my name is Duke Rider. I'm a senior advisor to the President, Arizona
State University, former Dean of the College of Design and someone who
spent a lot of time with Jim. Um or as he would save me as he took me out
for breakfast, Duke, I can't hear anything. So I'm just going to talk with
you for an hour and a half. It was the best talk I've ever had every time
and uh he was full of enthusiasm for this place for this university, for
his work and uh it was an honor for me to know him. Uh and it's an honor
for me to try to manage the next hour. We have a lot of really interesting
speakers who would like to share with you what they know about how this
project came into being. Uh and we're going to do that. What I also want
to acknowledge is I think what this represents is exactly what a
university should be contributing to a city. Uh we should be
conceptualizing ideas and working with to realize them and the city of
course has been incredibly positive in the way it's supported Arizona
State University. So this symbiotic relationship is much of what we're
celebrating today as well. Uh I'd like to acknowledge some dignitaries who
have not in the audience yet will be in the audience. Uh See Cape back
there, nodding her head. We will have a former U. S. Representative and
former mayor of Tempe Harry Mitchell here with us. Uh Current mayor Mark
Mitchell will be here, former Tempe mayors, que Holman Neil Giuliano and
Rudy Campbell the ladder or two I just saw and had a conversation with and
the past president of Arizona state laddie court. Thank all of you. Thanks
all of you for being here today. Also, I acknowledge my good friend
Stephen temper, the Dean of the Herberger College of Design the Arts. I
know he's here somewhere there. He is. Uh, and so we've got a lot of great
people here. The way that the day is organized in the next hour is we're
gonna break the history of how this came into being into four sections
which are represented on many of the boards that you see here Error. one
is gonna be how the students conceptualize this project with Dean Elmore
and the faculty ERA two will be the rise of an organization to move this
forward, which became Valley Forward. Now Arizona forward will have
representatives from those groups speaking to you then, error three, the
Rio salado Development District. How legislation was written, how this
moved through the legislature and how this thing was conceptualized and
funding mechanisms conceived to make this happen Uh, era for the city of
10 people who really took this on when maybe some of the other cities
weren't quite ready and produced what you see today and I can assure you
that there's gonna be an error of five. There's more happening here. So I
wondered invite jerry and jim up to the stage
and Jim Garrison. So we're gonna start with the era that had to do with
conceptualization
of the project from an issue studio standpoint. Uh, that was of course
involving the class of 67. Uh, and I'm gonna read those members of the
class that jerry wanted me to do that. It was led by Professor robert
McConnell. There was jim Walton, satyr jerry, Atwood, obie, bowman, Greg
brown, bob calhoun Bill close Bill deal. Dave foot steve Freeman. Ben lee
jerry of course MArco and I think his son is here today. Is that right?
Marcus, I'm glad to have you here. Uh, Leland Peters uh, ned Sawyer, jim
Scalise and our intruders. So you imagine this is a group of young
students uh given license to think about what this could be and you're
gonna hear from people who were there. And so I'm gonna start with jerry.
If you could describe what the charge was, the students and what it felt
like to be given that opportunity. Certainly. Good morning and thank you.
Professor robert McConnell took the challenge from gmail more. Let's do
something with the river. And he brought it to our class of 16
enthusiastic want to save the world
architectural students. He said to us students, your first project, this
semester will be a class project. You're all going to be working on it and
it will be Due in eight weeks
and then he said there is a scar through the valley called the Salt River
fix it. He walked out of the room. Okay well
there was a deafening silence for a short period and then we started kind
of looking around at each other like that. And everybody that saw me and
everybody that I saw had a what the hell look on their face eight weeks to
do a project like that. And we jumped in and we started, so that's how it
started. You might want to remind people what you were looking, what, what
this was at the time as you observed that site. Yeah, that was the first
step in the process of designing the was to research in order to solve a
problem, you have to understand the problem. And so we um we walked the
river in sections, we took a mile or two of it and we walked it. Want to
remind them how large the area was that you were looking at? We went as
far as we could, but we hadn't actually defined the length of the master
plan yet because we were still in the research stage, not in the design
stage, but in the, we decided eventually in the master plan stage that the
project would be 200 miles in length. It would go from the granite reef.
Damn easter here all the way to the gulf of California
With a with an emphasis on the 40 miles from here to the confluence of the
salt and the Hilo sort of a concentrated area because you can't do 200
miles of master planning in eight weeks or eight months. Uh, so,
uh, we started researching after walking it. Someone was able to get ahold
of an airplane, people fluid. We talked to everybody, the federal
government, the Corps of Engineers, state county, all the local cities,
Salt River project, Arizona, public service of the sand and gravel
companies who have a big vested interest.
And in the process of researching, we uh, went to the library and found an
old map that showed the real, the river labeled as the real salada instead
of the salt river and that's where we adopted the name from. Okay, so jim
, you were a grad student, you were assistant to Dean Elmore and you
helped to gather up the work that the students have done and put it into a
report that turned out to be hugely influential. I want to talk a little
bit about that what you got. Well actually, I was 1/5 year student, I was
a second year student when the fifth year student did degree of slaughter
and actually every year did projects related to this Rios Lotto. We
designed housing and a museum that was replaced in the real slaughter
arena when I was in second year, in fifth year, In the summer between 4th
and 5th year Billy Garrett and I, their students, we're counseling
incoming freshmen at summer and somewhere along the way. He never asked me
if I wanted to To be involved with the real spot on three projects I think
Dean Elmore always wanted this to be viewed as a student generated project
for the real slow auto project. I was the only student and he paid me so
that's probably something most people don't know that I was paid over the
summer to draw the real slaughter three drawing from his program of what
he wanted to see in the project. So from a group of students were very
enthusiastic, enthusiastic for me working in the studio, all by myself,
working on this project is quite a difference there and then that was
generated. Dean Elmore actually wrote the report, found all the people to
attend the meeting and november 1969 and officially turned the project
over here. Also,
I assume uh Dean award was presenting that report personally. I'm sure he
made some impassioned pleas for why we should keep it only made six Made
six panels, 6 groups that meant that day. Mhm The biggest challenge in his
mind to overcome is how do you build a series of lakes that become a flood
control channel? That was the number one issue that was on his mind and
what he wanted to try and convince the people setting up valley forward
was that this was feasible. I think that's what he wanted to try and do.
Eventually the drawing that I drew over the summer Julian clark rendered
into the famous real slot brochure that was used for many years And, and
jeremy when you in the class completed the work and then we'll go on to
the next panel. What did you think you had accomplished? Did you have any
sense that the potential of what that group had gotten set in motion could
result in this where you're looking at your work and say, well one artist
students often work individually and each student presents their work to
work as a group and I have accomplished some of this group. Did you have a
sense of what you have done?
I'll tell you what I think most of the sense and that is that this project
could be done. It was very ambitious and when we presented it, we got a
few chuckles, you know, because we had barges going down the river into
the gulf and into the, into the California. But there's huge natural
resources west of here, Magnesite, tungsten, copper, silver, all kinds of
stuff and there's no way to get it out economically, barge is the only way
to do it. And that's why they were on the Mississippi and the Ohio and all
those rivers. But anyway, we, we knew we had something there and we knew
that if we could change it from a liability really a trash dump two, a
positive asset that instead of dividing the valley would unite all the
communities of the valley that, that we would, we would have really
accomplished something and
this is the first step this late and you would have to be completely
comatose not to realize what the benefits of doing something like this. If
you think this facility would be here, if that lake wasn't there wrong,
neither would state Farm, neither would the shopping centers can be
marketplace, none of them. So the economic benefits we realized would be
horrendous. Unfortunately, none of us had any money to buy property
and and we talked about it because we knew that it was possible that
if it was developed when it was developed, the property values would
skyrocket along along the edges of the, of the salt river and the ribbon
cutting at noon. You will hear from the people who are heading up those
companies and the developers who have realized the benefits of this body
of water when it's meant to land values and people working here and why
they want to be here jim you want to offer a final thought that might
provide just a little more context. I just want to explain. There was
another real slide of the real slot on to project was in 1969 was a
student generated project that was played in april 1969. The people I
remember most working on it were the Twin brothers, the chapman Brothers,
they should get some credit Because their focus was the 10 key piece of
the real slaughter process. That's a nice piece. Okay, thank you very much
for kicking this off. Really appreciate shovels and bill. Me and Roger
Swanson would love to have you come up to the stage. So now we're gonna
move into the era as you've heard involves valley forward. Now Arizona
forward and you've heard that the design the proposal for the real slide
resulted in an organization of civic leaders to help move this forward. So
I'd like to start with Bill talk about how this all got going, how really
this vision for this river launched this organization.
Mhm. If that's what
after the first thing I have to do on behalf of Arizona forward is to
apologize for Diane president who's not here today. And the reason she's
not here is because she celebrated, she celebrated a big birthday. I'm not
gonna say to hell babe this weekend. But unfortunately when this was going
to be scheduled, her family is scared for her in las Vegas weekend,
celebrated her birthday. And what goes to las Vegas doesn't come back.
If my math is correct and I believe we really date the start of this whole
Exercise from about 1966.
And if that's true, then this whole thing is, Has been going on for 51
years. Okay, let's fess up how many people in this room? We're really here
51 years ago. I
anywhere else in town.
Um,
family forward was a relatively new organization itself in 1966 It wasn't
my information and three local organizations who decided that to hear
themselves more rich and more, uh, cloud. They should, they should combine
the resources, hired executive director and try to be something. And
that's really what valley forward was doing when all this happened over
here at the university. And um, I'm not going to say because I don't think
it's true that one of the 50 Year plan came out, I don't wanna call it,
that came out that everybody just went gaga over the fact of the memories
that it was a gorgeous thing. It was very imaginative. But the truth is,
as soon as people begin thinking about it, they couldn't figure out how to
do it. And it took a long time to try to get the community really call
this around Around doing the project in somewhere. In 1969, there was a
major presentation given to the business community in phoenix and they
fell right in line with the, the wonders of the project and basically
assigned the responsibility getting things done or getting carried out to
carry forward
during the decade, roughly around that period. I don't really remember
exactly how many times, but five or six times during that period, we shut
down almost everything in this town by floods. Um, and downtown phoenix
was isolated once were blown out every bridge, I think in the, in the, in
the valley between these Oliver and we basically downtown phoenix from the
whole rest of the of the county for some period of time. And as a matter
of fact, of course had developing railway railway system which was named
the heavy d after Governor Evans wife uh to get people from this side of
the river to the other side of the river where the economics were. So it
was just for starters,
people realized right away that just doing a flood control project and
you're able to produce the results that we're looking for. It was not
going to be easy. It also has about a billion dollar pressure something
and nobody had a clue where to get that money. There was also of course
the problem of this, this is one of the beauties of this thing is people
appear have already indicated of this project is that it involves the
whole community really. Um four cities, the county, God knows how many
federal agencies, um all sorts of other stakeholders who owned land and
the along the river including the sand and gravel people somehow or other
famous thing together and we had to bring all those people together into
the thing. Um I think um I happen to be president of valley for work for
two years in 1979 and 80, which happened to be pretty service symbol in
here because he was in there time for you when we uh got to realize a lot
of development district approved by the legislature and when we didn't get
the funding source for which was the ultimate mhm problem for the whole
for the whole project. Um but during that time I produced a RIO's Olympic
committee, that organization runs by committees, it still does. Uh And
that committee consisted of, well, was divided into two segments, really.
Half of the committee was chaired by Jimmy Elmore and jim was served in
charge of the realities of projects planning the stuff you had to do to
actually get get the thing don't. And the other half of the thing was was
starting to build troubles. I'm sure most of, you know, something about
del shovels. He was at one time, I think the owner of almost every
apartment building in Maricopa County um which made in knowledgeable, made
an original real estate developer and media rich, so he was somebody we're
gonna listen to. Um bill had a, I'm shortening this up. A lot of people
had his own scheme for financing his project and he wanted to do it with
something called tax increment financing. Um
We didn't get that because we couldn't persuade people with different
persuade people in the legislature that the project could be done that. In
fact it panel great future if we got behind it and pushed it. And so we
got the reason it was longer than open district passed by the legislature.
We could not get financing our future, they didn't understand taxes,
influence financing or didn't like it. The main problem was that, but
financing was used in most places to take blanket real estate and make it
valuable by giving it its own its own revenue source. And in Arizona, the
Legislature was scared to death that if you actually did that somewhere,
those things would pop up in every study in the state. And so they're
unwilling to take the thing too to that conclusion. Therefore, when we
finally got to the point of the election, when timbre did and Dennis Davis
with the proposition was put to the voters, It had a 25% property tax
attached to, which is not the most most popular kind of thing you could do
in in this area in those days. I personally believe that the that it
wasn't any republican anthem or about the project that killed it was the
financial, they killed the taxes were just an effort.
That's because as soon as we had no money for it, it sort of went into
hibernation for a while. And the Tempe portion of the project, which is
what we're sitting next to here became the and became the therapies for.
And so roger you want to talk about your role and as chair of the Advisory
commission sort of building off of what bill offered in and you were
connected to the university Christine with Christine Wilkinson. And so you
see both sides of this equation. Yeah, it was a very exciting time um
having jim provided the vision for the project and from my background in
higher ed, I think vision is one of the key elements of great leadership
and also harry Mitchell appointing a group for the city attempting to move
the project forward. Um We had a great group of citizens, about a dozen
from all different areas. Um we grabbed onto it like a dog and bone. It
was a great opportunity to try to translate concept of Jim and his
students into this particular area, which was a little more limited than
the full scope that was described earlier. Um We also looked at the
physical nature of it and if you look at some of those pictures back you
see what a terrible area it was at the time. So our first step was to
translate from the general plan, a specific plan for the city of Tempe.
And we spent a lot of time doing it, got a lot of input from citizens had
meetings all over the place, we presented a conceptual plan for the city
of Tempe to the Planning commission and got totally alone out of the water.
They were not happy with that. And so we went back to the drawing board,
we did a lot of things, took it back, went through the planning commission
and then ultimately approval by the city council, what, what was the
problem?
I think it was the major issues that have been brought up. Um, where is
the funding going to come from? What is the technology for flood control?
Um, how are you going to build the infrastructure I bridges and so forth
over it? And those were certainly legitimate issues at the time. We didn't
have the technology. Certainly the bridges you see today, including the
new one would have been a pie in the sky. So, um, there was, there was a
lot of objection to that. Once we had the master plan for Tempe, we took
our little dog and pony show all over the place with the city of Tempe
developed a slide show. I remember right up at the end of Mill Avenue
Bridge, you can see it from here putting on a show for the crowd of people
and we tried to sell this the best we could, We did get a lot of disbelief
in it, as you can imagine, but I think the major value of our group and
the support from the city and the council at the time was it moved the
project forward and didn't let it die. It kept it going. I see Russell
Otto as unending chain of various links. We certainly heard a lot about
the start and then this was kind of a period where had it been dropped by
Tempe and by the district, which was then formed. It probably wouldn't be
anywhere today. So it's, it's a long story and it's an unfinished story.
Um, one of my favorite quotes is from nelson Mandela who said um, it never
, it always seems impossible until it's finished. Well, it's not finished
, there's still lots more to go. I hope we can all see it correct. So
Michelle, um, thank you for being here and then we're glad Diane is having
a great birthday party, happy to have you here. You and I were chatting
just before this. The reasons for the project as it was originally
conceived are even more resonant now as I look out here and see bicyclists
and pedestrians using this. Uh, when we know that people are moving to
cities, when they have these kinds of amenities, tell us about the valley
forward now, Arizona forward and what you're doing and how this really
helps to propel your future work for. I know it's mesmerizing sitting up
here and watching that and I don't wish I was on my bike right now. I
really don't want to be here. As I see all those cyclists running by, I do
take this route almost every weekend from my home near North Scottsdale
down here and back up again because of this bridge and everything that's
been done here and I grew up in Minneapolis and there's a chain of lakes
in Minneapolis that I am committed when I lived there, but I moved here 27
years ago and this didn't exist and I wanted to go back because it was so
important to me to have that availability and we have it now and I don't
ever want to go back to Minneapolis to live, I want to stay here forever
but um Arizona Forward went statewide almost five years ago 2013 and it
took us a little wind out of our sails locally to pay attention to
northern and southern Arizona but it's really important for us to have a
legacy like this here and to continue it but to take a similar stance in
northern and southern Arizona and that's what we're working towards right
now while having um more connectivity and and more energy placed back in
our central region Um this project and I was grateful to hear our opening
speaker say that we've got 50 years you know to complete this and I want
Arizona forward as chair, if I can say I want Arizona forward to stay
involved in that project so that we can continue on down the river and
make impactful places like this and want to come here for um I think
Arizona for what we do well is collaborating and bring together groups of
people and legislators and policymakers and businesses and organizations
and foundations and everybody together to help raise these kinds of
projects and issues in the minds of people who may not care otherwise they
may not have a reason to come down here other than for recreation or to
have this room full of people That half the room raised their hands. They
were here 51 years ago is awe inspiring that you still care and that
you're here and that you want to continue the legacy that you created way
back then. So I think as we continue this journey on this project, um, and
on other projects, um just keeping that spirit of collaboration and
getting all of our organizations to work together is what Bill talked
about and getting people together and it's important and that's I think
what we do well, so there is so much more we can talk about with these
three folks, but but I want to thank all of you for for your contributions
and filling in some of the puzzle pieces in this story and the fact that
what jim was thinking about relative to a place a site resulted in an
organization that persists today and continues to drive the community
forward is another incredible byproduct of his legacy. So thank you very
much for three of you provide. Thank you.
Okay,
it's never too late to do the right thing. I didn't really acknowledge the
class that did the work here. So for those of you who are here in
attendance and participation as work. If you'd care to stand or raise your
hand, we'd love to acknowledge you. I think the class is over here.
It's
really a delight moved closer to the way you're afraid. So you have to try
to push this forward, the heavy lifting sort of, you will be one of the
next lifters. Uh talk about your role as the first executive director of
the entity created to try to make this happen.
It actually started with me in 1972, working in cities all the time and we
were involved in the indian bend wash, which you have seen and became a
very successful flood control,
built series of parks and recreation opportunities.
I went to a meeting in 1972 and Jim Gilmore was there giving his
presentation and he talked about, we could, we could create recreation
sites, we can do new rail, build highways, we can build new housing, can
build commercial property and maybe even a new state fairground 1972
1981
I was retained by the new chairman of the real flaw development district.
A gentleman named Jim Peterson to become the first executive director In
1980, I think it's bill make reference the legislature improve the
beginning in the real flood of Belton district. I'm working For those of
you who can recall all the better for 51 years longer. Will remember the
fellow named Leo corporate, who was president of the state Senate at the
time about two months ago, I was sitting in a gymnasium and in walks leo
Corbett 80 years old now and still in there pumping iron and they had a
heart transplant. So, and he tells me that He, in 1980 Jim Elmore here he
comes again, talk to him and said, We've got to get some funding for this.
So Senator Corbett says, well we'll do that. And he called in Jim Mac if
your longtime Tempe resident Jim Mack was a state senator from Tempe area
And so he charged gym mat with putting together a basic funding package
for $200,000 to create the district. And that's the funding that we
started with. Dennis Davis was the first hire that I made here in the
audience today. He was the deputy director and we started in on this
project and the legislature direction was figure out the feasibility of
the project and figure out a master plan for the project and how are you
gonna get the money always comes back, who's got the money and how you
gonna get the money? So we started in
do the economic feasibility. I first went to a young economists at the
Valley National Bank by the name of Elliott Pollack, I'm sure I don't know.
And I said, Elliot, here's what I'm gonna do and I need a volunteer to
figure out the economic strategies that we can use to make this project
work. And he said, that's right. He said, tell me, can you pay me? I said
no, but what do you mean? He said, I'm wild over bazooka bubble gum and if
you can give me a box of bazooka bubble gum
and he did the work, he's still still around today. He said my book club
along with some other members in the audience here. I can't imagine
Elliott working for that today.
I think that don't tell him I told you because today you can do it. So
then the second challenge was designing master plan on what is this thing
called Real Solano and how might it look? Mhm Based on what the students
have done and jerry and his team have done, we hired a firm called KKR
lynch and they were from, from back in boston and then a lot of big
community projects in boston were well known for that survey. The master
plan for this project define being the next areas just east of Mesa from
the grand reef down onto the confluence of the healing salt about 40 miles.
The legislature had identified 65,000 acres to be part of the real
slaughter project. And that was the second piece of this project. And
third, where are you going to get the money? As bill mentioned, we talked
about tax increment financing
and there were some real questions they will be raised about is this
really feasible? There were some attorneys I talked to said you could do
what others said you can't deal with this unconstitutional. There's a big
argument about that. No one really got comfortable for with tax financing
but the key that everybody has mentioned here, the other theme is the
economics of this project.
We we put together a team of people that were well known in real estate
development. Most of you will recognize the name Rusty Lion who's done
most of the big projects here at Fashion Square in Scottsdale and others.
Um and they all said the key to making this work and using tax increment
financing was too control the land along the banks and you could bring in
private investors who would participate in this and that we would use the
incremental increasing the property tax to fund the project. And that was
the concept
you can see today, that's exactly what's happening right behind me here in
the city of Tempe is the shining example of that concept and and uh that's
interesting. I see a lot of my fellow urban land is too mhm colleagues in
the audience and in the back we're still trying to figure out financing
mechanisms for major projects like this. But working on the water issues
associated issue, you became something of an expert in the garden of Water
as well, do some other things. This is a demonstration of what we can do
with water, the appropriateness of it, those kinds of things. Can you
speak to what we do you think this is a demonstration of with regard to
how we could probably complete this project as it was originally conceived
or do more with it.
My my world for the last 27 years of bills involved in water and
particularly the treatment of wastewater making it useful for recreation
activity. I personally deliver non potable water to 26 golf courses in
North Scottsdale. We take the city's wastewater and clean it up, make it
useful for irrigation and thereby saving the potable water. It's in the
ground for public use. I know initially this project was the same concept
. I think Jim Elmore talked about using the wastewater to develop this
project. There there is a there's a source of water people
concerned about or have mhm questions about or you know, I think san Diego
called the toilet to tap but
not very appealing and that's the anti but you can't wear that. We use
this water. And if you're treated to particular level, that becomes very,
very valuable. So to me in the desert the appropriate but called the
service use of water is very, very important to create the amenity that
trans people And because we all have seen today what's happening here
because of this election, this pool of water sitting right here and on
this property and right in front of us every time I I'm telling people
it's fine. I drive back and forth to the airport and my son was with me
today, one with my wife and his mother. It gives me kind of goose bumps to
see this and what's happening this is what we identified as being possible
and we can do a lot more and that's What the next 15 years are going to be
all about. So to me, water is a fundamental
vehicle that we can use to create these kinds of projects, not only here
but along the river, there's plenty of of resource called wastewater that
can be used to make that. I think you're absolutely right and the fact
that so many people are able to use this in this way. It's a perfectly
appropriate and compelling use of tim Thank you very much for your
insights. Okay,
so we've hit three of the eras and now we're moving on to the city of
Tempe. So I'd like to invite uh Neil Giuliano steve Nielsen and former U.
S. Representative and Mayor mary Mitchell if he's here? I think in this
case. Okay, so I can imagine we're doing really well by the way, 15
minutes of peace with with the kind of information speakers we have here.
This may be more of a challenge, but we'll see how that goes. So it was
nice to see Representative Mitchell acknowledged at founders Day for issue
a couple of nights ago. It's nice to see you there. Uh I'm not gonna say
much. Why don't you tell us about how this came about relative to what you
were doing, what you would think, but when the, when the election failed,
our first reaction was we still have to do something about the riverbed.
You know, this was like the living room. This is the gateway that can't be.
And when people came in the tippy, what they saw was some of the pictures
you see over here and that's unacceptable. Even, no matter what you did,
it would be better than it was. So that was kind of the idea about it. Now
, a couple other little things that happened at the northwest corner of
the bridges mill and the river, there was a motel and the city bought that
motel with the idea. Eventually we were going to do something along the
river and we had a plan that we submitted to the legislature saying we're
ready to go. We need some money. And that was the first bit of money that
the legislature had because we had bought that hotel and we were ready to
go. Then the other thing that really helped was The 202. You know, they're
the ones that we're going to channel the river, uh, and no cost to the
city. Now, thanks to Scottsdale, that's what happened because originally
202 was to go down McDowell through the buttes and into Scottsdale. But
Scott still didn't want anything to do with the freeway. And so we
accepted that with the idea that they were going to help channel the river.
So here we are with some money. It was channel ized and we're ready to go.
And even if nothing really occurred, it was going to be better than it
was on this picture of this card. Uh, some of you already have seen it. I
was teaching at the high school. I had this picture up on my, on my boards
at school and telling everybody this is what's going to happen. And I
really believe that um, someone said one time that it takes 50 years for
an overnight success. And I think that's what happened. People who haven't
been here for a long time. I don't know if Roger's been back or not, but
to look around and see what happens. Said, wow, this really happened fast.
Well, it takes a long time and that's what's happening. Um, also 10
minutes into wastewater. Um, I'll never forget telling my students that
and they'd say, oh gross man. I said, well, you know,
what do you think those astronauts are doing with for water? Heavy water
is, you know, what are they doing up there with all that water? And that's
when they said gross again. Anyway,
I have to admit that uh, this isn't the way some of the plans look the way
it developed, but that's the start. And that's what you have to do. And
I'm really very proud of the fact that the city of Tempe took the ball,
but I have to really give Roger Swanson a great deal of credit because
with his enthusiasm and the committee that he had, that's what kept it on
the front burner and that's what kept people going. I think it was
mentioned earlier, one of the reasons why maybe um, the project failed
with the public vote originally was because of the taxes and you really
can't blame people. You think about how big miracle to county is. I'm from
Wickenburg, two fountain hills, the buckeye, the whole area, Many of them
say, well, how is that going to benefit me? That's really just gonna
benefit the valley. And I think that's the same thing that happened. I
might add with light rail and transit. Many of these people who are out in
Wickenburg buckeye or Queen Creek, they don't really see the value to them
, which is unfortunate because this adds to the whole uh, economy and, and
and the pleasure of people coming to the valley. So it's exciting to sit
here and see that just the heads bobbed along, it looks
like a swimming
and, and just just to, just to include when says, you know what we're
going ahead and you've got mesa here, you've got phoenix here. I mean, the
thoughts from your fellow members of the time is good luck to you. Exactly.
But again, you know, dot helped the legislature helped with a little bit
of money and we just kept moving a little by little. And I think that's,
that's the difference. And so, uh, mayor Julia, you have to move this ball
down the field picking up what we're tell us about that. Well, I think the
interesting thing today is really acknowledging all of the people who
played a significant role that advanced the concept and advanced the idea
too In the mid 90s when we actually thought maybe we can actually move
this happen. But there were a lot of it had to happen things before that.
Mhm Harry indicated the hotel that was up there, the old and this was a
political thing, the old fine arts center of Tempe, which really wasn't
more than a little building in Tempe beach Park, but you had to do
something with that. You had to do something with going through the river
bottom. So you had to build a bridge. I remember one of the first things
that when Harry was still mayor and I was new on the council was picking
the alignment and the design for the second mill avenue bridge because you
had to do that. If you're ever going to do something in the real salada,
you had to move rio salado parkway, which was then right along the river
bottom, you had to move that south so that you could reclaim that land. So
there are a lot of things that you just had, it had to do if you want to
be able to get to the point to actually build something like the actual
lake and so it's roger and then dave Hanna who passed away, who has now
passed away, he was real slaughter commission chair for many, many years
as well, I think of it as the policy piece, if it's sort of a figure eight
of the policy piece over here and the public Over here and in the middle
of that little figure eight is the politics and there are politics as you
might imagine with anything that's big, anything that's expensive,
anything this visionary. Uh not everyone always captures the vision, not
everyone always thinks it's a worthy expense. And so those of us who are
in on the policy side had to deal with those policy issues of
transportation and park space and all the others, we had to deal with the
public out and talking to the community all the time to make sure that the
concept really did have widespread public support. Uh, so that, you know,
you can actually move something forward, you're not getting ahead of the
public and you had to deal with the politics and not every project or not
every idea or not every concept, there was always a 7 to 0 vote, maybe
they were in various councils, but they weren't mine. Uh and so you, you
just, you deal with that. And I've told folks that on, on any given
thursday night Leading up to at least from from my tenure from 94 to 97,
when we took the vote to actually build the lake And then 97 when we
actually started building the lake on any given Thursday night something
could have went crazy. And quite often it did and we sent something back
and they bring it back again. But that's that's what it takes to work this
and you you don't do it by yourself, you do it with a lot of people. The
next guy you're you're gonna hear from and the people that he worked with
played a really really major role in making that happen. So it's it's
really tremendous and it is amazing to see and I'm happy to see the bridge
being named for Dr Elmore. Yeah. And I think you make a really good point
why we're celebrating Jim Elmore and lighting the fuse that made this
happen. We're really celebrating a community coming together and a series
of decisions and brave declarations and votes and sometimes just
opportunistic things that you seize upon and make something happen. We're
celebrating all of that while speaking of course to Jim Omar so steve you
and I know each other from when you were at A S. U. And you work to push
this project forward for 15 plus years. So so tell us you were really
doing it. So talk about some of those decisions and some of those moments.
Well I think first of all it is those let me recognize is the certainly
in the audience are staff members that work with the city council members
uh consultants a lot of our consulting team and developers is they all
played a role in this. But most importantly, you can't say enough about
the city council. These were tough political questions that every time I
went before them and said I need a little more money or, or this is gonna
be a tough decision and we knew how difficult that would be. And so it
took uh these two visionary leaders were at the forefront of making things
happen without them. This lake wouldn't have been here. Um I took over as
uh, I actually was involved with Real Solano. I headed up the city's
design review board and staff and just before the district vote. Um I was
asked by Don Hull to sit down meet with the Real Seletto Advisory
commission start to attend meetings to protect employees interests. Uh we
wanted to make sure that as this grandiose big project moved forward, that
we had to say um the vote failed. And what harry didn't tell you was the
day after the vote? Well, first of all, it's the day after the vote, he
publicly announced we're going to build it in Tempe. Anyway. What he
didn't also say is he called me up that day said steve, I don't know how
we're going to do it, but
figure it out that we're gonna have a campus in downtown phoenix and you
and I were both there and okay, how we gonna do that, these things happen.
It's that kind of leadership that, that moved forward and I'm gonna talk
a little bit about some of the elements here, but but also it carries
forward to Neil is that when it came time to say we've now done the plans
, we've got a vision, all of the stars are aligned, we we've got the costs
lined up the best we can, It's going to take a leap of faith. And um We
had, if I remember right over like a week period, 10 executive sessions. I
mean, this was a tough decision and neal led the charge and really, really
made that tough decision that that built the project that you see out
there today. The Town lake is a product of the work of all of our
predecessors. Uh Dean Elmore came, I was holding weekly planning sessions
, he come regularly and advise us um and uh
and
from the district, uh tim and Dennis, they gave us all the materials and
the models and the and the work that had been done. And so we actually had
to find a way though to to take a very dynamic project and right sizing
for Tempe um and quite truthfully as we then reengaged with a issue. Um I
was working with some of the uh school of architecture uh professors there
, we uh we developed models, there's a model right now in the College of
Architecture that was one of a model that Tempe commission and it's one
variation of what you see out there. It was a series of braided streams
and an environmental habitat and we loved that model and that direction.
But the reality is, it wasn't sustainable in Tempe because if we had a
flood event, we'd wipe out everything that we had built and we didn't feel
that there would be public support or the dollars available to rebuild it.
So what you see out here now is this two mile long leg was an economic
analysis of what we could afford, what we could sustain and what would be
the legacy of the city of Tempe. This is 10 Rio Salado is 10% of the, of
the landlocked communities, land assets that kind of gotten lost in all of
this. This is an economic engine for the community. It certainly looks
that way today, but 30 years ago, um, that was questionable. And, and so
we went down that path, but as, as the mayors have indicated a series of
events, no one wanted the two oh two freeway. Tempe stood up and raised
our hands and said, we do um, we, we got that to channel eyes the river.
Um, we, we sold once we got the state to agree to building the lake and or
channel. Izing the river, actually not building the lake channel. Izing
the river, we went back to them and said, when you go build this new
freeway out there, how about if we sell you sand and gravel and we showed
them the economics of how that would be cheaper. And we had to go to the
council and we passed legislation that said, we're gonna let a mining
operation occur in the heart of the downtown in the river as a way to pay
for this. And there are stories after stories of how all these elements
came together to produce what you see here. But it really at the end of
the day, I was just a public servant and had the opportunity to work with
strong councils that believed in the project and made those tough
decisions. That's a that's a great story about the same background. You
know, we've got to make sure that we end up promptly so that we are all
okay, so I might like to end uh with you representative Mitchell and I'm
not gonna go too far into this. But this is a demonstration of community
building of consensus, of weighing pros and cons and deciding to do
something collectively given where we are both, I don't know, nationally
regionally, whatever can we point to this as a demonstration of what we
could be doing in the future in a really compelling way. Oh absolutely.
And mentioned about all the support we have from other people. I don't
think people remember the priest did not go across the river at one time
and that took some cooperation with srp and Maricopa county and right in
the middle of this river is a sewage plant. I mean there's a sewage
pipeline going to the 91st avenue. The city of Tampa doesn't have a sewage
disposal plant. It's all going down the middle of this river. So this is,
you know, a lot of utilities were involved um and identifying usually
beneficial interest in getting these things done in a collective way.
Exactly. That's what you have to do and the same thing with the power
lines, A PS and srp, they moved all the power lines. So it took a long
time to get all that done. But after people see the vision and are willing
to work with each other instead of just being negative. Well it's not
gonna work. And so I'm not, you just got to be positive and a cheerleader
saying it will work and just keep pushing it. And I think this is so
emblematic of what we can do. Absolutely! I think we need to use it even
more. Thank you to the three.
It's a distinct pleasure to invite uh que el mar and James Elmore to the
stage, the son and daughter jim or just say a few concluding remarks and
then I'll add something.
Okay, well first of all, I I just have to do this.
This is uh this is awesome. I can't begin to tell you, extraordinary
invasives. So why don't you keep going? Okay, well I um I did not inherit
dad's public speaking jeans at all. So I will be very brief and say um in
my recollection on dance behalf out of all of his visioning and advocating
and developing and everything that he did that he has so much to be proud
of. I think what brought in the most joy was this lake and the
manifestation of this project. And I recall the opening day of the lake of
his um stepping off the first boat being present for the celebration of
the opening. Um Clearly that was just the happiest look on his face and he
just would be so overjoyed is what's happening today. Thank you. Well,
this is an amazing day. All right.
I'd like to go back in time just for a minute and tell you where James
walter elmore came from. He was born in Nebraska in 1917. Almost 100 years
ago. He was a graduate of the University of Nebraska.
Then World War Two came along and he was served
in the army Corps of Engineers.
Mhm. He had an architecture degree, a bachelor's degree in architecture
from Nebraska. Yeah, you were amazing people. Even in the army. He was
with
Nate goings. Let's get more and Meryl
some other human areas. After the war he I went to Columbia got a master's
degree on the G I Bill
and then with his wife came to Arizona and if if we're talking about
things. He loved, he loved Arizona
never, never went elsewhere except to visit.
Um,
so that, that's his early years. Um, he would be delighted by the turnout
today as Kay and I are,
the,
the funny thing about him is if you talk with people who really knew him,
you'll hear the word modesty come up or not quite humble, but he was
modest. He was and yet no one loved being praised more than he
just, you know, soaked up attention like crazy and crazy. Um, and so this
today would be a very special day for him and it's a very special day for
us and I thank you all for coming.
I
just want to close this in the way that Duke opened it with a big shout
out and thank you to Dave who this would not be happening if it weren't
for him and we cannot thank you enough and thanks everyone. Thank
you. Recall that when I was, your father passed, we had a celebration on
top of the yet to be completed. Support buildings, steve Benson, randy
Levin. It was, it was a shell, but it was enough of us to the height of a
building for us to get up and see the river, see the water, see the lake.
And as you reminded me of the front door as I came in, uh, didn't make
you a promise. But we talked about how to make this lake after your father.
However,
I think what you're doing experience here and I think we've we've really
done our level best to recognize what your father put in motion. And we're
so I'm pleased that you are here to be with us to see this happen. We're
pleased to. And really, ah
what what, what you just left out was was the full story. Um, I'm not sure
I was
are you Dean writer or who are you now,
Duke? Uh
On that evening about 10 years ago, he, he asked, what, what can we do two
memorialize your father. But I I didn't kind of shoot high and I said,
well, can't we name the lake after him and
Duke didn't make his promise at that point. Um, so what I'm trying to say
is this is better. This is better. It's perfect, it's appropriate.
Can't beat it. Thank you. Thank you. So
I can see through the window there that people are gathering. So that's
our next stop. But before I dearly, I want a second. Uh the unbelievable
dedication and in the practicability of dave shots, li we're here because
of you. Thank you for
uh
for Elizabeth opinions from the City of Tempe. They're the ones who've
been helping both with this event and shepherding this through the various
votes that have been required within city council thai tv and his whole
events team at a. S. U. Helped to put this on and a very special thanks to
kate carefully standing in the back of black dress. She works personally
with me, uh, and she didn't know this was going to put on her plate. We
didn't know how big the plate was gonna have to be to accommodate it, but
she has also helped to make this event happen with Dave and I want to
thank you. Thank you.