Chaos on Capitol Hill
Last Wednesday I interrupted a portion of my afternoon to watch a little of the chaos in D.C. that was caused by the soon outgoing president and his call to arms. You’ve seen the wall-to-wall coverage. Thankfully arrests have begun, and the ringleaders will be held accountable.
Sadly, Brian Sicknick, a veteran, and a veteran Capitol police officer was killed during the insurrection. The Ward 6 flag American flag will remain at half-staff until January 20th at the earliest, in respect of Brian and his service.
State Representative Finchem from the Oro Valley/Saddlebrook area took part in the D.C. events. He sits on the Veteran’s Affairs committee in the state legislature. Mark, don’t be offended by us honoring this loss. Your behavior was disgusting.
We’re better than this – even in defeat, as the current president’s supporters are, we should be better than this. The page will turn and the mob will return to whatever hole they crawled out from. And Americans from all political persuasions will work together for the greater good of our nation. Locally, the Mayor and Council are committed to serving the entire community. Thanks for entrusting us with the responsibility.
And speaking of ringleaders, late on Wednesday I penned this Release. It was not meant to be hype. Many of you expressed support. For that I’m comforted as it shows there are serious thinkers who understand the broad implications of a mob incursion into the nation’s Capitol.
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One of our D.C. team wrote to me in response, rhetorically wondering if Pence and the Cabinet ‘had the guts’ to carry it out. Evidently not. Another guy wrote to assure me it was not Trump supporters who were involved with the break-in. Oh. Then I guess I was hallucinating when I thought I saw a bunch of Trump 2020 flags being used to break in the windows.
Let’s hope for the best as we wind down the current Presidential term in office.
And if you’d like a little contemplative downtime, join us virtually at Sacred Space at 4pm on Sunday the 17th. They’ve asked me to share some music – I'll be including a short set that will touch on the various ways we’ve been affected by the loss and separation brought on by the pandemic. For example, one of the songs will be one I did during the Week of Mourning event in Himmel from A Star is Born. After the music Rev. Rosanne Crago will lead a meditation. She is a Reiki Master Teacher and is a founding member of Community of Light where she leads meditations weekly.
Vaccine Update
We had a good update on the vaccine program from Pima County Health doc Terry Cullen last week. The best news was that it appears the State is stepping out of the way and allowing PCHD to run the regional program. That’s good. We don’t need any more links in the chain than already exist. Keeping it local is working for us.
I’ll keep this graphic in the newsletter while we roll through the vaccine program so you can see who’s a priority, and where we are in the process. The dates are of course general. They have to be since we don’t have control over the quantity and timing of the distribution of vaccines to our region. But the graphic is an important reminder of who is ‘next in line.’
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The nationwide rollout is still slow. Late last week Bloomberg’s COVID19 Tracker had just over 6.7 million doses having been given out. Remember, the goal was to have had 20 million by the end of December, so this is going to take more time than we had hoped. And with the continuing surge in infections, that’s not good. More on that below.
So far about 2.4 doses have been given out per 100 people in the country. For Arizona, the data look like this:
So statewide, we’re a little behind the rest of the country. But Pima County is near the top in doses administered per capita. This graphic shows how each Arizona county is doing:
Only 3,000 of our 31,000 doses administered so far are the complete 2 dose regimen. The plan right now is for Pima County to begin moving to Phase 1B people around the middle of January. Scroll back up and see if that’s you. “Essential Services” is yet to be fully defined by the people putting the program together, but the county health folks have put this draft list together. It’s got a lot of professions listed, so getting through them all will certainly take time. The rough estimate I’ve heard is there are over 200,000 people in the positions listed below.
If you would like to help in the vaccination process, you can sign up to volunteer at eocvolunteer@pima.gov. The “eoc” stands for Emergency Operations Center. They’re the point of contact for coordination. You do not need a medical background to help out. They’ll have people help direct traffic, sign people in, and perform other duties. Pima County health is asking for a 36-hour commitment – and near the end of that, if you’re not one of the vaccinators, you’ll also receive a vaccination. Of course, if you can administer the shots, they’d love to have you too.
We’ve begun discussing turning the TCC into a vaccination site. In addition there’ll be multiple sites scattered throughout the region. You can keep up to date on the whole vaccination program by going to the Pima County website at www.pima.gov/covid19vaccine. They post regular updates.
Sonoran Corridor
Last week we voted to send ADOT a letter expressing our thoughts on proposed routes for the Sonoran Corridor. I’ve been writing about this for over 6 years. In fact, the map shown below I pulled from a 2015 article Patrick McNamara wrote back when he was with the Star. He did some really good reporting on it back then. Estimates were that a build out of the area can have a $32B economic impact on our region. This is the only location in the State that is perfectly suited for rail, air, over the road and international commerce. And the build will ease congestion on I-10.
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And 6 years later we’re at the first phase of an environmental impact study (EIS.) As I said during our council discussion, we need Segment 5 now. The rest won’t be done in 20 years.
So what’s Segment 5? This material comes to us from ADOT. Note the similarity to the map Patrick included in his article. Segment 5 is the east/west portion that’s connecting Alvernon with Rita Road. It’s along that stretch of the corridor the major logistics, aerospace, and manufacturing jobs may one day be located. The north/south legs are where much of the M&C wanted to focus the discussion. My point – as long as we get Segment 5 done, the rest is gravy, and can wait.
The state will finish its EIS and prepare a Record of Decision by this summer. That document can then be used by the Federal Highway Administration, ADOT and any potential funding sources to help move the project along. How rapidly will that happen? I pulled this comment from last week’s ADOT presentation:
We’re doing our part to help advance the project. At the age of 4, one of my grandkids appears to want to get involved with construction engineering. Given the pace of government, this might be a project he works on someday, to the economic benefit of the entire region.
UA Reopening
The UA resumed their weekly briefings last week. During this one they shared the testing plan for incoming students. It’s no surprise to many of you that I’m not supportive of their game plan. I believe it places the wider community at risk, and that they could do better.
The COVID Tracking Project included this graphic on their site last week. It shows the stark difference between where we were back at the start of the fall semester, and where we are today. With the trajectory of the infections, I don’t think it would have been unreasonable for the UA leadership to advise all non-resident students that they have no intention of opening up campus for anything beyond their Stage 1 reentry classes until mid-semester, at the soonest. That’s March. If we’re in a position to host large groups by then, I’ll be surprised. Instead, President Robbins’ reply to a media question about reopening was “we couldn’t tell them not to come.” Well, no, of course not. But they certainly could have been transparent about the realistic plan for going beyond Stage 1 classes. And they certainly could have sent a letter advising out-of-state students that they have no intention of opening for larger in-person classes for the foreseeable future – and to stay home until further notice.
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The CDC and Department of Health and Human Services conducted a study comparing the experience colleges with over 20,000 students had last semester. They compared schools that did remote-only vs the ones like the UA that tried some in-person. Here’s their result:
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Stage 1 classes are under 30 students, and they’re classes in which students really cannot do them in an online manner. Things such as labs, certain engineering courses and that sort of thing. There will be about 3,900 students on campus taking that kind of class. The rest will be online. They could have been doing that from say California. In fact, the variant strain of COVID is now present in California, Texas, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania. We have out of state students coming from each of those areas. Robbins said only 3,200 non-resident students will be living off campus and that the vast majority are planning on staying home in another state. That means the towers around campus, off-campus Greek houses, and private apartments in the 85719 region will be largely vacant. We’ll see. I’ll be surprised if that’s true. The concern of losing tuition dollars is a lure.
Testing will be mandatory for the students taking in-person classes. They’ll be requiring weekly tests for them. There was talk about using access to WiFi as a tool to enforce compliance. That’s what ASU is doing. It’s not in place at the UA yet. Testing is also mandatory again for students living in dorms on campus. They had about 6,000 of them last semester. They’d love to have students planning to be on campus for say using the library or Student Union to also test. Right now there’s no reliable way to enforce that. They’re working on a phone app similar to the one I shared in an earlier newsletter being used in some schools back east. In addition, they’re asking students who are traveling back to Pima County to do a self-imposed 7-day quarantine when they arrive. It’s not enforceable, and even if everyone complies, it’s the off-campus behavior we all witnessed last semester – at schools all over the country – that will cause the community spread.
Arizona is now #1 internationally in transmission of COVID - bypassing California
That graphic – shared during the weekly briefing – does not include Christmas or New Year’s numbers. And of course, it doesn’t include the impact of students returning to Tucson. If that’s really only 3,200, great. Both Robbins and Carmona ‘knew this was coming.’ And they stressed multiple times how difficult this is on our health care workers and hospital capacity. For me that concession is inconsistent with the reluctance to advise students living out of state that they’re not opening campus for the foreseeable future this semester.
Spring semester starts January 13th. If Robbins is right, those of you living around campus will not be seeing lots of students returning to apartments in the area. I’m betting that you will not be so lucky.
What are Other Universities Doing?
Some colleges are indeed pushing back the start of classes. UNC-Chapel Hill, with less than 2 weeks before the planned start of their classes advised all undergrad students that they will be going to all-remote learning until February 8th, at the earliest. Good for them. When they made that call, California was the #1 COVID hot spot in the country. Now Arizona is.
And UCSD has installed 11 vending machines across their campus for students and employees to get a COVID test.
I’d like to see the UA use some of their CARES money and buy those machines for the off-campus high rises and other private apartment complexes. Assuming I’m right, and Robbins’ prediction of only 3,200 non-resident students coming back to live off campus is wrong, having the tests right on their property could be helpful. No appointments and no in-person interactions. The machines are open 9am through 4pm, 7 days per week at UCSD.
The acting Secretary of Education in Pennsylvania urged all of the colleges in their state to delay the start of their spring term until at least February. In his statement he said, “we are seeing an alarming increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, and these trends are expected to worsen in January at the time when students normally return to campus.” He noted that by delaying the return of students to campus, their schools would play a role in mitigating the community spread of the virus, protect health care institutions, and help keep businesses open. Correct. In response, Penn State is starting the spring semester entirely online until at least the middle of February. The same is happening at colleges across their state.
Schools in New York are also pushing back the start of classes to February. Seton Hall, St. Vincent College, Duquesne, Bryn Mawr, and the State University of New York campuses are taking the step. Their leadership says that even if they could assure students, faculty and staff would be safe on campus, “asking students to travel long distances right now is problematic.” Asking them to stay home is responsible.
The same trend is happening across southern states as well. Bethune-Cookman in Florida has pushed back their start date. So has Mississippi State. What I asked of the UA is in fact being done across the nation – which was also true of the mandatory testing they called unconstitutional.
The St. Bonaventure President was hospitalized with COVID right after Christmas. He was admitted to a Syracuse hospital after developing pneumonia. A small Wisconsin college, St. Carroll has now lost 2 of its nursing faculty due to COVID. One died in November, and another just died right after New Year’s.
Community Meetings – Central Business District and Glass Recycling
Shifting gears for a moment, city staff will be conducting some community outreach meetings to solicit input and bring the public up to date on a couple of important issues. One is the proposed change in boundaries and rules surrounding our Central Business District (CBD) and the other is our plan for glass recycling.
The CBD is a geographical area, largely in the downtown core, but expanding somewhat out from there. If development takes place within its boundaries, certain building incentives are available. The way the boundaries are laid out is governed by state statute, and the incentives are discretionary ways to catalyze projects.
There will be a total of 7 virtual meetings this month during which the CBD will be discussed. They’re 90 minutes, and the format will be a staff presentation, followed by community input. You can sign up for any of the meetings, but the W6 presentation is coming on January 13th at 5pm. Use this link for a larger description of the CBD topic, and also to register for any of the remaining events.
And we’re finally about to roll out the new glass recycle/reuse program. Many of you have been regularly filling the new glass-only dumpster located behind the W6 office. It gets filled no less than once per week, so I know the program has wide community buy-in.
Beginning on February 21st, glass will no longer be allowed in the curbside blue barrels. But there will be 21 sites scattered throughout the city where you can drop off your bottles. Staff will be hosting a series of community virtual meetings to describe the reasons for, and the way the new program will work. I’ve written about this a lot and am grateful to the many of you who have supported the move. Taking glass out of our recycle pipeline and putting it to new secondary uses will save money and is simply environmentally sound waste management.
The drop-off sites – in addition to ours – will be opening in February. They’d like you to remove caps and lids, but you can leave the labels on. Starting on February 21st, the blue barrel program will be limited to plastic containers, paper, cardboard and aluminum/steel cans. I’m looking forward to the day when we get to multi-stream recycling curbside, but we’re not there yet. This new program is a step in that direction.
Our Environmental Services folks are hosting 3 virtual Town Halls so you can learn more about the reuse program. They’ll be held by Zoom on Tuesday, January 12th at 5:30, Friday, January 15th at 10am and Thursday, January 21st at 6:30pm. Use this link to find out more information about the program, and also for the Zoom links for those presentations:
From Inside Higher Ed
There’s an online publication that covers all-things Higher Ed. They’re located in New York, but they write on topics of nationwide interest. One of their reporters called last week and wanted some thoughts on the on-going coaching buyouts, with a perspective from one who lost his job at a school that’s included in the buyout cycle. In the past 3 years, under Dave Heeke, the UA has paid, or will pay over $13M to 2 football coaches for no longer coaching at the school. And 21 people were let go in November over alleged financial needs. The two are not compatible.
Here’s a link to the article. Greta Anderson did a nice job of showing how this issue has grown out of control at universities across the country. She and I had a lengthy conversation. One part of it she didn’t include in the article is that every Pac 12 school has up to an $83M low interest loan available from the conference to help get through the pandemic. If the UA had exercised just $3M of that, they could have preserved every one of those 21 peoples’ jobs for a year and used that time to see how things play out with respect to COVID. Instead, two weeks after cutting them loose, they exercised their obligation to pay Coach Sumlin over $7M to leave.
Forbes did a study and found that the UA is not alone in this. They totaled the buyouts of 6 football coaching separations; from the UA, Texas, Auburn, South Carolina, Illinois and Vanderbilt. The combined buyout is north of $75M from just those 6 schools. And every one of those schools has let people go to ‘help balance the budget’ during the pandemic. As I said to Greta, they’ve lost their soul.
Sunshine Mile District
The continuation of the zoning examiner hearing for the Sunshine Mile overlay was held last week. It was continued again. In this case I believe that’s a good thing. I know the Rio team is meeting with neighbors to talk about concerns. Not all of them will be addressed – no zoning tool like this will result in a document in which everybody’s issues are resolved – but in the meetings I’ve taken part in I’ve seen progress being made. That’s good. We’re better served by getting points aired before a final document is ruled on by the zoning examiner and sent to Mayor and Council.
One of the goals of the Sunshine Mile process is to establish destination nodes along the corridor. The original RTA package eliminated that possibility, in favor of an 8 lane, 150’ wide arterial. Its construction would have resulted in demolishing over 150 buildings along the north side of Broadway. We’re now saving many of them, and with the overlay they’ll become those destinations many of us have been preaching throughout the very lengthy public process this has endured.
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One element of the final product will be similar to mobility hubs that are being used in Minneapolis. They're multi-modal transportation hubs placed in the same kinds of activity destinations we’re creating along Broadway. I know Rio has talked about rubber tire streetcars for the Sunshine Mile, and into downtown. These mobility hubs are consistent with that theme.
What I’m hoping will be the final zoning examiner hearing on this will take place on February 4th at 6pm. You can join online by going to https://www.tucsonaz.gov/pdsd/zoning-examiner.
PFAS Update
I received word last week that both the DOD and ADEQ have agreed to take part in the educational/informational meeting I’m pulling together related to PFAS and midtown. I’ll share the date and time with the neighborhood representatives who’ll be participating as soon as it’s confirmed.
Last week I ran across a potentially troubling PFAS-related trend that has begun to pop up across the country. We haven’t seen it hit the Tucson region yet, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for.
One of the new approaches being used by the DOD is the privatization of the operation and maintenance of their water and sewer systems. Right now, there are no maximum contamination levels established for PFAS. If the in-coming Biden administration changes that, the rules related to liability and remediation will change. Now might not be the best time for becoming the owner/operator of a contaminated water treatment system.
I’ve run across several areas where discussions are taking place over privatizing the systems. Given that the DOD is slow-walking the test results in most jurisdictions, buying into a contaminated system without that baseline information on record isn’t a great idea. In Maryland, the Defense Logistics Agency and the Navy announced they’re in talks about privatizing the system on the contaminated Pax River. Talks are also going on at a Naval station in Mayport, Florida, and for the sewer system at a Naval base in Newport, Rhode Island.
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I’ve shared photos like this in the past. It’s of the overhead fire suppression systems that were in use in aircraft hangars in many DOD installations across the country. That firefighting foam ended up in soil and in sewer systems. It’s why we have our contamination out by DM. It’s also likely why a U.S. House provision in the recently approved National Defense Authorization Act that would have required the DOD to disclose results of any PFAS testing at current or former sites was stuck from the Bill. Informing us of the true magnitude of the contamination in a given location would make it tough for the DOD to walk away from its culpability.
More on Privatizing Water
Water policy is immensely complex. Because of the many layers involved, our local voice is very diluted. But the local impact of federal and state water policy is obviously existential. So I’m sharing this other ‘water privatization’ item with you so you can watch for it in the media, and be aware of its importance when you see it.
Books are written on the Colorado River Compact. I’ll just give you this link – and tell you that it’s the basis for managing access to Colorado River water for seven states, 29 Native American tribes and the Mexican States of Sonora and Baja California. It’s a big deal. Here’s a link to the Compact: Colorado River Compact.
Here’s the privatizing point. Water is more and more being viewed by the investing community as a commodity that you can buy rights to. You buy the rights today, and in times of scarcity, you can later sell those same rights at a huge profit. There are over 40 million people and nearly 6 million acres of farmland reliant on the Colorado. Selling rights to the water and avoiding the Compact is right now viewed as a multi-billion dollar investment opportunity – for those who have the ability to jump into that market.
The combination of growth and climate change/drought is driving the market. There are hedge funds from all over the world looking at these investments. You buy rights to some farmland, the farmer walks away with a nice retirement nest egg, and you later sell those rights to a municipality in another area at a hefty profit. The concern many of the people who spent years negotiating the Law of the River have is that this market approach to water will tear apart the Compact, and any order that now exists in the distribution of Colorado River water will be lost.
You can Google the issue if you want to do a deep dive into it. Agriculture consumes nearly 70% of the water in the southwest, so this is a real issue for us here in our region. Many of you will remember in the ‘70’s when we saw companies such as Enron creating energy shortages and trading into the markets they helped to create. In today’s world, where trading can occur in milliseconds, we really don’t want to see water rights shifted around in that manner.
Ok, off my soapbox – back to an issue we do have local control over.
Utility Assistance
The city and the county have partnered to provide some assistance for residents who may have experienced financial hardship, and as a result are behind in their utility payments. The financial awards can relieve up to half of delinquent service-related charges. The money is not endless and will be awarded on a first-come/first-served basis.
To be eligible for ours, you must live within city limits – or in the City of South Tucson. They’ll ask you to self-certify some household income guidelines, so be sure you’ve got some paperwork for the last 30 days available. Use this link to apply: https://www.tucsonaz.gov/UtilityBillsHelp, or call 791-3253. And if you live in the county, use this link: http://www.pima.gov/UtilityBillsHelp. Please be sure to stay in touch with your utility company so they know you’re aware of the delinquency and that you’re working on payments.
COVID Risk in Arizona
We’re getting close to moving to vaccinations for the Phase 1B groups. One of those groups includes residents who are over 75 years of age. At a convent near Albany, New York, nearly half of its roughly 100 residents became infected. Nine of the nuns passed away. Each was between the ages of 84 and 98 years old. We hear of the ‘vulnerable’ populations. That sad story makes the point that these groups have been prioritized for good reason.
Each week I share information from the Harvard Risk Assessment tool. Since before Christmas, the entire State of Arizona has been in the high-risk category. Here’s the Harvard map of the country – we're not alone in that level of risk.
Even the safest places in the country are in the Orange level. That calls for stay at home and rigorous testing and tracing. We’re not even there.
Last week I shared the zip codes in Pima County that had the highest infection rates. They were all on the south and southwest side. They still are. The only difference is that all of their COVID numbers have increased in the past week. Here’s a comparison to show you what’s happening in each of the top 5 zip codes:
From last week’s newsletter:
And currently:
Our current positivity test rate in Pima County is 24%. We have not had a day so far this year in which we have had fewer than 1,000 new cases in Pima County. The past 3 days have each been over 1,200. We’re now over 11,000 new cases in the first 10 days of the month. And since January 1st, Pima County has had 199 deaths from COVID. Think of that. Twenty people per day since New Year’s dying from COVID. And we haven’t seen the impacts of the New Year’s or UA reopening yet.
There’s a group of faculty and staff at the UA who have formed a coalition advocating for COVID policies. One position they’ve taken is that the UA does not open for in-person classes of up to 50 students until all 9 of the Pima County health criteria are either yellow or green for 2 consecutive weeks. Here’s where each of the 9 is today. We have quite a way to go. And this does not reflect the UA reopening yet.
And here’s this week’s statewide map. Remember, in Pima County last March, there were 42 COVID cases. It was alarmingly high and caused the UA to shut down. Welcome back students.
Over 82,000 cases in Pima County, and over 10,000 deaths statewide since this began.
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.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik Council Member, Ward 6 ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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