A Message From Steve K...10/11/2021

Speaking of kindness, PACC is in need of either foster homes, or forever homes. Thanks to Nancy for bringing this to my attention. The needs for homes ebb and flow out there – and at all of our local shelters. They’re ‘flowing’ right now.  

If you head to PACC, you might still find these two guys – 59 pounds different in weight, but totally unaware of that as they play and interact together as though they were a matching set. 

Look into those eyes – they're calling your name. 

These young ladies just adopted the two kittens Nancy had been fostering. Two down, and a bunch left to find homes for. 

Free spay and neuter for community cats  

To kick off National Feral Cat Day, Pima Animal Care Center is holding a free spay and neuter event called Snip ‘N’ Tip for community cats Oct. 16-17 in PACC’s Multi-Purpose Room, 4000 North Silverbell Road. 

Monica Dangler, Director of Animal Services, hopes the event is the first of many. 

“Thanks to the approval of the Board of Supervisors, PACC is happy to ramp up the Community Cat Program here in Pima County,” Dangler said. “We are adding a vet and several vet techs to help us really increase our focus on care for community cats.” Community cats are cats that prefer to live outdoors. The event is part of PACC’s expanded Community Cat Trap-Neuter-Return Program (TNR). 

TNR is the humane and effective way to reduce the number of cats living on the streets in Pima County. It improves the overall health of the cats and prevents future generations of kittens from being born outside. 

The event is for outdoor community cats and kittens living in Pima County. Kittens should weigh at least 1.5 pounds and have a committed caretaker to monitor them after surgery. Anyone can participate by bringing in an outdoor cat in a secure cat carrier or trap. People who bring cats will be responsible for returning them back to their neighborhood. 

Nationally, we’re still below 60%, and the percent of the population who have simply dug in and said they’re not getting a COVID vaccination is keeping things at too low a level. That reluctance cannot rationally be based on a fear of adverse reactions. Hospitals are once again rationing health care as a result of unvaccinated people taking up bed space. That’s a significant reality that our health care workers live every day. 

I’ll keep giving you the Pima County vaccination sites. We’re just ahead of the flu season. Getting both a flu and COVID vaccination is key to our not having a dual-surge this winter.  

No cost/no appointment needed. Pima County health is doing its part to help bring this to closure.  

All of these data simply make the point that this is not behind us, either locally, statewide, or nationally. 

If you follow this newsletter you know that I’ve been tracking the Pima County weekly counts for a couple of months. I’m going to keep the week of July 26th on the list for a while as a benchmark. As you can see from the data, it was right after then that our new case counts started to increase. They haven’t reversed course in 2 months, coinciding with the start of school, and for the past 3 consecutive weeks, they’ve increased.  

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 

Week of 9/20 - 1,728 new cases 

Week of 9/27 - 1,873 new cases 

Week of 10/4 - 1,964 new cases  

During the first week in June we had 130 new cases.  

No updates on the transmission rate from the UA folks last week. The infection rate for the 85719 zip code – around the UA – dropped to below 1.0 for the first time in over a month, but that was for back on September 24th. Since then our weekly count of new cases has increased by about 250. When they get around to updating, it’ll be worth comparing the infectivity rate with the actual new case counts.  

I’m going to start with the Emerge 24 hour hotline. Please put it in your phone so you have it readily available when it’s needed. 795.4266. It’s for anytime you, or someone you know may be in a vulnerable position within a relationship. Please don’t wait to call if you’re at all concerned with what you’re seeing. DV is in every demographic of the community. 

When DV hits a household, it affects the entire family. Children, even when not the victim of direct physical violence are damaged by the turmoil in the home. And by seeing mom abused. Emerge hosts an emergency shelter that’s in use when women and their families are transitioning from an abusive home into a new, safe permanent housing situation.  

But during COVID, the emergency/transition services have had to do double duty. With families having to do remote learning through home schooling, many of the families being served by Emerge didn’t enter the shelter with the materials they needed for the kids to continue with their classwork. The Emerge child and family team was able to pull together the resources needed to make that happen. Think of this scenario; mom and a couple of young kids enter the emergency shelter after leaving an abusive home situation. The kids are in trauma, and are still responsible for classwork. It’s important to realize that the children in trauma from the DV conditions, being rehoused in a new environment, and trying to focus on their schooling were facing multiple impacts from the abuse. Credit to the Emerge staff and volunteers for helping families navigate the added burdens placed on them throughout COVID. 

You can find Emerge online at www.emergecenter.org. Their site describes all the services they offer, plus ways you can donate in support of the work being done. 

Please consider how you can support the work Emerge is doing for DV victims. The vast majority of us live in loving and supportive home environments, so it’s sometimes difficult to empathize – but this issue is all around us, and each of us can do our individual part to help

A friend who is somewhat connected with Save the Scenic Santa Ritas asked me last week why the city was partnering with Rosemont Mine and allowing them to store water in our storage facility down by Pima Mine Road. Given the M&C’s unanimous opposition to the mine, facilitating any part of that development didn’t sound right. We haven’t had any discussions about anything related to giving them access to our storage capability.  

I reached out to several members of city staff and asked what they knew about it. Interestingly, they weren’t aware of it, either. 

What’s missing are the terms that should complete the “in accordance with the provisions of...” thought. Those provisions relate to our rights in the matter. 

Under our joint use agreement with CAP, we have the right to 50% of the storage capacity of the facility, and we have the right to store any amount we choose to of CAP’s 50% capacity that they’re not using. That means if CAP isn’t using their full 50%, we could fill the plant to the brim and there’d be no room left for Rosemont. Nobody from the CAP approached us about their deal with Rosemont, so we never had a chance to exercise our rights to completely fill the storage facility with ‘our’ water. 

So far there’s a good ending to this. After I asked what was up, city staff very quickly acted to get the item pulled from the CAP agenda, pending further discussions. It was not voted on, and we will now meet with the CAP representatives and see what they’ve got in mind – and what our response will be. 

Water’s life in the desert. Many of us think the net result of a Rosemont Mine being built would be a net negative in terms of water supply, and certainly a net negative environmentally. Staff will speak to the CAP leadership and bring this back to M&C for a review. What we won’t be doing is to make agreements that facilitate the construction of that mine in the Santa Ritas. 

On the tour you’ll hear about water harvesting, water conservation and other important water-related issues. They’re all important – the drought continues, and we all have to do what we can to save that precious resource. And add information on solar power systems. The tour is all about climate and resource conservation. 

The virtual tour will be made available beginning on October 21st. They’ll run it for 2 weeks. The in person tour is on Saturday, October 23rd from 11am until 3pm. We appreciate the relationship my office has established with WMG over the past 12 years. 

During our M&C meeting last week, we voted to advance a project list to the RTA. They’ve been asking each jurisdiction represented in the region to submit a list that they’ll winnow down for inclusion into the RTA Next voter package. One of our objections has been that all 8 of the jurisdictions have been asked for a $600M list. Regardless of size, and regardless of tax contribution to the RTA package. Until now, we’ve resisted giving them a list that is the same size as say Marana’s list. Last week we did, but we did so with an additional message. 

The RTA is currently formed to do roadway projects that increase capacity for vehicular traffic. Think of the Broadway or Grant road expansion projects. Capacity increase is reflected in our $600M project list. My input was that in midtown, we don’t need wider streets like they may need out on the east side. We’re after pavement preservation, safety amenities such as HAWK crossings, lighting and protected bike lanes. We’d like to see outside-the-curb upgrades to make our roadways also pedestrian friendly. Each ward is different, so each council office provided different priorities.   

In order to capture those other priorities, and to let the RTA know that if we’re going to be a part of the Next package that goes to the voters, in addition to the $600M project list, we provided a longer range needs list that includes all of the roadway elements we’re focused on. Those elements are consistent with the complete streets model that’s contained in our Move Tucson framework that I’ve shared with you in previous newsletters. This chart shows all of what we’ve now sent to the RTA for consideration. 

So far the RTA board has been twisted up over our desire to see a  more representative voting structure. That’s not the only issue we want addressed before we sign onto the Next package. The needs list shows road repair, safety projects, outside the curb items, transit – and capacity upgrades. The city is the big ‘donor’ to the RTA. Right now the only clear thing is that if we’re expected to continue with the project list they’ve asked for, and none of these other project elements are included for Tucson, then we likely won’t be moving forward with the other jurisdictions, and we’ll have a serious discussion about what our own ‘go it alone’ project list and funding stream looks like. 

Many of us on the M&C have said that we’d prefer to do this in a regionally cooperative manner. We’ve said the structure that has been guiding this for decades needs some tweaking. That conversation has finally begun. 

In the past week I’ve been involved in multiple meetings related to the arrival of refugee families from Afghanistan. The rollout is frustratingly slow – and I’ve shared that thought with our federal delegation in those meetings. You have been so great in responding to the calls for donations that the pace at which they’re metering out the families is causing some logistical issues in getting the goods distributed. I’ve got 3 rooms at the ward office jam packed – but we’re working with some local groups to help with storage as we work through the backlog. 

Afghan families are initially processed through a military base in Philadelphia. Following that first touch, they’re sent out to a series of ‘safe haven’ bases scattered around the country. These are still military base settings, so safety and security is guaranteed. 

There are currently over 51,000 Afghans at military safe havens. Over 2,100 are ready to leave those bases. While at the safe havens, they’re screened by Homeland Security, given employment authorization documents, and each person receives a COVID vaccination, along with polio and MMR. The feds are expecting to process about 3,500 Afghans through the safe havens weekly, so you can see the reason for the donation backlog – we're not getting the families in as quick a fashion as we expected. 

Arizona is right now programmed to receive just over 1,600 Afghans. But everyone I’ve spoken to with ADES anticipates that number to at least double once this all gets settled. Currently the Arizona arrivals are planned to be shared primarily between the Phoenix and Tucson areas. This chart shows the current expectation – and it will change over time. 

I’m in touch with each of the refugee resettlement agencies on a regular basis, working on coordinating the distribution of the goods you’ve been donating. In addition to the slow pace of families arriving, another challenge the agencies are experiencing is a 24-48 hour notice prior to arrival. That means finding housing, sometimes overnight, and assuring the families have food, and some basic creature comforts when they do arrive. The slow rollout is causing a donation backlog, but it’s also giving us time to work out the kinks in the system. It’s all a fluid and changing process. 

When families arrive, there is some limited financial assistance provided to the relief agencies through federal refugee program funds. It’s to cover housing, getting kids involved in school, and the basic necessities that many of the donations are helping with. The goal of course is to get the families settled and on their way to employment and self-sufficiency. 

Thank you all for taking part in this work. For the many of you who have emailed and asked about donating furniture, please understand that I’m working on how we can best accommodate those offers while still waiting on the larger numbers of families to start showing up. I expect to have something in place this week and I’ll be sure to continue providing updates as those logistics are ironed out. 

Garden District’s next outdoor event is coming Saturday, October 16th. It’s their annual community yard sale. Sort of their way of coordinating with neighbors who would otherwise be doing a yard sale, getting them all combined so the broader Tucson community has a one day shopping spree opportunity, scattered throughout Garden on the 16th. 

Most of the homes are starting their sale at 7am. They’ll all be held within the Speedway/Grant, Alvernon/Swan boundary. They’ll post a map with the exact addresses for each of the sales at this site: thegardendistrict.org The map will be updated by 6:30am on the 16th. 

A year ago events like porch fest and these community yard sales were off the calendar. It’s great to see them returning. They’re returning with the caveat that COVID is still a part of our lives, so safety in all settings is a part of the drill. 

One more midtown meeting to put on your calendar. The Palo Verde neighborhood annual meeting is coming on Thursday, October 21st. It'll start at 6pm over at Emmanuel church - 1825 N. Alvernon. 

Each year they do a raffle that includes goodies from local businesses. You can buy tickets ahead of time, or at the event. Each year I'm impressed at the value of these gifts - to the great credit of our business partners in the area. Thanks to each of them who are supporting our neighborhoods this way. The tickets are $3 each, or 2 for $5. If you're doing them ahead of time, mail your check to PVNA Raffel at 1610 N. Winstel, Tucson - 85716. Be sure to include all of your contact information, including an email address. 

This year TFD will be there with some equipment, Ready, Set, Rec is showing up, there'll be a presentation by TPD on G.A.I.N (the former National Night Out,) and the Friends of Tucson Library will have a booth with children's books.  

Even if you're not a PVNA neighbor, stop in and take part in all these other activities - and in the raffle. It's an easy way to support your midtown neighbors. 

Continuing with the outdoor event theme, the October schedule for the Ready, Set, Rec van is set. This is the Parks & Rec van that travels around to different parks bringing activities that people of all ages can enjoy. Some of it is board games, but also other activities that are more active. Check out the parks website for a broader description at https://www.tucsonaz.gov/parks/readysetrec.  

Here’s the Ward 6 van schedule or the rest of October;  

In Arizona on a statewide basis we moved from 252 new cases on a 7 day moving average down to 240. And our cases per 100,000 dipped from 34 down to 33. So Pima County’s uptick was counter to the more general statewide trend.  

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:  

https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid-suppression/   

COVID has killed over 700,000 people in the U.S. alone. It’s now the most deadly ‘event’ in our nation’s history – surpassing the Civil War. 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 when in confined areas, and watch out for the misinformation that’s being spread. 

Here’s this week’s statewide COVID map.