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Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page. | 
 Date: 04/18/2022
Topics in This Issue:
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Humanizing the Homeless
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TEP Distribution Lines
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Refugees
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Controlled Homeless Camps
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Plastic Block Project
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Prop 411
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PFAS
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Parks and Recreation Reopening
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Meerkat Babies
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Agave Heritage Festival
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COVID Vaccines
Humanizing the Homeless
This is Ann. She's 43 years old and was born in Columbus, Ohio. Ann had what by all accounts was a 'normal' upbringing, finishing high school and beginning college at the University of Houston. She studied Biology in hopes of becoming a doctor.
Ann's mom and sister moved from Ohio to Texas during a break up of her parents' marriage. She worked in a variety of positions paying for her schooling. One involved running a bar and restaurant. She continued on and off in that field for the 20 years she lived in Texas. In around 2000 Ann left school and moved to Colorado to help out a friend. It was there she met her now ex-husband. They moved to Charleston, South Carolina and lived there for 11 years working in the food service and bar field. There were no homeless issues. In 2014 they returned to Texas to help her aging parents, visited Tucson on a vacation and moved here to stay in 2016. Once again, she worked in the food service/lounge industry.
After a couple of years Ann met a 'new guy' and broke up with her husband. The new partner was homeless at the time, but Ann didn't feel that would be a long-term condition and so she joined him on the street. That was in 2019. It's still their condition. They spent time in a tent by the Rillito for a few weeks, and then moved out to a large encampment on Golf Links. It was there they've been living for the past 3 years.
To complicate matters, Ann got pregnant - a surprise at age 43 - and because of her homeless status Child Protective Services took custody of the boy after he was born. That clearly breaks her heart and is one huge motivation for her to get housed. The largest challenge to that is the sky-high rents we’re seeing. Even with her food service employment, that's not enough to cover the rent increases people are experiencing. She enjoys the 'freedom' of living outdoors, 'but nothing else.' She's vulnerable as a woman living homeless and seeing the way homeless people are treated "is appalling." Within the camps the unhoused watch out for one another, and the older more seasoned homeless watch out for the younger ones, trying to get them to understand that it isn't a good place to be. Ann is joining in trying to send that message, as well as sending the message to the wider community that 'we're people too - good people - and that everyone has a story, and none of them want to be in this condition.'
Since I’ve started doing these bios on homeless some of you have shared your own experiences. Here’s one that was sent to me this past week:
Jeff, funny little fella, teeth rotten down to his gums. He smelled like a dirty cat box. Jeff was an educated man, he had a Masters degree in Business Administration. Crazy huh?
He went to the library every day and read the newspaper. They had movies on Weds and he never missed them. The librarians knew Jeff and knew he was a sweet soul so he was never “asked to leave”. Every single time I saw Jeff I hugged him, a big sincere hug. He said he looked forward to the hugs more than anything. Because we all know the homeless are the “unclean”. He told me he was in the streets because he “went crazy” one day and just left his old life.
I’ll keep sharing these for a while. Many of you have written notes of appreciation.
TEP Distribution Lines
If you drive down east Grant Rd right now, this is what you’ll see. Nice skyline visuals brought to you by TEP. In fairness, those poles are also delivering power to the residential and commercial customers in the area, and to TMC. So, the dynamics are not wholly different than what we’re addressing on Campbell with the DeMoss-Petrie transmission line project. What we don’t want as a result is this kind of visual blight.
Last week TEP hosted an open house webinar in which they took public input on their proposed transmission line project. I’ve written about it for going on a year. While they continue their public outreach another process is happening on a parallel path.
TEP has requested to go overground with new transmission lines planned for the Kino-Campbell corridor. That’s a named gateway corridor and by city ordinance any new utilities are to be placed underground. TEP has proposed overgrounding, and the current conversation is identifying a process by which they request a variance. Last week I shared about the current variance process they already have available – the Board of Adjustment. What we’re considering is a much more public process. It’s beginning with a public hearing at the Planning Commission.
Why even offer them a new variance option? One reason is the Boad of Adjustment has minimal public input, a very high rate of approvals, and appeals only to Superior Court. Also, because under state law they could turn to the Arizona Corporation Commission and take the position that the city is making their project unfeasible and let the ACC make a decision. That effectively takes the public out of the discussion – not a result I’m going to support at any time. So, the Planning Commission is following up on M&C’s direction to consider what’s called a Special Exception process.
Under Special Exception TEP would need to begin a variance request with a neighborhood meeting, follow that with a zoning examiner public hearing and end with another public hearing at M&C. What’s being considered at the Planning Commission is identifying criteria TEP would need to meet in order to request and/or be granted a variance. Their hope is to get the process established so they can begin taking a look at segments for requesting a variance. The PC public hearing will resume on May 4th at 6pm. You can sign into the upcoming Planning Commission meeting by going to this link: https://www.tucsonaz.gov/clerks/boards?board=38
Refugees
With the continuing Ukrainian invasion happening, one concern I’ve expressed is the plight of Afghanistan being pushed onto the back burner. The reality is Taliban continue to torture and murder those who were left behind when the U.S. and allies evacuated.
Last week I made contact with a former English teacher who worked in Kabul. His school was bombed by Taliban, resulting in the death of nearly 400 students and staff. He agreed to help me keep this issue on peoples’ mind and last week Hannah Tiede from KOLD ran a very good story using his comments. Here’s a link to her piece:
These are pictures Amin sent to me showing activities that are going on right now in Afghanistan. The Taliban are shown in the first picture showing off their arms. That showing of force is common.
This picture is of some women out in public protesting, trying to regain the rights lost when Taliban took control. Their signs in Arabic read “We - women want our Islamic rights from Taliban.” I’ll share the comments Amin wrote to me expressing his thoughts on the protest:
"That's because in Islam, women has a lot of rights, but Taliban is a radical group under the name of Islam. One very important and obvious thing in Islam is that that learning education is must for every woman and man. All Muslims around the world acknowledge that. Therefore, the women on the street are protesting their rights."
Those women are placing their lives in danger by both protesting Taliban rules, and by being out in public without being accompanied by a man. Here’s another email I received last week from a person who is in Afghanistan. She lays out the daily threats, including women being under particular threat. I’m sharing it verbatim:
Thank you for your sympathy with us and reguler cantact. When you send our emails to city council man It shows your good felling with us.
As you have asked the latest satuation in Afghanistan I will write as follows...
Unfortunatly our days are going darkening day by day.
- Our country's king (taliban leader Haibatullah ) has missing it looks like duplicated becouse he was killed three years ago but still giving ordenance we do not know who sign it.
- our ministers are hiding there faces becouse they are famous terorists are afraid to be attacked.
- The interior minister made a big official welcoming ceremony for suicide bomber's families in inter contenintal hotel in Kabul.
- Taliban have opened suicide attackers unites in every province millitary systems.
- Terrorists are comming from all over the world opening training camps against many countries in Afghanistan incloding Al Qaieda & ISIS ( Da esh).
- Taliban beat and humiliate people just becouse of shaving and triming their beards.
- They beat women for comming out from home with out male .
- Girls schools are still closed with no reasons in all the country and wasting thier time .
- Taliban are the enimies of women even they stoped women from going to mosqes for worship.
- more then four million people lost there jobs in govt & privete sector in the last seven mounths so there is much hunger in the country.
- Goerrilla war have started in different provinces agaist Taljban and increasing day by day but taliban donot allow media to give reports.
- More then five hundred media net works televisions , radios , news papers and online news chinnals have been closed since taliban have come.
Afghanistan is under control of Pakistani terrorists commiting crimes against the people and all the world is looking to it. We are lossing ever thing .
I share these emails in an effort to keep the issue of Afghanistan in the public eye. A counterpart of mine over in Scotland shares the same challenge. Last weekend he and I penned and co-signed a statement. Here it is:
We are no longer actively soliciting donations for refugees. That could change when the southern border is reopened on May 23rd with the lifting of Title 42 – the COVID-related ban on allowing asylum seekers into the U.S. Thank you for all you’ve done in providing donations. Many families have benefited and have expressed their gratitude. Keep an eye on the newsletter as this is a very fluid topic and could change as international incidents evolve.
Controlled Homeless Camps
Sadly, there’s a camp within the homeless provider non-profit world that rejects any option to addressing needs than a roof over someone’s head. That camp also benefits largely from federal funding that supports that Housing First model. The homeless appear as a data point on a Profit and Loss statement. And that camp takes the position that the city created the homeless problem by not spending significant amounts of local dollars from our General Fund to buy up enough housing stock to house all of the homeless. In a recent exchange I had with one of those guys I said ‘let’s stipulate that Housing First is a great model, but our reality is we have thousands more homeless than we have rooms - and so what other than a controlled camp do you suggest?’ - his reply was that we created the problem by not buying up housing – and I’d add awarding contracts to manage it to his organization. I’ve spoken with several other non-profits who work in that field and their universal reaction was that he’s both naïve and is protecting a revenue source.
Seattle and L.A. are examples of cities that have spent untold millions on this issue. Here’s Seattle:
Here’s L.A.:
The issue of homelessness began to ramp up under Ronald Reagan. That’s nearly a half century of buildup. To the chagrin of the guy touting Housing First, local jurisdictions spending down their limited General Fund money buying housing stock is not going to solve the issue. It never has – it never will. That’s naïve.
But if housing is the model you’re funded by, it’s understandable you’d give that your focus.
One city that is creative enough to try other models – in addition to, not instead of Housing First is Eugene, Oregon. Even during COVID they approved an ordinance that created more safe and lawful places for people to sleep outdoors. They’ve allowed both ‘safe parking’ and ‘safe tent’ areas that are managed by social service providers. The managing entity is responsible for assuring rules are abided by, needs are being met and in coordination with the city they are keeping the places clean.
Here’s 310 Garfield St – it’s their first Safe Sleep site, opened in October, 2021.
310 Garfield St is on a 5-acre piece of land owned by the Lane County transit district. The site can house up to 60 vehicles or up to 40 tents. The St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County is managing it for the city. Note the access to clean water, restrooms and ease of providing services to people camped out – until housing is available. It reached capacity the day after it opened.
Here’s Everyone Village. It’s another Safe Sleep site approved by the Eugene city council.
You can see it’s more of a tiny home model. They max out at between 40 and 50 – a mix of vehicles and small shelters. They'll let in campers with pets, even offering pro bono veterinary services through their local Humane Society.
We’ve got some wonderfully compassionate non-profits operating in Tucson. Primavera, Sister Jose, La Frontera, to name a few. They each understand the reality we’re navigating and are all creative enough to embrace a model that doesn’t simply fit their funding stream. We at the Ward 6 office will continue reaching out to these groups, and to some of the supporters we know in the county to see if we can make some traction with this. In the meantime, we’ll squeeze the balloons, move people around and pretend we have enough beds to make Housing First the sole solution we should be chasing.
Plastic Block Project
As I shared last week, we now have several pallets of plastic block stored in a city warehouse. I’m going to keep you up to speed on the progress of this so if it continues to languish, you’ll be made aware. I’ve shared with both the vendor and city administration that the community is way ahead of us on this concept.
To refresh your memory – these are construction blocks made by heating up plastic in a machine called a ‘blocker.’ The heated plastic drops into a part of the machine that forms it into a big Lego. The block is kicked out and is ready for building. It has holes through which you run rebar to act as the stabilizer. After a year+ of advocating for this we now own enough blocks to build a pilot trash enclosure container out at El Pueblo Community Center. Why there? Dunno... We’re waiting on bids from A5 Contractors. Once those are in, we’ll begin the work. I’m told to watch for this in early May.
Tucson isn’t the only city ByFusion is working with. In fact, they’re way ahead of Tucson in Boise. There they’re finishing 2 pilo
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The Manitou Park project will be benches in their city park. You can see the ByFusion blocks being used as the support structure. All of what makes up the blocks is plastic that would have otherwise been recycled. We have benches in every park in the city. That should not require a structural engineer to design.
In the Boise Towne Square project, they’re building what could be a Tiny Home in one of the controlled camps I’m supporting. Here’s what they got done in one day:
And the finishes went on during day 2:
One partner they have in Boise that we still need to nurture is Republic Services. I’m in touch with the ByFusion folks and they’re coordinating contact with Republic corporate to help manage a local conversation. Another partner they’ve got is Ace Hardware.
These orange bags are sold at Ace specifically for the Boise project – people place all of their plastic in the orange bags, toss them in the blue barrels and it makes sorting at the recycle center easy. It’s another partnership we haven’t scratched the surface on locally. By actually selling the bags it ensures the people who are participating are serious and aren’t tossing contaminants into the process. And yes, the blocker machine can use the single use plastic bags that you see floating around the city.
While Boise has advanced to that point, Tucson has 1,900 blocks stored in a warehouse. Those blocks represent nearly 21 tons of unrecyclable plastic waste. Like I said – we're just scratching the surface of what’s possible with this program.
More to come – I'm working with ByFusion and one of our neighborhoods on what I’m hoping will be a fun project using some of these blocks. It’d be great to see Republic and Ace step up and join in this work as a way of further encouraging city administration to bump this up in our priorities.
Prop 411
Ballots for Prop 411 will be mailed out this week. This is the extension of the ½ cent sales tax we’re earmarking for road repair and road safety elements. The full ½ cent will yield about $75M annually for 10 years. Of that, about $60M will be dedicated to fixing residential streets, and the other $15M will go to road safety elements such as lighting, sidewalks, protected bike lanes, HAWK lights and that sort of thing.
This will be an all vote-by-mail election. However, on election day there will be walk-in voting centers scattered throughout the city. In order to count, your ballot must be dropped off at one of the centers by 7pm on election day – May 17th. And the last day to drop your ballot in the mail to ensure the city clerk receives and counts it is May 11th. Here’s a table showing where the walk-in vote centers will be located.
PFAS
The urgency of addressing the PFAS water contamination issue we’re facing notched up a bit last week. Sadly, we’re still seeing the Department of Defense contend they need another 3 years to study the issue. For reasons made clear by the Department of Interior last week, we don’t have that luxury.
This map shows how widespread the problem is. The red dots are wells we’ve tested and found the contamination is even above the very generous EPA standard of 70 parts per trillion. The Tucson Water standard is 18ppt. All of the wells with the red dots have been taken out of service, diminishing our well capacity. In addition, the orange dots are wells that have been put on emergency need only status, so they’re also not available in the normal course of operations.
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Note the concentrations are around both DM and Tucson International Airport. That’s not surprising given those are the locations the military used the firefighting foam that’s causing the contamination. PFAS is a chemical used in the fire retardant they used. It has been known for decades to cause various kinds of cancer. The fact that it has leached into our groundwater is the issue we’re fighting them about. We’re not alone – pretty much every city in the country that hosts a military base has this problem. It’s a multi-billion-dollar issue for the federal government.
We are serving the vast majority of our customers with Colorado River water, not our groundwater. We’re storing the groundwater for the day the Colorado is no longer available as our principal source. That day is coming sooner than any of us would like. The multi-decade drought we’re in is likely our new normal – at least for the foreseeable future it will be. That stresses the capacity of the Colorado.
Right now, the river supplies over 40 million people in 7 different states. We’re one of those. It’s fed by snowpack runoff from the Rockies. That supply has been compromised significantly during the drought. We are drawing more from the river than is being replaced. Think of your checking account – more spending than income, and soon you’ve got a problem.
The Central Arizona Project feeds Lake Powell. The Glen Canyon Dam holds back the water in Lake Powell and meters it out, providing hydroelectric power. When the elevation of Lake Powell reaches 3,490’ above sea level, the ability of the dam to produce power will be compromised. That power serves people who live in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Nebraska. Lake Powell is also the source for keeping Lake Mead supplied. Mead is our source for Colorado River water. I’ve shared images of Mead in the past showing how low its water level has gotten.
With all of that as a very basic description of why the levels on the Colorado are important, this is a part of a letter we received last week from Interior describing their immediate concerns about water levels feeding Glen Canyon Dam.
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In the coming weeks we will be meeting as M&C to discuss our response to this water crisis. Regardless of the steps we take to play our role in keeping the river at healthy levels, one thing is for certain. That is, our groundwater supply must be clean, and we don’t have 3 years for the DOD to continue studying the issue. There are some bills making their way through Congress that are intended to release funds to address PFAS contamination issues. Our pilot well is in operation just outside of DM, and another will be going in at the north side of Randolph Park. Treatment facilities don’t just fall out of the sky – they take time to design, fund, build and put into operation. This is one case where we need our congressional delegation to operate at something fundamentally faster than the speed of government, get us funding so we can start implementing some PFAS containment solutions.
Meanwhile, the litigation against 3M is still plodding along. The problem in the aquifer is moving much more quickly than either of the bureaucratic processes we’re relying on to help address this.
Parks and Recreation Reopening
Unless things do a quick about-face with regard to COVID, on May 2nd our Parks folks will be back to pre-pandemic operating programming, and pre-pandemic operating hours. Fingers crossed.
All of the P&R lobbies, game rooms, locker and shower areas will reopen. The current group size limits will be lifted and only the fire-code restrictions on maximum capacity will be in effect. In addition, the senior meal program will resume in partnership with Pima Council on Aging and Catholic Community Services. You can get the details on that program here: Senior Meal Program, The normal facility membership or daily fees will be required for all rec center access.
Meerkat Babies
If Reid Park is one of the parks you’re visiting, you can swing by the zoo and take a peek at the 2 new Meerkat pups. Check out this video of the 2 new arrivals cautiously checking out their habitat. Near the end of the 50 second clip you’ll see ‘mom’ standing watch, showing them that coming out into public view is ok. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mdPq0Sr4Q
The pups are a couple of months old and are slowly making their way out into view. You can see them and all the critters they’re taking care of at the zoo by visiting between 9am and 4pm any day. This link has their rates, membership information and hours: https://reidparkzoo.org/visit/hours/
Agave Heritage Festival
Another fun opportunity for you to get the whole family out and active is coming at Mission Garden. The Agave festival is actually a 3 day event that includes demonstrations on how to build your own roasting pit, tasting opportunities, educational talks on Agave, and entertainment. You can use this link to get the days, times and descriptions of what to expect on each of the festival days: https://www.missiongarden.org/events. This flyer has the general description of the festival events. Sunday, May 1st also includes a Mission Garden fund raiser tied with the festival. Lots coming out at Mission Garden – all volunteer driven so thank them for their dedication when you visit.
COVID Vaccines
With all the good news about upcoming parks reopening and community events, the reality is COVID is increasing once again. So far the numbers are not reflecting a surge in hospital admissions, but Arizona has lagged the east coast throughout COVID, so let’s not start counting Easter chickens quite yet.
This graphic is for the nationwide COVID increase. It’s being driven by the new sub variant BA.2. There also appears to be another offshoot of that one they’re calling BA.2.12.1. Both stem from Omicron and both are more highly contagious than Omicron is.
This graphic shows how it’s the northeast that is right now seeing the arrival of these 2 variants. In Philadelphia they’ve reinstated their indoor mask mandate. Some east coast universities have done so as well. Those include Georgetown and American University in the D.C. area, and Columbia in New York. Based on his affinity for the Ducey approach to COVID, don’t expect UA president Robbins to follow suit unless things are already well out of control on and around campus.
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Britain and some other European countries have seen a recent surge in the BA.2 variant. That so far has not resulted in increased fatalities. In China and other parts of Asia they’re also implementing shut downs, trying to avoid a repeat of what we’ve been through in the past 2+ years. As for the public reaction in the U.S., Katherine Wu wrote in The Atlantic that we may be looking at our first ‘so what?’ wave. She describes it as ‘a surge (the public) cares to neither measure nor respond to.’ Robert Wachter is the Chair of the medicine department at UCSF. His comment was ‘I’m guessing we’ll be performing a natural experiment – seeing what happens when a significant uptick in cases doesn’t lead to a significant change in behavior or policies.’ Please remember that there are immuno-compromised people and vulnerable seniors you may be affecting if you don’t continue to treat COVID seriously.
The COVID case counts are undercounts due to home testing. Here are the Pima County mobile testing sites you can use this week. You do not need an appointment.
Here are the Pima County health department vaccination sites for this week. You do not need an appointment:
You can get both the COVID and a flu vaccine at each of those sites. Right now the flu isn’t a big deal in Arizona. But it is in neighboring New Mexico, so give some serious thought to your flu shot.
In Arizona there were 2,777 COVID cases reported last week. That’s a significant drop from the 6,800 reported in the previous week. In Pima County we saw our case counts increase from 526 to 744. Those are still counts much lower than during our earlier surges so we’re in a pretty good place for right now. Here’s the statewide case count map that I run each week.
The Harvard Global Health risk map shows the increase in number of cases they’re experiencing in the northeast right now. Arizona is sort of a mixed bag, possibly due to reporting inconsistencies we’re seeing now, as opposed to earlier in the pandemic when most jurisdictions were pretty religious about sending in daily data – and people were not testing at home so those numbers were not recorded.
For the 3rd week in a row the Pima County case numbers have increased. We’re now back in the orange risk category with our daily cases on a 7 day average of over 100. Last week they were 75. But look at our neighbors in Pinal County – they're right back in the red risk category.
At least I’m closing with COVID and no longer opening the newsletter with it. That’s some progress. Please get tested if you either feel symptoms, or if you’ve been around someone who tested positive. It’s the only way we can expect the State Health Department to be able to keep accurate data to track the COVID spread.
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