Santa Sighting
Each week I touch on several rather heavy topics. COVID has added a new level of seriousness to the items I cover. The past year has been tough for all of us. I’m opening this week though with a reminder that carving out time to reimagine the magic little kids can bring will, at least temporarily remind us to take a breath and join them in that place.
I’m grateful to the Parks staff who offered me the opportunity to join the kids for a little while last Thursday evening. And I must say, the parents in the cars were also worth the price of admission to the inflatable globe. Thanks to each of you who had a hand in giving me an hour+ of some joy and reminding me that it’s important to sometimes lighten up and set aside the difficult issues we have to grapple with. And this quick note from Santa...
I’ll write more about the glass recycling below, but for here it’s just a reminder that by reusing, you can reduce this holiday season. Our Environmental Services folks tell me that we generate 25% more trash this time of year than any other. If you can reuse Greeting Cards, old gift bags, tissue, etc it’ll just be less in the landfill. And please remember, do not recycle ribbons and bows, string, tinsel or ornaments, styrofoam, tissue paper or any of your paper goods with food residue on it. And the TreeCycle program starts again this Saturday, 12/26. There are a variety of sites – you can find them at https://www.tucsonaz.gov/treecycle. The sites remain active through Sunday, January 17th of next year.
Blue Light Recognition
Since March I’ve used this space to honor health care and other front-line workers who are helping us all pull through the COVID mess. This week it’s fitting to send this note of thanks to the folks in the white coats who have spent the year getting a vaccine on the market. This past week the first doses were delivered to hospitals to be administered to docs and nurses. They certainly deserve to be first in line.
Getting the vaccine so quickly was an example of what can be achieved when the private sector and government work in tandem towards a common goal. Think moon landing. In this case there was significant federal funding for Moderna’s work, and Pfizer’s involvement was made possible by a $1.9B ‘advance purchase’ agreement with D.C. Getting a vaccine to this stage in less than a year is as novel as the virus it’s aimed at controlling.
Thanks to all those who labored in labs, and to the people in the public health departments of the federal government who implemented the policies needed to get this across the finish line.
Nobody in public health is now saying to let our guard down – but this is an important first step towards some level of ‘normal.’
This is a map of where the first round of vaccines is going.
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 It’s earmarked for the 21M health care workers, and the 3M residents of long-term care facilities. In total, this first Pfizer 5.9M doses is enough for about 3M people – they take 2 injections, spaced about 3 weeks apart. This is going to be a slow roll out.
More On Vaccines...
It’s going to take a long time, and a lot of people having received the vaccine before we’ll be in a position to treat COVID like we do the flu and interact with any degree of confidence that there’s widespread immunity. Health experts say we’ll need about 70% of the U.S. population to have some form of immunity before we’re at that point. This graphic shows clearly how far away from that we are.
 One factor that will slow down our pace of getting to herd immunity is the reluctance many people have to even get vaccinated. Statista put this graph together that shows how we stack up with other Countries on the percent of our population who will take the vaccine. If their data is right, it leaves us just short of the 70% we’ll need. I suppose getting more people sick is another route, but I’m not eager to be crossing the immunity finish line that way.
If you’re reluctant to take the COVID vaccine because of a concern over the pace it’s being rolled out, please do some research and educate yourself on how they cut corners. The steps they skipped were more financial than medical. The information is easy to access through responsible public health websites.
COVID DATA
With the vaccine advancing towards market, the virus continued its own advance. Last week we passed over 300,000 deaths from COVID in the U.S. That’s less than a month since the Nation had hit 250,000. Colleges and Universities have played their own unique role. They’ve accounted for nearly 400,000 of the national cases. Another map - This one shows the UA holding a position as one of the 4-year schools in the Country with over 1,000 cases.
In fact, that’s over 3,000 now at the UA. Mandatory testing could have helped contain that number. Even the UA President stated that – despite also personally lobbying against my non-binding Resolution calling for mandatory testing.
Also last week, COVID became the leading cause of death in the U.S. It’s even ahead of heart disease now. And the death numbers for COVID are likely under-reported since other conditions may be listed as “cause of death” but were in fact exacerbated by COVID.
 The COVID infectivity rate is above 1 just about everywhere in the Country. That’s the Rt value I write about from time to time. That means the virus simply continues to spread. And this graphic is a few days old. Our current Rt is 1.09, so we’d move to a darker color in the grid.
Those charts and data are from a report put together by CDC Director Robert Redfield. Our daily average number of deaths is now more than the number of Americans killed on 9/11 or at Pearl Harbor. In Pima County the standard for ending the 10pm curfew is getting under 100 cases per 100,000 population. We’re close to 700.
I began with a short piece on the vaccine. These data are to reinforce the necessity of everybody doing their part to slow the spread. Right now, the virus is winning.
COVID, but Non-COVID Impacts
We had a death in the family last week. It was not due to COVID, but watching how the loss has to be handled now exposed even more COVID collateral impact. Some of it I’ve written about. Our health care facilities aren’t able to allow visitors like they did early this year. So patients are going through their last hours apart from, or with very limited family bedside.
Then comes the mourning period. People can’t fly across country to share those times with grieving loved ones. We can’t get together for burials/cremations, or to celebrate a life. There are some things Zoom cannot claim to be an adequate substitute for. Working through loss is at the top of the list.
Everybody agrees that 2020 has been a year to forget. But in doing so, please don’t forget to find a way to reach out to others – whether in your family, or friends – who have lost a loved one during this time when our ‘normal’ ways of showing support are not possible. Their loss is still as significant as before. And they need your support, in COVID-safe ways.
COVID-19 Risk Tool
One final metric before I move onto something non-COVID. Friend Matthew shared this link with me last week. It shows the percent chance you’ve got of being infected with COVID based on the size of gathering your participating in. We hear from people regularly who want to host an event of say 20-30 people. My own family does that on holidays such as Thanksgiving, so I know getting to that number of people isn’t some extraordinary occasion.
This map is from the site. It shows the nationwide risk level for events of 50 people. I checked it out for Pima County. With our current COVID numbers, in Pima County you’ve got a 91% chance of becoming infected with COVID if you’re at an event of that size. If the group drops to 20 people, your risk is reduced to 62%. And in a group of even 10 people you’ve still got a 38% risk of being infected with COVID in Pima County right now.
We hear all the time that people ‘just got together for a family gathering.’ This link shows how vulnerable we all are right now. With Christmas coming this weekend, please keep this in mind.
UA Football Firing
There was a press conference held last Friday in which some comments were made by the UA Athletics Director Dave Heeke that need, let’s say clarifying. Following the 70-7 loss to ASU, Heeke fired UA football coach Sumlin. In his contract the coach has a buyout clause. Given the timing of the termination, the UA owes Sumlin $7M for ending the relationship. That contract was negotiated by Heeke and approved by both him and UA President Robbins. They own the hire, and they own the terms. Sumlin was hired from Texas A&M and was given a $10M buyout when they got rid of him. So the UA negotiating team sweetened that kitty pretty well. And I’d add that when Heeke and Robbins fired the prior coach – Rich Rodriguez – they paid him a buyout of $6M.
During the press conference, when asked if student fees are covering the $7M buyout of Coach Sumlin’s contract, Heeke said “It will be absorbed by the athletic budget and it will be in our budget. There has been (sic) savings.”
If you Google Arizona Athletics student fees, you’ll see plenty of references to the student fee that began to be imposed in 2017. Here’s a reference from the UA Administration page:
So the athletics department budget is directly supported by student fees. It’s $100 for undergrads and $50 for graduate students. It goes into the athletics department budget and is intended to help pay for programs, debt service on capital projects – which before they eliminated my position I was helping to manage – and improving the fan experience. It lasts until 2048. The point is that money is a fungible asset. That fee, even when used to pay debt service is offsetting the need to use other operating funds to pay those costs. To suggest that the buyout is ‘absorbed by the athletic budget’ and is not being supported by fees is at best disingenuous.
Heeke also made an effort to indicate the need to be sure the next coach has strong ties to the UA and understands our history and culture. One might ask why that wasn’t an important set of criteria for the first try. I know there was plenty of chatter around the athletics department, the UA and the community prior to the Sumlin hire that a former UA player – say from the Dick Tomey era – would be an ideal fit. That input was ignored.
Here are a couple more quotes from the press conference – you see if you can find any substantial meaning in any of it:
“As you’re aware, the buyout of the contract is significant, but it was made with the need to emerge with the need to recover and a strong recovery plan and strong purpose.” Well ok.
And when asked about the 21 people he had just terminated and what message the buyout sends, he said this: “There is no question it is a very difficult and challenging financial time as I say, it’s a very hard decision to make and those who we have worked with, it’s important for our program to be successful. It’s a part of our plan. It’s a very difficult time.”
It’s hard to accept that absorbing over $13M in buyouts for 2 football coaches in 3+ years is a part of any ‘plan.’ And it’s equally hard to accept that with a Pac 12 Conference $83M loan available that cutting off the income of 21 employees during a pandemic and right before the holidays is done with a soul.
The total value of the salaries of the 21 people who had their jobs eliminated is less than ½ of the Sumlin buyout. I use the word ‘value’ intentionally. They brought value. None left with a golden parachute negotiated by the AD and UA President.
RTA Next
Ok, a short break from all of that. How about the RTA? That’s the Regional Transportation Authority. It’s the regional group who oversees the collection and spending of the 2006 voter-approved ½ cent sales tax earmarked for roads, transportation, safety and the environment. We’re closing in on the end of its term, so talk is ramping up on what to include in the next round of the sales tax.
RTA Next is in the beginning stages of being formed. The regional partners include Pima County, Oro Valley, Marana, Sahuarita, the Tohono O’odham nation, Pascqua Yaqui nation, the City of South Tucson, the Arizona Department of Transportation, and of course us. The City of Tucson constitutes 62% of the tax base in support of the rest of the RTA communities.
Our Transportation folks did a survey of Tucson residents in order to get a sense of your priorities. They had over 6,000 citizen interactions and gathered more than 4,500 survey responses. During our last couple of M&C meetings many of us expressed common thoughts on how the Move Tucson survey and our input into RTA Next should merge.
For example, one of the survey questions was looking for priorities into where we invest our money over the next 20 years. This graphic shows your top 2 priorities:
The current RTA has no money earmarked for repaving streets. And the current RTA Next plan also has zero allocated to pavement preservation. Given that 2/3 of you feel it’s a priority, I join my M&C colleagues on suggesting that if we’re going to pay into RTA Next, that should be an area that gets funded. This isn’t new ground for me to be wrestling on. Over 8 years ago I had some very public exchanges with the then RTA Board on this exact topic. Now that they’re asking for a list, the issue is fresh once again.
What about safety? Remember, our Move Tucson survey indicated safety elements are a priority for 68% of you. That’s making our streets safe for all modes of travel, as well as for pedestrians. In the current RTA, safety elements are given 9% of the total funding. This graphic shows where your RTA sales tax is allocated, and in the final column it shows the percent the City of Tucson receives.
Of that 9% earmarked for safety elements, Tucson residents get ½ of that. It’s not quite at the level of priority nearly 7 out of 10 of you indicated.
Move Tucson includes our own 20-year capital needs projection. I pulled just those two elements from it. This is what just the City of Tucson is projected to need invested over that time span. Not all 9 RTA members, just us.
Current, and out-going RTA Chair Valadez wrote this in a letter to the 9 RTA jurisdictions:
Our ultimate objective is to present a regional transportation plan to voters in Pima County that they will support and agree to fund through an extension of the RTA tax. This funding is critical to supporting our infrastructure needs, so it’s important that we work together to get the draft plan voter-ready to meet our goal of providing an enhanced regional transportation system.
RTA Next will not pass if City of Tucson voters don’t support it. If they’re not recognizing Tucson resident priorities, and our place in financially supporting the program, then I see no reason to even support it going to the ballot. We’ll see if the conversation is more fluid now than it appeared to be a while back when I challenged them on including road repair in the package.
Sunshine Mile
Another RTA-related item is the Sunshine Mile development. This began with that same 2006 RTA vote in which an 8 lane, 150’ wide Broadway expressway was put to the voters. It was a part of the larger $2.1B RTA package. And it was presented based on dated traffic volume data that has never developed. Beginning nearly 10 years ago a group of us formed to try to make a more reasonable project out of the Broadway widening. Now it looks like we’re close.
There are still some glitches to work out, but everyone involved agrees that we’ve come a long way since fighting over simply adding width. Our getting to this point is to the credit of the residents who have stuck with it, Rio Nuevo/Swaim Architects for having stepped up and gotten involved, and the Project for Public Spaces for offering some place-making sorts of ideas.
This map shows the Sunshine Mile corridor. It’s the 2 mile stretch on Broadway from Euclid to Country Club. I include this map in order to demonstrate just one of the remaining deal points being discussed. The blocks in yellow represent historic buildings along the Sunshine Mile. You can see that some of them are a couple of blocks north and south of Broadway. The ones to the north touch residential areas. That's not the case to the south.
The Sunshine Mile District (SMD) is going to be a zoning overlay that gives developers some relief on certain requirements, in exchange for benefits offered by the new SMD zoning. In this case, if they agree to not demolish a historic building, they can build more density onto the site than what is currently allowed. The challenge is balancing preservation vs quality of life in the homes adjacent to the new development. It’s a conversation that’s still in play.
Some other areas still being discussed include the sorts of amenities a development needs to provide before being given the ability to build more density, what constitutes open space, allowed uses near to residential areas and generally whether the SMD aligns with established or proposed neighborhood plans. That sounds like a lot, but the list has really been whittled down to what is hopefully a pretty workable one.
There was a Zoning Examiner public hearing last week on the SMD. It was well attended – virtually – and lots of good information was exchanged. In an effort to let the parties continue to meet and discuss the remaining differences, the hearing was continued until January 7th. I’m confident this extra public engagement will bring us closer to wide consensus on the terms of the Overlay. In the end there will be points of disagreement. But in the end, it won’t be a 150’ wide chunk of asphalt. That alone is a win.
Genna
Many of you now recognize that name. I have people who I don’t know mention her to me. And I know the family does as well. I assure you that when those chance encounters happen, it makes all the work we’ve invested in getting justice for Genna worth the effort.
At the time of the killing, some of Genna’s close friends had her favorite saying tattooed. While she sleeps, her case makes its way to trial.
A couple of weeks ago I shared that due to conflicts of interest that now exist within the Pima County Attorney’s office, the case has been transferred to a different jurisdiction. Last week the family learned the Pinal County Attorney will handle the case. They had an initial meeting and based on that exchange I’m told they’re very happy with the change. There will be a time when the whole story can be shared about how Genna’s case and family have been treated in the Pima County system, but now’s the time to keep the case moving, and now with a County Attorney staff that’s committed to both Genna’s legacy, and to showing due respect for the family.
Genna was shot and killed by her live-in mate. He claimed it was an accident. We reconstructed the case and many of us do not believe that to be true. And even if it is, the actions the killer admits to cannot be swept aside as just ok. The next step in the trial is coming in March. There is now a renewed hope that it’ll end appropriately.
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Local Tucson
This week’s Local Tucson item is also the Be Kind item. It’s the Miracle on 31st Street – and most importantly, Ramon Gonzales. Ramon is the founder of the Christmas miracle event. He began it nearly 50 years ago and has nurtured it from a simple back yard event into one that now provides thousands of gifts to needy kids, largely in the South Tucson area.
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Ramon passed away last week. The impact he had on lives throughout the community cannot be overstated. This year there will be no gift give away, but Ramon’s spirit will be remembered in families all over Tucson and Pima County. He's going to be missed for what he brought to lots of little lives at a time of year ‘Santa’ might otherwise have been absent.
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And another Local Tucson item that deserves a mention this week is Clues Unlimited mystery bookstore. They’re located at Ft. Lowell and Country Club (3154 E. Ft. Lowell.) They’ve been around since 1986, formally known as Gigantic Hound bookstore. Sadly, they’re closing their doors at the end of the year.
The pandemic proved too much for them. As a part of the closure though, they’re running special deals throughout the store. They range from 20% discounts, to dollar discounts on paperbacks. Until they close, the hours for Clues Unlimited are:
December 21st through the 23rd - 10am until 3pm and Saturday the 26th from 10am until 4pm.
Operating an indie bookstore is tough enough but doing it under the current conditions is an enormous lift. They’re a Ward 3 icon. I hope you can stop by and give your best to Chris and Cappie the pooch before they have to shut the doors for good. Call for an appointment at 326.8533.
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Tony the Lion
I know, Tony is a Tiger’s name. But the folks at the Reid Park Zoo just received a 5-year-old lion from the San Antonio zoo who was named by NBA star Tony Parker as a part of a charity auction in support of their zoo. So our lion is named after him.
In a few weeks, Tony will be integrated in with the 2 Reid Park zoo female lions. Right now, they’re going through the process of acclimating him to his new home. Meeting the ladies will come once he’s more comfortable with the smells and sights of the new place.
There are only 20,000 lions left worldwide. Reid Park zoo is partnering with the Disney and Wildlife Conservation Network Lion Recovery Fund. The goal is to double the number of lions in Africa by 2050. I saw them in person while on a game safari with my bride and daughter in Kenya several years ago. They are truly amazing creatures.
You can’t see Tony in person quite yet, but you can tune into the lion Zoo Cam and see what all 3 of them are up to. Sometimes you’ve got to be patient, but they’re there.
Animal conservation is a huge part of what Reid Park zoo and the Tucson zoological society are all about. You can find more at www.reidparkzoo.org.
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Glass Recycling/Reusing
When staff delivered the new glass recycle bin to our office, I told them we’d fill it in a week. I was wrong. I took this picture after it had been here for 3 days. You’ve filled it twice in the first week+ that it has been on site.
When I was doing all the crushing, the bottles had to be about the width of a wine bottle, or they wouldn’t fit into the crusher. Now, with the new commercial scale crusher you can bring any size bottle and it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about taking off the metal rings or collars – they'll deal with that at the crushing end.
After the first of the year, you’ll start seeing informational material from our Environmental Services folks about the do’s/don’ts of the soon-to-begin new program. The new commercial scale crusher is on order, as are more of these bins. They’ll be scattered at 21 different locations around the City when the program fully rolls out. We’ll continue to have one at the Ward 6 office. Thanks for sticking with this. It’s a part of our larger climate action program and is a step towards resiliency that’ll impact our kids’ future.
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Respect All Ways
The acronym is RAW. It’s a group of Tucsonans who have been meeting virtually talking about the social issues of the day. They’re largely focused on race relations. The hope is to create a space in which views of all sorts can be shared, and action steps developed. They’re meeting again on MLK day, Monday, January 18th at 2pm. Please mark it down if you’d like to be a part of the conversation.
The theme for the upcoming meeting is “How Can I Contribute to the Community?” They’ll begin in a large group and then break out into smaller one’s - likely ending back in the large group to share what they discussed.
I’m told by the organizers that they’d love to have all sorts of viewpoints included. If we all talk in our silos, we don’t productively advance issues. And if Zoom is good for anything, it allows a safe space to share your thoughts. I hope you can join on the 18th.
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COVID Around Campuses
I opened with quite a bit of COVID material. I’ll close with some news from other College towns, and current Arizona and Pima County data.
Last week the NY Times released new data that shows nearly 400,000 COVID cases on U.S. college campuses since this all started near the end of the spring semester. I showed a map earlier of where cases exceeded 1,000. The UA is about 3x that amount. And nearly 80,000 cases have developed in the past month on college campuses.
I’ve been trying to get the UA to conduct off-campus mandatory testing. After they got over the phony constitutionality issue, they started to productively look at ways to implement such a program. That's good because the Times’ report shows deaths in Counties with a substantial college population have doubled since August, and they’ve risen faster than elsewhere in the Country. Molly McHugh is a senior in nursing at South Dakota U. Her comment in the Times article was “everybody talks about their rights, and I’m like, what about the rights of my patients?” That’s one student who could have informed UA administration months ago.
The UA is working on the protocols for mandatory testing of students who come onto campus when they return in January. My concern is that that’ll leave thousands still out in the community potentially infecting residents. Evidently there was some push back from members of the faculty and now the UA is yet again rethinking even the modest testing plan they have announced. The NY Times did an analysis of what happened when students returned in August. That mass in-migration confirmed my concerns. The numbers of infection in the community spiked. I’ve shared those data in several newsletters. It was quite the public fight getting us to this point where the UA announced they will be testing students who will come onto campus. Hopefully responsible public health considerations prevail, their thinking evolves, and more widespread testing will be a part of the plan.
Two State agencies in Pennsylvania are trying to get colleges to delay the planned early-January return. The State Education and Health Departments released a joint statement that warned COVID hospitalizations may peak shortly after the students return in January. By delaying that return, schools can help mitigate the impact on health care institutions. That is, health care workers.
Duquesne U is a private University located in Pittsburgh. They’ve already pushed back their re-entry to January 21st. They’re looking at backing that off even further. The letter was aimed at Pitt, Penn State and Carnegie-Mellon, all Pennsylvania schools. This is a comment from the Pennsylvania acting Education Secretary, Noe Ortega; “By delaying students’ return to campus, our institutions of higher learning can help slow the spread of the virus, help businesses to remain open, and protect regional health-care systems.”
I believe the UA should be looking at following the Pennsylvania lead. Early January is not the time to invite thousands of students back into the community. Right now, we’re seeing the Thanksgiving surge. Soon we’ll see the Christmas surge. And right about the time UA will have invited over 30,000 students back into Tucson, those numbers will be exploding. If the UA is truly interested in the health of the wider community, it will immediately begin talks about pushing back the start of the spring semester to a date when we’re surer COVID will not be over-running our health care system, and our lives. To that end, on Sunday I sent out this notice. We’ll soon see if the UA administration goes with the faculty concerns and eases off on their testing plan, or if they want to engage on what I’m suggesting.
Despite the recent actions taken based on my speaking out on the issue of mandatory testing, I remain open to discussing how we manage COVID as community partners.
And this is Tom Burek. He was 62 last week when he died of COVID.
Tom was the second longest tenured swimming coach in Monmouth College’s history. In addition to swimming records, his teams had 57 Midwest Conference academic all-conference awards. He taught his students how to succeed both in the water, and in the classroom. It’s yet another on-campus COVID loss that won’t be replaced.
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CDC Data
Over the weekend, the State Rt value (infectivity rate) was 1.09. That means the infection is still spreading. If you go to the CDC COVID website linked below, you’ll see these numbers for Pima County. It’s the graphic I included in my Release about delaying the UA opening.
Please remember, the County health standard for getting out of Substantial Risk for infection is fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 population. We’re at 703 cases per 100,000. And the positivity rate over the last 7 days of testing is nearly 25%. And it’s headed up.
Aside from Maricopa County, we’re at the top Statewide.
 Our State raw data began like this in April.
 On Sunday these were our numbers.
 I could show you the Harvard Global Health picture of Arizona, but this national image tells the story:
In the past week 105 people have died from COVID in Pima County. What if that number was tied to gun violence, or another viral outbreak? The fact that we’ve been living this since March seems to have pushed some in leadership positions to be ready to ease up on controls. Our State Health Director, with the Governor’s blessing did just that last week. Easing up is not going to help the trajectory you see in this graph – it's just Pima County cases. You can see what has happened in all the other Arizona Counties by comparing the maps I included above:
We will pass 20,000 cases in the month of December.
Christmas is this coming weekend. It should not be like it was last year. Please be safe in order to stay healthy. I’ll bet you know somebody who works in the health care field. If you feel the urge to go out and do something that’s counter to the public health advice, think of that friend or family member you know who’s working on the COVID front lines before you act.
For the current Rt value (infection rate) go to Rt.live.
For the NY Times data sets, use this link:
The State Department of Health site is at this link: www.azdhs.gov.
Here’s the UA daily update link. www.covid.arizona.edu. When it opens, click ‘See Latest Updates’ and it’ll take you to a screen with the updated data.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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