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Arizona Daily Star Zooms
There are 4 contested items on the ballot for city residents to consider this November. The ballots will be mailed out the first week in October, so the actual voting starts in a couple of weeks. This week, the Star editorial staff is hosting 4 zoom meetings, each to introduce you to the issues/candidates. The meeting schedule is:
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Tuesday, 9/21 @ noon – the topic is Prop 410, proposed pay raises for Tucson Mayor and City Council members.
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Wednesday, 9/22 @ 11 am – candidate interviews in the Ward 6 council race (me and Val Romero)
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Wednesday, 9/22 @ 2 pm – candidate interviews in the Ward 3 council race (Kevin Dahl, Lucy Libosha, and Alan Harwell)
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Thursday, 9/23 @ 3:30 – the topic is Prop 206, proposed a $15 p/hr minimum wage for Tucson
If you email Sara Brown @ sbrown@tucson.com, she’ll send you a link for whichever of those you want to sign up for.
Martin Luther on The Black Plague
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the Pope’s comment on getting vaccinated, that it’s an act of love. For Catholics, that might be compelling. This past week the Daily Kos had an interesting article in which they reviewed some of what Martin Luther had to say to his own flock about the 2nd Plague pandemic that we know as the Black Death. Estimates are that 100 million people died from it.
That plague was spread mostly by bites from fleas and rodents. I suppose that validates my brides angst with mice. But it’s also contracted through airborne transmission. Today we have ways to treat for it with antibiotics. If left untreated, it’s a terrible disease.
If you’d like to read the whole article, it gives some pretty gruesome details. Here’s the link:
As a disclaimer, I’ll say that I didn’t rely on any religious exhortation in order to get vaccinated. But I found Luther’s comments apt vis a vis the anti-masker/anti-vaxers who are relying on their faith as a justification. I watched some interviewed in Missouri on a Nightline show last week. It’s what led me to want to open with these quotes from Martin Luther. He wrote them in 1527 in response to questions from a local pastor about how Christians should respond to their pandemic. Here’s Martin:
“They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them, he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him. God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health.
It is even more shameful for a person to pay no heed to his own body and to fail to protect it against the plague the best he is able, and then to infect and poison others who might have remained alive if he had taken care of his body as he should have.”
Ok, that was from someone writing over 500 years ago. Science-based data to follow.
Religious Exemptions
The basis for many of the religious exemptions being requested is an objection to the use of fetal tissue in the testing of the vaccines. The Vatican has had its employees vaccinated, calling a failure to do so the equivalent of suicide – also a no-no religiously.
But for those who insist on taking the fetal position off-ramp, we might consider using this form. The Conway Regional Health System is – oddly – in central Arkansas. For reference, here’s the COVID risk map for Arkansas on the right.
I’m not sure if this is the final form they decided on, but I read their Release on the policy, and they wanted to educate their workers on the fact that the use of fetal cell research has been common for a variety of medicines.
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Consistency in exercising one’s religious convictions can only be a good thing. I’m sure our employees would agree.
Vaccine Update
We’ve all heard the Surgeon General refer to our current condition as being a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’. The percent of people who are now occupying ICU and other hospital beds due to COVID is in the mid-to-high 90s. To be clear, that’s a combination of the increased number of COVID patients and others in the ICUs. They're nearly full in many areas.
These maps show how ICUs are being impacted nationwide from July until now. The social media group would have us believe staffing shortages in the health care industry are due to vaccine mandates. If you speak to some of the people who have been working 12-hour shifts in full PPE for months, they will tell you people are leaving due to burnout and from emotional fatigue.
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 In Pima County, the ICU bed capacity has been perilously low since the surge began. This chart shows how Delta has impacted us locally. The blue line is capacity, and the orange line is adult ICU bed usage. As of the 9th, there were 10 beds available in all of Pima County.
 During our last M&C meeting, we reviewed the various bits of litigation that are going through the system and our response to them and to our unvaccinated workers. More importantly, is our reaction to our vaccinated workers. Over 83% have done the right thing, protected themselves, their friends and family, and their co-workers by getting vaccinated. About 600 have chosen for one reason or another to stay unvaccinated. Of that group, those without a valid medical (legitimate allergic reactions to this vaccine) or religious reason (fetal tissue concerns?) are still subject to the 5-day discipline, depending on how the litigation sorts itself out. We are also looking at mask mandates for all unvaccinated workers, bans on travel, training, promotions, weekly testing, and some other enticements to get vaccinated. I suspect the firefighter who posted this image and very juvenile heading during our meeting won’t be convinced.
Well, at least one person thought it was cute. It’s interesting that this group complained during the city managers public call-in event that I had ‘intimidated’ them by saying we know who’s posting this junk. Guess what...it’s social media. Yes, your name is attached to what you post.
This is from the “Liberty March” held last week in Tucson to protest...well, masks and vaccines. One guy is so proud of his anti-mask and vaccine position that he mugged for the camera behind the woman with the sign. I’m guessing he’s not a health care worker. I wonder how they feel about the ‘choice’ that was removed by Texas’ 6-week abortion law. But I digress.
Statewide we’re at 50% vaccinated.
Pima County continues to do much better than the rest of the state. I’m guessing none of the 57% were taking part in that Liberty March. And Maricopa County, where the State Representative who filed a charge against us lives – they're still under 50%.
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Yavapai and Mohave Counties are both still at or under 39% fully vaccinated. I told a reporter from Skyview News last week that we're living through history, and someday people will look back at us and wonder what we were thinking. We have a vaccination available for a virus that has killed over 4.5M people, and many of us simply took a pass. There’s a lot of science denial going on throughout Arizona.
Here’s a listing of this week’s mobile vaccination sites being offered by the Pima County Health Department. There are plenty more options this week. No cost/no appointments needed.
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 Here is their list of standing points of vaccine distribution.
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. There is no reason anybody cannot find a vaccination option if they’re looking for one.
PFAS and Vaccines
Last week I shared some information on PFAS with an environmental policy class at the UA. I’m grateful to Dr. Gregg Garfin for the invitation. During the class, one of the students introduced me to a study done by the Environmental Working Group in which they detected PFAS in rainwater around the Great Lakes. It resonated with me since I grew up swimming in all 4 of them. (Pop Quiz: Name the 5 great lakes.)
The study was demonstrating how ubiquitous PFAS is in the environmental life cycle. It’s found in fish that swim in lakes around the 3M plant, in cattle that graze around streams near military bases in New Mexico, in umbilical cords feeding fetuses, and in rainwater. It’s not only the ‘forever chemical’, it’s the everywhere one.
One interesting study they referenced from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health demonstrated several health impacts on humans. They include suppressed immune function and lower vaccine effectiveness. That’s a troubling finding, considering we’re talking about the need for COVID boosters – and that we’re observing a slow-walk in remediating PFAS exposure by the DOD.
More on PFAS below, but the vaccine connection is important to mention here. Those ‘liberty marchers’ likely won’t find these studies in the science books they’re reading.
Data and Risk Level
Thanks to friend Dave for sharing a very interesting Washington Post article with me last week. It provided some detailed data on the fatality rates related to COVID. In the U.S., we’ve had over 665,000 deaths due to COVID since this started last year. That is 1 in every 500 Americans dying from COVID. But not to be outdone, Arizona is once again in the top 10 nationally – a ranking we should not aspire to. Here are the rankings in deaths due to COVID.
Those data get even worse when broken down by age. Since this all started, 1 in every 35 people over the age of 85 who have died have been taken by COVID. This table breaks it down further.
Since the George Floyd murder, we’ve seen and heard a national discussion about racial disparities – in law enforcement administration and systemically throughout society. COVID has exposed some of that as well. For example, we can talk about just going to your doctor when you start feeling symptoms. Just get a test. Just go to the hospital. The reality is many people don’t have a primary care physician they regularly see, in part due to shortages in communities of color. And those who do have a doc are often limited by cost, even for copays. And factor in language barriers and fear of deportation for undocumented people, and the challenges of just ‘going to the doctor’ are made more clear.
Remember when we were all talking about ‘flattening the curve’. Essential workers who didn’t have the luxury of working from home stayed out in public doing their jobs. That placed them in vulnerable positions. And multi-generational homes are more common in communities of color, with several adult wage-earners sharing housing. Those factors have played a role in COVID’s disproportionate impact on minorities. Here are those data:
Enrique Neblett is a professor who studies the connection between race and health at the University of Michigan. His comment about these facts - “What do we do now? It’s not just that simple as ‘Oh, you just put on your mask, and we’ll all be good.’ It’s more complicated than that.”
And, of course, he’s right. And of course, those city workers who refuse vaccination and who interact in public must claim a part of the responsibility for what we see in those charts. It’s not a “my liberty” issue when 1 in 500 Americans are dying from COVID. And when Arizona is now #4 nationally in our own death toll by population count.
With all of that as background, let’s look at the past week’s risk level maps. First, this is the graph for national COVID cases for the past few months. You can see the late August changes where the new case reports dropped, increased, and then dropped again. I’ll share our current numbers below, but the inconsistencies in how the cases are tracking do not make this the same as the continuous drops we saw around the first of the year.
 Here is this week’s national risk level map comparison. These risks are for unvaccinated people, and they come from NY Times data. First, this is what I had in last week’s newsletter.
Nebraska is blank because they’re still not reporting data.
And this is the updated map from this past week. Scroll back and forth between the two. Some areas improved a bit, while others got worse. The vast majority of the nation is in either the very high or extremely high-risk category, so while experts suggest we might be seeing a plateau, it’s at a very dangerous level.
I’m going to share a 3-week look back for Pima County. It shows that we’ve made some slight progress, but in the past week, the NYT data has our infection numbers bumping back up a bit over the previous week. It’s consistent with the changing directions in the national chart I began with.
This is from 3 weeks ago:
This showed the improvement from 2 weeks ago:
And here’s the slight uptick last week.
Don’t just look at the numbers, though. The comment says, “the CDC recommends that even vaccinated people wear masks here.” Nothing about their ineffectiveness based on the size of the pores – to the chagrin of the social media true believers who ‘want to see the science’ before wearing a mask.
Our Pima County case numbers headed back up again last week. That’s consistent with the trend we’re seeing in the other numbers I’m sharing. We’re still too early to see the full impact of Labor Day activities and the resumption of school. Here’s the week-by-week look I’ve been tracking since the end of July.
Week of 7/26 - 827 new cases
Week of 8/2 - 1,301 new cases
Week of 8/9 - 1,570 new cases
Week of 8/16 - 1,737 new cases
Week of 8/23 - 1,963 new cases
Week of 8/30 - 2,025 new cases
Week of 9/6 - 1,720 new cases
Week of 9/13 - 1,877 new cases
During the first week in June, we had 130 new cases.
We got an update on the transmission rate from the UA folks last week. In fact, we got 2 of them, from September 8th, and then another update on the 10th. Not surprisingly, the infection rate for the 85719 zip code – around the UA – is higher than it has been since before students returned. And since before Labor Day. Trends reflect behavior – and policies that facilitate behaviors.
Afghan Refugee Update
I participated in some meetings in the past week+ related to Afghan refugees and their arrival in Arizona, and ultimately in Tucson. The primary refugee resettlement agencies that are involved right now are Lutheran Social Services and the International Refugee Committee. In addition, we’ve enlisted the help of the Islamic Center of Tucson to help to gather donations, working with language translation, and looking for housing. The number one urgent need will be for housing.
We’ve had Congresswoman Kirkpatrick’s office on calls, as well as both Senatorial offices. The governor’s office took part, as did the ADES. Both the mayor’s office and Nikki Lee and her staff are engaged. TPD’s Assistant Chief Hall and Community Outreach officer Susco have been working directly with the agencies. The Housing Director Liz Morales is also involved. Once arrivals begin, it’s going to take a community lift to address the needs.
The only federal financial support for arriving Afghans is through the Afghan Placement and Assistance (APA) program. It will provide $1,225 per person for very basic support. It’s a one-time payment, so until they become eligible for other benefits, that’s it. The only people who are eligible for that APA payment are the ones who are coming through military bases. The resettlement agencies have had ‘walk ins’ - they qualify for no benefits of any kind.
We are anticipating somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 Afghan refugees being placed in Arizona. It’s unclear how they’ll be distributed around the state. Tucson will likely receive 300-500 people. Beyond the housing need, we are looking for culturally appropriate clothing, food, hygiene products, sunscreen, and activities for the kids. There will also be a need for people who can help with language/translation assistance.
If you can help with the language, please let that be known at Tucson.Afghan.Community@gmail.com. You may use the Ward 6 office as a donation site. We’re open from 9 am until noon every weekday. If you have to come after those hours, email me at steve.kozachik@tucsonaz.gov, and we’ll make arrangements.
Nationally they’re expecting north of 65,000 Afghan refugees. I know Tucson will step towards these refugees, just as we’ve seen over the past several years with those we housed and helped through the Benedictine and now out at Casa Alitas Welcome Center.
Casa Alitas
I didn’t mention Catholic Community Services as being one of the resettlement partners for the Afghan refugees. That’s because they have their hands full out at the Alitas Center. This picture is from last week – it's between 9,000 and 10,000 Haitians camped out under a bridge in the Rio Grande Valley. Many will soon be arriving at Alitas. I clipped the picture from a CNN report.
The point is that between the great work CCS is still doing at Alitas and the Afghan issue we’re about to begin addressing, the need for donations has ramped back up again. Thank you for all you’ve done in this regard over the years. Thank you for all who have volunteered their time in this effort. Alitas will be needing even more volunteers in the coming days and weeks, so if you can spare time, please email casaalitasprogram@gmail.com.
RTA and Pima Association of Governments
The RTA is the Regional Transportation Authority, formed by state statute and funded through a voter-approved ½ cent sales tax back in 2006. It will sunset in 2026 unless reauthorized by the voters. The current conversation is what a new RTA plan will look like. The Pima Association of Governments (PAG) is the regional group from which the RTA board and committees come.
I’ve written plenty about this, and specifically what the city council and mayor want to see changed in the next RTA if we’re going to take part. To date, we haven’t seen any substantive discussions about our list at the Regional Council or RTA meetings. Given that, we voted last week to set a deadline for that to occur. Why? Because our own road repair funding sunsets on June 30th of next year, and if we don’t see any progress at the RTA level, we’ll have to take that extension back for a public vote in the spring. We’ve already called for the special election.
Some of our RTA concerns include a weighted voting model, perhaps similar to what’s being used in Maricopa County. That might involve a new state statutory language, so the conversation has to start soon, or the window will pass. In addition, we’ve got concerns that so many of the City of Tucson projects are right now underfunded that they might be pushed to the next RTA. This chart shows $282M in underfunded projects – all ours. That’s an issue.
Other concerns include building flexibility into the project scope and a greater emphasis on safety elements such as HAWK lights and protected bikeways.
There are governance questions I raised during the M&C meeting, each of which is related to how the PAG is being run. For example, some members can’t get items agendized, others seem to be setting policy by memo, and there hasn’t been a public and substantive review of the Executive Director for going on 3 years. Transparency and accountability are lacking. We want that addressed.
I called for the study session item in collaboration with Karin. Here’s our motion – which was adopted unanimously:
I move to direct the City Attorney to report to M&C within 60 days with information on the legal applicability of pursuing the MAG model of governance, including proportional voting and veto power, for PAG, RTA, and RTA Next. And I direct staff to report back within 60 days with an update on funding for the remaining City of Tucson RTA projects and governance concerns raised today. Finally, I move that, unless otherwise directed by subsequent Mayor and Council action, that the City of Tucson withdraw its participation in RTA Next on February 1, 2022.
The next PAG meeting is on September 23rd. Lots of people will be watching to see if any of our concerns begin to be at least discussed publicly.
Suicide Prevention Month
Thanks to Pima County for giving the dome on their home base this blue hue in honor of Suicide Prevention Month. This week is our forum addressing suicide and its impact on youth. Having the issue commemorated like this is a sign that this is a community-wide concern.
Joining the forum call will be Dr. Peter Klinger from Banner UMC. Also, Julia Strange, VP for Community Outreach from TMC, will lend her expertise, along with Ms. Randie Collier. She’s a high school counselor out in Catalina Foothills District. And Shelly Jernigan from NAMI is the final speaker. The goal is to provide background information that’ll be of value to parents and to people who may be headed into a depressed state and simply want to know there are outlets available. Following the speakers, we’ll open the meeting for questions. I’m grateful to have been asked to facilitate.
The CDC has issued data related to youth and suicide during COVID. During 2020, the proportion of mental health-related emergency room visits among youth ages 12-17 was up 31% over 2019. During the February – March time span, earlier this year, suspected suicide attempt ER visits were 50% higher among girls in that age group. It also increased for young boys but to a lesser extent.
Please pass the forum information to anyone you know who can benefit. There is help available.
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The forum is by zoom, so people can preserve their anonymity by turning off their camera and doing a name change on the screen.
The Zoom will take place from 6 pm – 7:30 pm. Here’s the link and other information you’ll need to sign in.
Meeting ID: 880 3881 4522
The hotline for suicide prevention is 1.800.273.TALK. Please share that with anyone you know who may benefit.
PFAS and the DOD
Last week we received an update from the DOD on their response to the PFAS pollution they’ve had a hand in causing just SE of our central well field. By Davis Monthan AFB. Until now, I’ve been told that the DOD is a partner in exploring the PFAS contamination, and we should maintain all open channels of sharing data and communication. My response last week, based on this latest communication from them, is that the relationship is one-sided, and I’m concerned they’re not acting in good faith.
Here’s the header from the letter – it was from an official representative.
We know, from USAF documents, that the PFAS we’re seeing out by DM is due to how they handled a fire fighting foam called Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF.) They have admitted when it was used on runways, they hosed it into the soil, and when it was used in hangars, they diluted it and dumped it into the sewer system. It’s not surprising, therefore, that we’ve had to shut down wells just outside of DM when we found concentrations nearly 15x the EPA health advisory limit. That limit is 70 parts per trillion (ppt). Tucson Water’s own limit is 18ppt, well below the arbitrary 70ppt threshold set by the federal government. Ours is in line with a toxicology report the EPA has chosen to ignore.
In response to the contamination by DM, the letter we received last week said, “the DAF (Department of Air Force) sampled private drinking water wells in the proximity of Davis-Monthan, and they were below the EPA HA levels. The DAF sampled additional private drinking water wells in August 2021 and is awaiting results. If any drinking water is above 70ppt for PFOS and/or PFOA, the Department will take immediate action.”
Let’s be clear about a couple of things. First, we’ve tested our own wells, not private wells. We know they’re contaminated and have now shut down 24 of them as a result. Also, the DOD is relying on a standard set by the EPA that is 4x higher than our own internal standard. Ours is based on a valid toxicology study and is one that’s being followed by water authorities all over the country. And the DOD’s ‘immediate action’ when they find a private well above that limit will be to provide bottled water. They’re already doing it out by the Air National Guard (ANG) based on Tucson International Airport.
We’re working well with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to identify the limits of the plume out by DM so remediation and treatment plants can be built. Bottled water is not the solution.
Out by the ANG site, the contamination we found was above 13,000ppt. It’s what caused us to have to shut down our Tucson Airport Remediation Plant (TARP) operation. In their letter, the DOD said, “The Department of the Air Force (DAF) has not established a link between its activities and the presence of PFOS and PFOA in TARP water sources.” As possible sources, they point to “Air Force facilities, State Guard facilities, the Tucson International Airport, landfills, and fire stations not associated with the DOD.” This is where they’re already providing bottled water to owners of 3 private drinking wells. They have not offered to help fund any of the costs we’re absorbing in the shut down of wells, TARP or paying for any of the operational costs at TARP that are directly associated with remediating for the PFAS.
The DOD is relying on an EPA health advisory that will not kick in superfund dollars, even if it’s exceeded. They continue pointing to the 70ppt as being the baseline for concern. Tucson Water uses 18ppt. I’ve shared with our staff that I’m concerned the DOD is doing 2 things; one, dragging this out while the plumes move, and two, leaning on the 70ppt as the gold standard so any costs associated with remediation of wells where the levels were above 18ppt, but below 70ppt will be laid at our feet. Even though Tucson Water has had nothing to do with causing the problem.
We don’t have 3 years for the DOD to study this. We’ve invested over $50M in fixing their problem already. And the costs escalate daily.
That’s Lake Mead. It’s right now closing in on 1,075’ in water elevation. There has already been a Tier 1 shortage declared for next year on Lake Mead. It’s our canary in the mine for predicting when our own Colorado River water allocations will be reduced. That starts at about 1,025’. What’s worse, though is what’s called Dead Pool. At about a 1,000-foot water level on Mead, it’ll be too low for them to pull water out of. Generating power on Lake Powell will be compromised. The monsoon we just experienced did not solve the drought. Water for Powell and Mead largely comes from snowpack runoff coming from the Rockies. Right now, we are receiving our full allotment of CAP water, so the pollution the DOD has caused in our groundwater wells is not compromising our ability to serve clean water. But no serious hydrologist thinks Lake Mead and our CAP allocations are forever. Or for the mid-term. Fixing our PFAS contamination is a ’now’ thing.
In response to the DOD letter, I suggested to our legal people that maybe partnering with them isn’t the best strategy. We’re seeing a slow walk, no financial contributions, and reliance on the EPA standard that is far higher than our own internal water quality standard. More coming on this. For me, it’s the most urgent climate/environmental issue we’re facing.
UA Football Fumble
Full disclosure, I worked UA athletics event management and related functions for 32 years. My tenure predated the arrival of the current Athletics Director, Dave Heeke, by about 28 years. And it predated his #2 guy by 30 years. When I saw the reports of wait times outside of Arizona Stadium and read the causes, I knew that the event staff had been handed an unachievable task by Heeke and his #2 guy, Van Dermewre. Together they are paid over $1.1M. They should have let the event staff manage the event.
Even with full capacity crowds, we never had a fiasco like they did on opening day. And their crowd was the smallest home opener in the school’s history. Three changes had been put into place – reduced staffing, the introduction of metal detectors, and paperless ticketing. You don’t reduce staffing for a major event on opening day. Anybody who has been to an airport knows the bottleneck caused by metal detectors. And having people fumble through their phones looking for their paperless ticket to the game while the line backs up behind them only makes things worse. I know the dynamics of how decisions are handed down in that department. Heeke and Van Dermerwe should have kept their hands off game management.
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When you’re already putting a substandard product on the field, you want to facilitate as enjoyable an experience for the fans as possible. Want to buy something at the concessions stand? It’s all cash-less now, so lots of people went back to their seats empty-handed. Metal detectors? They’re letting in people who are unmasked and unvaccinated in the middle of a pandemic, and they’re slowing down entry identifying coins and keys. And I know the crow’s nest in the top/south skybox room is full of security with binoculars trained on the crowd. God forbid a beach ball would be bounced around the student section. The message from the crow’s nest; Confiscate it – but get it before halftime when the place empties.
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 Above is Heeke’s compensation package, as reported last week in Athletic Director U. That’s $870K, plus and added potential $555K bonus. The combined salaries of every staff member working under his new rules in event management aren’t half that.
Eviction Prevention
I’ve got two parts to this section; first, a high high-five to our Housing Director, Liz Morales, and her staff for how successful they’ve been in distributing eviction prevention funds. Also deserving of credit is Pima County and the Community Investment Corporation – we're partnering together in distributing funds to renters who are in need during the pandemic. Their combined efforts lead the nation in the efficiency with which they’re getting the money into hands and keeping people housed. The CIC work has paid nearly 80% of its share of funds. Nationally the average is only 30%. Based on the tremendous work the CIC folks are doing, we’re actively lobbying for a new infusion of federal money for this work.
The program offers up to 12 months of back rent and 3 months of rent in advance. Landlords may end up with 15 months of rent they’d have otherwise lost out on. If you’re either a renter or a landlord, please check out the program. You can either call them at 447.4423 or use this link to get to the website: www.cictucson.org.
In addition, if you are or know of someone who can benefit from this program, please circle Wednesday, October 6th on your calendar. From 4 pm until 6 pm on that day, we’re partnering with the Ward 3 office, our housing folks, constables, and others to put on an eviction prevention event. I’ll share more information as we get closer to the event, but it’ll be in the Grant/Alvernon area, so please pass the word to residents and/or landlords from that area. Also included in the event will be some literacy tools, NORML will do an expungement clinic, and other social service groups are being recruited to come and take part.
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Weeds
I’m sure you’ve noticed one of the unrequested ‘benefits’ of our recent rains is an overgrowth of weeds. I know I’m in my yard every day keeping up with it.
Unkempt yards will affect the property values of surrounding homes. If you have medians and rights of way in your neighborhood that are overgrown, that does the same. The city offers periodic Brush & Bulky service, but now’s a uniquely thorny time for wanting to get rid of green waste. I reached out to our transportation and environmental services folks to see if we can partner with neighbors and help get the city back tip-top.
You can always call for a special pick-up from Environmental Services. But it comes at a cost, depending on the amount you’re asking to be carted off. What we’re doing now is offering to come and grab your excess green waste for free. But there are some rules.
First, this needs to be a neighborhood effort. I can’t ask E.S. to come out and pick up the weeds you’ve pulled one house at a time. Organize a neighborhood or quadrant of a neighborhood workday, so there’s some efficiency in the city coming by to grab what you’ve yanked.
Also, we need it bagged. For that, I’ve got large plastic bags here at the ward office that we’ll give to you for use in your neighborhood project. We’re open from 9-noon every weekday, and I’m here later every day. Either drop in during the morning or reach out, and we’ll make arrangements for later in the day.
Homeowners are responsible for the right of way in front of their house, plus ½ of the alley behind their home – to the midpoint between you and your neighbor across the alley. The weeds we see now are not only ugly, they’re spreading irritating pollen. We’re in this together, so I hope to hear from many of the Ward 6 neighborhoods who will be organizing a clean-up.
Ward 6 Expungement Clinic
Based on the success of the first expungement clinic we co-hosted with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML,) we’re doing another. This time we’ve also got Prime Leaf dispensary working to help spread the word. The key is to get the word out to people who have existing convictions on their record for small amounts of pot. Incorporated in the Arizona recreational use law is the opportunity to have those convictions cleared from your record.
The clinic will be held on Saturday, October 9th, here at the ward office. NORML will have legal assistance here who’ll walk you through the process of petitioning to get your record cleared. It’s all free, and we’ll be here for you from 11 am until 3 pm on that day.
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If you were dealing kilos back in the day, this clinic isn’t for you. If you were busted for a couple of ounces, some plants, or paraphernalia, you can get that taken from your criminal record. I hope to see you on the 9th. This can open new doors for you that are closed with this stuff on your record.
Garden District Porch Fest
Last Friday, my bride and I took some time to go to the Roadhouse Cinema, sit on their patio and enjoy Mike Rankin’s daughter and son sharing their music. You can find their website at www.sophiarankin.com. The music, of course, was great, and it was equally nice to just be outdoors with people in 3D in a relaxed setting – not on a zoom meeting.
If you missed Sophia and Connor – or even if you didn’t, but would like to stroll around and do something similar, stop by Garden District on Sunday, October 3rd, for this year’s Porch Fest. They’ve scaled it back a bit due to COVID, but it’ll still be a very safe event.
I’ll be at 1833 N. Desmond from 3 pm until 4:30. There will be 5 other porches in the area with a band/musician, and one porch will be solely dedicated to kid things. In addition, you’ll find a variety of multi-cultural offerings, so come prepared to do a little walking, talking, and singing along.
Roadhouse stopped their outdoor music last year due to COVID. Garden had to cancel their Porch Fest. Seeing them start back up again is a hopeful sign. And with that, I hope to see you on the 3rd.
Tucson Women’s March
The day before Porch Fest, Armory Park will serve as the starting point for this year’s Women’s March. It’s an all-ages event, and they will be following all CDC COVID protocols. It’s not a rally – but will be a procession, socially distanced, masks required – and the timing is critically important.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed to go into effect a Texas law that effectively bans abortions for women at the first sign of a heartbeat. That is often before most women know they’re pregnant. It is at odds with Roe and will likely set up future litigation. In addition, the Texas law puts into place citizen vigilante enforcement through giving individuals the right to bring charges under the law, not only against the woman but to anybody who may be involved. Were you giving your daughter a ride to the clinic? You’re now a part of the crime in Texas.
In the meantime, with the Texas law in effect, other states such as Arizona will be looking at adopting similar legislation. The March is an opportunity to express yourself on that possibility.
Please gather safely at Armory Park by 10 am on the 2nd. It’s a peaceful procession that will obey all rules of the road (stay on sidewalks) and traffic control devices. The route they’ve chosen is ADA accessible, so nobody needs to feel excluded.
Harvard Global Health Institute
Looking at the national Harvard maps, we can see more spread in the past week. Since the prior week showed a nearly all red risk level, the change is incremental. But what we’re not seeing yet is significant reversals of the COVID virus risk rate.
If we’re at a plateau, it’s high into the risk levels. This is the map I had in last week’s newsletter from the Harvard Global Health folks:
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 And one week later, it looks like this. Above I shared maps I pull each week from NY Times data. I finish with the Harvard Global Health Institute maps for comparison purposes. It’s about sourcing information from multiple areas as validation. What’s validated is the whole country is in the grip of COVID. Plateau? Nobody calls this progress. And no, Nebraska isn’t really enjoying a green light. They’re simply not reporting data.
 Last week Harvard had Pima County’s new cases per 100,000 population at 23.6, and our 7 days moving average for new cases was 247. We were in the Orange risk level – slightly better than Red. This week they have us moved back into the Red risk level. Our numbers each reversed, ending 2 weeks in a row of slight improvement.
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Arizona, on a statewide basis, improved very incrementally. We moved from 38 new cases per 100,000 down to 37, and the 7-day average dropped from 276 to 273. All of that’s good news. What’s not yet reflected is the full impact of school reopening, the return of UA students, the activities we saw over Labor Day weekend, and 40,000 people attending UA football. Or trying to attend – many went home when they got tired of waiting in the entry line for over an hour. People who attended the game told me they estimate fewer than 10% of fans wore masks. That’s because the athletics department didn’t mandate them, and UA leadership didn’t require proof of vaccination upon entry.
I’m hopeful that we’ll get lucky and continue seeing the good trend. And I know I join lots of public health people who are watching closely.
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:
COVID has killed over 650,000 people in the U.S. alone. In March of last year, someone predicting that would have been ignored. People who remain unvaccinated are still ignoring that reality.
COVID kills 19x more people than the flu. Please get your flu vaccination, get your COVID vaccination, wear a mask, and watch out for the misinformation that’s being spread.
Here’s this week’s statewide COVID map.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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