology. Certainly the bridges you see today, including the 00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:19.877 new one would have been a pie in the sky. So, um, there was, there was a 00:24:19.910 --> 00:24:24.516 lot of objection to that. Once we had the master plan for Tempe, we took 00:24:24.549 --> 00:24:29.917 our little dog and pony show all over the place with the city of Tempe 00:24:29.950 --> 00:24:34.536 developed a slide show. I remember right up at the end of Mill Avenue 00:24:34.569 --> 00:24:39.306 Bridge, you can see it from here putting on a show for the crowd of people 00:24:39.339 --> 00:24:44.637 and we tried to sell this the best we could, We did get a lot of disbelief 00:24:44.670 --> 00:24:52.617 in it, as you can imagine, but I think the major value of our group and 00:24:52.650 --> 00:24:56.467 the support from the city and the council at the time was it moved the 00:24:56.500 --> 00:25:01.107 project forward and didn't let it die. It kept it going. I see Russell 00:25:01.140 --> 00:25:07.407 Otto as unending chain of various links. We certainly heard a lot about 00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:11.836 the start and then this was kind of a period where had it been dropped by 00:25:11.869 --> 00:25:16.506 Tempe and by the district, which was then formed. It probably wouldn't be 00:25:16.539 --> 00:25:22.607 anywhere today. So it's, it's a long story and it's an unfinished story. 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:28.347 Um, one of my favorite quotes is from nelson Mandela who said um, it never 00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:34.707 , it always seems impossible until it's finished. Well, it's not finished 00:25:34.740 --> 00:25:40.056 , there's still lots more to go. I hope we can all see it correct. So 00:25:40.089 --> 00:25:44.826 Michelle, um, thank you for being here and then we're glad Diane is having 00:25:44.859 --> 00:25:49.107 a great birthday party, happy to have you here. You and I were chatting 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:53.016 just before this. The reasons for the project as it was originally 00:25:53.049 --> 00:25:58.006 conceived are even more resonant now as I look out here and see bicyclists 00:25:58.039 --> 00:26:02.867 and pedestrians using this. Uh, when we know that people are moving to 00:26:02.900 --> 00:26:07.036 cities, when they have these kinds of amenities, tell us about the valley 00:26:07.069 --> 00:26:10.756 forward now, Arizona forward and what you're doing and how this really 00:26:10.789 --> 00:26:15.927 helps to propel your future work for. I know it's mesmerizing sitting up 00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:19.127 here and watching that and I don't wish I was on my bike right now. I 00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:23.476 really don't want to be here. As I see all those cyclists running by, I do 00:26:23.509 --> 00:26:27.986 take this route almost every weekend from my home near North Scottsdale 00:26:28.019 --> 00:26:31.796 down here and back up again because of this bridge and everything that's 00:26:31.829 --> 00:26:35.217 been done here and I grew up in Minneapolis and there's a chain of lakes 00:26:35.250 --> 00:26:39.347 in Minneapolis that I am committed when I lived there, but I moved here 27 00:26:39.380 --> 00:26:43.286 years ago and this didn't exist and I wanted to go back because it was so 00:26:43.319 --> 00:26:47.597 important to me to have that availability and we have it now and I don't 00:26:47.630 --> 00:26:51.806 ever want to go back to Minneapolis to live, I want to stay here forever 00:26:51.839 --> 00:26:58.407 but um Arizona Forward went statewide almost five years ago 2013 and it 00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:02.657 took us a little wind out of our sails locally to pay attention to 00:27:02.690 --> 00:27:06.187 northern and southern Arizona but it's really important for us to have a 00:27:06.220 --> 00:27:10.687 legacy like this here and to continue it but to take a similar stance in 00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:14.907 northern and southern Arizona and that's what we're working towards right 00:27:14.940 --> 00:27:20.397 now while having um more connectivity and and more energy placed back in 00:27:20.430 --> 00:27:26.276 our central region Um this project and I was grateful to hear our opening 00:27:26.309 --> 00:27:30.677 speaker say that we've got 50 years you know to complete this and I want 00:27:30.710 --> 00:27:34.847 Arizona forward as chair, if I can say I want Arizona forward to stay 00:27:34.880 --> 00:27:39.457 involved in that project so that we can continue on down the river and 00:27:39.490 --> 00:27:44.607 make impactful places like this and want to come here for um I think 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:50.256 Arizona for what we do well is collaborating and bring together groups of 00:27:50.289 --> 00:27:55.467 people and legislators and policymakers and businesses and organizations 00:27:55.500 --> 00:28:00.246 and foundations and everybody together to help raise these kinds of 00:28:00.279 --> 00:28:04.677 projects and issues in the minds of people who may not care otherwise they 00:28:04.710 --> 00:28:09.306 may not have a reason to come down here other than for recreation or to 00:28:09.339 --> 00:28:13.197 have this room full of people That half the room raised their hands. They 00:28:13.230 --> 00:28:18.417 were here 51 years ago is awe inspiring that you still care and that 00:28:18.450 --> 00:28:22.086 you're here and that you want to continue the legacy that you created way 00:28:22.119 --> 00:28:27.306 back then. So I think as we continue this journey on this project, um, and 00:28:27.339 --> 00:28:31.516 on other projects, um just keeping that spirit of collaboration and 00:28:31.549 --> 00:28:35.167 getting all of our organizations to work together is what Bill talked 00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:40.217 about and getting people together and it's important and that's I think 00:28:40.250 --> 00:28:44.647 what we do well, so there is so much more we can talk about with these 00:28:44.680 --> 00:28:48.056 three folks, but but I want to thank all of you for for your contributions 00:28:48.089 --> 00:28:51.647 and filling in some of the puzzle pieces in this story and the fact that 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:55.546 what jim was thinking about relative to a place a site resulted in an 00:28:55.579 --> 00:28:59.207 organization that persists today and continues to drive the community 00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:03.927 forward is another incredible byproduct of his legacy. So thank you very 00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:09.607 much for three of you provide. Thank you. 00:29:09.640 --> 00:29:12.207 Okay, 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:16.377 it's never too late to do the right thing. I didn't really acknowledge the 00:29:16.410 --> 00:29:19.707 class that did the work here. So for those of you who are here in 00:29:19.740 --> 00:29:23.016 attendance and participation as work. If you'd care to stand or raise your 00:29:23.049 --> 00:29:28.006 hand, we'd love to acknowledge you. I think the class is over here. 00:29:28.039 --> 00:29:35.076 It's 00:29:35.109 --> 00:29:41.857 really a delight moved closer to the way you're afraid. So you have to try 00:29:41.890 --> 00:29:45.486 to push this forward, the heavy lifting sort of, you will be one of the 00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:52.786 next lifters. Uh talk about your role as the first executive director of 00:29:52.819 --> 00:29:57.506 the entity created to try to make this happen. 00:29:57.539 --> 00:30:03.667 It actually started with me in 1972, working in cities all the time and we 00:30:03.700 --> 00:30:08.127 were involved in the indian bend wash, which you have seen and became a 00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:12.306 very successful flood control, 00:30:12.339 --> 00:30:16.607 built series of parks and recreation opportunities. 00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:21.387 I went to a meeting in 1972 and Jim Gilmore was there giving his 00:30:21.420 --> 00:30:27.437 presentation and he talked about, we could, we could create recreation 00:30:27.470 --> 00:30:34.546 sites, we can do new rail, build highways, we can build new housing, can 00:30:34.579 --> 00:30:42.579 build commercial property and maybe even a new state fairground 1972 00:30:43.339 --> 00:30:46.107 1981 00:30:46.140 --> 00:30:52.107 I was retained by the new chairman of the real flaw development district. 00:30:52.140 --> 00:30:58.927 A gentleman named Jim Peterson to become the first executive director In 00:30:58.960 --> 00:31:05.207 1980, I think it's bill make reference the legislature improve the 00:31:05.240 --> 00:31:10.806 beginning in the real flood of Belton district. I'm working For those of 00:31:10.839 --> 00:31:15.347 you who can recall all the better for 51 years longer. Will remember the 00:31:15.380 --> 00:31:18.766 fellow named Leo corporate, who was president of the state Senate at the 00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:24.836 time about two months ago, I was sitting in a gymnasium and in walks leo 00:31:24.869 --> 00:31:30.677 Corbett 80 years old now and still in there pumping iron and they had a 00:31:30.710 --> 00:31:37.347 heart transplant. So, and he tells me that He, in 1980 Jim Elmore here he 00:31:37.380 --> 00:31:42.006 comes again, talk to him and said, We've got to get some funding for this. 00:31:42.039 --> 00:31:46.887 So Senator Corbett says, well we'll do that. And he called in Jim Mac if 00:31:46.920 --> 00:31:52.306 your longtime Tempe resident Jim Mack was a state senator from Tempe area 00:31:52.339 --> 00:31:56.687 And so he charged gym mat with putting together a basic funding package 00:31:56.720 --> 00:32:00.607 for $200,000 to create the district. And that's the funding that we 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:05.996 started with. Dennis Davis was the first hire that I made here in the 00:32:06.029 --> 00:32:09.207 audience today. He was the deputy director and we started in on this 00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:15.576 project and the legislature direction was figure out the feasibility of 00:32:15.609 --> 00:32:20.697 the project and figure out a master plan for the project and how are you 00:32:20.730 --> 00:32:24.526 gonna get the money always comes back, who's got the money and how you 00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:29.506 gonna get the money? So we started in 00:32:29.539 --> 00:32:35.697 do the economic feasibility. I first went to a young economists at the 00:32:35.730 --> 00:32:40.306 Valley National Bank by the name of Elliott Pollack, I'm sure I don't know. 00:32:40.339 --> 00:32:43.506 And I said, Elliot, here's what I'm gonna do and I need a volunteer to 00:32:43.539 --> 00:32:47.397 figure out the economic strategies that we can use to make this project 00:32:47.430 --> 00:32:52.927 work. And he said, that's right. He said, tell me, can you pay me? I said 00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:59.086 no, but what do you mean? He said, I'm wild over bazooka bubble gum and if 00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:05.097 you can give me a box of bazooka bubble gum 00:33:05.130 --> 00:33:10.167 and he did the work, he's still still around today. He said my book club 00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:13.786 along with some other members in the audience here. I can't imagine 00:33:13.819 --> 00:33:17.506 Elliott working for that today. 00:33:17.539 --> 00:33:24.147 I think that don't tell him I told you because today you can do it. So 00:33:24.180 --> 00:33:29.397 then the second challenge was designing master plan on what is this thing 00:33:29.430 --> 00:33:34.306 called Real Solano and how might it look? Mhm Based on what the students 00:33:34.339 --> 00:33:39.016 have done and jerry and his team have done, we hired a firm called KKR 00:33:39.049 --> 00:33:44.957 lynch and they were from, from back in boston and then a lot of big 00:33:44.990 --> 00:33:49.256 community projects in boston were well known for that survey. The master 00:33:49.289 --> 00:33:57.289 plan for this project define being the next areas just east of Mesa from 00:33:58.079 --> 00:34:02.407 the grand reef down onto the confluence of the healing salt about 40 miles. 00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:07.407 The legislature had identified 65,000 acres to be part of the real 00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:11.296 slaughter project. And that was the second piece of this project. And 00:34:11.329 --> 00:34:15.947 third, where are you going to get the money? As bill mentioned, we talked 00:34:15.980 --> 00:34:20.006 about tax increment financing 00:34:20.039 --> 00:34:25.416 and there were some real questions they will be raised about is this 00:34:25.449 --> 00:34:28.497 really feasible? There were some attorneys I talked to said you could do 00:34:28.530 --> 00:34:32.137 what others said you can't deal with this unconstitutional. There's a big 00:34:32.170 --> 00:34:37.506 argument about that. No one really got comfortable for with tax financing 00:34:37.539 --> 00:34:42.177 but the key that everybody has mentioned here, the other theme is the 00:34:42.210 --> 00:34:45.506 economics of this project. 00:34:45.539 --> 00:34:52.066 We we put together a team of people that were well known in real estate 00:34:52.099 --> 00:34:55.367 development. Most of you will recognize the name Rusty Lion who's done 00:34:55.400 --> 00:35:01.727 most of the big projects here at Fashion Square in Scottsdale and others. 00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:06.887 Um and they all said the key to making this work and using tax increment 00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:14.106 financing was too control the land along the banks and you could bring in 00:35:14.139 --> 00:35:19.456 private investors who would participate in this and that we would use the 00:35:19.489 --> 00:35:23.376 incremental increasing the property tax to fund the project. And that was 00:35:23.409 --> 00:35:25.807 the concept 00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:29.166 you can see today, that's exactly what's happening right behind me here in 00:35:29.199 --> 00:35:36.557 the city of Tempe is the shining example of that concept and and uh that's 00:35:36.590 --> 00:35:41.546 interesting. I see a lot of my fellow urban land is too mhm colleagues in 00:35:41.579 --> 00:35:45.416 the audience and in the back we're still trying to figure out financing 00:35:45.449 --> 00:35:50.537 mechanisms for major projects like this. But working on the water issues 00:35:50.570 --> 00:35:53.546 associated issue, you became something of an expert in the garden of Water 00:35:53.579 --> 00:35:59.086 as well, do some other things. This is a demonstration of what we can do 00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:03.307 with water, the appropriateness of it, those kinds of things. Can you 00:36:03.340 --> 00:36:07.166 speak to what we do you think this is a demonstration of with regard to 00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:11.146 how we could probably complete this project as it was originally conceived 00:36:11.179 --> 00:36:14.197 or do more with it. 00:36:14.230 --> 00:36:18.037 My my world for the last 27 years of bills involved in water and 00:36:18.070 --> 00:36:23.727 particularly the treatment of wastewater making it useful for recreation 00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:29.467 activity. I personally deliver non potable water to 26 golf courses in 00:36:29.500 --> 00:36:35.887 North Scottsdale. We take the city's wastewater and clean it up, make it 00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:40.066 useful for irrigation and thereby saving the potable water. It's in the 00:36:40.099 --> 00:36:45.686 ground for public use. I know initially this project was the same concept 00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:51.936 . I think Jim Elmore talked about using the wastewater to develop this 00:36:51.969 --> 00:36:59.697 project. There there is a there's a source of water people 00:36:59.730 --> 00:37:05.657 concerned about or have mhm questions about or you know, I think san Diego 00:37:05.690 --> 00:37:10.006 called the toilet to tap but 00:37:10.039 --> 00:37:14.646 not very appealing and that's the anti but you can't wear that. We use 00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:18.236 this water. And if you're treated to particular level, that becomes very, 00:37:18.269 --> 00:37:25.807 very valuable. So to me in the desert the appropriate but called the 00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:30.997 service use of water is very, very important to create the amenity that 00:37:31.030 --> 00:37:35.497 trans people And because we all have seen today what's happening here 00:37:35.530 --> 00:37:40.456 because of this election, this pool of water sitting right here and on 00:37:40.489 --> 00:37:45.916 this property and right in front of us every time I I'm telling people 00:37:45.949 --> 00:37:48.956 it's fine. I drive back and forth to the airport and my son was with me 00:37:48.989 --> 00:37:54.407 today, one with my wife and his mother. It gives me kind of goose bumps to 00:37:54.440 --> 00:38:00.086 see this and what's happening this is what we identified as being possible 00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:05.486 and we can do a lot more and that's What the next 15 years are going to be 00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:10.287 all about. So to me, water is a fundamental 00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:14.367 vehicle that we can use to create these kinds of projects, not only here 00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:19.856 but along the river, there's plenty of of resource called wastewater that 00:38:19.889 --> 00:38:23.807 can be used to make that. I think you're absolutely right and the fact 00:38:23.840 --> 00:38:27.077 that so many people are able to use this in this way. It's a perfectly 00:38:27.110 --> 00:38:31.407 appropriate and compelling use of tim Thank you very much for your 00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:39.440 insights. Okay, 00:38:39.449 --> 00:38:42.706 so we've hit three of the eras and now we're moving on to the city of 00:38:42.739 --> 00:38:48.227 Tempe. So I'd like to invite uh Neil Giuliano steve Nielsen and former U. 00:38:48.260 --> 00:38:51.776 S. Representative and Mayor mary Mitchell if he's here? I think in this 00:38:51.809 --> 00:38:56.807 case. Okay, so I can imagine we're doing really well by the way, 15 00:38:56.840 --> 00:39:00.477 minutes of peace with with the kind of information speakers we have here. 00:39:00.510 --> 00:39:05.026 This may be more of a challenge, but we'll see how that goes. So it was 00:39:05.059 --> 00:39:09.717 nice to see Representative Mitchell acknowledged at founders Day for issue 00:39:09.750 --> 00:39:13.557 a couple of nights ago. It's nice to see you there. Uh I'm not gonna say 00:39:13.590 --> 00:39:17.416 much. Why don't you tell us about how this came about relative to what you 00:39:17.449 --> 00:39:24.686 were doing, what you would think, but when the, when the election failed, 00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:28.787 our first reaction was we still have to do something about the riverbed. 00:39:28.820 --> 00:39:32.776 You know, this was like the living room. This is the gateway that can't be. 00:39:32.809 --> 00:39:36.166 And when people came in the tippy, what they saw was some of the pictures 00:39:36.199 --> 00:39:40.956 you see over here and that's unacceptable. Even, no matter what you did, 00:39:40.989 --> 00:39:45.186 it would be better than it was. So that was kind of the idea about it. Now 00:39:45.219 --> 00:39:50.887 , a couple other little things that happened at the northwest corner of 00:39:50.920 --> 00:39:57.447 the bridges mill and the river, there was a motel and the city bought that 00:39:57.480 --> 00:40:01.546 motel with the idea. Eventually we were going to do something along the 00:40:01.579 --> 00:40:06.887 river and we had a plan that we submitted to the legislature saying we're 00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:10.577 ready to go. We need some money. And that was the first bit of money that 00:40:10.610 --> 00:40:14.577 the legislature had because we had bought that hotel and we were ready to 00:40:14.610 --> 00:40:22.057 go. Then the other thing that really helped was The 202. You know, they're 00:40:22.090 --> 00:40:27.296 the ones that we're going to channel the river, uh, and no cost to the 00:40:27.329 --> 00:40:31.256 city. Now, thanks to Scottsdale, that's what happened because originally 00:40:31.289 --> 00:40:35.936 202 was to go down McDowell through the buttes and into Scottsdale. But 00:40:35.969 --> 00:40:39.717 Scott still didn't want anything to do with the freeway. And so we 00:40:39.750 --> 00:40:44.177 accepted that with the idea that they were going to help channel the river. 00:40:44.210 --> 00:40:49.217 So here we are with some money. It was channel ized and we're ready to go. 00:40:49.250 --> 00:40:52.867 And even if nothing really occurred, it was going to be better than it 00:40:52.900 --> 00:40:59.206 was on this picture of this card. Uh, some of you already have seen it. I 00:40:59.239 --> 00:41:04.146 was teaching at the high school. I had this picture up on my, on my boards 00:41:04.179 --> 00:41:07.736 at school and telling everybody this is what's going to happen. And I 00:41:07.769 --> 00:41:13.396 really believe that um, someone said one time that it takes 50 years for 00:41:13.429 --> 00:41:16.986 an overnight success. And I think that's what happened. People who haven't 00:41:17.019 --> 00:41:20.117 been here for a long time. I don't know if Roger's been back or not, but 00:41:20.150 --> 00:41:23.697 to look around and see what happens. Said, wow, this really happened fast. 00:41:23.730 --> 00:41:28.407 Well, it takes a long time and that's what's happening. Um, also 10 00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:32.756 minutes into wastewater. Um, I'll never forget telling my students that 00:41:32.789 --> 00:41:38.477 and they'd say, oh gross man. I said, well, you know, 00:41:38.510 --> 00:41:43.427 what do you think those astronauts are doing with for water? Heavy water 00:41:43.460 --> 00:41:47.887 is, you know, what are they doing up there with all that water? And that's 00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:51.177 when they said gross again. Anyway, 00:41:51.210 --> 00:41:56.916 I have to admit that uh, this isn't the way some of the plans look the way 00:41:56.949 --> 00:42:01.316 it developed, but that's the start. And that's what you have to do. And 00:42:01.349 --> 00:42:04.756 I'm really very proud of the fact that the city of Tempe took the ball, 00:42:04.789 --> 00:42:08.807 but I have to really give Roger Swanson a great deal of credit because 00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:12.727 with his enthusiasm and the committee that he had, that's what kept it on 00:42:12.760 --> 00:42:16.276 the front burner and that's what kept people going. I think it was 00:42:16.309 --> 00:42:21.467 mentioned earlier, one of the reasons why maybe um, the project failed 00:42:21.500 --> 00:42:25.597 with the public vote originally was because of the taxes and you really 00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:29.486 can't blame people. You think about how big miracle to county is. I'm from 00:42:29.519 --> 00:42:37.336 Wickenburg, two fountain hills, the buckeye, the whole area, Many of them 00:42:37.369 --> 00:42:40.206 say, well, how is that going to benefit me? That's really just gonna 00:42:40.239 --> 00:42:43.637 benefit the valley. And I think that's the same thing that happened. I 00:42:43.670 --> 00:42:49.117 might add with light rail and transit. Many of these people who are out in 00:42:49.150 --> 00:42:54.626 Wickenburg buckeye or Queen Creek, they don't really see the value to them 00:42:54.659 --> 00:43:00.407 , which is unfortunate because this adds to the whole uh, economy and, and 00:43:00.440 --> 00:43:05.046 and the pleasure of people coming to the valley. So it's exciting to sit 00:43:05.079 --> 00:43:10.787 here and see that just the heads bobbed along, it looks 00:43:10.820 --> 00:43:14.267 like a swimming 00:43:14.300 --> 00:43:17.967 and, and just just to, just to include when says, you know what we're 00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:22.106 going ahead and you've got mesa here, you've got phoenix here. I mean, the 00:43:22.139 --> 00:43:26.807 thoughts from your fellow members of the time is good luck to you. Exactly. 00:43:26.840 --> 00:43:30.497 But again, you know, dot helped the legislature helped with a little bit 00:43:30.530 --> 00:43:34.546 of money and we just kept moving a little by little. And I think that's, 00:43:34.579 --> 00:43:39.666 that's the difference. And so, uh, mayor Julia, you have to move this ball 00:43:39.699 --> 00:43:44.617 down the field picking up what we're tell us about that. Well, I think the 00:43:44.650 --> 00:43:49.597 interesting thing today is really acknowledging all of the people who 00:43:49.630 --> 00:43:55.026 played a significant role that advanced the concept and advanced the idea 00:43:55.059 --> 00:44:00.327 too In the mid 90s when we actually thought maybe we can actually move 00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:05.157 this happen. But there were a lot of it had to happen things before that. 00:44:05.190 --> 00:44:10.467 Mhm Harry indicated the hotel that was up there, the old and this was a 00:44:10.500 --> 00:44:14.217 political thing, the old fine arts center of Tempe, which really wasn't 00:44:14.250 --> 00:44:17.646 more than a little building in Tempe beach Park, but you had to do 00:44:17.679 --> 00:44:21.447 something with that. You had to do something with going through the river 00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:25.407 bottom. So you had to build a bridge. I remember one of the first things 00:44:25.440 --> 00:44:29.557 that when Harry was still mayor and I was new on the council was picking 00:44:29.590 --> 00:44:33.157 the alignment and the design for the second mill avenue bridge because you 00:44:33.190 --> 00:44:36.557 had to do that. If you're ever going to do something in the real salada, 00:44:36.590 --> 00:44:40.367 you had to move rio salado parkway, which was then right along the river 00:44:40.400 --> 00:44:44.977 bottom, you had to move that south so that you could reclaim that land. So 00:44:45.010 --> 00:44:48.566 there are a lot of things that you just had, it had to do if you want to 00:44:48.599 --> 00:44:52.876 be able to get to the point to actually build something like the actual 00:44:52.909 --> 00:44:58.546 lake and so it's roger and then dave Hanna who passed away, who has now 00:44:58.579 --> 00:45:02.117 passed away, he was real slaughter commission chair for many, many years 00:45:02.150 --> 00:45:08.387 as well, I think of it as the policy piece, if it's sort of a figure eight 00:45:08.420 --> 00:45:14.407 of the policy piece over here and the public Over here and in the middle 00:45:14.440 --> 00:45:19.947 of that little figure eight is the politics and there are politics as you 00:45:19.980 --> 00:45:23.436 might imagine with anything that's big, anything that's expensive, 00:45:23.469 --> 00:45:29.157 anything this visionary. Uh not everyone always captures the vision, not 00:45:29.190 --> 00:45:33.267 everyone always thinks it's a worthy expense. And so those of us who are 00:45:33.300 --> 00:45:36.927 in on the policy side had to deal with those policy issues of 00:45:36.960 --> 00:45:41.307 transportation and park space and all the others, we had to deal with the 00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:45.327 public out and talking to the community all the time to make sure that the 00:45:45.360 --> 00:45:49.506 concept really did have widespread public support. Uh, so that, you know, 00:45:49.539 --> 00:45:51.967 you can actually move something forward, you're not getting ahead of the 00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:56.427 public and you had to deal with the politics and not every project or not 00:45:56.460 --> 00:46:00.756 every idea or not every concept, there was always a 7 to 0 vote, maybe 00:46:00.789 --> 00:46:04.316 they were in various councils, but they weren't mine. Uh and so you, you 00:46:04.349 --> 00:46:08.477 just, you deal with that. And I've told folks that on, on any given 00:46:08.510 --> 00:46:16.510 thursday night Leading up to at least from from my tenure from 94 to 97, 00:46:16.690 --> 00:46:21.356 when we took the vote to actually build the lake And then 97 when we 00:46:21.389 --> 00:46:24.816 actually started building the lake on any given Thursday night something 00:46:24.849 --> 00:46:29.276 could have went crazy. And quite often it did and we sent something back 00:46:29.309 --> 00:46:32.867 and they bring it back again. But that's that's what it takes to work this 00:46:32.900 --> 00:46:36.316 and you you don't do it by yourself, you do it with a lot of people. The 00:46:36.349 --> 00:46:39.606 next guy you're you're gonna hear from and the people that he worked with 00:46:39.639 --> 00:46:44.186 played a really really major role in making that happen. So it's it's 00:46:44.219 --> 00:46:47.896 really tremendous and it is amazing to see and I'm happy to see the bridge 00:46:47.929 --> 00:46:51.407 being named for Dr Elmore. Yeah. And I think you make a really good point 00:46:51.440 --> 00:46:55.956 why we're celebrating Jim Elmore and lighting the fuse that made this 00:46:55.989 --> 00:46:59.997 happen. We're really celebrating a community coming together and a series 00:47:00.030 --> 00:47:05.267 of decisions and brave declarations and votes and sometimes just 00:47:05.300 --> 00:47:08.287 opportunistic things that you seize upon and make something happen. We're 00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:13.017 celebrating all of that while speaking of course to Jim Omar so steve you 00:47:13.050 --> 00:47:16.456 and I know each other from when you were at A S. U. And you work to push 00:47:16.489 --> 00:47:21.486 this project forward for 15 plus years. So so tell us you were really 00:47:21.519 --> 00:47:25.236 doing it. So talk about some of those decisions and some of those moments. 00:47:25.269 --> 00:47:30.497 Well I think first of all it is those let me recognize is the certainly 00:47:30.530 --> 00:47:35.137 in the audience are staff members that work with the city council members 00:47:35.170 --> 00:47:41.006 uh consultants a lot of our consulting team and developers is they all 00:47:41.039 --> 00:47:46.477 played a role in this. But most importantly, you can't say enough about 00:47:46.510 --> 00:47:52.086 the city council. These were tough political questions that every time I 00:47:52.119 --> 00:47:56.776 went before them and said I need a little more money or, or this is gonna 00:47:56.809 --> 00:48:02.256 be a tough decision and we knew how difficult that would be. And so it 00:48:02.289 --> 00:48:07.836 took uh these two visionary leaders were at the forefront of making things 00:48:07.869 --> 00:48:13.497 happen without them. This lake wouldn't have been here. Um I took over as 00:48:13.530 --> 00:48:18.206 uh, I actually was involved with Real Solano. I headed up the city's 00:48:18.239 --> 00:48:25.816 design review board and staff and just before the district vote. Um I was 00:48:25.849 --> 00:48:32.287 asked by Don Hull to sit down meet with the Real Seletto Advisory 00:48:32.320 --> 00:48:37.117 commission start to attend meetings to protect employees interests. Uh we 00:48:37.150 --> 00:48:41.986 wanted to make sure that as this grandiose big project moved forward, that 00:48:42.019 --> 00:48:48.247 we had to say um the vote failed. And what harry didn't tell you was the 00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:51.606 day after the vote? Well, first of all, it's the day after the vote, he 00:48:51.639 --> 00:48:56.646 publicly announced we're going to build it in Tempe. Anyway. What he 00:48:56.679 --> 00:49:00.316 didn't also say is he called me up that day said steve, I don't know how 00:49:00.349 --> 00:49:03.436 we're going to do it, but 00:49:03.469 --> 00:49:08.126 figure it out that we're gonna have a campus in downtown phoenix and you 00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:11.606 and I were both there and okay, how we gonna do that, these things happen. 00:49:11.639 --> 00:49:17.046 It's that kind of leadership that, that moved forward and I'm gonna talk 00:49:17.079 --> 00:49:20.827 a little bit about some of the elements here, but but also it carries 00:49:20.860 --> 00:49:26.756 forward to Neil is that when it came time to say we've now done the plans 00:49:26.789 --> 00:49:32.787 , we've got a vision, all of the stars are aligned, we we've got the costs 00:49:32.820 --> 00:49:39.586 lined up the best we can, It's going to take a leap of faith. And um We 00:49:39.619 --> 00:49:44.927 had, if I remember right over like a week period, 10 executive sessions. I 00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:51.126 mean, this was a tough decision and neal led the charge and really, really 00:49:51.159 --> 00:49:55.026 made that tough decision that that built the project that you see out 00:49:55.059 --> 00:50:00.606 there today. The Town lake is a product of the work of all of our 00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:05.876 predecessors. Uh Dean Elmore came, I was holding weekly planning sessions 00:50:05.909 --> 00:50:12.546 , he come regularly and advise us um and uh 00:50:12.579 --> 00:50:15.427 and 00:50:15.460 --> 00:50:20.876 from the district, uh tim and Dennis, they gave us all the materials and 00:50:20.909 --> 00:50:25.807 the models and the and the work that had been done. And so we actually had 00:50:25.840 --> 00:50:31.236 to find a way though to to take a very dynamic project and right sizing 00:50:31.269 --> 00:50:37.927 for Tempe um and quite truthfully as we then reengaged with a issue. Um I 00:50:37.960 --> 00:50:43.316 was working with some of the uh school of architecture uh professors there 00:50:43.349 --> 00:50:48.316 , we uh we developed models, there's a model right now in the College of 00:50:48.349 --> 00:50:53.776 Architecture that was one of a model that Tempe commission and it's one 00:50:53.809 --> 00:50:58.577 variation of what you see out there. It was a series of braided streams 00:50:58.610 --> 00:51:03.626 and an environmental habitat and we loved that model and that direction. 00:51:03.659 --> 00:51:08.477 But the reality is, it wasn't sustainable in Tempe because if we had a 00:51:08.510 --> 00:51:13.356 flood event, we'd wipe out everything that we had built and we didn't feel 00:51:13.389 --> 00:51:18.427 that there would be public support or the dollars available to rebuild it. 00:51:18.460 --> 00:51:24.106 So what you see out here now is this two mile long leg was an economic 00:51:24.139 --> 00:51:31.217 analysis of what we could afford, what we could sustain and what would be 00:51:31.250 --> 00:51:37.686 the legacy of the city of Tempe. This is 10 Rio Salado is 10% of the, of 00:51:37.719 --> 00:51:41.916 the landlocked communities, land assets that kind of gotten lost in all of 00:51:41.949 --> 00:51:46.416 this. This is an economic engine for the community. It certainly looks 00:51:46.449 --> 00:51:52.517 that way today, but 30 years ago, um, that was questionable. And, and so 00:51:52.550 --> 00:51:59.896 we went down that path, but as, as the mayors have indicated a series of 00:51:59.929 --> 00:52:04.597 events, no one wanted the two oh two freeway. Tempe stood up and raised 00:52:04.630 --> 00:52:10.427 our hands and said, we do um, we, we got that to channel eyes the river. 00:52:10.460 --> 00:52:16.186 Um, we, we sold once we got the state to agree to building the lake and or 00:52:16.219 --> 00:52:19.227 channel. Izing the river, actually not building the lake channel. Izing 00:52:19.260 --> 00:52:22.336 the river, we went back to them and said, when you go build this new 00:52:22.369 --> 00:52:26.677 freeway out there, how about if we sell you sand and gravel and we showed 00:52:26.710 --> 00:52:31.336 them the economics of how that would be cheaper. And we had to go to the 00:52:31.369 --> 00:52:35.686 council and we passed legislation that said, we're gonna let a mining 00:52:35.719 --> 00:52:40.497 operation occur in the heart of the downtown in the river as a way to pay 00:52:40.530 --> 00:52:45.907 for this. And there are stories after stories of how all these elements 00:52:45.940 --> 00:52:50.146 came together to produce what you see here. But it really at the end of 00:52:50.179 --> 00:52:55.137 the day, I was just a public servant and had the opportunity to work with 00:52:55.170 --> 00:52:59.276 strong councils that believed in the project and made those tough 00:52:59.309 --> 00:53:03.586 decisions. That's a that's a great story about the same background. You 00:53:03.619 --> 00:53:08.316 know, we've got to make sure that we end up promptly so that we are all 00:53:08.349 --> 00:53:13.577 okay, so I might like to end uh with you representative Mitchell and I'm 00:53:13.610 --> 00:53:17.356 not gonna go too far into this. But this is a demonstration of community 00:53:17.389 --> 00:53:23.566 building of consensus, of weighing pros and cons and deciding to do 00:53:23.599 --> 00:53:27.697 something collectively given where we are both, I don't know, nationally 00:53:27.730 --> 00:53:31.546 regionally, whatever can we point to this as a demonstration of what we 00:53:31.579 --> 00:53:36.677 could be doing in the future in a really compelling way. Oh absolutely. 00:53:36.710 --> 00:53:40.416 And mentioned about all the support we have from other people. I don't 00:53:40.449 --> 00:53:45.717 think people remember the priest did not go across the river at one time 00:53:45.750 --> 00:53:50.727 and that took some cooperation with srp and Maricopa county and right in 00:53:50.760 --> 00:53:54.537 the middle of this river is a sewage plant. I mean there's a sewage 00:53:54.570 --> 00:53:58.307 pipeline going to the 91st avenue. The city of Tampa doesn't have a sewage 00:53:58.340 --> 00:54:03.206 disposal plant. It's all going down the middle of this river. So this is, 00:54:03.239 --> 00:54:07.206 you know, a lot of utilities were involved um and identifying usually 00:54:07.239 --> 00:54:10.026 beneficial interest in getting these things done in a collective way. 00:54:10.059 --> 00:54:13.387 Exactly. That's what you have to do and the same thing with the power 00:54:13.420 --> 00:54:18.177 lines, A PS and srp, they moved all the power lines. So it took a long 00:54:18.210 --> 00:54:23.396 time to get all that done. But after people see the vision and are willing 00:54:23.429 --> 00:54:26.057 to work with each other instead of just being negative. Well it's not 00:54:26.090 --> 00:54:29.336 gonna work. And so I'm not, you just got to be positive and a cheerleader 00:54:29.369 --> 00:54:33.267 saying it will work and just keep pushing it. And I think this is so 00:54:33.300 --> 00:54:36.876 emblematic of what we can do. Absolutely! I think we need to use it even 00:54:36.909 --> 00:54:43.706 more. Thank you to the three. 00:54:43.739 --> 00:54:49.677 It's a distinct pleasure to invite uh que el mar and James Elmore to the 00:54:49.710 --> 00:54:54.767 stage, the son and daughter jim or just say a few concluding remarks and 00:54:54.800 --> 00:55:01.256 then I'll add something. 00:55:01.289 --> 00:55:08.097 Okay, well first of all, I I just have to do this. 00:55:08.130 --> 00:55:15.977 This is uh this is awesome. I can't begin to tell you, extraordinary 00:55:16.010 --> 00:55:23.657 invasives. So why don't you keep going? Okay, well I um I did not inherit 00:55:23.690 --> 00:55:31.690 dad's public speaking jeans at all. So I will be very brief and say um in 00:55:32.130 --> 00:55:40.130 my recollection on dance behalf out of all of his visioning and advocating 00:55:41.539 --> 00:55:47.646 and developing and everything that he did that he has so much to be proud 00:55:47.679 --> 00:55:53.646 of. I think what brought in the most joy was this lake and the 00:55:53.679 --> 00:56:01.287 manifestation of this project. And I recall the opening day of the lake of 00:56:01.320 --> 00:56:09.320 his um stepping off the first boat being present for the celebration of 00:56:10.809 --> 00:56:16.396 the opening. Um Clearly that was just the happiest look on his face and he 00:56:16.429 --> 00:56:24.117 just would be so overjoyed is what's happening today. Thank you. Well, 00:56:24.150 --> 00:56:28.296 this is an amazing day. All right. 00:56:28.329 --> 00:56:34.796 I'd like to go back in time just for a minute and tell you where James 00:56:34.829 --> 00:56:42.829 walter elmore came from. He was born in Nebraska in 1917. Almost 100 years 00:56:43.260 --> 00:56:50.296 ago. He was a graduate of the University of Nebraska. 00:56:50.329 --> 00:56:56.697 Then World War Two came along and he was served 00:56:56.730 --> 00:57:01.097 in the army Corps of Engineers. 00:57:01.130 --> 00:57:06.557 Mhm. He had an architecture degree, a bachelor's degree in architecture 00:57:06.590 --> 00:57:12.697 from Nebraska. Yeah, you were amazing people. Even in the army. He was 00:57:12.730 --> 00:57:15.396 with 00:57:15.429 --> 00:57:20.666 Nate goings. Let's get more and Meryl 00:57:20.699 --> 00:57:28.699 some other human areas. After the war he I went to Columbia got a master's 00:57:28.980 --> 00:57:33.697 degree on the G I Bill 00:57:33.730 --> 00:57:41.537 and then with his wife came to Arizona and if if we're talking about 00:57:41.570 --> 00:57:45.796 things. He loved, he loved Arizona 00:57:45.829 --> 00:57:51.997 never, never went elsewhere except to visit. 00:57:52.030 --> 00:57:54.697 Um, 00:57:54.730 --> 00:58:02.730 so that, that's his early years. Um, he would be delighted by the turnout 00:58:03.980 --> 00:58:09.387 today as Kay and I are, 00:58:09.420 --> 00:58:12.086 the, 00:58:12.119 --> 00:58:16.787 the funny thing about him is if you talk with people who really knew him, 00:58:16.820 --> 00:58:23.967 you'll hear the word modesty come up or not quite humble, but he was 00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:32.000 modest. He was and yet no one loved being praised more than he 00:58:35.219 --> 00:58:43.117 just, you know, soaked up attention like crazy and crazy. Um, and so this 00:58:43.150 --> 00:58:48.936 today would be a very special day for him and it's a very special day for 00:58:48.969 --> 00:58:52.787 us and I thank you all for coming. 00:58:52.820 --> 00:58:57.267 I 00:58:57.300 --> 00:59:01.316 just want to close this in the way that Duke opened it with a big shout 00:59:01.349 --> 00:59:07.146 out and thank you to Dave who this would not be happening if it weren't 00:59:07.179 --> 00:59:15.179 for him and we cannot thank you enough and thanks everyone. Thank 00:59:18.969 --> 00:59:23.236 you. Recall that when I was, your father passed, we had a celebration on 00:59:23.269 --> 00:59:28.477 top of the yet to be completed. Support buildings, steve Benson, randy 00:59:28.510 --> 00:59:34.117 Levin. It was, it was a shell, but it was enough of us to the height of a 00:59:34.150 --> 00:59:39.186 building for us to get up and see the river, see the water, see the lake. 00:59:39.219 --> 00:59:42.566 And as you reminded me of the front door as I came in, uh, didn't make 00:59:42.599 --> 00:59:47.119 you a promise. But we talked about how to make this lake after your father. 00:59:47.570 --> 00:59:49.570 However, 00:59:50.389 --> 00:59:53.767 I think what you're doing experience here and I think we've we've really 00:59:53.800 --> 00:59:57.057 done our level best to recognize what your father put in motion. And we're 00:59:57.090 --> 01:00:01.506 so I'm pleased that you are here to be with us to see this happen. We're 01:00:01.539 --> 01:00:05.977 pleased to. And really, ah 01:00:06.010 --> 01:00:13.296 what what, what you just left out was was the full story. Um, I'm not sure 01:00:13.329 --> 01:00:16.177 I was 01:00:16.210 --> 01:00:21.177 are you Dean writer or who are you now, 01:00:21.210 --> 01:00:24.077 Duke? Uh 01:00:24.110 --> 01:00:32.110 On that evening about 10 years ago, he, he asked, what, what can we do two 01:00:33.110 --> 01:00:39.977 memorialize your father. But I I didn't kind of shoot high and I said, 01:00:40.010 --> 01:00:46.776 well, can't we name the lake after him and 01:00:46.809 --> 01:00:54.747 Duke didn't make his promise at that point. Um, so what I'm trying to say 01:00:54.780 --> 01:01:02.780 is this is better. This is better. It's perfect, it's appropriate. 01:01:04.409 --> 01:01:12.409 Can't beat it. Thank you. Thank you. So 01:01:14.869 --> 01:01:17.407 I can see through the window there that people are gathering. So that's 01:01:17.440 --> 01:01:22.747 our next stop. But before I dearly, I want a second. Uh the unbelievable 01:01:22.780 --> 01:01:28.376 dedication and in the practicability of dave shots, li we're here because 01:01:28.409 --> 01:01:34.916 of you. Thank you for 01:01:34.949 --> 01:01:38.157 uh 01:01:38.190 --> 01:01:41.247 for Elizabeth opinions from the City of Tempe. They're the ones who've 01:01:41.280 --> 01:01:44.506 been helping both with this event and shepherding this through the various 01:01:44.539 --> 01:01:49.856 votes that have been required within city council thai tv and his whole 01:01:49.889 --> 01:01:55.227 events team at a. S. U. Helped to put this on and a very special thanks to 01:01:55.260 --> 01:01:58.586 kate carefully standing in the back of black dress. She works personally 01:01:58.619 --> 01:02:01.867 with me, uh, and she didn't know this was going to put on her plate. We 01:02:01.900 --> 01:02:04.546 didn't know how big the plate was gonna have to be to accommodate it, but 01:02:04.579 --> 01:02:08.356 she has also helped to make this event happen with Dave and I want to 01:02:08.389 --> 01:02:11.489 thank you. Thank you.