Ahmad, Nilofar and Kawsar
Last December, judge Ahmad did my swearing in. You may recall this picture.
Ahmad was caught up in the Afghanistan evacuation. If you follow this newsletter or local media at all you know his background. He adjudicated cases against Taliban in support of the U.S. effort to build a stable democracy in Afghanistan. His wife and 2-year-old daughter didn’t make it out during the evacuation – they've been stuck in Turkey. The family has been separated for nearly 2 years. My goal – and that of my staff has been to fight for their reunification. I can tell you that since that day, Ahmad and I have been through more challenges with our broken immigration/resettlement system than anybody could imagine. But on Sunday this was the long-awaited result of lots of effort.
It was wonderful meeting Nilofar, spending time with little Kawsar and just sharing in the joy of them finally being together and out of harm’s way.
We were close to having Nilofar and Kawsar on a plane a couple of months ago. But the Turkish authorities pulled her aside as she was boarding and accused her of Visa fraud. I must interject here that up until that point one aide from Representative Grijalva’s office had been helpful in answering my questions. She has continued to be. But evidently the possibility of potential bad optics resulted in everyone else in our delegation walking away from the case. The fact is the family was defrauded. The perpetrator is now in a Turkish prison serving a 25-year sentence for human smuggling. My office continued advocating through the U.S. embassy and consulate in Turkey to get the charges removed and Nilofar’s documents returned. Ahmad secured an attorney in Turkey to also help. It was through the attorney’s efforts that finally last week the documents were returned, the case closed, and Nilofar was seemingly cleared to fly here.
Not so fast though. Throughout this mess the embassy personnel have kept telling me ‘These things take time.’ They counseled patience. We had to get Nilofar from Istanbul to Ankara for medical exams – that's 350+ miles. Remember, she had no travel documents because the Turkish police had taken them. Each trip to Ankara included the expense of hiring a private car. But our embassy folks wouldn’t let a physician in the Istanbul hospital do the exam – the largest U.S. hospital in the entire country. The only ‘panel physician’ they’d use was in Ankara. So, we put Nilofar and her 2-year-old through that costly inconvenience multiple times.
Two weeks ago, she finalized all the medical exams (costly) and we were able to get the paperwork to the embassy personnel. What had been ‘these things take time’ turned into ‘she needs to leave the country immediately.’ That message came to us on a Wednesday. Because of what had happened with the visa scam, we felt it was important that the attorney accompany her to the airport this time. We asked if we could book the flight the following Tuesday to accommodate the attorney’s availability. We asked the question twice and here’s the email exchange (no, you cannot speak to a state department employee.)
They need to leave immediately
Kirsten
And on the second attempt at requesting a couple of days to coordinate an international flight in which you’re leaving everything you own behind; this was the reply (I’m intentionally deleting the last names of the state department staffers.)
Hello -
I believe Kirstin already reached out to you and explained you should leave as soon as possible. Thank you.
Best regards,
Mary
Sincerely,
Immigrant Visa Unit
It falls under the umbrella of ‘we’re here from the government and we’re here to help.’
I reached out to Bon Voyage and asked what the quickest trip out they could find. The lady at Bon Voyage (Beta) showed more concern for the well-being of the family than was displayed by the majority of our congressional staff and the embassy personnel. A special thanks to Beta! We found a flight for Saturday morning. But when they tried booking it, Turkish Air wouldn’t accept my credit card. They tried 3 times and Chase bank thought someone was trying to scam my card, so they put a hold on it. We got that cleared, Bon Voyage tried again and again Turkish Air would not book the tickets. Ahmad had a friend who is here in Tucson also try – Turkish Air would not allow any of us to book the flights. I was concerned Turkey had placed Nilofar on some sort of no-fly list, so I suggested he get his attorney involved. He told her (attorney will call to talk to you) and within 15 minutes she was able to book the flight from Istanbul. To this moment nobody can explain why we couldn’t book it from the U.S., but she could do it from Turkey.
Ok, at this point she’s got a ticket, but still isn’t on the plane. Upon arriving at the airport (with the attorney along for support) Nilofar checked in and began to board when it was time. She was made to be the last one boarding, and when she approached, they closed the gate. The authorities questioned her visa, questioned her fingerprints – the Turkish authorities did everything they could to do, to prevent this reunification. Our embassy personnel were nowhere to be found to help. Had it not been for the attorney Ahmad had hired being there to argue (pay?) with the right people, the family would not be together today.
The effort to get this one family back together began 8 months ago. I’ve been in touch multiple times with state department staff in D.C., through Ahmad, embassy and consulate staff in Turkey, the USCIS, IRC, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, two congressional offices and one senator, Ahmad’s local pro-bono attorney (who by the way is equally frustrated with how messed up our system is,) the UNHCR, our D.C. team has advocated with state department contacts, we’ve had it in the local media, the Phoenix press and Time Magazine. This is one family – the family of a man who worked in direct support of our efforts, and who had his home and car bombed by Taliban, was shot by Taliban and who had to take his wife into neighboring Turkey because of death threats. Our resettlement system would have failed that family had it not been for hundreds of hours of work and finally the intervention of an attorney at the airport in Istanbul. Nobody who is involved with our refugee process should be proud of that reality.
But they’re home – together. And there are literally thousands more who are being murdered and tortured by Taliban every single day. The U.S. has no presence in Afghanistan now. I’ve told refugees here in Tucson that the only hope of saving their family members who are stuck in Afghanistan is to get them to a 3rd country and appear at a U.S. embassy. Getting them to the 3rd country means human smuggling, high cost and high risk. If they ever got to the embassy, well...you just read how effective that whole bureaucratic process is.
We at the Ward 6 office are over-joyed that Nilofar and Kawsar are finally here. And we grieve for the others who are still waiting on the system. My Pakistani friend whose daughter-in-law and grandson are stuck in Pakistan. He’s a U.S. citizen who cannot get his family out. My Afghanistan friend who flew military missions for us. His wife, daughter and two sons move from house to house daily to avoid being captured by Taliban. He wants to go back and sacrifice himself to save his family – but he can’t get there to do even that. And the dozens who email me from Kabul asking for help. I print some of their emails in this newsletter. None of that moves the bureaucratic needle in a way that is necessary to save lives.
Thanks to all of you who supported our work gathering donations for the refugees. Their needs continue to be great. Their trauma is a daily reality.
A note from Steve's staff:
As Steve's staff and friends, we want to thank him for the hundreds of hours of tireless work he has done to reunite Ahmad’s family. Without him, this would have never happened. We hope that our Federal Delegation and State Department will in the future work as hard to reunite the families that have been separated with the promise of being reunited in the future. Steve, you are our hero, and we share in the joy of the Ahmad’s family.
Hasanaat
Hasanaat is Arabic for good deeds. It’s also the name of a local organization whose focus is working with refugee youth and encouraging them to continue schooling. It’s common for refugee families to get to the U.S. and must rely on their young people to work to help make ends meet. The folks at Hasanaat connect with the refugee youth and help them chase a broader dream than a low wage unskilled position.
Hasanaat is looking for a volunteer who’s familiar with the local educational system lay of the land. They’re asking for a couple of hours each week during which the volunteer works directly with refugee high schoolers. The work consists of helping the students submit applications to Pima or the UA, filling out financial aid forms, JTED enrollment – anything school and progression related can be a part of this. And because of the way young people ‘communicate’ these days, the position could be up to 90% virtual.
The Hasanaat facility is located at 6061 E. Broadway. But if you’d like to check into the volunteer opportunities you should email first at info@hasanaat.org. You’re working with vulnerable youth and their personal information, so they’ll be doing a background check. We have hundreds of refugee young people in the community. Whatever time you can invest in helping them is great.
Plastic Blocks
The plastic reuse pilot is off and running – and in the spirit of ‘there’s one in every crowd’ one guy emailed me this 60 second clip from The Graduate. Just to make sure I understand the importance of plastics -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk
We appreciate the interest so many of you have expressed. There are literally hundreds of you coming by to drop off bottles, so I’m expecting many of those trips to the ward office will soon be double dips, some bottles, some plastic. Throughout the week we’ve gotten some great questions about what you can place in the plastic’s only roll off. The short answer – if it’s plastic, it’ll work. We want to avoid the water bottles, and other #1 and #2’s that Republic uses for their recycling, but all the non-recyclables belong in the roll off. I’ll likely toss in an instruction piece each week for a while – here's one for this week, listing the more challenging waste plastics that ARE compatible with our program:
- Co-mingled waste plastic, sorting is not required
- Rigid and flexible plastics
- Post-consumer hard-to-recycle and non-recyclables including #3 - #7. And any un-recyclable #1 - #2. Rinsed not clean, residual product is acceptable such as from kitchen, food, laundry soap containers, clear clamshell takeout containers.
- Enclosures such as caps, lids, metallic liners, pump, and spray dispensers.
- Flexible plastics and packaging including
- pallet shrink wrap,
- bags,
- straws,
- food packaging including candy and snack wrappers with metallize inside,
- multi-layer packaging such as toothpaste tubes and coffee bean bags,
- bubble wrap and bubble envelopes,
I believe with all of the best intentions; someone left this box fan and plastic buckets by the roll off last week to be used in the project. The buckets each have metal handles. Please remove anything that is not plastic. We cannot send metal to ByFusion or it counts as contamination. And the box fan has plastic blades, but pretty much everything else is metal. We’re not going to take the time to disassemble what’s dropped off.
 |
In addition to the instructional pieces, showing some of the creative uses we’ll put the blocks to makes this real for everyone taking part. Tanks Green Stuff is doing the baling of our plastics. They’re also already out in the community doing projects that involve their own home-baked mulch. These are some raised planter boxes they built out at the El Rio Community Garden. They’re also doing the same at some local schools. Every one of those raised planters is a perfect application for using ByBlocks. I had Tank and ByFusion on a call last week where we began that conversation.
But first, we need your plastic to make the blocks.
I’m going to circle back to the glass for a moment. We purchased the commercial scale crusher just about the time COVID shut down so there was a little bit of a pivot. To keep the glass, we’re accumulating headed to a good use, the city signed a deal with a vendor who’s crushing the glass, giving us 10% of what they crush, along with $5 per ton, and they’re using the rest out in the private sector – companies such as Dow Corning use silica sand in their manufacturing process. So, keep the bottles coming – they're being used.
This link takes you to a nice article about how crushed glass is being used to shore up the coastline in Louisiana. There are plenty of creative uses beyond concrete mixes, filling ruts in the alleys (someday it’ll rain for real and create some ruts,) and the wonderful counter tops and other items Anita makes through Bottle Rocket. So, we’ve got Anita and Tank – local entrepreneurs joining forces with our office to reuse what would otherwise simply be your waste products.
How sand made from crushed glass helps rebuild Louisiana's shrinking coast
https://twitter.com/i/events/1549430591472508928?s=11&t=ZLXQrtP3-r-Tf_7kwfSaZg
Ok, back to the plastic blocks. We have large plastic bags for you to use when collecting your home plastics. If you’re a dentist office, bag up your gloves and gallon jugs that your sanitizers come in. We can use it. If you’re a nursery, the plastic pots for plants and the crates your small plants sit in during shipment are useable. If you’re a fast-food place, we can use your old plastic utensils and plastic straws. It’s all stuff that cannot be recycled, and instead of sending it to the landfill, bring it to us.
Water Conservation
I write often about the water situation – and it is a situation – we're facing. The combination of new PFAS rules combined with the new direction from the Bureau of Reclamation on reducing the amount of water we take from the Colorado are driving us towards the new reality that our groundwater will be our lifeline sooner than we had thought even a few years ago. And therefore, it must be clean.
City residents do an excellent job with water conservation. This chart shows that our water use per capita per day has been decreasing steadily continuously since 2000. The challenge is that throughout that whole time we’ve also been in a drought. So, we must do more, and we have to do it now. The feds have said as much.
Lake Mead is our source of Colorado River water. The CAP meters it out to us from the Lake. Here’s what’s happening on Lake Mead today.
Last week I sent to the chair of the Citizen’s Water Advisory Committee, and to my representative on that committee a request that they consider some conservation measures and make recommendations to the M&C as soon as they can. I raised 2 measures, but in speaking with both of those people I encouraged them to bring us more ideas if they have them.
We have a water conservation fund that’s paid for through an 8 cent per hundred cubic feet charge on your water bill. Every year there’s money left in the fund. Over at Watershed Management Group they run a program called Build Your Own Basin. For under $100 they’ll come to your place and give you and your neighbors a hands-on tutorial on building a water retention basin on your property. I’ve asked CWAC to look at that program and let us know whether or not it makes sense to add that as something our conservation fee should cover.
The other measure I asked them to consider is really a series of conservation steps. This link will take you to what the city of Las Vegas has implemented to address their water shortage. Nevada is one of the 3 Colorado River basin states that we’re aligned with (lower basin.) They’re facing the same sort of challenges that we are, have similar desert condition to ours and so their menu of new policies is something I believe we should take a hard look at implementing.
https://www.lvvwd.com/conservation/measures/index.html
The Las Vegas policies include things such as limiting the time of day people can wash their cars or water lawns, eliminating front yard lawns and limiting the size of lawn allowed in rear and side yards, establishing the requirement to drain swimming pools into the storm sewer system and not just out onto city streets, encouraging people to use car washing stations where the water goes into a drain and not into the street, and putting golf courses onto water budgets while reducing the amount of turf area on existing courses. They’re the kinds of lifestyle considerations we need to embrace given the new reality that exists on the Colorado. And they’re not draconian and costly.
Later in the year we’ll get recommendations from our water folks and CWAC about the rates we charge for water. Given the conditions we’re facing, the rates we pay are a bargain. But that’s a different issue. What I’ve asked CWAC to weigh in on are conservation efforts we can all take part in.
CWAC doesn’t have a regularly scheduled meeting until September. I know some of their members have raised the possibility of them meeting in August. I think they need to, if for no other reason than to get briefed on the Bureau of Reclamation and EPA/PFAS changes. Those are immediate. And whenever they meet, adding in new conservation policies is something I don’t believe we have the luxury of waiting on.
The folks on CWAC are some smart water people. I look forward to their feedback on these topics.
911 Center
One of my favorite places to visit is the 911 call center. I find it interesting to plug in a headset and listen as the call takers work through the incoming calls. The variety is what makes their work so challenging.
Right after the 4th of July we got a couple of calls from people who thought the 911 center should have been dispatching police for neighbors setting off fireworks. The short message is that TPD doesn’t have the resources to chase that kind of a call. And the 911 center anticipates extremely high volumes of calls on holidays, so their call takers must be efficient and accurate.
Between 6pm and midnight on the 4th of July the 911 center received nearly 1,800 calls. Those generated just under 700 police responses. For fireworks-related calls, the call taker has a rough script to follow – not because every call deserves the same response, but so they’re using their time efficiently and not having to re-invent the exchange each time. Here are some of the highlights from how 911 is instructed to handle fireworks call during that holiday rush:
Is the caller able to definitively discern if what they hear/see is fireworks or gunshots? If not, go to script.
Is the caller able to definitively discern if what they hear/see is fireworks or gunshots? If not, go to script.
If fireworks:
- Is anything on fire?
- Are unsupervised children involved?
If NO:
"Due to the overwhelming volume of calls tonight, both Tucson Police and Fire will only be responding to reports of situations presenting an immediate danger to people or property. Thank you for calling and if anything, changes do not hesitate to call back to 911."
That message is not intended to be insensitive or uncaring. It’s a reflection of the finite resources 911 must work with – both the human resources, and time. It’s intended to get them off a call that could drag on and still not yield a police response, and onto calls that really do constitute emergencies.
I’m a big fan of the work all our staff do out at 911. They truly are the first responders. We at the Ward 6 office appreciate their efforts.
Gundamentalists Gone Wild
You’ve likely seen the video of the police inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde – all wearing body armor and none taking the initiative to enter the classroom where the killing was going on. I have no idea how I’d respond under those conditions. Now the gun manufacturer Sig Sauer is marketing a new weapon that would have absolutely justified that fear. Check out this baby! It’s called the MCX-SPEAR.
I had to double check to be sure this wasn’t some satire on the gun industry. Sadly, it’s for real. The MCX-SPEAR is the civilian version of a new weapon being used by the US Army. The AR-15 being in civilian hands isn’t enough of a killing machine. Now the good folks at Sig Sauer are offering this weapon to civilians that is intended to defeat any body armor used by law enforcement.
Ryan Busse is a senior policy analyst for the Giffords Law Center. His comment on this new gun is that “It’ll shoot through almost all of the bulletproof vests that are worn by law enforcement in the country right now.” If you’re a cop, that can’t be real comforting. General Mark Milley told Army Times back in 2019 “This is a weapon that could defeat any body armor, any planned body armor that we know of in the future.” It fires a cartridge that’s larger than what an off-the-shelf AR-15 fires, at ranges that exceed what even that war weapon can achieve.
The only purpose of this weapon is to facilitate mass killing. It’s being marketed to civilians. The federal government just 2 weeks ago was thumping their chests over the groundbreaking new gun control bill they passed. I wrote at the time that it was less than a half-measure. And now we see how the gun industry is responding. Plan on more options in the condolence card section in the days to come.
Downtown Links
Just a head’s up that the Broadway connection of the Links project will be under construction starting this Friday, running until August 1st. Where Broadway and the Barraza-Aviation Parkway intersect by the underpass leading into downtown, that area will be closed to ALL travel – going in both directions starting at 6pm this Friday. They’re replacing all the traffic signals and will have the intersection totally blocked. The plan is to reopen it before rush hour on August 1st – but since the rains seem to be teasing a start of the monsoon season, that date is subject to change.
This map shows some detour options – but the best case will be to simply avoid Broadway in that whole area for next weekend and your blood pressure will thank you.
Prescription Disposal
We will take all your used pill bottles in the plastic recycle bin. We will not take your unused pills. But coming this Saturday you can take your unused prescriptions to the Martha Cooper Library and TPD will be there to take them off your hands. It’ll give you somewhere to go while avoiding the Links construction on Broadway.
The library is located at 1377 N. Catalina – in the Garden District. They can take pills – no inhalers, and no needles or liquids. Check the expiration date on some of your over-the-counter meds and you might find you’ve got some that have outlived their shelf life too.
This flyer has the information. Dump your pills at Martha Cooper and then swing by the ward office with the empty bottles in a plastic bag and toss them into the Plastics Only bin out back. Both ends of that plan are responsible recycle/reuse/disposal activities.
Income Source Discrimination
It was back in December that I brought to the M&C the idea of adopting a local policy that makes it illegal to turn away a tenant based on the source of their income. Now, 8 months later the city is just beginning a public outreach to get input on the item. Sometimes it depends on whose idea is on the table that determines how fast the city responds. Hundreds of evictions later, we’re finally getting to it.
The Star ran a good article on the policy back in December. Here’s an excerpt that shows my general thought on the policy:
“The notion of being able to say I’m going to deny you as a tenant because you’re participating in a low-income housing program is simply ethically wrong,” said Councilman Steve Kozachik, who proposed the new rule. “It’s my belief that rejecting a tenant solely based on the source of their income should not be allowed any more than rejecting somebody solely based on their ethnicity.”
In that same article I went on to say that the city has an obligation to also up our game when it comes to how efficiently we administer our housing assistance dollars. Landlords have bills to pay too, so we can’t be making them wait on our process before they get the rents, they’re due. The fact that we were awarded additional state funding for emergency rent assistance from the state is a testament to how well our housing folks are doing that work.
Right now, the plan is to have this ordinance in front of us on our September 20th meeting. My hope is for final adoption. Ahead of that our housing staff will be hosting 2 public meetings to hear input. One will be held in person on August 10th at the HCD offices in the Sentinel Building (310 N. Commerce Park Loop.) Then on August 16th they’ll host a virtual meeting. Both will begin at 5:30pm. You can get the link to the virtual meeting at the city Housing and Community Development website a few days prior to the meeting.
The proposed policy simply builds on existing city policies that prohibit various types of discrimination. The general policy statement is Tucson Code 17-1. The definition of ‘income source’ is found in 17-50. Here is what’s on the table:
There will also be opportunities for the public to share their thoughts at the Housing and Community Development website - https://www.tucsonaz.gov/housing-and-community-development.
Of course, drop us an email here at the Ward 6 office and we’ll take that input as well.
We hear a lot about the city adopting some form of rent control. Until the state eliminates their pre-emption on local rent control policies, this is pretty much as close as we can get.
COVID
The newest COVID variant is now rampant across the country. Hospitalizations are increasing, and admittance to ICU’s is as well. BA.5 is the most highly transmissible variant of COVID that we’ve encountered. So, despite so many people having had vaccinations and boosters, the sheer number of cases is driving increases in numbers of people getting very sick from COVID. These graphs make the point.
The reality is that seeing those graphs isn’t likely to change most peoples’ behavior. We’re in the ‘so what’ surge, and the health care workers are once again taking the brunt of that national shoulder shrug. What’s a person to do? Other than vaccinate, boost, and follow CDC guidelines.
Both our Pima County case counts and those for the state overall increased last week. We’re back over 2,200 new cases in Pima County and the state is headed back towards the 20,000 level. Here’s the chart I’ve been keeping – updated to include last week’s numbers.
|
Week of
|
Pima County
|
Arizona
|
|
April 24th
|
260 new cases
|
2,350 new cases
|
|
May 1st
|
510 new cases
|
3,911 new cases
|
|
May 8th
|
776 new cases
|
5,404 new cases
|
|
May 15th
|
1,090 new cases
|
7,204 new cases
|
|
May 22nd
|
1,692 new cases
|
11,498 new cases
|
|
May 29th
|
1,985 new cases
|
13,042 new cases
|
|
June 5th
|
2,200 new cases
|
14,677 new cases
|
|
June 12th
|
2,451 new cases
|
16,334 new cases
|
|
June 19th
|
2,559 new cases
|
15,373 new cases
|
|
June 26th
|
2,263 new cases
|
16,514 new cases
|
|
July 3rd
|
2,210 new cases
|
20,198 new cases
|
|
July 10th
|
1,880 new cases
|
15,280 new cases
|
|
July 17th
|
2,251 new cases
|
18,135 new cases
|
Here’s our state map dating back to the start of this in 2020. It's more than just a weekly place holder. This is a pandemic. That was a bit jarring to us a year ago. Now it barely deserves a mention on the nightly news. There were 66 more fatalities from COVID in Arizona last week. There were 11 in Pima County.
Here are this week’s Pima County Health vaccine centers.
The New York Times had an interesting article on what we know – and mostly what we don’t know – about long COVID. It’s a mystery that health care experts are actively studying. Vaccines do appear to reduce the likelihood of getting long COVID, and when a vaccinated person does show long COVID symptoms, they tend to clear up within a few months. Health experts say about 2% of infections end up with long-term problems. Scroll back up to the Arizona map. If 2% of Pima County cases ended up with long COVID symptoms, that’d be over 5,500 people in our community suffering. That should matter. Vaccines and boosters are your way of showing others that you care about their well-being.
The Harvard Global Health Care risk level map shows continuing spreading of the virus in all parts of the country during the past week. Forget about Florida – they didn’t report again. The map is likely showing the effects of millions of us having resumed normal activities, ignoring masking and other CDC guidelines.
Arizona is once again completely in the high risk for transmission category. And in Pima County our case counts escalated again, pushing us further into that risk level. Last week we were at 25 new daily cases per 100,000 and 268 on a 7-day average. Both of those jumped significantly last week. And note that we’re closing in on 4,000 COVID deaths in Pima County. It was bad when we hosted the vigil in Himmel park back in the fall of ‘20 - at that time honoring the 662 people who had died by planting that many U.S. flags in their memory. If we did that today the Salpointe High students who helped us last time would be out there for hours just getting ready for the event.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
|
