A Message From Steve K...11/29/21

Afghan Donations - and Others 

The donation pipeline is going very well, with 100% thanks to the wonderful community members who have stepped up and taken part in providing for our new guests. Right now, there are between 150 and 175 Afghan refugees in Tucson. That’s about 30% of what we expected. Things can always change.  

We at the Ward 6 office continue to be touched by the amazing generosity so many people have shown. It has, in some cases, outpaced the release of the refugees into the community. That’s true of clothing, and with the majority of families still stuck in hotels, it’s also true of bedding. So for a while, those two groups of items we’ll be sharing with a couple of different groups until the Afghans reach permanent housing. 

I’m in touch with Primavera, St. Marks, and Catholic Community Services. Between those groups, we’ll be sharing some of the clothes and bedding. They serve local homeless populations, people living in shelters, and the Central American migrant population out at the Alita's Center. Yes, Muslim Community Center of Tucson (MCCT) is still coming by weekly to pick up those and other items specifically for the Afghans. But with the chilly weather coming soon and the immediate need, it’s only fair I let donors know that groups in addition to the Afghans will be benefitting from those items. 

Kids toys, hygiene products – all will continue to go directly to MCCT for the Afghans. Household goods will continue to be split between MCCT and Habitat. In each case, they will benefit the Afghan refugees. And for the remainder of the year, our food donations are going to the Community Food Bank. Each of the refugee resettlement groups works with CFB, so some portion of the food brought here to the Ward office will also go to the refugees. And it will be shared among our wider community, helping people in need during this holiday season. 

The furniture hotline with Habitat for Humanity is working well. That donation hotline is 230.5323. They can come to your home and pick up furniture you’ve got to donate. It’ll end up at HabiStore, and if sold to a non-Afghan family, ½ of the sale price will go into a fund that’s earmarked for the refugees. I’ve worked out an arrangement with the resettlement agencies, so they’re aware of the fund.  

We at the Ward 6 office continue to be grateful to the team at the Muslim Community Center of Tucson for their partnership in this important relief effort. They’re here weekly filling trucks, taking the donations either back to their facility or directly to the hotel the Afghan refugees are staying at. So your donations have a direct pipeline to those in need. If you’d like to simply donate financially, checks should be made out to the Muslim Community Center of Tucson. I pass those along to their staff each time they come by for the donation pick-ups. 

UA COVID Study 

If you follow this newsletter, you may remember Maiya Block. She’s in the UA College of Public Health. Maiya won our laptop in a survey contest we held early in the year. By coincidence, she and her team were running online seminars, the goal of which was to understand peoples’ reluctance to vaccines and hopefully get them over whatever hump that was. Maiya and her group is now conducting 2 new studies. Each is geared to learning the effectiveness of the vaccines. 

One group being recruited includes health care workers, front-line workers, and first responders. To be eligible for this study, you cannot have had a COVID vaccine. They’ll be doing weekly testing and surveillance with the goal of learning how long the built-in immunity from having had COVID lasts, and if (when) you are re-infected, how that experience differs from the first bout. The flyer below has all of the information on how to sign up. 

As has been true throughout this episode, police, fire, and 911 continue to be the groups who are most resistant to getting a vaccination. Among the rest of the city, we’re at 98% *compliance*. The asterisk is intentional. There are still significant numbers of employees who have claimed either a medical or religious exemption or accommodation. That group of 380 will be subject to extra measures we’ll have to implement in order to assure their co-workers a safe working environment and the public a safe encounter with them out in the field. 

Until now, I’ve been keeping any mention of new variant strains to the last section of the newsletter. This past week there was a development that caused me to bring it up front. This is the Greek alphabet letter Omicron. 

Even our own roughly 60% Pima County fully vaccinated rate is resulting in a new surge. Think of what those nations with virtually no vaccines have coming. This is apparently nowhere near ended. 

A few weeks ago, there were roughly 200 cases of the O variant in South Africa. Last week they had over 2,400. It has spread to several other southern African nations. Over the weekend, a travel ban was implemented by the 27 nation European Union. The virus mutates when it finds unprotected hosts. Delta is a variant of the original COVID-19. It is now dominant in the U.S. and most of the world. This new O variant is said to have at least 30 mutations in the Coronaviruses’ spike protein. It is unclear how that will affect our vaccines’ ability to protect against it. Lawrence Young is a virologist at the University of Warwick. He’s studying O and is quoted as saying it’s ‘the most heavily mutated version of the virus we’ve seen.’    

More to come on this – but I’m hoping not much more. It won’t be at the back end of the newsletter any longer until we know the significance of this mutation. And to be clear, this is the result of a failure to vaccinate and stop the virus in its tracks. And it’s no mistake I share this on the heels of the city employee update. 

COVID Home Tests 

With the holidays now on us, interest in home rapid tests is growing. They’re not free, but if you’re about to visit a loved one who is vulnerable to infections, it’s at least something worth keeping in mind. 

Rapid tests are different from the PCR tests you take in a doctor’s office. Those identify whether you have any amount of the COVID virus. That test can sometimes come back positive if you had the virus weeks earlier. In that case, it’s unlikely you’re still infectious. The rapid tests are antigen tests. They’re designed to let you know if you are infectious at the time you take it. These tests are available at both Walgreens and CVS. You should probably google them to be sure they have some in stock. 

Like any test, these aren’t perfect. Read and follow the instructions, so you’re not guilty of ‘operator error’. Dr. Michael Mina is an epidemiologist from Harvard. He says that antigen tests typically identify 98% of infectious cases. If you get a positive result, try to confirm it with a PCR test at your doctor’s office – or with a group like Rescue Me Wellness locally. Or try the antigen test with a different brand, and if it comes back negative, he says you’re probably ok going with that 2nd result. A confirming positive means that you take it seriously, quarantine yourself until you can get to the doctor. And keep in mind, antigen tests are only a snapshot in time. You can come into contact with an infected person during your visit to grandma’s house and be infectious yourself within days. 

Flu Shots 

This map is an update on how the flu season is spreading throughout the country. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the CDC didn’t update the count last week. So while you’ve seen this map in last week’s newsletter, given that there were lots of people gathered together, keep it in mind. I’ll see if they provide an update this week. 

Flu shots are available at most local drug stores. They’re certainly worth considering. They’re free and with so many people now going into stores and other events like COVID wasn’t an issue, expect this season to be a twindemic of the two. Why might that be a problem? 

As of last week, nearly 30% of our local ICU beds were in use by COVID patients. In Pima County, there were only 11 ICU beds available. That’s in all of Pima County, not just at your closest hospital. We have not seen COVID impacts on the health care system this extreme since February. The county positivity rate is 16%. The goal is 5%. Over 95% of COVID fatalities are among the unvaccinated. Even for those who claim some religious accommodation. 

Of the 380 city workers who have claimed a religious accommodation or medical exemption, 275 are from our public safety units. 

Experience from other jurisdictions? In San Francisco County, they’re 76% fully vaccinated, and they have an indoor mask mandate. Only 4 p/100,000 are hospitalized. In LA County, they’re 64% fully vaccinated, have an indoor mask mandate, and only 7 p/100,000 are hospitalized. In Fresno County, they’re 54% fully vaccinated, do not have mask or vaccination requirements, and 31 p/100,000 are hospitalized for COVID. 

One day ahead of the city worker December 1st deadline for vaccinating, we’re hosting a drive-through vaccination event in the parking lot at Hi Corbett Field. It’ll run from 6:30 am until 9 am. I would encourage those who have submitted for an accommodation to take advantage of this. Those accommodations may not be long-lasting, and even during the interim period, there will be testing and masking requirements. Better just to join hundreds of millions of others and follow the science. 

Where:     Hi Corbett parking lot, 700 S. Randolph Way 

When:      Tuesday, November 30 

Time:       6:30 - 9 a.m. 

You do not need to make an appointment. 

The national counts continued on the upswing ahead of last week’s Thanksgiving get-togethers. It looks eerily like last year, despite the availability of vaccines. Now we might have yet another new strain to be concerned with. 

Our Pima County vaccination rates stayed at 61% last week. That’s for fully vaccinated people. The fact that 39% of our residents are not fully vaccinated places the entire remaining population at risk. And the COVID escalation demonstrates that science sets those rules. Arizona dropped to #24 nationally at 54.42% fully vaccinated.  

Arizona is now one of the national hot spots for COVID. Across the country, there has been a 20% increase in cases over the past 14 days. In Arizona, we’ve seen a 15% increase in cases but a 23% increase in hospitalizations. This map identifies current national hot spots. 

These are our past 3 month totals: 

• August – 6,571 new cases 
• September – 7,198 new cases 
• October – 8,464 new cases 

So far in November, we have had 14,238 new cases of COVID. That’s a 3,000 case increase over November 2020 when things were considered to be out of control. The availability of vaccines is one difference. Now Omicron is another. 

Here’s this week’s national risk level map. Not only is New Mexico the national hot spot for the flu, nearly that entire state is also in the ‘extremely high risk’ category for COVID. The same is true for Arizona. If you’re planning on holiday travel, please keep this map in mind.  

The Pima County health department continues to do what it can to make vaccines available. Here are your options for the mobile clinics this week. They’re still free, and no appointment is needed.  

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.  

TEP Transmission Lines 

We held an executive session last week to discuss the ongoing TEP Transmission line project. This is the project in which TEP designated the Kino-Campbell gateway corridor as their planned route. If implemented, we’d end up with this sort of aesthetic brought into the midtown area. 

Note the comment made in the lower right - “Simulated condition showing existing distribution removed within 5 years (when possible).” We don’t have a commitment to see any of the distribution lines removed. And if they are, it won’t happen for up to 5 years. It’s one of many pieces of this that’ll be negotiated. 

Other areas are already more industrial, and the construction impact may be such that we might reach a reasonable accommodation and allow some over grounding. This is one example I pulled from the TEP website. 

The motion I made was a bit obscure. We can’t come out of executive session and just give all the legal advice and back and forth we had with the city attorney. That’s the “proceed as discussed in executive session” part of the motion. The other part is to begin stakeholder outreach and to explore where we might entertain through a public process some relief from the existing undergrounding requirements. That process is called a special exception. 

Special exception is where a developer engages the public, the zoning examiner, and finally, the M&C asking for relief from certain zoning requirements. In this case, it’s TEP asking for relief from the requirement that along every scenic and gateway corridor, they underground all utilities. It’s certainly a much different conversation than what many of you experienced when it was TEP telling us where they’d put the new lines and that the Arizona Corporation Commission would make the final decision. Now the ACC case will be pushed back to allow this special exception outreach to take place. More on that outreach process soon. 

If you’d like to look at the whole Kino-Campbell corridor simulations, you can find them at this link: https://www.tep.com/doc/Kino-DMP-Final-Visual-Simulation-Exhibit.pdf  

Holiday Zoo Lights 

Last week I wrote about the holiday lights and activities going on downtown. There’s more of that happening at the Reid Park Zoo. 

For me, it’s hard to believe we’re into December, but this week we will be. And on December 3rd, Zoo Lights begins. It’ll run every night from 6 pm until 8 pm through the end of the month, with a couple of evenings off over Christmas. 

Santa will be there from the 5th through the 23rd. They’ll have carousel rides, food goodies, holiday entertainment, and snow. The ice rink is downtown – snow is at the zoo. And, of course, thousands of lights showing off the animal displays. 

You can get tickets at the zoo website: on our website! 

And as is always true, zoo members get discounts to this and all other events throughout the year. 

EPA and PFAS 

I met with our water folks last week, and we talked about the testing and containment efforts we’re still taking on related to the water contaminant PFAS. Our water treatment plant out by the Air National Guard site is still seeing extremely high levels of the pollutant. The result will be Tucson Water continuing to spend millions of dollars on monitoring the levels and about every 6 months having to change out filters at the treatment plant. And that’s just to prevent serving tainted water at that one site. We face that challenge over by DM as well. 

I’ve written in the past about the slow pace the federal government is taking with regard to setting maximum contaminant standards and actually allocating funds to begin clean-up work. With the new administration, I was encouraged the pace would pick up. I have to say that not a whole lot has changed in regard to how quickly they’re moving on this. Our water department doesn’t expect a formal contamination level to be set for a couple of years. And last week, the EPA issued a report on how it plans to attack the national PFAS issue. I pulled this slide from their presentation showing how we’re simply continuing to study the issue, gather data and do nothing on the ground to address the clean-up. 

References to “GenX” and “PFBS” are simply identifying other contaminants in the PFAS family. The reference to ‘publish(ing) health advisories’ is interesting. We’ve had one from the EPA for several years. Talking about restricting PFAS discharges from industrial sources misses the point that the problem already exists due to discharges coming from military bases. Getting data on ‘fish tissue’ is nice, but even 3M had that over 4 decades ago.  

Tucson Water is into this whole PFAS issue for north of $50M. We’re keeping a tab, and at some point, the DOD needs to make us whole for our costs. And they need to fund treatment facilities and replenish the capacity we’ve lost from having to shut down 24 of our water wells. The good news is that there’s money allocated within the recently passed infrastructure bill earmarked for PFAS. It remains to be seen how much will flow our way and whether that money will be invested in fixing the problem or studying it. In the meantime, the plume continues to migrate towards our central well field. 

Differential Water Rates 

Last week the county Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to file a lawsuit against the city over our having voted to implement a differential water rate structure. That rate structure charges higher rates for water for customers who live in unincorporated Pima County than it does for city residents. I think they’ll lose the legal issue. And I’m hopeful the challenge to our rates will not have any significant impact on our ability to continue working together with the county on other important regional matters. 

Many other jurisdictions throughout the state have differential water rates in effect. Ours will charge 10% more for water used in our lowest tier, increasing up in 10% increments to a top of 40% more for the very largest water users. I told KOLD’s Bud Foster that I have no sympathy for the people guzzling water in the top tier. Reducing their use by whatever legal means will serve the region well for the long term. As for the lower-end users, if they save a couple of Ccfs of use per month, they’re ahead of the rate increase. That’s how minimal the cost being imposed will be. 

The county has challenged the methodology used in our Cost of Service analysis. And they claim it’s simply discriminatory for us to charge people who live in unincorporated areas more than people who live in a city or town. The reality is that we have the right by law to establish differential rates by policy. We don’t need to justify them through an actual cost of service. But our COS study validated that the modest rates we put into place fall within the range of being defensible. Save a little water, and you’ll save the cost of the increase. 

The mayor, Paul Cunningham, and I joined in a press release following the Supervisors’ vote. Here are those comments: 

Mayor Regina Romero:  

“Today’s vote by the Board of Supervisors lacks any legal basis, is purely symbolic, and sets a dangerous precedent. The courts have affirmed the legality of differential water rates, and water utilities throughout the state already have them in place.”  

“It is incumbent upon our elected leaders to be strong stewards of our precious water resources, especially as we face the likelihood of a Tier 2 shortage at Lake Mead. I thank Supervisor Grijalva and Supervisor Heinz for their leadership and for recognizing that this lawsuit is futile.”  

“The independent cost-of-service study clearly demonstrates that it costs up to 26% more to serve water to customers in unincorporated Pima County, meaning that Tucson residents are currently subsidizing the cost of water delivery to them. The County’s campaign to de-legitimize the third-party cost-of-service study - which was conducted by the same consultant the County uses to set its wastewater rates - is not based in facts. The County cannot simply reject this study because it did not produce the results they were hoping for.”  

Ward 2 Councilmember Paul Cunningham:  

"This was always a possibility. They are wasting public resources for a lawsuit that will ultimately have no merit. I hope legal fees are recoverable in this case.”  

Ward 6 Councilmember Steve Kozachik:  

"We implemented differential rates based on solid legal advice from our attorneys. The courts will sort this out, and in the meantime, it's important that the public see this issue will not drive a wedge between the city and the county on the many other important issues we need to collaborate on. If county residents wish to avoid paying the increased rate, they can do so by simply saving 1-2 Ccf in water use each month - then we all win." 

This is the top 4 states from this week. Same states, but Minnesota went from #4 up to #2. All of them have significant case counts and hospitalization counts. 

You can find the UA data at this site: https://covid19.arizona.edu/dashboard.   

I’ll keep my own weekly count going. This is what we experienced in October.  

• Week of 10/4 - 1,964 new cases 
• Week of 10/11 - 1,521 new cases 
• Week of 10/18 - 2,233 new cases 
• Week of 10/25 - 2,746 new cases

Last week the significant spread of this virus continued. 

• Week of 11/1 - 2,856 new cases 
• Week of 11/8 - 3,597 new cases 
• Week of 11/15 - 4,353 new cases 
• Week of 11/22 - 3,432 new cases 

And reminding you, during the first week in June, we had 130 new cases.  

Harvard Global Health Institute   

I’ve been using this spot to write about the new Delta Plus variant. It’s still at about 10% of the new U.K. cases. And it’s now passé compared to Omicron. Scroll back to the top if you’ve forgotten. It’s our new variant of concern.   

Comparing the risk level maps from week to week was, at one point, a fairly promising exercise. Now it’s a lot of red, week after week. The same is true this time around. With the holidays ahead, that condition isn’t going to end soon. As I did above, I’d urge you to check the local conditions if you’re flying out for the holidays. And even if you’ve been vaccinated, think of a rapid test to be sure you haven’t come into contact with someone who was less proactive than you. 

If you go to an athletic or cultural event, please ignore their ‘suggested’ rules and set the example. Wear a mask. Even if you don’t believe in COVID, certainly you’re a flu and cold believer. Every health issue that is common during the chilly months is with us now. There are easy ways to mitigate your risk. 

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/   

Here’s this week’s statewide COVID map. We now have a vaccine. If you’re one of the vast majority of city workers who understand the severity of these data and have gotten your vaccine, thank you. If you’re in the minority who would rather fight the data and science, that’s an employment decision you’re making on your own.