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Community Losses - Public Safety
We at the Ward 6 office offer our most sincere condolences to the friends, family, and loved ones connected with tragic losses that occurred in the recent past.
Jacob Dindinger is the AMR Emergency Medical Technician who was shot during the recent incident here in Tucson. He was assigned to support the City services on the day of the shooting. Jacob’s memorial service and an honorary procession is being held today.
And TPD lost an officer over the weekend. It was another tragic incident with family members broken to the core. I am leaving her name out in respect of their privacy. But they know of our full support during this extremely difficult time.
Public safety work is difficult. Thank a cop – and thank an EMT. They don’t hear it enough.
To open, I want to thank all of you who supported not only me but my Ward 6 team as well in last Tuesday’s election. There’s still a November General Election to win, but we’re grateful for the vote of confidence and are committed to the same level of relationship we’ve established with so many of you over the past 12 years.
Also congratulations to Kevin Dahl for winning the Ward 3 primary. I look forward to running alongside Kevin throughout this General election process
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Pima County Health and Schools
I’ll have much more on the progression of COVID, but first, I’m giving support for the decisions made by two groups last week related to COVID and our school systems. Neither of those groups include the governor.
On March 25th, Ducey issued another Executive Order preventing mask mandates in public schools. In June, he took it a step further and issued an Executive Order preventing mandatory vaccinations. Last week the TUSD school board voted to require masks for all students attending classes. They join a couple of other Arizona school districts in doing that. Ducey says what they did is illegal. Perhaps. And perhaps not. But what is not up for dispute is that what they did is in the public health interests of the entire community.
Our partners in the Pima County Health Department took that a step further by issuing their own order. This one is related to how schools within Pima County must respond when they encounter a student or staff member who has tested positive for COVID. There are protocols for removing the person from the public setting and contact tracing for people with who he/she may have come into contact with. Here are the specifics:
  I’m in total support of both the TUSD board and Pima County Health for the actions they’ve taken. Here’s what the CDC recommends – consistent with the District policy:
If you disagree, please continue reading. The COVID trend justifies these public health tools be in place. I’ll be supporting the City of Tucson in taking similar actions when we meet tomorrow to talk about our options.
Vaccine Update
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a lawsuit that was filed against Indiana University over their mandatory vaccination policy. Eight IU students felt that policy was an infringement on their Due Process as found in the 14th Amendment. Last week the Indiana Circuit Court unanimously denied their appeal. Each of the reasons used by the Court could apply to the UA if it hadn’t been for the Ducey Executive Order banning schools from mandating vaccines. Rational health policy doesn’t prevail in Arizona.
At IU, their policy is that all students must be vaccinated against COVID unless they have a valid religious or medical reason. Exempt students must wear masks and be tested twice per week. In their decision, the Court said since the state can mandate all members of the public to be vaccinated against smallpox, “there can’t be a constitutional problem with vaccination against SARS-CoV2.” The Court went on to say, “vaccination requirements, like other public health measures, have been common in this nation.” The UA hid behind a phony constitutionality claim when it came to mandatory testing. Now they’ve got Ducey’s EO on vaccinations to avoid that. It’d be great to see them follow the lead of the TUSD school board and simply implement public health measures, even in defiance of Ducey and challenge him on some of this stuff. We have not seen anything close to that level of leadership from them though.
In the Indiana court decision, they made the point that “Vaccination is a condition of attending Indiana University. People who do not want to be vaccinated may go elsewhere.” Thus, the tuition angle that the UA relied on to justify not testing. And yet they don’t worry about mandating inoculations against measles, mumps, rubella – and many universities do the same for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and even the flu.
Penn State is getting more calls from their faculty and staff for mandatory vaccines. So far, they’re doing the UA bit and ‘strongly recommending’ people get vaccinated. They are requiring indoor masking for unvaccinated people, though.
Penn State and the UA are the outliers when it comes to mandatory vaccination against COVID. As of last weekend, 662 colleges and universities have adopted mandatory vaccination policies for all returning students, faculty, and staff. No, they’re not all private schools. Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Rutgers, and all of the Pac 12 schools other than the two in Arizona are implementing the policy. There’s plenty of data to support the requirement.
This map shows where people are more/less vulnerable to the new Delta strain. It’s a function of the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated. And that varies not only across the country but within individual states. The darker the color, the greater the risk of infection.
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Vaccinations began being administered last December. Since then, a survey conducted through the NY Times found that around 1 million doses have gone to waste. Remember when you couldn’t get an appointment for a vaccination because of the demand. The daily rate of vaccinations is now less than 20% of the early peak.
This graph shows the worldwide increase in COVID. The loss of vaccinations is significant because we could be using them in poorer countries if our own residents are going to remain on the sidelines. I’ve shown the international vaccination maps before. There are lots of nations where the vaccine isn’t even available. We’re tossing them for lack of use.
 Back to our domestic situation. Here’s the national risk level map. Pima County is shown as ‘high risk’. The rest of the state is either very high or extremely high. Our vaccination rate is the best in the state, so none of these risk comparisons are by coincidence.
 By way of example – here are the risk levels for the three counties I’ve been recently sharing vaccination rate data with you on.
 Here’s how they compare in terms of vaccination rate:
 And how does all of that translate when factoring in vaccination rates across the country? These graphs show a comparison between “high vaccine” counties vs. “low vaccine” counties. A county is considered to have a high vaccination rate if more than 60% of its population is fully vaccinated. Below 30% fully vaccinated is considered low. So the Delta variant is affecting us everywhere, but it's pretty clear how vaccinations play into the rate of increase.
 And I’m including these risk level maps to show where we were last September, how that escalated in December, and now how we’re headed back in that same bad direction.
On July 30th, Pima County Administrator Huckelberry made this recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. They’ll be talking about it during their meeting on Tuesday.
I will support that same recommendation for all City employees when we get to our COVID agenda item on Tuesday. And sadly, because of the increases in infections, other cities and counties are ramping back up their protective measures. L.A. County reinstated its mask mandate. Washington started its own mask mandate last week. The same is true in Atlanta, Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago. And then we’ve got the Duceys, DeSantis (Florida,) and Abbotts (Texas) issuing their Executive Orders banning mandates. DeSantis said, “In Florida, there will be no lockdowns, school closures, and there will be no restrictions and no mandates.” While that may sound heroic, it doesn’t follow science or CDC guidelines.
In Tucson and Pima County, we’ve reinstituted our mask mandate for all city and county buildings. Everyone using the Ward 6 community or meeting rooms will, for now, be required to wear a face-covering while you’re in the building. That’s for everyone – vaccinated and not vaccinated. Masking is a vehicle that may mitigate community spread. Your family, friends, and loved ones are included in the word ‘community’.
This graph shows how we’re doing, comparing area and age. Our Pima County Health folks are leading the way in getting vaccinations out. But the number of unvaccinated is still far too high to drop our guard when it comes to watching for community spread.
 With all of that as background – here are the mobile sites our partners at Pima County Health will be operating this week. No appointment is necessary, and the vaccination is free. And there are a lot more options this week than last:
 And these are the remaining standing points of vaccine distribution – same as with the mobile sites, and no appointment will be needed. Do you remember not so long ago that everyone had to have an appointment, and getting one was a major hassle? Now there is no good excuse for not vaccinating.
Go to the Pima County Health site if you want to find the list of pharmacies that’ll give you a dose or if you’re a veteran looking to be vaccinated. Use this link- www.pima.gov/covid19vaccine.
Each week since the start of June, our weekly COVID count has increased in Pima County. It has gone from 130 that first week of June to 827 two weeks ago. Last week we had the largest jump since spring – we're up to 1,301 new cases since my last newsletter. We’re now back to the levels we were seeing in the spring of this year. That spread is validated by the Rt (community spread rate) numbers in the table shown below.
The UA hasn’t updated the Rt (spread rate) data since July 27th. You’ve seen these trend-line charts in last week's newsletter. I’ll update this next week if they do their part in reporting the new data. With students about to return, it’d be nice to have a baseline from which to compare the effects of that new influx of students.
It wasn’t long ago that the news on COVID was mostly good. Now we’re over 1,300 new cases locally once again. Above I said, ‘thank a cop and an EMT’. Add to that, hug a health care worker. They’re back on the front lines once again. And get vaccinated.
Over the weekend, there were reports of over 1,000 COVID cases involving yet another new variant. Watch for news on what they’re calling the Lambda variant. It originated in Peru. It’s now in the U.S.
5G Progress
Last week I shared some of the new policies we’re adopting related to 5G telecom poles. Distance requirements between poles and other vertical elements (street lights, utility poles, etc.) and what the public outreach consists of are two examples. The manual should be out soon.
Ahead of that, we’re still seeing permit applications for new poles. The industry isn’t waiting for us to formally implement these new policies before they move ahead with the rollout of their systems. But last week, we saw a significant change in how the applications are coming in. This chart shows the 3 most recent applications for Ward 6 cell poles. All of them are Verizon. Two are headed for Rincon Heights and one for North University. What’s new, though, is that 2 of them are replacing existing TEP Dusk-to-Dawn poles with streetlights, and the other is a collocation on an existing utility pole. We simply have not seen that sort of consideration for neighborhood viewsheds until now.
This has been a very time-consuming process to get us to this new relationship. I’m hoping these 3 applications are a demonstration of what we’re going to see going forward. The manual is still coming out, so we have formalized the new standards, but I’m encouraged by this news.
None of these 3 went through the public outreach process we’re implementing. But they all came to a good conclusion. Credit where it’s due – thanks to Verizon for these siting decisions and thanks to the staff for the time and energy investment into framing the new rules of engagement.
Migrants and COVID
Title 42 is a federal policy that is in place to mitigate COVID exposure. It controls the number of people who are allowed to cross into the U.S. It’s not explicitly an immigration policy but has a public health basis and can be rescinded by the CDC when their analysis of our COVID situation allows. While it’s not in place for ‘immigration control’ purposes, it has had an impact on the number of migrants crossing the border during the pandemic. There was some thought and some indication that the Biden administration would be ending Title 42. That would have increased the number of migrants we’re seeing. Last week Homeland Security’s Office of Public Affairs announced the continuation of Title 42. The COVID Delta increases are the reason.
Even with the continuation of Title 42, the number of migrants being seen in shelters is increasing. Not exponentially, but the numbers are going up steadily. During our call last week with the various shelters and Border Patrol, it was confirmed that ICE and Border Patrol are moving migrants from high concentration spots to areas such as ours where we still have some housing capacity. These are called ‘lateral flights’. They’re flights organized by ICE, using ICE planes that hold up to 135 people. They’re originating from the Rio Grand Valley and flying migrant guests further inland, largely to San Diego, El Paso, and to Tucson. So while the Tucson sector border numbers may not be increasing the way they may when Title 42 is eliminated, our Casa Alitas team is still seeing new faces daily as a result of these flights.
Another source of the new migrant arrivals at Alitas is a partnership they’ve nurtured with a shelter in Nogales. At that shelter, they’re receiving up to 40 people per day, processing them for connecting to next of kin or sponsors, testing for COVID, and then sending them to the Alitas center. There are similar arrangements with both the Douglas and Naco shelters. Within 6 hours of every guest’s arrival at Alitas, they’re COVID tested and offered a vaccination. So Alitas still has it’s hands full.
We are still renting rooms at a local hotel, there’s another one in Phoenix, and the county is working on getting one more in the system. Capacity and segregating COVID-positive guests are driving the need for the added hotel space.
Also on the call last week were representatives of our congressional offices. Several of us made it clear to them that we need their assistance for transportation, housing, testing, and vaccination costs. Each of them took note – hopefully, we’ll see some of that help sooner than later. This situation isn’t going away, and COVID is making it more difficult to manage safely.
The recent arrivals are mostly from Cuba, Brazil, and Ecuador. But the International Rescue Committee said they’ve seen people from 58 different countries in recent weeks. So this is no longer just a Central American effort.
Thanks to Margaret for her very kind donations last week. And the gentleman I crossed paths with outside the Ward office who came with some pre-made travel bags. Sunscreen, toiletries, kids’ games and activities, personal hygiene items, new socks, and underclothes – it’s all important, and I thank you for how committed to this you’ve been over the past couple of years. We’re now open from 9-12 daily. If you can’t come by then, email me at steve.kozachik@tucsonaz.gov, and we’ll arrange to coordinate your visit.
PFAS
Our litigation against 3M and other product manufacturers is continuing. Ours is one of more than 750 separate actions that the Court has joined together. Another is from New Mexico. I share that here to briefly describe how our experience is nearly the same as what they’re experiencing. And I’m certain it’s true all over the country.
The New Mexico Environmental Director, James Kenny, went on public record recently. He said they wanted “action quickly. When that wasn’t available, that’s when we litigated.” The DOD slow walk is common to all of us fighting for our rights.
So New Mexico is one of our 750 partners in the litigation against 3M and other manufacturers. When they tried to pull out of that lawsuit in order to pursue its case against the Air Force alone, a judge denied the request. In June, the DOD called their attempt to compel clean up of their PFAS sites using state permits “arbitrary and capricious.” That’s the attitude of the DOD. Three years after the USAF notified New Mexico of the PFAS pollution, there are zero clean-up plans in place at either of the 2 bases that are affected over there. And now the military has sued New Mexico, saying that even though they know the origin of the contamination, the DOD is saying the state cannot compel them to clean it up. This is happening under the Biden administration. What also needs to happen under this administration is for the EPA to set a federal pollution level for PFAS. What they have is a lifetime health advisory. That is not enough to kick start Superfund clean-up dollars.
PFAS is an acronym for a class of pollutants. Their origin in our groundwater is largely from fire fighting foam that was used on DM and by the Air National Guard out at Tucson International Airport. They’re called ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t dissolve or break down easily. And they love to move – in water and in our bodies. For years studies have shown PFAS move across the placental barrier, and mothers pass them onto their nursing children. It has been found in fish living in streams close to production plants. It bio-accumulates and moves up the food chain. A while back, I wrote about a New Mexico cattle farmer who can’t use his cattle any longer because PFAS is being found in their milk. It causes kidney disease, has been tied to high cholesterol, thyroid hormone disruption, and cancers.
The good news is that we’re not serving you contaminated groundwater. We serve Colorado River water as a part of our CAP allocation. And because of that, we’ve been storing water, banking it for the day we have our CAP source reduced due to the drought. That could begin as soon as 2025. And that’s the reason for my urgency in this clean-up effort; the water we’re storing cannot be contaminated with DOD PFAS when we have it coming out of your tap. This chart shows when our CAP allocation begins to be reduced. They don’t just turn off the tap. Our allocation is 144,000-acre feet, so even at the 20% reduction, we’ll still be storing excess water.
 This chart shows how much we’ve been storing for the future. The dark blue is the demand, and the light blue is what we’ve banked. The numbers you see are acre-feet. Combined with storage credits we’ve also been accumulating, we have just over a 5-year groundwater supply if we had zero CAP water, based on today’s demand. There’s another 3.6 years of supply we have committed from the Arizona Water Bank and other sources.
Water conservation is your part of the issue. We have a robust conservation and rebate program. Please go to https://www.tucsonaz.gov/water/apply-for-rebates for a complete list of how you can take part. As a community, we’ve done an excellent job of keeping our water consumption down. We’re using water at about the same rate Tucson did about 25 years ago – and our population has increased significantly. But please continue – and do more. On my side, I’ll continue pushing for the DOD and 3M to fund the contamination clean-up they’re responsible for. When we’re relying on groundwater, it needs to be clean.
Thanks for all you do to conserve. As the sign outside the Ward office says – Water is Life in the Desert.
Speed Limits
State law (you’ve heard this before) limits our ability to make certain “local” decisions. Think some zoning issues, gun control, COVID rules – and speed limits on our residential streets. Even though every smidgen of data shows that reducing speeds will save lives, we have to demonstrate some special condition or changes in conditions in order to drop speed limits. When we lowered speeds on our bike boulevards, the justification was we were encouraging more bikes and walkers. To the state, simply showing increases in fatalities on our roadways isn’t enough.
On Tuesday, we’ll be voting to implement some speed reductions for two roadway segments, each based on changes in conditions in the area. South 12th Avenue is one of the areas. Between Irvington and Drexel, our transportation folks just finished putting the area on a road diet. They’ve reduced the number of travel lanes and have added some traffic calming features. Because of that, we’re reducing the speed limit from 35mph to 30mph.
The other area is out in the Valencia/Houghton/Old Spanish Trail area. This map shows which stretches of roadway are subject to the changes. Much of the area has become more urbanized, and with more access points entering the roadway, we’re reducing the speed from 50 down to 45mph. The county has 35mph limits out by the Mica Mountain High School.
All of this is based on safety. I’ve written previously about our aspirational goal of zero traffic fatalities. Addressing speed is one available way of doing that.
Transit Fares
Increasing the use of mass transit is another way of reducing traffic fatalities. Since the start of COVID, we’ve been operating the transit system on a zero fare basis. We’re taking a survey to get the public input on what to do with that policy when it expires at the end of the year. It’ll only take you a couple of minutes – use this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SunTranFareStudy. Surveys are due by the end of the day on Friday, August 13th.
Ready, Set, Rec Schedule
Even with COVID kicking it’s ugly head up again, we’re slowly trying to make life ‘normal’ again through our Parks Department activities. One example is the rotating Ready, Set, Rec van – one each in each ward. For Ward 6, the vans are at Hotel Congress every Monday from 5:30 pm until 7 pm. It’s tied in with Meet Me at Maynards.
In addition, Saturday, August 28th, the van will be at Palo Verde Park – 425 S. Mann Ave from 9 am until noon. You can use this link to find where each of the ward vans will be during August:
In addition, the KIDCO after-school program is back for the ‘21-’22 school year. All of this is in-person for now. Programming extends from the time school lets out until 6 pm. You can register online with this link EZEEreg.com or call 791.4877 to register.
And the final Parks ad is registration for our indoor fall leisure classes. Masks are right now being required for all indoor activities for people 2 years and older. Classes being offered are the usual – arts and crafts, dance, music, and more. Classes will start the last week of August. Use this link to get registered: EZEEreg.com.
Sustainable Tucson
Last month I was hoping we’d be seeing the Sustainable Tucson group meeting here at the Ward Office community room again this time around. COVID had another idea, so this week’s meeting will be virtual again.
The topic will be what the post-pandemic local job outlook might be. And since it’s Sustainable Tucson, moving to a greener local economy will be the focus.
Presenters will include Kevin Burke from our Economic Initiatives Office and Mike Peel from Local First Arizona. Kevin will share what impacts on the economy and local business COVID has brought. And Mike will talk about how to use this time of recovery to take advantage of a greener economy going forward.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
We are continuing to take input on the proposal for adding ‘granny quarters’ to residential lots. The current draft proposal will allow one ADU to be built on any residential lot in the city. That includes lots with one or two homes. For lots that are over 7,000 sq/ft, the ADU can be up to 1,000 sq/ft. For lots smaller than 7,000 sq/ft, the size limit is 750 sq/ft. All of the other existing zoning requirements, such as building height and setbacks, would apply to the ADU. In addition, each ADU will need a parking space, and each newly built ADU will be required to have a cool roof.
If you’d like to dig more deeply into the frequently asked questions surrounding ADUs, check here.
Harvard Global Health Institute
I opened with a COVID reminder, and will close out with one, too – to keep it fresh in your mind.
Here’s a comparison between the past two weeks’ Harvard Global Health risk level maps. From last week’s newsletter.
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 And this is our current condition:
A month ago, Pima County had a spread rate of 3.9 new cases per 100,000 people. Last week we were at 10.6 new daily cases per 100,000 people. That had moved us into the Orange risk level. Here’s our current Harvard risk data:
And in the past week, we moved from a 7 day moving average of 111 new daily cases to just under 150 new daily cases. And while our own numbers are not good statewide, Arizona is at just under 29 new daily cases per 100,000 people and a 7 day rolling average of over 2,100 new cases. It’s all going in the wrong direction.
Vaccinations are free and widely available. If you get one today, you’re not covered for a couple of weeks. And you’re not fully covered until you get the 2nd dose (unless you get a J&J vaccination.) Public school started last week, and in 2 weeks, UA students begin to return to town. We saw this all play out last year. Thankfully about ½ of us have some vaccination protection now.
You can check what’s going on in your home county by hovering your cursor over it on the Harvard map. Use this link to access it:
Here’s our statewide map. These are cumulative numbers. As noted above, they’re increasing once again.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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