THE TOP 5% ARE DOING OKAY IN TUCSON

BMW dealership doubling in size at Tucson Auto Mall
By Dale Quinn, Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star
Posted: Thursday, June 9, 2011 2:02 pm

The local BMW dealership will soon roughly double the size of its operation at the Tucson Auto Mall.

BMW Tucson, owned by AutoNation, plans to move to a 6.5-acre site south of West Wetmore Road near North Fairview Avenue in mid-November, said General Manager Michael Famileti.

The dealership showroom and service area will more than double in size from about 20,000 square feet to 46,000 square feet, Famileti said.

While the company saw its business drop during the recession, sales have begun to pick up.


“We’re way up over last year,” Famileti said. “So business is good.”

The rest of us, not so much...

Brewer calls special session on jobless benefits
By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Thursday, June 9, 2011 12:00 am

PHOENIX - Ignoring objections from within her own party, Gov. Jan Brewer late Wednesday called lawmakers back to the Capitol in a bid to force them to extend jobless benefits for thousands of long-term unemployed.

"It will bring in $3.5 million a week into the economy for a while and lift everybody's boat," Brewer said of the plan she wants enacted.

Many members of the governor's Republican Party are balking, even though the money for the benefits would come entirely from the federal government.

"Every day we're reading how this (federal) debt continues to escalate," said House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden. "The members are very anxious about borrowing. And they don't believe that federal money is free."

Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, echoed the sentiment. "We're not taking federal money; we're taking Chinese money," he said, with that nation financing much of the U.S. deficit spending. "We're broke as a country, we're broke as a state, and we're spending money we don't have."