Cloth Clash at the Star Corral

Tucson, Arizona. Following up on O’Dell’s piece about cloth trough aficionados Jaret Barr and Fran LaSala, who annually snarf $100K each as cloth operatives, we have the sparring that occurred in the resulting comment thread between DTP Cloth operative Cara Rene and some former downtown supporters, starting with a reference to the volunteer effort once aligned with the DTP’s non-cloth predecessor, the Tucson Downtown Alliance. While they occur as tame to me, some remarks crossed what the Star could handle, and three of those below were deleted from the paper's thread.

#1 – Patrick M.
Yet there is no money to support the old and loyal downtown volunteer program. In fact, they never even bothered to thank them; all 83 of them, for their immediate response to the call for help for the New Years Eve event "First Night". I guess that is called "messaging."

Skipping to #66, we have DTP cloth beneficiary Cara Stuff-n-Puff Rene’s inability to resist chiming in as Lady Rubysky. Rene, a former Citizen reporter and the wife of city council member Nina Trasoff’s right hand guy, is paid $65K to show up (perhaps) four times a week.

#66 - Lady Rubysky (comment deleted by the Star)
Hey #1: Not sure where you are getting your info. But, according to some folks who volunteered for the partnership and that event, it was the former paid volunteer coordinator who was responsible for such things and never seemed to get the job done.

A cousin and friend of mine volunteered for the event and said the volunteer coordinator - who now no longer works there - was incompetent. Hopefully they will find someone better and not just rely on people who have long-time times to downtown. Better to go with people who know what they are doing rather than pander to those who are just furniture pieces.

#67 - Bob K.
The bottom line here is once you are a suck-up to the city the old boys club will always look out for you. Like others have said why do we pay another $200,000 for positions that did not exist until the suck-ups needed a new home? The city is full of suck-ups who have found out just how easy it is to do nothing in Tucson but to get paid at least $100,000.....In low wage Tucson this is big money.

The power player forced out Duncan (a total suck-up but not enough of one) from the downtown alliance and put in the wife of a staffer from Nutty Nina. All the while this is accepted from our gang of morons. The list of directors we pay over $120,000 number way over 100 this is just stupid considering the fact most of them are not qualified to perform the task that they must do.

I agree these city morons could not find money to pay for fireworks but boy they sure can find the grease to payoff total suck-ups. Just keep an eye out for that total fool Shelko he will end up on some sort of board paid by the city (an easy $125,000). Do you ever get the feeling we are getting the shaft as we always seem to be paying more money for less performance?

#70 - Patrick M. (comment deleted by the Star)
Well now Poster #66; Lady Rubysky, who the world of downtowners know to be the one and only Cara Rene, Executive VP of the Partnership and the official director of messaging, who is also the $65,000 a year 4 day a week deputy referenced in this article. Her message herein is clear, and quite aptly telegraphs the modus operandi of the new regime. Which is that knowing the people and places in the downtown community is of no value to them. Poll the merchants and you will discover that an overwhelming number of them have never met RUBY.

The former Volunteer Coordinator, who was in fact not paid, and at one time represented one of the largest land owners downtown, logged in endless hours for the merchants, happens to have 30 years of Event Management expertise with nothing but positive feedback. Such positive feedback that continues to get invitations for he and his platoon of volunteers to staff events directly for the Merchants, events like Dillinger Days, which the Partnership was unable to staff. A couple of hotels, the Gem Show, and Fourth Ave Trolley continue to enjoy the participation of the Furniture Volunteers. It is the communication style of DTP executive staff that is legend, so it would follow that they want to work only with friends and family. Watch closely dear readers as the probability is quite high that Ruby will either be getting a raise or one of her "cousins" will be the actual paid volunteer. Any bets?

All is well that ends well, and not volunteering for such a supercilious group is quite a relief, especially for retired Marines and soldiers, the same relief that has been afforded three of the former staffers who were not able to tolerate the unique communication style of the management and resigned. This furniture has ears, self-esteem and a positive zest for life currently vacant in Rubys world. That furniture is me - the former volunteer, the furniture that many landowners and merchants in the CBD would like in their living room. Many have been friends with the furniture for 30 years. Fine furniture is not aesthetically compatible with the plastic chairs of the DTP anyhow.

I would hope to not dip to the level of ad hominem as did Ruby the former Citizen journalist, who would do well to review the Media Law definition of libel, and its consequent harm realized. The job of sending out thank you letters, that Ruby indicates was never accomplished was in fact preceded by a comment from her General that their was no money in the budget to prepare certificates of appreciation. Wow, maybe $40. A quarter of million in salaries to oversee the canceling of most all downtown events so as to have the money to pay themselves, and they state they have no money for certificates of appreciation! Four former staffers were present to corroborate this comment. Two months after the event Ruby demanded all the emails of the volunteers so she could send the lowest common denominator of 'Thank You' note. The "furniture" was surprised that a former journalist would not know of the impropriety of placing these volunteers on a list serve without a request or their permission.

Were one to go to Middle School mentality with all this, I would say go ahead and interview the other 82 volunteers and get their impression of the time they spent with Ruby and the General. Let’s drop this and move on to forwarding our Downtown with positive people and projects, the kind that the Merchants provide on their own.

#71 – Bob K. (comment deleted by the Star)
Well now Poster #66; Lady Rubysky, who the world of downtowners know to be the one and only Cara Rene, Executive VP of the Partnership ...

Wow this explains why this nut job kept attacking me for my posting about how we have nothing but morons in charge. Thanks for the heads up she is way under qualified and overpaid just like most city managers and directors.

Cloth MO is to trash those it throws under the bus as incompetent. The fallacy of their argument is that conditions deteriorate when they take over. The Fox theater’s situation is worse, not better. The DTP is three times the size of the Alliance and produces less than a third of the results. When TREO destroyed SAIAT, the active upgrade of the skills of over 10,000 Tucson workers every year was replaced with nothing, nada, zip. The Job Training Grant support function has atrophied, and BusinessLink, once most valuable, has all but died. The Cloth continues to inhale larger and larger sums of public funds from both city and county, and it delivers less and less for the community.

While his remarks were directed specifically at Rio Nuevo, Jim Waring, Chairman of the AZ Senate Finance Committee, captures the theme of it all, "You spent $9 million dollars and didn't build anything."

Yes, they did. They built fat salary gigs for Lyons, Snell, Barr, LaSala, Walker, Shelko, not to mention the sweet deals for Hecker, Eckstrom, Kennedy, and the list goes on.