Thank you to all who continue donating to the incoming Afghan refugees. My ward office is open from 9 until noon every weekday taking in the donations.
And thank you to all who are stepping towards these families with a welcoming and compassionate hand.
Please vote in this week’s city council election. You can vote in all 3 races no matter where in the city you live. It’s an opportunity that many around the world – such as in Afghanistan – cannot freely exercise.
Thank you to all who continue donating to the incoming Afghan refugees. My ward office is open from 9 until noon every weekday taking in the donations.
And thank you to all who are stepping towards these families with a welcoming and compassionate hand.
Please vote in this week’s city council election. You can vote in all 3 races no matter where in the city you live. It’s an opportunity that many around the world – such as in Afghanistan – cannot freely exercise.
Celebrating City Workers
Last week we approved a plan for mandating COVID vaccinations for all city workers. We’re moving ahead with termination for those who do not have approved exemptions or accommodations. Unfortunately, that has been the focus.
The real focus should be thanking and celebrating the nearly 3,500 city workers who didn’t need to be coaxed to get the vaccine. That’s what I’m opening with.
Thank you to all of you who have had the safety of co-workers and the public front and center since vaccinations began to be offered. We at the ward 6 office are grateful that you chose science, chose safety and chose to be vaccinated.
We still have roughly 300 employees who will face termination if they continue to resist vaccination - to be clear, the city isn’t forcing anybody out the door. These are voluntary terminations, just as taking advantage of our free vaccinations is voluntary.
Here’s the working list of unvaccinated employees, by department. I’ll have more on that topic below, but wanted to open by thanking the roughly 85% of our workers who have been vaccinated so every contact they have with the public is as safe as it can be during a pandemic.
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Afghan Donations
When you want to make a furniture donation to the Afghan HabiStore effort, call their direct donation hotline at 230.5323. Specify that you’re calling about the Afghan fund so they know to tag your goods. Habitat has trucks and personnel to come to your home and pick up what you have, so there’s no need for you to try to figure out how to transport your living room set, for example. We’re trying to make this as easy on donors as possible.
Please do not take anything but furniture to Habitat. Bring all other kinds of donations here to the Ward 6 office, 9-noon, Monday through Friday. Habitat cannot use anything but the furniture. We’re having to cart all the other things over here anyway, so please save us that trip by coming here. We’re at 3202 E. 1st.
Thank you for all you’re doing in support of these families. We at the Ward 6 office are grateful for the community spirit that emerges every time a need such as this pops onto our radar screen.
Halloween Costume Contest
One week to go in this year’s Halloween costume contest. Our friends at the Reid Park Zoo have offered passes for the winners. We’ll be choosing the top 3 ‘human’ costumes, and one prize for the top critter costume. Like I said last week, my staff (the judges) won’t necessarily ignore adults in costume, but they’re partial to kids. And I won’t ignore cats, but, well dog’s rule. Some of my staffers have cats, so we’ll be fair.
Email us the entries at ward6@tucsonaz.gov. We’ll need them by 5pm on Thursday, October 28th. And I’ll have the winners in the following week’s newsletter.
Thanks for playing along. And thanks to our Zoo partners for offering up the prizes.
Vaccine Update
As I mentioned above, the M&C are moving forward with a mandatory vaccination policy that will result in employees who choose to remain unvaccinated forfeiting their employment with the city. The policy is purely science-based. These data are from the CDC. They show the success various vaccines have had historically. Note that they’re not perfect. But also note, they are immensely helpful in getting control of viral outbreaks.
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Taking just one of those examples – in the late ‘60s I remember an effort in the U.S. to eradicate measles through aggressive vaccination policies. By the early ‘70s, states that had implemented school vaccination laws for measles had incidence rates up to 51% lower than states that didn’t have those laws. Where they had measles outbreaks, states stepped up their efforts. In Alaska for example, in ‘77 they had over 7,400 students (out of nearly 90,000) who didn’t show proof of a measles vaccination. When faced with being expelled from school, one month later they had fewer than 50 students who were refusing. And they had no further measles cases.
The message? When enforced, mandatory vaccination policies can be effective. Those results are compelling – more so than this logic.
With the understanding that no vaccine is 100% effective, the data is unmistakable that the vaccines we have are immensely beneficial. That’s even more the case with vulnerable populations. The NY Times analyzed data comparing deaths by age, and by vaccination status. And they compared that to death rates from other causes. This chart shows both how effective the COVID vaccines are, and how devastating COVID has been when compared to fatalities due to gun violence, vehicular crashes, falls and cancer. The rate of death is unquestionably more severe for unvaccinated COVID people than for any other group in any other category. It’s clearly correlated to age as a significant determining factor.
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To be clear, the concern isn’t wholly for the unvaccinated person who’s making that choice. You can see that even fully vaccinated seniors can suffer serious consequences if they are infected. So the message is for unvaccinated people who have seniors in their life they want to protect. Or just to protect vulnerable people you may come into contact with out in public. Show you care about those others and get a vaccination.
Our vaccination mandate is not unique. New York city has also implemented one. We have about 300 city workers, including police and firefighters who are currently refusing to get vaccinated. In New York City that number was 46,000. Their mayor de Blasio said “we need to save lives, and we do it with vaccinations.” He’s right. When they implemented their mandate in NY public schools, they suddenly achieved compliance rates of over 96%.
And to repeat – over 85% of City of Tucson workers didn’t need an ordinance to get vaccinated. Remember the lines, and the hassles even getting an appointment? Now it’s easy, free, and we have had to tell people they’re going to see their final paycheck from the city if they don’t do what those others did.
The state Attorney General and a Saddlebrook legislator have filed legal claims to try to stop the policy from going forward. While we fight those speed bumps, we will continue making plans for the policy to be implemented on December 1st.
Nationally last week, Arizona stayed ranked #32 nationally for percent of population who have been vaccinated. We went from 52.05% up to 52.4%. Not a particularly huge jump. Just over half of the Arizona population is fully vaccinated. The range is from West Virginia at 40.8% fully vaccinated up to Vermont at 70.6%. In addition to Tucson and New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and L.A. have vaccination mandates in place for their municipal workers.
Our national rate is just a bit better than Arizona’s. The hope is these mandates rolling across the country will be what it takes to move that needle.
Pima County is still a leader in Arizona. In the past week our percent population vaccinated over age 65 increased by a single percentage point. The rest of the categories stayed the same as they were the week prior.
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.
This is their list of standing points of vaccine distribution. I know some of the pharmacies are requiring appointments for both COVID and flu vaccinations, so you should call ahead to be sure.
 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.
Data and Risk Level
All of the change is very incremental. The national hot spots are easing off in the southeast, but the states in the middle west and up on the Canadian border are still having issues. Alaska is still doing poorly. They’ve been a national hot spot for a few weeks.
  Here’s the current risk level map. Remember, it’s for unvaccinated people. In Arizona every county continues to be rated as either ‘very high’ or ‘extremely high’ risk for COVID transmission – for unvaccinated people. It has been that way for over 2 months. There are still way too many ‘extreme risk’ locales, both within Arizona, and nationwide.
 The Pima County trend didn’t move much in the past week. Last week I had this graphic in the newsletter:
Here’s the current count. It improved a bit – still in the “very high risk” level, but the numbers are slightly reduced. And the CDC mask wearing guidance continues to be included in the data reports.
Nationally there has been a 25% drop in new cases over the past 14 days. That’s very good news. Our experience is much less of a success story. That’s largely due to activities in the Maricopa, Mohave and Yavapai county areas, and from those scattered throughout our community who refuse vaccinations. And our statewide numbers this week are a little suspect due to the 3 day downtime the state department of health had last weekend, during which no new cases were reported.
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.
Last week is an anomaly because the state website had zero new cases recorded on Sunday when I close out the weekly count. They followed that with 2 more days during which no new cases were recorded. So the 1,521 you see for the week of 10/4 is based on 6 days of reporting, and the count for the week of 10/18 is suspect. It probably has a little bit of ‘catch up’ counted in. But we see the continuing trend, none the less.
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
Week of 10/11 - 1,521 new cases
Week of 10/18 - 2,233 new cases
During the first week in June we had 130 new cases.
The UA finally updated their spread-rate numbers. Some are going in a good direction, but the county-wide numbers are not. We’ll have to keep an eye on those with their next report. And remember, what they’re reporting on is still 3 week old data.
 You can find the most current data at this site: https://covid19.arizona.edu/dashboard.
Changes at Visit Tucson
I know many of you have come to know and respect Brent DeRaad – CEO of Visit Tucson. He announced last week that he and his family will be moving to take a similar position with the Arlington (Texas) Convention & Visitors Bureau. Speaking for my team at the Ward 6 office I want to thank Brent for what he has meant to the community, and to the region generally. He’s a quality guy and we’ll miss his contributions.
One of Brendt’s contributions is putting a succession plan in place. While we hate to see him leave, Felipe Garcia is the interim, and is ready to take the reins on a permanent basis. We’ll see what their board decides – but here’s one vote for Felipe.
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Domestic Violence Awareness Month
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.
Every single person in the community can play a role in supporting DV victims. If you go to the Emerge website you’ll find opportunities to donate, to volunteer, to offer the support of your business, and to educate and build awareness. That last one might be the most important, from a long term perspective. Teaching (let’s be honest) young boys that abusive relationships are not cool is a part of this. And abuse takes many forms, including controlling behaviors, not only physical actions.
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. But check them out because I know you’ll find a way to be a part of the solution.
The issue of domestic violence isn’t going away, and in fact with the addition of COVID, addressing the needs has only become more difficult.
Please consider how you can support the work Emerge is doing for DV victims.
Parents of Murdered Children
Last week I was interviewing with a writer from the publication Stateline. They’re funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and often submit columns to our local Tucson Sentinel. The topic was gun violence and pre-emption laws. In Arizona, we know all about those laws.
I’m including this section right after the DV update because far too often DV situations end in a fatality. And where a gun is present in the home, the data show abusers are 5x more likely to kill their victim than when a gun is not present. During our conversation, I mentioned to the reporter some of our local examples where guns ended up being used in such a setting.
Gun violence is escalating nationwide. Tucson is not immune. There’s no vaccination, and our state legislature has tied our hands from adopting some of the common sense gun laws that I’d like to see locally. But we’re staying in the fight – and while that continues, groups like POMC will continue to be needed for providing a space for parents to meet, share, grieve and hopefully heal.
I’m grateful to Genna Ayup’s mom for sharing information on this group with me. Check them out if you know of someone who can use some TLC from a group of like-minded parents.
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Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU’s)
Last Tuesday, the M&C adopted a new ordinance that allows accessory dwelling units to be built on any residential lot. I love the concept of providing space for caregivers, aging in place, multi-generational family or even a small affordable rental to help with cash flow. But the city is made up of diverse residential conditions so allowing ADUs without consideration of the areas that will be most heavily negatively impacted is not equitable.
The city ran a survey before we adopted the new rules. These are the numbers of responses received, broken down by ward. There was more input from Ward 6 residents than from all the other wards in the city combined. Why? Because W6 will be the most heavily negatively impacted by ADUs, and our neighbors tried to let the M&C know their concerns.
 The reason W6 will be most negatively impacted by what the M&C approved is clearly indicated in this map. It was provided to all of us before the vote. I’ve circled in red the neighborhoods that surround the UA campus. Note that the vast majority of the residential parcels in that area are under 8,000 square feet in size. Another characteristic of those lots is many have primary living quarters that are at, or under 800 square feet. My first condo was 850 sq/ft. It was a 2 bedroom, 1 bath starter home. It was not crammed onto a residential lot behind someone else’s home and called a casita. A final characteristic of those neighborhoods is that every one of them is made up of over 80% rentals. The people who have invested in the area to live and raise families live with a constant fight against intrusive expansion by the UA, and by real estate developers.
You’ll find other pockets within W6 where the lot sizes are under 8,000 sq/ft. Wards 3 (also a high contributor to the survey) and parts of W5 also have this condition.
The staff recommendation that M&C adopted will allow an ADU of up to 1,000 sq/ft on lots that are over 7,000 square feet. For lots of less than 7,000 sq/ft, the maximum size of the ADU will be 750 sq/ft. That means we have just opened up every one of the neighborhoods surrounding campus, plus many north of campus in Ward 3, many south of campus in W5, and those others scattered throughout midtown to having ‘accessory’ units built on their lots that are larger than the primary dwelling unit.
This was to be about providing space for ‘affordable housing’. Zillow did an analysis of property values 2 weeks ago. In the zip code around campus, housing prices have escalated 29% in the past year, and the average price is over $325,000. Adding a rental onto a parcel that is already escalating in value, in a market that is on fire in no way even mildly addresses the stated purpose of providing more affordable housing stock.
What it amounts to is an invitation to real estate investors to buy parcels, add units and maximize their return on investment.
To be clear, the Planning Director who has been promoting this change from the beginning lives in a Home Owners Association that has restrictive covenants prohibiting an ADU. Here’s the language:
 He’s not alone. Below I’ve included language from an HOA in which another of my colleagues lives. There are more of these among M&C, but the point is made; we’ve just allowed construction of ADUs that will be larger than the existing homes on the lots, and some of those who supported the vote will never have to live with the consequences. The notion that these are affordable is demonstrably false.
I had asked for several changes to the staff recommendation. Those included limiting the size to 850 sq/ft on lots larger than 8,000 sq/ft, and limiting size to ADU”s of 650 sq/ft on lots smaller than that. In addition, restricting them to back yards, stating that they may not cause an historic property to lose it’s historic designation, that the city and/or the IDA issue zero interest construction loans with an affordability component built in, that the height must be less than or equal to the roofline of the primary dwelling unit, and we institute a 5 year sunset clause so we’re not subject to Prop 207 lawsuits if/when we change the rules.
Other than the sunset, none of those were included in the motion M&C passed 6-1. Staff suggested a height of “12’, or the height of the primary structure, whichever is greater.” Evidently Costco has some 12’ tall living units that they feel are going to be the go-to for ADUs. If that’s true – and I doubt it – then they also don’t need the large square foot allowance that’s now in the code.
The motion adopted asked staff to “provide resources and technical support to make ADUs accessible and affordable.” Just as I’m not anticipating real estate investors to be running to Costco for those 12’ tall units, I’m guessing they won’t be calling staff to learn how to make them affordable. That’s not how real estate investors maximize their returns on investment.
Changing the height and size would address the affordability and preservation of neighborhood character issues. Keeping them in the back yard would preserve historic designation. Offering the zero interest loans could tie an affordable rent component that would not be attractive to student housing developers. And any of that would require one of the council members who voted in support of staff to bring this back for that reconsideration. We hear a lot about ‘deferring’ to the council member whose constituents are most affected. Ward 6 constituents were not afforded that consideration with this vote.
Cultural Diversity Conversations
Our friends down the street at Catalina United Methodist Church are hosting a series of evening meals that will also be gathering spots for conversations on cultural diversity. These events/meals are free and will run on November 3rd, 10th and 17th from 5:45 until 7:15pm.
The church is located across the street from Himmel Park at 2700 E. Speedway. The conversations are a part of the Catalina UMC Multicultural Growth series. The space is a welcoming opportunity for you to share, and to hear perspectives from others on this timely and important topic. Please check in with former City Council member Carol West at ccw4tucson@comcast.net for information on what to expect, and how to get involved.
Pima Animal Care Center
A couple of weeks ago I had a picture of a boxer and a chihuahua – inviting you to adopt. Good news. They’ve both been adopted and are now at home with their forever families.
You’ve heard the phrase ‘raining cats and dogs’. Well, at PACC it’s mainly raining cats.
Every day they’re receiving more kittens than they can provide for. PACC is looking for all kinds of foster homes; those that can bottle feed babies, those that can take in young but not bottle fed kittens, and all the way up to mom’s with their babies. And by being a foster, PACC can customize the kitten/cat you’re taking in to meet your ability to manage its needs.
Please give it some consideration. This link will take you to the PACC website where all the foster options are explained.
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Parks Department Halloween
On Saturday, October 30th, City Parks is going to host a drive-thru Halloween event. It’ll be held out at the Rodeo Grounds – 4823 S. 6th Ave. You should enter from the 3rd Avenue and Irvington gates.
The event will run from 4pm until 7pm. All cars with children riding along will receive a candy bag when they exit the event. But along the way there’ll be costumes, characters and just some light-hearted fun for the whole family to enjoy.
This will be a COVID-safe event, so please plan on staying inside of your car as you roll through the activities. And to avoid traffic congestion, please do not show up early and line up outside. There’ll be plenty of goodies for everyone once the gates open.
RTA Next
By way of reminder, this is the project list we’ve sent to the RTA to have in front of them as they consider what the Next RTA package will look like when it goes to the ballot. These are City of Tucson needs that appear in our Move Tucson package – our own proposed 20 year transportation plan. It’s more than we’ll have full funding for, but it’s the framework we’re using to consider how we put one, or several funding sources into effect.
For their part, the RTA is forming a committee that’ll look at all of the remaining roadway projects, look at their budgets and anticipated actual costs. With that information, recommendations will be made regarding how the RTA will make up the differences. Up until now, some level of cost escalation has been built into project budgets – inflation adjusted figures. What we’re hearing now is that any ‘shortfall’ will be the burden of the jurisdiction; the city picks up the delta.
Last week the M&C approved our differential water rates. Residents of Pima County will now pay a slightly higher rate for their water than residents of the city. The average water user in the county can offset the cost increase by saving 1-2 Ccfs of water use each month, so this isn’t a confiscatory move on our part. But it is being resisted by county residents.
One ‘resistance point’ is the formation of a ‘boycott Tucson’ move brought forward by a guy named Curtis Lueck. The Star ran a short piece in their Political Notebook on his efforts. So what does this have to do with the RTA?
One of the Co-chairs of the cost evaluation task force is Curt Lueck. And one of our objections to how the RTA has been operating is a bias against the City of Tucson. Last week I suggested to city leadership that Mr. Lueck should not be doing cost assessments of our projects and making recommendations on cost-shifting to Tucson residents. If we’re going to participate in RTA Next, this is exactly the sort of activity their Executive Director should be monitoring and preventing.
Heat Island Workshop
The city’s Landscape Advisory Committee is hosting an Urban Heat Island (UHI) Workshop – virtually. The workshop will be held by Zoom on Wednesday, November 3rd from 10am until noon. You can use this link to register: live registration link
This year’s event will include a variety of presentations. They’ll range from taking an historical look (including the politics involved) of UHIs, to looking at health impacts that UHI brings, an overview of how various cities are addressing it, and more. The goal is to explore ways we can address urban heat island effects locally – looking for creative approaches.
The event is free, and it’ll involve discussion time. If you’ve got questions about what’s planned, please reach out to Irene Ogata at Irene.Ogata@tucsonaz.gov. Otherwise, just register and take part.
Harvard Global Health Institute
I didn’t want to lead with this because it’s still very early in its emergence. But right now a new strain of COVID they’re calling ‘Delta plus’ makes up 6% of the current cases in the U.K. It has been found in the U.S., but only in a very few cases. Key points; it’s under investigation in the U.K., they’re concerned that it could make the virus more transmissible, it could undermine our vaccines, and with all of that, it is not yet being considered a “variant of concern”. So, I’m not hyping it, but I am mentioning it since health experts are keeping an eye on it.
The Harvard risk map continued showing improvement in the southeast, and into the middle west. This is last week’s map:
 Here’s what they have posted for this week’s national risk assessment. There’s still a boat-load of red, but slight improvement. In Arizona, only Santa Cruz county is out of the high risk level of concern. Pima County dropped back into red after having been upgraded to yellow last week.
 Why did they drop Pima County from yellow to red? Last week Harvard had Pima County’s new cases per 100,000 population at 24.6, and our 7 day moving average for new cases was 257. We were in the yellow risk level. You can see in the graphic that both of those numbers have increased a bit this week. Evidently just enough to move us back to red.
In Arizona on a statewide basis we moved from 220 new cases on a 7 day moving average down to 214. Our cases per 100,000 dipped from 30 down to 29. So Pima County moving to red is not consistent with the 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:
COVID has killed nearly 21,000 Arizonans, and over 2,700 people in Pima County. I remember back to the first state map I showed. The number of cases in Pima County was 42. Who knew?
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.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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