A Message from Steve K...03/13/2023

Thank you to all who came in support of Sister Jose women’s shelter. Our benefit event at Feast last Monday saw a full house. In fact, the response was so significant that we are going to do a repeat event on Monday, April 3rd – at Feast once again. The link for attending is here: http://evite.me/vDW9K4JSHd 

You might have noticed the * by the title of this section. That’s because Monday, April 3rd is the night of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game. If the UA makes it to the Final Four, we’ll be postponing this event. The tournament is ‘one and done’ so if they lose any of their next 4 games, we’ll know the event is happening as planned. Since the Final Four is being held in Houston this year we want to respect the likelihood that some of you who would like to do the Sister Jose event might also want to fly to Houston for that weekend. And even without flying to Texas if the UA is in that last game there’ll be lots of interest in front of television sets around the city. 

The food was excellent at our first event – of course, it was Feast – the service was top notch, and the importance of supporting Jean Fedigan and her team at Sister Jose cannot be overstated. Every day they are forced to turn away dozens of women who end up staying on the street. These benefit dinners are helping fund some expanded bed space at Sister Jose. Come on the 3rd and hear the story of what the Sister Jose team is doing. I’m looking forward to being able to share some music once again throughout the event. 

This is a portion of a statement Nazar filed with congressional and embassy personnel. 

My family consists of my wife, two adult sons and a daughter still in Afghanistan and in hiding from the Taliban. In 2017, the Taliban tried to kidnap my oldest son while he was attending the University of Bakhtar in Kabul. Subsequently the same year, my son was gunned down by the Taliban and received injury in his leg. These incidents resulted for my son to drop out of the University, remaining in hiding in Kabul. 

Now the Taliban is fully in power in Afghanistan, I fear for my life if I return to Afghanistan. I will undoubtedly be tortured and executed by the Taliban. I also fear for the safety of my family who are remaining in hiding in Kabul. 

It’s the same story over and over – we're without any clear path on how to navigate our broken system. And as I said in the KVOA piece, people are dying as a result. 

Also last week Nadia and I took part in the rally downtown in support of Afghan and Iranian women and their fight to be treated as equals. The rally was very well attended – look at the lower part of the photo – right in the middle is a little girl wearing black and red dress. That’s the 3-year-old daughter of the judge and his wife that we were able to get to Tucson mid-last year. The whole family joined the rest of the group at the rally. 

Many of those in attendance were people we’ve seen at the ward office coming through and getting some of the donations you’ve brought in. Virtually all of them know people stuck back in the middle east under life-threatening conditions. Girls are prohibited from getting an education. Women are not allowed outdoors without the escort of a male. If the woman has lost her husband and has no sons, she is effectively prevented from accessing food, medical care and employment. The rally had an education focus, but civil rights of all sorts were the focus of my remarks to the crowd. 

In the course of our helping refugee and asylum-seeking arrivals we’ve worked extensively with the refugee resettlement agencies. One is International Rescue Committee (IRC.) The IRC is right now looking for groups in the community to come together in support of refugee’s - individuals and families. The IRC will match and pair clients with your group based on skills and interests.  

This link will give you a full description of the program. Co-Sponsorship: partner with IRC to welcome refugees in Pima County | International Rescue Committee (IRC) 

Groups should be smallish – 5-8 people in size and able to dedicate some time to interacting with the refugees. Based on my work with the IRC, I can say that you should be ready to allow them to do a background check on you before they sign you up for the program. The reasons for that are pretty self-evident. 

If you have more questions about this program, please reach out to either Barbara Franklin at Barbara.Franklin@rescue.org, or Morgan Bell at Morgan.Bell@rescue.org

We continue to be grateful to all of you who donate to our local refugee community. It’s warming up so lotions, sunscreens and other hygiene products are important. In addition, the needs continue to be clean/new underclothes, coats and kids’ toys/adult reading material or puzzles. You can bring the things to the ward office before 1pm, M-F or by mail to 3202 E. 1st Street, 85716. The folks from Casa Alitas are by here regularly collecting what you donate so I know they’re extremely thankful for your generosity. 

And on a similar note, Ramadan is coming starting Wednesday, March 22nd and ending on Thursday, April 20th. There are several groups collecting donations to purchase culturally appropriate food for our local Muslim community so they have it during their religious celebration.  

During Ramadan devout adult Muslims fast from dawn until dusk. For the month they practice acts of charity while giving an added spiritual focus to their lives. This food drive is to assist those who are struggling financially so they will have food during Ramadan. This flyer has the details for donating. The groups listed are many of those we’ve been working with during the Afghan refugee support effort. 

Sex Trafficking Forum 

None of us who were involved in organizing the sex trafficking forum was surprised at the overwhelming turnout for the online events. The issue is a significant threat to our local youth, and there is not a robust educational or enforcement effort locally. We’re told by state agencies that there were roughly 50 youth in Tucson trafficked last year. None ended in a conviction. One example – a mother trafficked her 3 daughters. Since it was the mother, we apparently didn’t consider it trafficking, so nothing has happened. 

Here’s a very good piece run by Reyna Preciado from KGUN9.  

https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/starting-the-conversation-sex-trafficking-in-tucson 

I pulled this graphic from Reyna’s story. When young people ‘couch surf’ or otherwise trade sex for something of value, these are the primary reasons that happens – based on self-reports. It’s often considered by the young people ‘survival sex.’  

What’s left is for Anita from Bottle Rocket to finish the tops – being made from some of our local crushed glass. We hope to have them installed in about 10 days. It’s cool to have all of this done using local non-recyclables. In the case of the planter, it represents roughly 400 pounds of plastic diverted from the waste stream, plus another 160 for the bench. Come on by and check it out. 

You all were busy with plastic this week. We collected 3.29 tons in the bin outside the Ward 6 office in just the past 7 days. That takes the total since we started to 59.31 tons. Think of that in terms of diverting that much plastic waste from the landfill, ocean or roadside. Take a bow. 

Starting today the city has 2 new drop off locations up and running. One is at the Ward 4 City Council Office located at 8123 E. Poinciana Drive. That’ll get us some east side coverage. Here’s a map. It’s nestled in between Lincoln Park, Pima College east campus and the Fred Enke golf course. 

The other location is at Fire Station #15 located out at 2002 S. Mission Road. This will give us some good west and south side coverage. Here’s that map. It’s generally on Mission Road where Silverlake intersects it. 

I know from having spoken to dozens of you that we’ve got people coming to the Ward 6 office from all over. For you east and west siders, you now have these options closer to your home or business. I know ByFusion has more ideas in mind for setting up subscription curbside opportunities so there’ll be more to come on this. If you’ve seen the Ward 6 roll off overflowing then you know these two new sites are needed now. It’ll be interesting to see how the tonnages shift and/or grow with these sites going on line. 

Picking up and hauling this material comes at a cost to the city. I’m grateful to our environmental services team for engaging on this. Once we get our service agreement in place with ByFusion there’ll be some cost recovery. But as I’ve said during several of the meetings we’ve held with the partners in this effort, sometimes doing the right thing comes with a cost. That’s the case with the program we’re trying to establish – the first one on the nation. 

Last year I brought to the city council a proposed Source of Income ordinance. The message contained in the ordinance was pretty clear; you may not refuse to rent to somebody solely based on where they get their income. The intent was to protect people on fixed incomes from having landlords refuse to rent to them. There was no ability to restrict rent increases – state law prevents us from doing any rent controls – but we wanted to protect people from non-renewals if they were living on say social security, veteran’s benefits or if they were getting rent assistance through a federal voucher program. 

In the aftermath of adopting the ordinance two things happened. One is that landlords began contacting our housing department asking how to get signed up in our Choice Voucher program. Many saw the ordinance as a tool to use in getting stable tenants. The other thing that happened took place up in Phoenix. Where else? The then Attorney General Brnovich, at the urging of the current Speaker of the Arizona House decided our ordinance violated state law. Under threat of us losing significant state shared revenues, we were told to rescind the ordinance. 

We began the process of appealing the Brnovich ruling. Then the election happened. Then Brnovich was looking for a new job. Enter new A.G. Kris Mayes. You get a second opinion for lots of medical care. We decided to do the same with this issue. We filed for a reconsideration by the new A.G. Last week we got the answer; the Source of Income ordinance (SOI) does not violate state law or the state constitution. 

Brnovich had said our SOI violated state law because there was a deadline on filing Fair Housing ordinances. That deadline was in 1995. We were allegedly in violation because we were amending our Fair Housing ordinance nearly 30 years after that deadline. AG Mayes correctly pointed out that our FH ordinance had been adopted in a timely manner and that there was no prohibition on amending the ordinance once the deadline for filing had passed. That only makes sense. Every jurisdiction had to have the ability to amend their ordinances as federal laws changed. So Brnovich was wrong on that count. 

Brnovich also contended our ordinance was illegal because it was pre-empted by state law. His analysis, if I can call it that, was that our ordinance was in conflict with state legislation and therefore we had to drop ours. Mayes’ analysis was simply that nothing in our ordinance prevents a landlord from evicting someone for reasons other than source of income. It does not require a landlord to ignore tenant acts that are materially non-compliant with the terms of their lease. Our ordinance can “peacefully coexist” with state law. She’s right. He’s wrong. Our ordinance stays in place. 

Here’s the conclusion from Kris Mayes’ decision: 

Elections matter. It was nice reading a well thought-out and rational decision coming out of that office. 

CCR’s are legally binding rules that many neighborhood associations and homeowner associations have adopted to control how development happens within their neighborhood boundaries. Many of these that I’ve seen are literally decades old. And many of the CCR’s that have been on the books for those decades contain offensive, racist and exclusionary language. When you buy a house, you might be buying into a set of CCR’s that contain these legacy racist conditions. 

First let me say that due to Fair Housing laws (see Brnovich inability to understand those above) none of the racist CCR’s are enforceable. And yet they’re still in place in the CCR’s that govern many neighborhoods. In a nutshell they say that in order to live in the neighborhood, you’ve got to be white. They’re illegal, not enforceable, and they’re on the books. When you buy a house and look at their CCR’s, seeing that language still in print on the documents you’re reviewing is nothing any of the people I know want to experience. 

CCR’s are legal terms that run with a property. The city is not a party to them, and since they’re a part of the ‘contract’ involved in buying the house we cannot simply adopt an ordinance declaring them void and direct them to be excised from the full list of CCR’s in a given neighborhood. We don’t have legal standing to step into those private contracts. But the state does.  

For the April 18th study session, I’ve joined with the mayor and asked for a public discussion of what the city can do to get rid of racist CCR’s. Here’s the study session agenda request:

The weeds I’ve got circled on the picture are called Arundo Donax. That's an invasive weed found on the banks of some of our creeks and arroyos.  

Here’s a close up of Arundo. It’s a giant reed that drinks from 3-4 times the amount of water that our native species consume. It crowds out native plants, natural critter habitat and sucks our limited water supply dry.  

On Saturday, March 25th from 1pm until 6pm our friends at WMG will be hosting a family friendly event that’ll include food and some work removing Arundo from the banks of the Tanque Verde. The event, a part of the WMG River Run Network is called the Tanque Verde Flow & Feast. The focus for this event will be out on the east side in portions of the Tanque Verde that used to flow most of the year. So far WMG’s team has removed over 80,000 pounds of Arundo from the Tanque Verde as a part of the River Run Network. The goal is to restore groundwater levels, and eventually surface flow. 

If you can carve out time to help in this effort please register at www.watershedmg.org/tvflowandfeast. You’ll also learn about workshops being offered through WMG. 

One final upcoming study session I’ve asked for is how we decide what constitutes a quorum on our BCC’s. Each BCC has a maximum number of members that are allowed to be appointed. If a BCC has said a 20-member cap, that means it takes 11 board members to be present at a meeting in order to constitute a quorum. If there are say 4 vacancies on that BCC and there are a few absences at a given meeting, they may not make their quorum. The vacancies still count against the number needed for them to meet. 

This is the study session item I’ve requested for April 4th.  

Tucson Residents for Responsive Government (TRRG) 

We’re hosting the event at the Ward 6 office. Since space is limited TRRG is asking that individual neighborhood associations limit themselves to 1 or 2 people coming to take part in the meeting. The meeting will be broken into a morning and an afternoon session. In the early session they’ll have a panel talking about the city’s perspective on the value of neighborhood associations. Then in the afternoon the focus becomes residents’ perspectives on that same question. I’ll be speaking to a League of Women Voters group during the morning so Diana will represent my office. Kevin Dahl will also be present for the morning panel along with Rebecca Ruopp who works as the city Neighborhood Engagement Specialist. 

They’re doing a head count so you need to RSVP to Barbara at bhlehmannaz@cs.com. They need these RSVPs by the end of the day Tuesday, March 14th so they can put together the materials. 

And while I’m on the neighborhood piece, Vista del Monte is reforming and recruiting new board members. They’ll be meeting here at the ward 6 office on Thursday, March 23rd at 6:30. They’ve got a TPD and homeless update as well as a parks department update on plans for McCormick Park on their agenda. If you live in Vista del Monte stop by – or sign in by zoom. Here’s that link:  

Join Zoom Meeting 

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82124985809?pwd=WDB0WG1NSy9zY0VWdi9aNUVwdG1vQT09 

Meeting ID: 821 2498 5809 

Passcode: 000111 

Here are a few quick notes with a neighborhood focus. The new shade structure our office helped to fund is up and providing much needed shade in Miramonte Park. There’s more playground type equipment on the way, but it’s great to see this upgrade to the site finally in place. We’re grateful to the parks staff, Greg Jackson and Tom Fisher in particular for getting this in place. 

And our parks staff is partnering with United Healthcare to bring the 2023 Eggstravaganza Easter Egg hunt. Everybody is welcome. The event will take place on Saturday, March 25th from 10am until 1pm in Mansfield Park. The park is located at 2000 N. 4th Ave, right on the boundary of wards 3 and 6. 

Our parks staff will have the Ready, Set, Rec van on site and there’ll be a variety of foods available for purchase through local vendors. Here’s a listing of the egg hunt times. Be sure to bring an empty basket for your egg hunter. Look for parking at the Donna Liggins Center, the Mansfield Park swimming pool area and the 6th Avenue Dog Park. 

Egg Hunt Times:    

Ages 2 and under: 10:15 a.m.  

Ages 3-4: 11 a.m.  

Ages 5-7: 11:30 a.m.    

Ages 8-12: noon   

If you can volunteer to help at this event, please reach out to Ashley Monka through this link: TPRDVoulunteers@tucsonaz.gov.