Text-Messaging

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A Phoenix City Council Subcommittee approves a resolution in support of State efforts to restrict text-messaging while driving.


>>Larry Lemmons:
Tonight on Horizon candidates for Phoenix mayor debate the issues facing their city. A city council subcommittee weighs-in on text messaging while driving. and we get a sneak peek at the new Tempe Center for the Arts. Those stories are next on Horizon.

>>Announcer:
Horizon is made possible by contributions from the Friends of 8. Members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>>Larry Lemmons:
Good evening, I'm Larry Lemmons, welcome to Horizon.

>> Larry Lemmons:
A fatal crash that took place last month in the valley is believed to have been caused by text messaging. Today, a subcommittee of the Phoenix city council voted on a resolution to support efforts to restrict driving while text-messaging. Joining me is Phoenix councilman, Greg Stanton, who sponsored the resolution. Welcome.

>> Greg Stanton:
Thank you.

>> Larry Lemmons:
So the subcommittee what you did come up with today?

>> Greg Stanton:
We voted in favor of the resolution. The resolution did a few things. First and foremost the city council wanted to weigh in on what's going on at the state legislature. There were legislative attempts to ban text messaging while driving. I thought it was important that the city of Phoenix have our voice heard and unanimously our subcommittee voted to support efforts of the state legislature to ban text message while driving. In addition to that we authorized our police department and education department to put together educational programs to get out to the schools to educate young people why this is such a problem. The other thing we did was we asked our city law department to look into an ordinance that would be passed by the city of Phoenix to ban text messaging while driving within the city of Phoenix to show a strong leadership role.

>> Larry Lemmons:
I believe there was a democrat from Tucson who tried to push it through in the past but it didn't do anywhere.

>> Greg Stanton:
Steve Farley introduced it last year. I don't think it got past the hearing stage. Some of the criticism was did we need another bill on the books relative to distractive driving. You mentioned the tragedy that occurred recently. We read and with hearts broken where five teenage girls back in New York were killed while the driver was text messaging while driving. I think there's a renewed interest in this issue. I think people are realizing that this activity is so dangerous. People are six times more likely to be in a car accident when they are text messaging while driving. They spend 40% of their time looking away from the primary activity paying attention to the road instead of looking down which obviously creates great danger. I hope the city of Phoenix will give support and boost to the bill.

>> Larry Lemmons:
I don't think anybody has a problem with drivers being occupied with driving while driving rather than all these other things. There have been issues with cell phones and a study which showed even if young people were operating a cell phone sometimes they have the--basically the reaction time of an 80-year-old. But in fact 80 years old are experienced drivers on top of that. You can see how that might be an issue. Why stop at text messaging? Why is text messaging the sort of thing you guys are focusing on?

>> Greg Stanton:
Because it is a particular, egregious problem and one we, as society, have to make a strong statement on. You can take almost any proposed legislation and make a slippery slope argument where will it stop, et cetera. I really view policy in that we have to analyze each issue as it comes and is it in the community's interest. Does the public safety interest outweigh whatever privacy interest someone may want to make? I think in this case in the particular issue of text messaging while driving. It's an acute problem among teenagers and young people who are just learning to drive and just got their license. I think it's on balance. We should look at other things as well and we'll be open minded and look at science and research. I think on this particular issue it comes back and shows strongly it's the right thing to do to ban text messaging while driving.

>> Larry Lemmons:
You mentioned the city may do something on its own outside of going to the state. Where do you see a real possibility? Do you see the state actually doing something on that?

>> Greg Stanton:
I'm a city councilman not a state legislature. We have endorsed good publicity that's not been successful. The city of Phoenix is getting behind a bill that is helpful but generally is helpful but not always helpful. Maybe people watching at home can write or e-mail their legislature and I think most people will think it's the right thing to do. The city of Phoenix needs to talk the talk and walk the walk. If we ask our friends and legislatures to do this, we should also be willing to look at ourselves to say is this something we can do as a city separate or apart from the state? I think openly it's best done as a state law and in the meantime look at a city ordinance. That's what we're looking at and we asked our lawyers to come back and give us some examples of what we might do and next month I think you'll see a vote of the city council on the issue.

>> Larry Lemmons:
You want drivers ed to get involved in this as well.

>> Greg Stanton:
It has to be. We've seen results with effort like this. I will analogize this with seat belt laws where people thought it was too intrusive to invasive of your privacy. I think people realized once the law was passed, it saved so many lives and so many people from, injury and the public privacy interests will be outweighed. I think similarly you'll see this as well. If we pass a law, it takes more than that to change behavior. It takes education as well. The companion part is to get out in the schools particularly high schools and work with people like students against destructive decisions to work with them to get positive peer pressure to encourage people to make right decisions.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Briefly when is the full city council expected to vote on this?

>> Greg Stanton:
Next few weeks and pass and we would be passing an ordinance likely next month. So this would all be happening over the next few weeks.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Councilman, thank you.

>> Greg Stanton:
Thank you.

>> Larry Lemmons:
With a million and a half people, the city of Phoenix is now the fifth largest city in the United States. Two men are vying to be mayor of the city: current mayor Phil Gordon and challenger Steve Lory. Whoever is elected will have to deal with challenges facing the city: crime, immigration, sprawling growth, and downtown revitalization, just to name a few. We'll talk to the mayor and his challenger, but first, here's more about the two men.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Steve Lory is a Phoenix native. The 46-year-old, attended schools in Scottsdale and also attended Arizona State University and graduated with a degree of law from Thomas Jefferson State of Law in San Diego. Lory returned to Arizona in 2002 and a businessman. Most recently he owned a nightclub on the Westside. He is single. Phil Gordon was born in Chicago and was raised in Phoenix attending schools in Phoenix and attended the University of Arizona and received a law degree from Arizona State University. He's been a teacher, businessman and attorney and local school board member. He was elected to the Phoenix City Council in 1997. In 2002, he was elected as mayor of Phoenix. Phil Gordon is married and has four children.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Joining me are the candidates for mayor of Phoenix, incumbent mayor Phil Gordon, and his challenger, Steve Lory. Thank you very much, gentleman, for coming down and debating the issues. We decided beforehand that we have a minute or so to talk about why you want to be reelected, in your case, Mr. Mayor.

>> Phil Gordon:
thank you very much. I'll tell you the reason I do, one, this begins with and ends with the same issues I've been working on the last four years since I've been mayor. Those are my priorities and my values. It's public safety, its education and its jobs. When I was elected four years ago, I promised the voters I would lead with new energy and new excitement that we would create about the city of Phoenix, the city I love and the residence love. We've done that, we've accomplished so much in the four years. We have u of a and medical pharmacy school downtown and the campus downtown, tee-gent, the light rail system creating thousands of new jobs. Hotel, new development in the north Phoenix and redevelopment in the west phoenix area, new parks and libraries to the east to the south side. It's an exciting time. Public safety, we had 300 sworn police officers and 150 new firefighters in the last four years alone. In jobs we've led the nation for the last three years in new job creations over 60,000 jobs created leading more than 45 other states in the nation. And certainly in education we've done so much to lead this state. I look forward to completing what we started and doing a lot more in those areas for the next four years.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Mr. Gordon, thank you very much. Mr. Lory, why do you want to be the mayor?

>> Steve Lory:
First, thanks for having me on the show. There is a difference between me and mr. Gordon. We can start with Downtown. The plan we have is not four years ago. It's a plan from 36 years. Mayor Driggs brought it and mayor Hans continued it and revitalized downtown. I'll tell you plain and simple we have a free market to revitalize downtown. The government cannot revitalize downtown by having $3 billion. It's got to be free markets, people deciding what they want downtown and then the city and private enterprise meeting that. That's the way to revitalize downtown. That's why it's taken now 36 years working on it. I'll just touch on a few things here. The huge issue your listeners are probably interested in are quality of life. What's gone on here? We have growth at all costs. I think there's no doubt about that. We hear the current mayor talk about it quite often that. The problem is that cost is coming due. We're paying it now. We have the freeways like parking lots, the air quality is so bad that the American lung association says that 79% of the people living here are at high risk of respiratory complications. Just to close this up, we used to have people coming here for the good air and now they're going to leave. Those are the costs coming due out of this program.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Since you brought up the revitalization, would you mind talking about that, mr. Mayor, what your vision has been for downtown? And Mr. Lory's point that it should not be a free market for example, to determine whether an area is revitalized.

>> Phil Gordan:
it is a free market and a lot of development has created thousands of jobs at the private sector especially when the housing market is slowing down. It's creating project owned the private sector and developed by the private sector. Mr. Lory leaves that out because the focus is of what's going on not only downtown but the city. With respect to the congestion and air quality, not only has phoenix, as before my leadership and under my leadership, have focused on those areas and made progress in partnership with our state, our private sector and the county. But secondly, we are building village cores where we live and work and play in the same areas so we don't have to clog the freeways or dirty the air. I wish the city of Phoenix could control the freeways. As mr. Lory knows that is the state that controls it. I wish we could control the county air but that is the county and state. We certainly are the leaders in environmental sensitivity in terms of the largest fleet provider of vehicles living and working on mass transit. But it's a private sector driven economy. That's why the chamber supports me because they understand that it is being driven by the private sector. The public can be part of putting in the infrastructure.

>> Larry Lemmons:
is it driven by the private sector, mr. Lory?

>> Steve Lory:
that was the idea in 1776. We have free markets and small government and have just about as much government as we would need. We have the opposite here. We have central plaining out of downtown. The idea is we're going to make a vibrant downtown whether you want it or not. Okay? There's no doubt about it. If that wasn't the case, you wouldn't see billions of dollars of city tax money going into these projects. Okay? It's not a situation where the city hall sat down and said this is the plan. We hope you like it. Free enterprise, develop it. That's not the plan at all. A lot has been done. The example is the convention hotel down at the new Sheraton. That project is a $350 million hotel that's built and owned by the city of phoenix. Now that's not free enterprise. That's--

>> Phil Gordan:
if I may and let me respectfully correct a couple of things. Number one, the voters approved most of the initiatives that the city of Phoenix is doing by over 60%. It wasn't done just in the heart of downtown. We involved 800 citizens and anybody, anybody that wanted to serve had the opportunity to serve. A lot of people in the city of Phoenix did. They're the ones that prioritized it and they're the ones that voted that we should do these projects. I'm proud of my investment in asu and u of a. Education that creates jobs directly and trains our work force. But let's talk about a few things. There was a state also partnership where the state legislature overwhelmingly approved and put money in because they realized it was a benefit not only to the city of Phoenix and downtown but the entire state. The revenue from one other state to the other by new tourist dollars coming in. That's why we got the nra convention. The conventions triple the size of what we ever have imagined. The hotel--my opponent likes to say we put money into it. We didn't put one penny of general revenue Nor did we obligate the general revenue That was built on using users' fees. New rooms rented by new visitors that would repay the debt. That then created the momentum for a lot of other things. Besides creating the jobs not risking any city dollars, not allocating any city dollars, we created an industry that is benefiting this entire state.

>> Larry Lemmons:
mr. Lory.

>> Steve Lory:
if we believe that scenario, I would say the mayor's right. Unfortunately, that's not true. the money to build the hotel did come out of the general fund and it did come out of the bond fund which is tax money coming from the taxpayers which will be repaid through property taxes. If the hotel breaks even, fine. If there's a loss, that money will come out of the general fund for the city.

>> Larry Lemmons:
mr. Lory, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to move on to immigration because obviously that's an issue you talked about. You described Phoenix as a sanctuary city. Could you expound on that? Why is Phoenix a sanctuary city?

>> Steve Lory:
we have to start out--I do not coin that phrase.

>> Larry Lemmons:
that term is more widespread.

>> Steve Lory:
absolutely. It's been adopted around the country. We have mitt romney talking about it as well as rudy giuliani. It's a well-defined term. It is this, if you have a city that's told its police department that they can not take any action on immigration violations, then that creates a sanctuary of someone here in violation of federal laws. That's the definition. In the city there's an article in today's paper that accepted that this is a sanctuary city.

>> Larry Lemmons:
it might be.

>>Steve Lory:
yes, that's true.

>>Larry Lemmons:
mr. Phil gordon, I know opposition as referred to operation order 1.1.3 as justification for the city.

>> Phil Gordan:
Well actually that's not correct at all. The city of Phoenix is engaged in the fight of illegal immigration just the other day. In fact, in Tuesday's paper we read about a drop house that the city of Phoenix police busted and turned over 37 immigrants to ice. We turned over 2,000 illegal immigrants for being here illegally to ice in the last year alone. Plus, our Phoenix police in partnership with ice and other agencies have arrested over 3,700 felon illegal immigrants that committed robbery, homicides, drug dealing, human smuggling. Last month alone we broke up a syndicate of 20 different operations. This city is engaged in fighting illegal immigration because the federal government isn't doing what they should be. We will continue to do more and embed more ice agents to go after them. I must say--I must say that--i'll tell you the fact that some cities declare themselves as sanctuary cities saying they won't cooperate with the federal government is wrong. That's not the city of phoenix. We cooperate with them.

>> Larry Lemmons:
crime has gone up. Can you talk about that?

>> Phil Gordan:
in some areas crime has gone up, in certain areas of the valley, the state and nation. Our violent crime has been cut in half in the last decade and less than it was last year percentage wise. We have a lot of individuals because of drugs, because of border proximity and because of the nature of 9/11 that commits that crime. With a great police department 3,000 police officers. I support them. That's why I'm supporting proposition 1 which will get 500 more police officers, unlike my opponent.

>>Larry Lemmons:
you don't support proposition 1?

>> Steve Lory:
I support adding the 500 police officers. You got to realize the city will spend $34,000,000 this year 2% cut in had budget, I say cutout the waste of that budget, you'll get more than 2%. There we have money right now for these police officers to be on the street. Violent crime's up every year for the last four years in phoenix. This idea of being cut is nonsense. Violent crime is up every year. This year alone we're on track for the same bad results. We're below los angeles for crime per capita and right above New York in crime per capita. This is a sanctuary city. The paper talked about it today.

>>Larry Lemmons:
you have the first 30 seconds before we're ending up this debate. Go ahead.

>> Steve Lory:
well, i'll go back to what I talked about in the beginning. You got this huge issue with the illegal immigration being flooded into this city. There's an operations' order telling the police they can't do anything about it despite what my opponent just said that they're doing something about it. Walks like a duck. Quacks like a duck. You look at the streets, you see what's going on. There's no mystery there. That ties into a huge crime problem and, of course, out-of-control spending but on the wrong things. We need to get growth but not at all costs.

>>Larry Lemmons:
mr. Phil gordon.

>>Phil Gordan:
the next four years requires a mayor with a proven track record and has experience, has shown he can work with so many different people and get things done. I have experience and that record. We will continue to go in that direction. That's why people are moving to this state and businesses are succeeding. I support the police. They support me. I support the business community the chamber supports me. Together we have done great things in the past and in the future.

>> Larry Lemmons:
mr. Phil gordon and mr. Lory, thank you for coming down and debating this issue will be september 11th.

>> Larry Lemmons:
if you've been on rio salado parkway along the Tempe town lake in the last couple of years, you have probably seen the impressive 88,000 square foot structure going up. The Tempe center for the arts is getting some last minute touches and is poised to throw open its doors to the public for the first time. The project cost more than $65 million to create. The grand opening is this coming Sunday. Producer merry lucero and videographer richard torruellas bring you a preview of the Tempe center for the arts. ¶[ music ]¶

>>: this is actually probably the best expression of what Tempe is all about. it is becoming the great Arizona city. And we've done that by focusing on creating a truly sustainable community in all kinds of ways. Most people think that's only applied to environmental science. We've done it economically and environmental approaches and here in this facility. What you see is our cultural sustainable work. We work to keep your history and celebrate the Tempe fabric and the people who have been here for 100 years and this is an expression of the culture sustainability. This is a facility unlike any other in the valley or the state. This is about community arts.

>>John Kane:
first and foremost it's a performing arts center. The way it's organized has to do with its shape. Our collaborative partners, bartin, came up the idea to look at native precedents in terms of what they built in the desert and now they are a protective cluster of chivas and rooms working together protecting from the elements and opening up to the public space. We had this amazing site. This site that has amazing vistas which are to the north with the best orientation from the climate and protects it from the environment both in the solar and heat in the summer and acoustics from the planes and trains that are around us. This great central space, this city room has individual venues that open up to it. The 600 seat proscenium theater has a unique round shaped glass balconies. It has its own identities. When you walk inside, it's 16 appointed with wonderful wood and fabrics. We have a theater with a black box experimental that handles 200 people and is used for a variety of different things. Its doors open up the same way. Different things can be going on at the same time. That's what's wonderful about this facility. The gallery has been designed to open up also so it can come out to the lobby or the lobby can expand into the gallery quite wonderfully, and the lakeside room that sits on the lake can be a variety of functions to the community. The two entries--the idea of the entries to the facility, there's two and the street goes through and aligns with "A" mountain behind so again another connection back to the community. When the climate's wonderful, we have this amazing 19-acre community arts park with lush rolling grass and trees and mazes for the kids and large amphitheater variety of wonderful spaces and porches with deep recesses in the building that are activity spaces.

>> Hugh Hallman:
we have an internationally known child's organization that will call the facility home known for the performance for young artists. Tempe symphony and dance partners with a variety of dance organizations in Tempe, will have an opportunity to express themselves here. The gallery outside this particular main hall will be home to Tempe artists to create this opportunity. It really had to be based in a true grass-roots community effort. We had leaders in the community who wanted to see something like this come out of the ground, but before that leadership could really succeed, it required creating a grass-roots opportunity with our business community, with our homeowners and people who call Tempe home and who visit here. This facility was built as a result of a tax that our residents approved at ballot. That is a community facility. Our community voted for it. Our community supports it financially, and it's about community organizations. We have the opportunity for all Tempe arts organizations to express themselves in this fabulous facility. It's an expression of the community itself. The grass-roots of this community created this fantastic facility.

>> Larry Lemmons:
the Tempe center for the arts' free grand opening family day is on sunday, september 9 from noon to 5:00pm. There will be performances, food, activities, and a petting zoo.

>>Larry Lemons:
thanks for joining us on this wednesday evening. I'm Larry Lemmons, good night.

Greg Stanton:Phoenix City Councilman;Phil Gordon:Mayor of Phoenix;Steve Lory:Candidate for Mayor of Phoenix;

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