F35s in Vermont
These are some F35s training in formation over Eglin AFB in Florida. Last week the DOD announced there are now more F35s in the U.S. fleet than any other type of aircraft, with the exception of the F16. Last year it was announced that Tucson – Davis Monthan – was not selected in the most recent round of discussions as to where to base a squadron of F35s. As more roll out, DM might return to the list.
These are some F35s training in formation over Eglin AFB in Florida. Last week the DOD announced there are now more F35s in the U.S. fleet than any other type of aircraft, with the exception of the F16. Last year it was announced that Tucson – Davis Monthan – was not selected in the most recent round of discussions as to where to base a squadron of F35s. As more roll out, DM might return to the list.
This is the logo used by a group of residents in Burlington, Vermont when they heard their local Air Force base was targeted for a squadron of F35s. The planes were assigned, and what followed was litigation, demolition of a neighborhood near the base due to sound impacts, and ongoing issues for the residents.
Some of the Burlington locals are involved with the independent film making industry. In an effort to gather public sentiment about the F35s, they put together an indie film in which they share scenery from the Burlington area, and overlay it with voice mail messages from residents. On Thursday, May 27th I’ll have the film makers and one of the steering committee members from Save Our Skies VT on a Zoom presentation. We’ll open with the film (about 15 minutes) followed by comments from the Vermont team. Then we’ll open it up to your questions.
The event will begin at 6pm, and we’ll end at 7:30. That’s 10:30 back in Vermont, so we’re going to respect their time and keep to the schedule. I know the possible deployment of the F35 has been a controversial topic in Tucson, so I felt it’d be instructive to hear from people who are directly involved. I’ve previewed the film – you’ll hear ‘both sides’ in the calls.
Here’s the Zoom link for the event. Please share it. I’m looking forward to hearing from our east coast neighbors.
Topic: F35 Jet Line Event
Time: May 27, 2021 06:00 PM Arizona
Feast at Casa Alitas
The great work being done by so many of you out at the Alitas welcome center continues. Each day dozens of new migrant families arrive, each of whom has been through varying levels of danger during their travel getting here, and each of whom is eternally grateful for the help provided by the volunteers who continue to serve at Alitas. They’re under our care for only days, but their gratitude will last a lifetime.
Last week Doug, our Ward 6 partner from Feast Restaurant took the time to deliver 150 meals to the center. It was his first time visiting and putting eyes on the work. He came away with a greater appreciation for the importance of this work. I’ll share just a little bit of a lengthy email he sent after returning from that trip:
I brought food down to Casa Alitas today, and by the time I walked out the door, I was wiping tears off my face. Thanks to a great many of you, and to the crew here at Feast, I was able to bring 150 meals to them, and while it felt like a drop in the bucket, it also felt good to rub elbows with the people who choose to spend their days helping people who need help, even if only fleetingly.
So to spend even an hour in a place where people walk in, shelve their focus on themselves, and jump feet-first into helping a complete stranger simply because they're a fellow human being? It completely restores my faith in humanity, and it makes me realize that the more I do it, the happier I'll be.
Thanks to the many of you who continue to use our office as your donation site. While we cannot know the trauma each recipient has endured, we do know whatever you can offer will help in their healing process. Walmart or Costco gift cards will help Casa Alitas buy food. Travel-sized hygiene products, sunscreen, kids’ toys – all is very welcome.
Drop me an email at steve.kozachik@tucsonaz.gov and we’ll coordinate so I can meet you here at the Ward office and take whatever your neighborhood can offer in support.
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Vaccine Update
In an effort to be sure people are getting their COVID vaccinations, mobile clinics have begun to be the option of choice for Pima County health. Coming this week, FEMA is running these 4 mobile sites. You do not need to pre-register for any of them.
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And our partners at Pima County health are running these mobile clinics this week. As is true with the FEMA sites, you do not need to register ahead of time to get vaccinated at any of these locations.
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The county health folks are being intentional about the location of the mobile sites. The goal is to move them around so people in all parts of the region can have access, without having to travel to one of the larger vaccination centers. Some of those are still up and running. Use this link to sign up for any of the vaccination sites - https://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=669257
According to Bloomberg, in the U.S. we’ve administered enough doses to get just under 40% of the population fully vaccinated. Globally that figure is 8.1%, so the disparity is still vast. That remains a concern for spread, and new variants.
In Arizona we’re now near the 38% coverage rate. Health experts are noting that at a 40% vaccination rate, COVID cases begin to level off, and fall. We’re already seeing some of that happening locally.
As always, if you have trouble registering through the links I gave up above, call either 324.6400 or 222.0119 and they’ll give you a hand.
So what about going back to the office? This graph shows that at a few times since the pandemic began, we’ve been at about 25% of employees who were going into the office. We’ve become pretty used to – and efficient at – working from home. Many of the reports I see suggest that some form of hybrid is likely to be here to stay. And yet, many people want to resume the in-person environment. This graph shows the trend related to people headed back to resumption of in-person work.
At the Ward 6 office we’re getting some technology installed that will help groups meet in a hybrid fashion. Our meeting rooms are set with socially distanced seating that will accommodate small numbers of people. With the video system we’re putting in, groups will soon be able to hold meetings here with the core leadership on site but Zooming in others. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to open for some outside groups again. It’s great that we’re seeing this level of progress.
COVID Case Update
With vaccinations increasing, the number of new confirmed cases has fallen nationwide by 35% in the past 3 weeks. This graphic from the NY Times shows the trend. The peaks we were hitting around the first of the year are not long in the rear-view mirror, so it continues to be critical that we don’t let down our guard and risk a resumption. The CDC is still not publicizing their counts of variant strains, and testing numbers are down, so the data sets have some uncertainty built into them.
 This map shows cases per capita. You can see that by using that standard, there are still lots of parts of the country experiencing high infection rates as measured against their population base. Arizona is one of those.
 In Pima County we’re still making improvements. Our 14-day infection trend is down by nearly 30% in the past 14 days. Hospitalization though has increased by 10% in that same time frame. The virus can still do serious harm if you catch it.
 And while our risk level has dropped slightly from last week, Pinal County to our north is more than double our rate with a “very high-risk level.” The same is true of many counties in our neighbors New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada. It would be a shame to see our progress reverse.
Here’s this week’s addition to the infection data I’ve been tracking for Pima County. It went down, but our testing rate is so low that perhaps the better statistic is percent positivity. That’s still in the 8.5% range.
April 5th - April 11th - 629
April 12th - April 18th - 520
April 19th - April 25th - 651
April 26th - May 2nd - 459
And the community spread data is still at 1.0 statewide, but we’re trending slightly up again in our region. These tables show the past couple of weeks’ data.
And nothing new again this week from the CDC variant strain site. They haven’t updated their data since April 12th.
ByFusion
Last week M&C gave staff direction to begin working on the ByFusion project. That’s the one in which we will take your plastic recyclables, and through the use of a ‘Blocker’ machine we’ll heat them, and form construction-grade blocks. Big Legos. The kinds of projects we can use the blocks on is nearly endless.
This all falls well within our zero waste goals. And importantly, it’s another commodity we’ll be reusing in productive ways. The glass crushing can be turned into a concrete mix. Now with the reuse of plastic, we’ll have literal building blocks.
Think of this – we use sand to mix for laying a concrete pad. The sand comes from your bottles. Then we build columns for a new ramada in one of our parks. The block used to build those columns comes from your plastic, reused waste. Tucsonans leading by example in the field of the ‘three R’s - reduce, reuse, recycle.
This program will not involve you separating out your plastics curbside or bringing them to the Ward office like you’re doing with glass. All of the operation will take place out at the material recycle facility, sort of ‘back of house’ work that you won’t have to change your own behavior to enable. I’m looking forward to seeing the staff implementation plan. It’s all cool stuff that makes Tucson stand out as an environmentally conscious community.
Kyl Center for Water Policy
Last week the Kyl Center for Water Policy published a great tool that shows how the various water sub-basins in Arizona are holding up during the drought. I just wrote how Tucson will lead by example in the plastic reuse area. We’ve been leading by example in water conservation for years.
This map is color coded to show water sub-basins throughout Arizona. Where you see red colors, it means the water levels are declining. The blue areas show sub-basins where the water table is increasing. The tan areas are where there has been a change over time of less than 1 foot, and the gray are areas where they have no groundwater level data.
Find the Tucson active management area down near the bottom of the map. Notice that it’s all blue. That means our water conservation efforts have been working. Our water table has actually risen in the time period this study covers.
The study looked at groundwater level changes for 1 year (2017-2018,) 10 year (2008-2018) and 20 year 1998-1018) time periods. You can see the full 96-page report here: (Open-File Report No.18, December 2020).
For example, here’s the groundwater level they recorded for the Tucson area 20 years ago:
 The depth to groundwater was 79’ in the Avra Valley area, and 395’ in the Upper Santa Cruz. What has happened more recently? Here’s the data they collected from 2018:
What they’re showing is the great work you’ve been doing in conserving water. It also shows the value of our using Colorado River water through the CAP project. Every year with one exception since I’ve been on the council, we’ve stored hundreds of acre feet of our CAP allocation. The only exception was the year we used it to shore up the Lake Mead water level. Whatever the reasons, our depth to water is much improved over what it was 20+ years ago.
Right now, we’re serving largely CAP water and we’re saving our groundwater for the day we’ll need it due to the ongoing drought. From time to time, I write about the PFAS contamination issue. For me it’s the most important policy issue we’ve got in front of us. Keeping our groundwater safe for the day we have it coming out of your tap at home.
The work we do at the council is fundamentally important. These jobs are not hobbies. I’m working with staff to bring another PFAS update to midtown neighborhoods. It’s great that we’re all doing so well in saving water. Now we need to hold the DOD’s feet to the fire and be sure it’s clean and usable.
Sustainable Tucson
One more environment-related item. The theme of this month’s Sustainable Tucson presentation is ‘Climate, Forests, and Fire in Southern Arizona.’ It won’t be long until we start seeing nightly reports of fires in the mountains surrounding the city. This Sustainable Tucson program is therefore very timely, and very important.
UA professors Donald Falk and Luke McGuire will share information on forest and fire ecology, and the post-fire impacts on soil, erosion, flooding, and possibilities for restoring what will be lost during the fires. All of this has implications for decisions such as where housing is developed, where utility lines are located, and what sorts of prevention and mitigation measures we should be considering.
They’re still doing these by Zoom. You can find the link at the Sustainable Tucson website (www.sustainabletucson.org.) The meeting is Tuesday, May 11th from 6pm until 7:30pm.
Zoo Expansion
We voted last week to expand the zoo. In a 6-1 vote, the M&C decided to cancel the construction agreement that has been in place since 2018 and pivot to a design idea that popped up over the weekend. It has not been explored for constructability or cost impacts.
Last week I shared this data. It’s the public sentiment in the survey run by the city during the 45-day suspension of the original project. It shows Options B and C as most heavily favored. And they’re the most cost efficient. Those options are the project ideas we just cancelled.
 Staff shared with the M&C that in the 3 days before the survey was closed, the opponents of the project were “sharing information in the final days of the survey on how to “cheat the system” and record multiple responses in support of Concept G and against Concepts B and C.” During the survey, staff was following a concept called ‘net neutrality’. In it they tossed out the most heavily supported and most heavily opposed options, trying to find a middle ground. B and C were ‘net positive’ before the attempt to manipulate the survey. After 3 days of cheating the system, they were still the 2 most heavily supported, but had dropped to ‘net negative.’ This graph shows how those actual data moved in those 3 days.
 B and C are the blue shaded colors. You see them to the right of 0 (neutral) on the bottom scale. The top scale (Final) has them to the left of 0. The orange option (Option D) ends up right at neutral. Option D is what the city manager initially recommended – the option that made everybody upset. In the end, M&C chose the newest option – the one we haven’t evaluated for cost, timing, or whether it’ll be a reasonable option for the animals. Here’s generally where the new plan is programmed to go.
The motion made by Fimbres to move this along had a couple of conditions. One is to cap the cost at an additional $5.5M. That’s on top of the $2.5M we’ve already spent and that is lost with this change. So it’s an $8M change in position. In addition the motion is to minimize impacts on open space. That’s a good aspirational goal. We’ll see what it really means once design begins. There is no time frame built into the motion.
Every time we get a request for park amenities, it involves taking up some piece of ground – open space. Tennis courts, pickleball courts, ball fields, splash pads and pools, dog parks, ramadas, playgrounds - they all share one thing in common. They take up open space. So does the zoo. Our responsibility is to balance the demands from the public for those many amenities with the competing desire we all share for preserving open space. In the same way you can’t spend the same dollar twice, you can’t preserve open space and put a new pickleball court on it at the same time.
We do not know the costs of the new project. What we do know is that the $5.5M ‘estimate’ put out over the weekend by staff included a 30% contingency. That’s a 30% fudge-factor. No legitimate construction contract comes in with that high a level of uncertainty. All it means is that we don’t know the true cost, and that it could fluctuate by a third in any direction. I suspect it won’t go down.
In the past year the price of PVC increased by 23%, copper increased by 82% and lumber increased by 320%. That trend has been consistent for years. Material costs are not going down. Staff has a 1.5% inflation figure built into the estimate. If that holds, it’ll be the first time in years we’ve seen that low a level of material cost escalation.
The new plan will incorporate some facilities maintenance buildings. Those will have to be replaced. Also in the FM yard are some gas pumps. That means remediation costs and relocation costs. The new plan puts the zoo up against the Hi Corbett outfield fence. It’ll be interesting to see how the design team plans to mix the need for relative quiet at night for the animals with a public address announcer, music blaring from the speakers and post-game fireworks. The new plan removes dozens of parking spaces that are heavily used by people using the baseball fields. And there’s an idea of a pedestrian bridge that’ll have to be ADA accessible if we’re going to comply with federal law that correctly says we cannot provide people with disabilities an inferior experience. Ambulatory people use the cool new bridge, and people with disabilities come in the ground level service gate. That won’t and shouldn’t fly. An accessible ramp can be no less than a 1:12 slope – that’s 1 foot in rise for every 12 feet in length. The architects will remind the city of that when they get to actually designing the project. These are just some of the things the design team will have to maneuver. None of it was studied prior to the M&C vote to advance the concept.
The design team is under contract for $3.6M for the full Phase 1 zoo upgrades. The Pathways to Asia part was $2.6M. Given that this is an entirely new project, it’s likely the design fee for this new plan will be in that range. That means the M&C cap of $5.5M is now down to $3M. I’ll be watching to see how this all evolves.
We get lots of input from many of you asking about parks upgrades. Irrigation systems, playgrounds, pickleball courts, relamping ball fields – we're now spending $8M to save Barnum Hill. That’s about $2.5M per acre. It’d buy lots of all those other things people ask us about. Even supporters of the Barnum space – many of whom are friends of mine – should be able to see the rationale behind my vote.
And for the uninitiated, pickleball is a fast-growing sport that’s played on a court the size of a badminton court. It combines the rules of tennis, ping pong and badminton. You use a paddle that’s a little larger than a ping pong paddle, a whiffle ball and due to the size of the court players are much closer together than in tennis. So, there’s a social element to it as well. And as you can see from the picture, it takes open space. That’s the balance we’re responsible for achieving.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
Starting in late February, we began a series of public meetings to both introduce the notion of ADUs to the public, and to begin gathering input on if/how we should adopt changes in our code to allow them in areas where they’re currently prohibited. Staff will be conducting more public meetings to share what we’ve heard from the initial stakeholder group, and to solicit more input.
When you think of ADUs, think of a caregiver or granny-quarter – a small living space that's combined with a main house on a single parcel. In concept, I think the idea has potential. It’s in the application of the idea that we have to be careful. As I’ve said during multiple exchanges with staff, what we don’t want to do is open the door for more mini dorms in neighborhoods surrounding campus.
Tune in and share your thoughts during one of these upcoming meetings.
And if you’d like to get some background on the issue, this link will take you to our planning department site and you can get yourself up to speed on the history of how we got to this point in the planning.
Youth Theater in Park Place
In the past week they’ve begun booking shows on Broadway – for this fall. But we have a local option coming this Saturday. Throughout COVID, Broadway in Tucson has continued their theater boot camp workshops, rehearsals, and coaching for their participants. The original group of 54 participants has been narrowed to 11 finalists. This Saturday, May 15th they’ll present their final performance, and judging for this year’s Monte Awards. This is for high school musical theater. Winners from our group will move onto the national Jimmy Awards that’s produced by the Broadway League.
Broadway in Tucson has been partnering with the Arts Express for 8 years. COVID couldn’t break up the partnership. During that time they’ve given out over $30,000 in awards and scholarships to our youth who are interested in studying theater. This year’s show will include a combination of production numbers presented by finalists, semi-finalists, and some past winners. It’s all taking place at the new Arts Express Theater in Park Place. Seating will be limited and all COVID protocols will be adhered to.
The performances will also be live streamed so even if you’re not ready to join people in public venues, you can still support the cause. The event will begin at 7pm. For more information on how to get a seat, or how to follow the even online, please use this link: https://www.arts-express.org/monte-awards/.
My thanks to Lendre Kearns – former Broadway in Tucson director. She’s now spearheading this youth opportunity and by doing so keeping her toe in the local theater pond.
Animal Food Give-Back
There’s another wonderful local lady I’ve worked with in the past who’s at it again, hosting this year’s community animal food distribution event. Pre-COVID Donna Deconcini and I worked together on this event, staged in the Chroma lot at Speedway and Camino Miramonte. It was a combination animal food and supply give away, a donation center to support Donna’s great work at the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank, and we had a variety of food trucks on site. Due to COVID, this year’s event will be slightly different, but the focus will remain giving away pet food to those in need and receiving your donations so this work can continue.
The first time we partnered in this event we had over 1,000 pounds of animal food donated. This is Donna’s way of giving back to the community and keeping the Animal Food Bank operation up and thriving. The event will run Sunday, May 16th from 8am until noon. Drive to the Rancho Center on Speedway, just east of the Ward 6 office, by Bookmans. You’ll see signs directing you to the event. This year it’ll be a drive-thru event held generally behind Bookmans. Please let friends know if you’re aware of anyone who’s balancing feeding themselves with feeding their pets. We want to eliminate the need for that decision.
And if you can help by donating back to the Food Bank, please consider that and join us with whatever pet food or supplies you can share. The Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank is a local non-profit. They’re located at 6252 E. Speedway. If you’d like to get more information on their work, or this event, give Donna a call at 268.7299. I hope to see you at the give back event.
Colleges, Universities, and COVID
The list of colleges that’ll require vaccinations this fall is now up to 228. The Chronicle of Higher Education carries regular reports on which schools are now on board. Why? Because they recognize this as a key part of protecting the communities in which these schools operate.
From the Pac12, every school except for Utah, Oregon, ASU and the UA are now on board with mandatory vaccinations. We’ve all heard of vaccination hesitancy. I’m not sure I understand the vaccination mandate hesitancy being exhibited by these schools. We have a former medical guy running the UA. We know it’s not unconstitutional – like they falsely claimed mandatory testing would be. As I’ve said multiple times on the Buckmaster Show, I believe the UA owes it to this community to require students coming back into Tucson this fall to document they’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19, just as they will be for other diseases.
Seeing the UA and ASU on that now short list of schools hesitant to require vaccinations was made even more interesting this past week when the NY Times issued a list of schools who had the largest COVID outbreaks last year. I’ve clipped the top 16. Note that both ASU and the UA are in the top 16 nationally who had major COVID outbreak clusters. Stronger leadership then might have kept us off that list. Stronger leadership now would be appreciated.
Harvard Global Health Institute
Above I shared the risk level map. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been tracking the availability of ICU beds in Pima County. It has remained at 157 for three weeks, so either they’re not updating the data online, or we are not facing an imminent bed shortage in our local hospitals.
The Harvard folks continue to point to international outbreaks as warning signs, encouraging us to keep up the good work we’re doing on vaccinations. India continues to be the international poster child for COVID heartbreak. But Harvard also points out that with the new, more contagious variant strains, the potential for a new outbreak needs to be taken seriously. Even while CDC guidelines for those who have been fully vaccinated are being eased, we continue seeing the India story every night on the news, and we continue to read about highly contagious variant strains. The tagline on each recommendation is to keep doing what we’ve found works.
No change in Pima County school guidance last week. Most are up and running, in some form. Most have decided on some form of hybrid learning. If you want to track the risk factors guiding that decision, you can find them on the Pima County COVID site with this link: https://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=568644.
Here’s our statewide map. I’ve been sharing these weekly for over a year now. In Pima County we’ve now passed 115,000 COVID cases. Maricopa County is well over a half million COVID cases since this began.
In Pima County we’ve lost over 2,400 friends and loved one’s since this began. When we did the memorial event in Himmel last October, the number was 622. At the time, we planted a flag for each person. Now that field of flags would cover the entire hill we gathered on.
Please keep focused on getting a vaccine and continuing to practice safe habits. We can see the finish line, but we’re not there yet.
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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