A Message from Steve K...2/28/2022

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Date: 02/28/2022

Topics in This Issue:

Afghan Refugees
COVID and Apes
Prop 411
Senate Bill 1466
Climate Action
Ready, Set, Rec
Expungement
COVID Case Counts
Harvard Global Health Institute

Afghan Refugees

I stay in regular contact with people who are on the ground in Afghanistan. The goal of reuniting families continues to be a constant thread running through my days. If you follow this newsletter you know that the effort to get Judge Wakili’s wife and 2 year old daughter has involved congressional offices, Senator Kelly, the State Department and several NGO’s. Nothing has happened in relation to reunifying families.

What does continue to happen is threats, abductions and murders. This photo was provided to me by one of my Afghani contacts. It shows Taliban arriving at a home looking for a former U.S. ‘collaborator.’ They ransacked the house during the raid and failing to find the person they were after they abducted another family member instead. This stuff happens every day, and I’ve shared this and other communications I have had with State, trying to convince them that the assurances they’re receiving that all’s well over there are simply not true. Focus on Ukraine should not be at the expense of those we’ve left behind at the mercy of guys like those shown in the photo.

The Star had yet another AP story on Sunday that announced the reopening of a University in Kabul. It was another good news piece because both men and women were allowed to attend. Below I’ll share emails I’ve received that tell a wholly different story of life in Afghanistan. It’s more along the lines of what you see in the photo above. We’re doing what we can to keep the Afghan story in front of the media. Without that, it will get swept under the rug and thousands of lives will be lost. Here is a 5-minute story run by The World last week:

https://theworld.org/stories/2022-02-21/6-months-after-evacuation-thousands-afghan-families-are-waiting-reunite

I continue to be in contact with numerous others who have direct connections with people who are stuck in Afghanistan, and in surrounding countries. I’m going to share verbatim some of the emails I’ve received all in the past week – redacting names and any identifying indicators.

"As I answered your Questions it is impossible to discribe all the satuation in one email the satuation is more terrible than what the media say. Taliban are very wild they attack the houses, tarture and kill the people .they revenge those who were working with foriegners even two days ago taliban killed one of our nighbers by name of shamsudin Khanzada on Fabruary 19 and captured two more in kandahar provice beside that they shout and killed three women the same day if you need there pictures I can send. Women jobs, girls school & universities are still closed. Taliban are darkening the faces of people and showing in bazar for humeliation as punishment. Media is not allowed to give reports.

This is the real satuation.

In this satuation I am hidding for from my town although I am afraid that they will find me. If you please do something for us to leave Afghanistan it will save our lives. Even if they evacuate us to the camps befour completing the prosess in a third country like Qater, UAE, Uganda or other it will save us from taliban.

I hope you fell our terrible and dangerous satuation and contact the imigration deportments to do something for us."

And this one:

"Threats:
1. We have recieved several verbal and calls death threats.
2. Taliban invaded my house in Spin boldak Kandahar and took out all goods with themselves
3. Taliban are continuesly searching me but i am hidden in my relatives home
4. I have been injured in a terrorist attak by Taliban in Kabul last year.

- what are the conditions like in afghanistan right now :every individual Talib is the boss of the suprem court.when someone tell them their flaws or weakness they try to kill him or hit him by guns. So it's very cruel and not afferdeble. This kind of act is against the huminity,mconstitution,islame and also internationl rules

- what is the hunger shortage people are facing: there are no jobs to do and Taliban has power and ignorance. They can't control the whole country and don't know the management more Afghans selling their kidneys or even their offspring to find food for themselves

-what is the medical situation or access to helath care: people in Afghanistan don't have enough money for buy bread from the other hand it need lots of money to treat a patient. Public hospitals are under the control of Taliban. They are not professional and day and night they are busy on their ignorance

-what is the situation of access to banking : someone don't have a job or Assets then what is the need for banks. It's means that banking is very weak. About 10 percent banks are even not available or they are paused

-what kind of attacks, threats or dangers are happening: those Afghans who did any kind of job in previous government or they worked with foreign institutes . When Taliban face with them then try to kill them - what kind of things have happened to you personally. Haqqani network a threat 24 hours to me. This network twice ambushed me.I can't live in my own house -what attacks, threats or dangers have happened to others: before those threats were not too much but since Taliban control our country threats are being increased. People who were faced 10 percent with security threats now they are face 90 percent

thank you, for your favor and kindness".

And finally this email:

"First of all I am sorry for being late, it's because of few reasons: first no electricity, no internet and I was also forawy from my place for some days, anyway once again thank you, you all; so much for helping and taking care of us.

Surely I will detail all and what ever you want from me I will report back to you fullfledge and proper.

1- responding to your first question, the candition in Afghanistan right now is so vague and unbearable. Our country is going to farther gloomy darkness, generally our management system, our economic, health, education, agrecultural, cultural all and all are exanimate and going to degeneration.

You may hear outside about our country from the mendicious politations some deceptive words and sentences for the people and country, but infact it's not at all like what they are saying! They are saying something to the world but doing totally opposite of that. Infact media in the country is paralysis it is completely controlled media, all government and private sectors organs, and departments are in the hand of Taliban they called themselves mujjahedin no one else has right to even interfere in the appearances, if you're not from their group your not even a human being in their sight of view.

Where there is no work no job no money no income no business no law for anything and the height of prices of everything is reaching to the pike.

So now someone can image how the life can be offered or bear....?

2- people are really very poor they cannot afford daily mail to their families, when a dollar is equal to 100afs, a kg gas is on 100afs, a litter petrol is on 90afs 24 kg flour is on 2800afs and so on, beside that someone cannot find 100afs in entire day works, and there is no work no business so certainly people are facing starvation and unbearable hunger for a piece of bread 🍞

3- the medical situation is also derived to zero specially governmental section is equal to none, because all able doctors leave the country from the other side government (Taliban) does not have any plan and money for health; and their irregardlees regarding health as well as to all other issues and needs.

People are really in a terrbile condition, they cannot offered to carry their patients to neighbors countries and nor can they treat their patients here in the country properly...

4- Banking: worse banking access and situation in the world, when you are taking some money 💰 from bank you have to wait in line may be days or hours and hours, then you can take out only four-handred USD per period ....

5- Killings, robbery, targeted killings politically killings everytime we are the evedince of all the above mentioned the good example is just feve days back at night time the killing of Eng. Mohamed khan's who is a well-known political figure wife, son and nephew.

Every night they kills and takeout their targeted people from thire homes.

6- Dispossing from all my rights, and I am living in home like in prisoner, and possibly sometimes I will be face to their accountiblity.

7- A Dr. Who is known in the street eyes doctor his young daughter was disappeared at the early evening at the end of the night her corpse was found Infront of the house gate in a bag she was ruthlessly sloghter. And we have this kind of cases frequently.

This was a small image of social and political situation of our country let me present you the situation of SIV visas, to be honest the SIV visa is openly sales in market ten to fifteen thousands USD

The current situation of our country Afghanistan is insociable, insecure and lawless. It has no lawful systematic government, it has a friendship power in which every one of friends group can do anything. Anytime anywhere can anything be happens to us."

You get the picture. Yes, it’s much different than the AP stories we see in the local print media – we left behind thousands of people who are now at the mercy of the terrorists we helped to install about 20 years ago, and who are now killing the people who defended our work there. If you’d like to listen to some BBC podcasts that describe the situation from a series of angles, this link will take you to them. It’s upsetting, but evidently I haven’t convinced the right person at the State Department yet that their delays have been deadly.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w13xtvl0

Donations continue to be welcome. No clothes please – we have plenty. Household goods, sewing machines, pressure cookers, plates, pots and pans. The reason laptops are important is Taliban somehow tracks cell phone numbers so the people have to keep changing them for security reasons. Laptops are an effective way for people in Tucson to communicate with their family back home. And they of course help the refugee population do online studying, learning English and other skills so they can get themselves established here.

One quick note – people have asked if we’re accepting donations for Ukrainian refugees. Not at this time. We have not received any refugees from Ukraine, and have not received word about when or if we will. Right now most appear to be finding refuge in friendly Eastern European countries. Let’s hope that conflict ends quickly and they can all return home safely.

COVID and the Apes

A couple of weeks ago I had a section on how deer in the Midwest were testing positive for COVID. This week the animal/human/COVID connection is a bit closer to home. Our primate cousins in the gorilla world are helping to demonstrate the value of masking. No, not by wearing them, but by showing masks limit transmission of the virus.

This isn’t news for most of us, but protests over mask mandates have been going on for nearly a year, and they continue as we wind down the COVID spread. These guys are proving to be helpful in teaching those who would perhaps otherwise interfere with school board meetings over the issue of masks.

Thomas Gillespie is a disease ecologist at Emory University. He does a lot of work with primates and was involved with research into how COVID might spread to and from apes. They’re among our endangered species and since they’re susceptible to several human diseases, scientists were concerned.

One study took place in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. In March, 2020, just as COVID was beginning its ascent, the park implemented some strict precautions. Those included requiring tourists and researchers to mask up and to socially distance. The distancing would have come naturally for me – up close and personal with a gorilla isn’t something that’s on my bucket list. But the masking was interesting, and it was intended to minimize the transmission of respiratory diseases from humans to apes.

Since the policy went into effect, respiratory illnesses among the park’s gorillas has dropped from an average of 5.4 outbreaks down to 1.6. And there has been no sign of COVID among the gorillas. It’s a best practices thing that works with our relatives in the primate world. It’s sad to see fights on airplanes and at school board meetings over something the most basic of science experiments has demonstrated.

This bumper sticker developed by friend Larry speaks to the frustration many of us on the science side feel.

If you’d like to review the full gorilla report use this link: who reported the findings

Prop 411

On Wednesday we voted to approve the truth in taxation language which will officially place Proposition 411 on the May 17th ballot. This will be a vote-by-mail election. Ballots will be mailed out on April 20th. There will be ballot drop-off sites scattered throughout the city in each ward. Locations will be posted on the City Clerk website – go to www.tucsonaz.gov/clerks and click on ‘elections’ for that information.

Prop 411 is the extension of the current ½ cent sales tax that’s now going to road repair and public safety capital needs. The extended version will be for 10 years, it will allocate 80% of the funds to residential road repair and 20% to public safety roadway amenities such as lighting, HAWK lights, sidewalks and those sorts of things. The goal is to make our roadways safe for all modes of travel.

If after having received your ballot you have questions, the clerk’s office will be open normal business hours at 800 E. 12th Street. That’s from April 21st through election day. Here’s the question you’ll see on the ballot:

This is a really important ballot issue, and on May 17th it’ll be the only question on the ballot. Please do your homework, call us at the Ward 6 office if you have any questions – and vote.

Senate Bill 1446

In recent newsletters I’ve shared some of the more zany pieces of legislation they’re crafting up in Phoenix. The bill that would force 8 single family units onto all residentially zoned property died in committee. But it could come back before session ends, so we’re keeping an eye out for it.

Along that same line, last week the Arizona Senate considered a bill that would remove our ability to buy, build or rehabilitate any housing or housing-related facility. It would also remove our ability to spend public money in what they call ‘housing development areas.’ At a time when housing affordability is near the top of everybody’s mind, the state legislature is trying to eliminate our ability to participate in the market and offer affordable housing options to our residents.

The bill is held up right now, and nobody quite knows what the outcome will be. I’ve got the roster for both the House and Senate linked below. If this matters to you, please reach out to them and tell them how you feel about S1446.

AZ House of Representatives: https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/?body=H

AZ Senate: https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/?body=S

Climate Action

Last week we had an agenda item in which a new vendor was introduced. Buro Happold was selected through what I’m told was a competitive procurement process and awarded a contract for just over $200K. The award was made on January 18th. It’s a public document – here's the award information, including links to the contract and the pricing:

Effective Date: 1/18/2022 Contract Price

Also listed in the contract are local partners Living Streets Alliance and the UA. The total contract, including some ‘additional expenses’ they’ve listed is right at $400K. There are also some ‘optional expenses’ such as paying UA students to get involved, videography and web development. Since this was the first time I had been briefed on the item I don’t know if any of the ‘options’ were approved. They drive the cost up to about $500K. Our agreed-on budget for this is $250K.

Through a series of meetings, we’re told will take place with community members and city staff the Buro Happold team has a scope in their contract that culminates with this deliverable. “CAAP” is the acronym for Climate Action and Adaptation Plan:

"The Team will work with the City of Tucson to develop a CAAP that will serve as a strategic framework for measuring, planning, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and will evaluate and respond to the impacts that climate change has and will have on communities – particularly the most vulnerable. The Team will assist the city in developing a roadmap to direct local efforts to meet GHG emissions goals. The Team will develop strategies at three scales to enable the development of community action toolkits; those include large-scale projects, which will inform city action; community-wide programming, to be enacted by businesses and community organizations; and micro-level adaptation, to inform resident actions as well as education material."

In our upcoming budget talks, I suppose we’ll be asked to approve the additional funds for that project.

I’ve been asking for the city to kick off a glass reuse program for going on 2 years now. Due to your involvement, we have hundreds of tons of glass stacked up out at the landfill waiting for that program to begin. For over a year I’ve been pushing the city to begin a plastic reuse program. Only because I’ve been pestering city staff, just last week we finally solicited an invoice for a bit over $3K to buy some plastic blocks to build a pilot project showing the viability of the product. We have yet to move the needle on capturing methane at the landfill, cleaning it and reusing it as a fuel source – despite Cunningham and me raising the issue months ago. We’ve hired landscape specialists and yet seem to continue butchering more trees through contractor work than we’re planting. Our rainwater harvesting program was reviewed recently and identified as being unmonitored and unenforced. And the M&C just approved a development deal in which hundreds of saguaro will be bladed under. I’m all for us getting involved with actual climate-related work and have suggested these multiple approaches. Buro Happold will now begin their outreach work. The deliverable I have highlighted above is due this coming December.

I had asked twice for a preview of what last week’s agenda item was about. Each time I was told it would just be an update – a progress report on where we are in the climate action plan. I wasn’t the only council member who was surprised at the appearance of the BH team, and who has had to request more information on what we were seeing. I’ll be expecting a visit from them – as a ‘stakeholder.’ And we should not have to wait literally for years to see just a little progress on the very tangible climate-related initiatives such as those I’ve listed above.

Ready, Set, Rec

Thanks to Sierra Boyer for keeping us up to date on the Ready, Set, Rec van schedule. Here’s what to look forward to in Ward 6 this month.

And last week the RSR team made the rounds with the vans – and with goodies to share with each ward office. This is the 1-year anniversary of the program and we were happy to share in the celebration. Make a point to visit the van this month. Take the family – ages 3 months to 100 years. Everyone will have fun.

Expungement

We’ve co-hosted a couple of clinics here at the ward office aimed at helping people get low level pot convictions taken off their record. It’s one of the benefits that came with the passage of Proposition 207 that made possession of small amounts of pot for recreational use legal.

The Arizona Justice Project has received some state funding they’re using to assist people with clearing their records. You can find out more about AJP at this link: Arizona Justice Project If you or someone you know can benefit from this free service, call at the number shown on the flyer and the folks at the Justice Project will give you a hand.

COVID Case Counts

COVID continues on the decline in Pima County. That’s a good sign. Last week at the council meeting I urged that we not get out ahead of ourselves and reopen everything right now, assuming that COVID is a thing of the past. The experience Hong Kong is living through shows that we still need to be vigilant.

The latest wave of COVID infections in Hong Kong has led to the total number of cases in that city surpassing their total from the past 2 years. Their hospitals are over-stuffed, and their leadership is again looking into new control measures. This graph shows clearly what they’re going through.

They’re building new isolation facilities, requiring their more than 7 million residents to go through mandatory testing 3x per week, expanding their testing capacity to a million per day and are building a new large-scale hospital. Our good news is a current trend. We’ve been here before. And we’ve had our own resurgence. Let’s keep that in mind as we resume ‘normal.’

Our case counts continue their decline. Much of that is to the credit of those of you who have chosen to get vaccinated and boosted. Hovering around 2,000 new cases in the past week in normal times would not be good news – but given that it’s a part of a positive trend is encouraging.

Vaccinations are also declining. If you haven’t gotten one by now, you probably won’t. That’s the reality the rest of us are living with. And you’ll probably survive. Many of us just hope you don’t infect our immuno-compromised friends, or elderly relatives. Here’s the list of mobile vaccination clinics Pima County Health is offering this week. Note that some of them also offer flu shots. They’re free, but you should pre-register to cut down on the wait time.

You can use this link to get to the site:

https://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=669257

Here’s the trend since the first of the year up through last week. This might be the last week for this weekly count because the state Department of Health Services is going to 1x per week reporting. I’ll keep an eye on their site though to see if we can poach some useful data going forward.

Week of 12/27 - 4,229 new cases

Week of January 2nd - 10,433 new cases

Week of 1/10 - 15,472 new cases

Week of 1/17 - 18,308 new cases

Week of 1/24 - 13,735 new cases

Week of 1/31 - 8,634 new cases

Week of 2/6 - 4,749 new cases

Week of 2/13 - 2,761 new cases

Last week the state stopped their daily count on Saturday. So for the first 6 days of the week, they had reported 1,430 new cases. Based on how things have been going we can assume last week’s full count was therefore around 1,700. That’s still high enough to keep Pima County in the high-risk category.

Harvard Global Health Institute

Confirming the very positive national trend, this week's Harvard risk level map for the first time in months shows more orange levels than red. Last week Arizona was completely in red. Now that’s limited to Pima County and some of the eastern counties next to New Mexico.

While we’re still in the red risk category, the numbers dropped from 46 new daily cases per 100,000 and 487 on a 7-day average to what you see below. It continues to be good news, maybe especially for our health care workers.

And here’s my usual closing – the current Arizona COVID count by county. This was last updated on Saturday, 2/26 so it’s only 6 days from last week (I’ve been doing these counts from Sunday to Sunday.) Since this all began in March, 2020 Maricopa County has had over 1.2M cases and over 15,000 fatalities from COVID. We’ve suffered the loss of over 3,600 friends and relatives. We’ll never know how many of those could have been avoided if our vaccination rate was at full compliance, and people weren’t resisting wearing a mask to protect those around them from an airborne disease.

I’ll keep watching the state site to see what they do with respect to data reporting.

www.azdhs.gov.

Sincerely,

Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov

City of Tucson Resources

COVID-19 Updates: https://www.tucsonaz.gov/covid-19/covid-19-updates
I Want To... : https://www.tucsonaz.gov/i-want-to