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Date: 11/13/2023
Topics in This Issue:
Corbett’s
Thank you to all who came out last Thursday and enjoyed the evening of food, drink, activities and music at the newly renovated Corbett’s. Yes, that’s a heater sitting next to me on the stage – my Michigan blood is long gone and Justin the sound tech was kind enough to bring it up so I didn’t shiver off from the stool.
There were residents there from Catalina Village, Ironhorse, Catalina Vista, Colonia Solana, West University and Woodlands – at least those are the one’s I’m aware of. Lots of pickleball, cornhole, a birthday party and people just out for a relaxed good time happening. I hope you can join us on November 30th – 6pm until 9pm when we do a repeat visit. Corbett’s is located at 340 N. 6th Ave.
Election Results
All of the candidate races that were voted on last week have decisive enough margins that they can safely be called. The mayor and each of the sitting council members who were on the ballot have all won. Congratulations to each of my colleagues for their successful reelection. We have some important issues in front of us and I look forward to continuing the collaboration we’ve begun on each of them.
The education funding measures are all safe. It was nice to see the voters in every school district step up to support capital improvements to their schools. To be clear, that’s to take the place of what the state should be doing, but credit our voters who recognize the importance of supporting education.
The only measure on the ballot that will not pass is the question of incorporating Vail. It failed by a convincing 60-40 margin. With that the residents who live out there will remain under the governance of the county.
Mayor and council salary increases – Proposition 413 – was way too close to call last week. On election night the margin was about 550 votes in favor of the raise. At the time they still had about 15,000 ballots to count. The counting continued through the holiday weekend. Here’s the current result -
That’s a 299-vote lead in favor of the raise with about 300 left to count. Thanks to the voters who supported moving forward with the pay increase. It won’t be changing the amount of time and effort I put in – it's already full time – but the gesture by the electorate is appreciated. I felt the raise was too much at one time but it’s nice to see the electorate recognize that even if we disagree on the amount of the raise, $24K annually is too little for these jobs.
Chapter XVI; section 7 of our Charter says that where the Charter is silent on an issue, state law is what we abide by. In the case of close elections our Charter doesn’t give any guidance. State statute does – in ARS 16-661 it gives the formula for conducting a recount. Not a re-vote, but a recount of the votes that have already been cast. It says a “recount is required when the canvass of returns” for any “referred measures” (such as the pay raise) has a margin of difference between the yeas and nays of less than ½ of one percent of the total number of votes cast on the measure. For Prop 413 there were 93,961 votes cast. One-half of 1% of that number is 469. Since the Proposition appears to have won by only 299 votes, the remaining ballots will have to be significantly in favor of the raise to avoid a recount. It’s highly unlikely the initial count was that far off – with all deference to the election conspiracy crowd - so look for this result to stand.
Combining all jurisdictions, we only had a 32% voter turnout. That’s sad. I don’t know what it will take to make people understand that the issues we deal with on the city council directly affect your quality of life. Voting matters. I guess we’ll try making that point again in 2025 and hope it resonates more deeply.
Thank you to each of you who did cast a ballot. Look at the news – that one single act that we take for granted is not universally enjoyed internationally.
11/20 Event at St. Phillips in the Hills
Not only do we have a political process that mostly works when people participate, we’ve still got the liberty to sit together with people of varying belief systems and celebrate that democratic process. Especially at a time when you cannot turn on the evening news and avoid seeing the horrific scenes taking place in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and our own home-grown mass shootings that are too often based on an “others” belief system. On Monday, November 20th we will be gathering at St. Phillips in the Hills Episcopal Church for an interfaith/no-faith ‘Service for Democracy.’
St. Phillips is located at the NE corner of River and Campbell. The event will begin at 7pm. Speakers will include Pastor Robert from St. Phillips, Rabbi Cohon, Bishop Kicanas, Pastor Grady Scott, Pastor David Drum of the J17 Ministries and Imam Hasan Ali from the Muslim Community Center of Tucson.
I’ve been in touch with appropriate security agencies and there will be a presence. It’s sad to have to do that but turn on the news – it's our current reality.
It will be helpful if you can pre-register for the event. Use the QR code to do that. Pre-registering is not mandatory however. I hope to see you there.
Asylum/Homeless Donations
It’s common for me to be asked to help a refugee family navigate their way through our confusing asylum/immigration process. Far too often though that ends up being as frustrating for me as it is for the family. Remember it took nearly a year and some significant financial investment to reunify one single Afghan family who had been divided as a direct result of the father working in support of our military effort over there.
Last week another Afghan family came and asked if I could try to find out the status of their own asylum claim. They’ve filed all of the right papers, all of that was acknowledged by the State Department, and now they’re on ‘perma-hold.’ Family members stuck in Afghanistan are daily dodging Taliban – their eligibility for asylum has been approved. They asked if I could find out where they stand in line for reunification. So, I reached out to the same person who had processed their form and asked that simple question. Here’s the response:
Thank you for contacting the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE). Please review the CARE relocation eligibility criteria at https://www.state.gov/afghanistan-inquiries.
If you believe that a family member is eligible for CARE relocation assistance, please send an email to CARETravelData@state.gov with the full name, date of birth, passport number, and relationship to the primary applicant for all individuals eligible for relocation assistance through the Office of the Coordinator for Relocation Efforts (CARE) and we can verify their status.
Thank you,
CARE Case Management
When I read the part that said “If you believe that a family member is eligible” it became clear that this was being answered by a robot – an unaccountable and unreachable bureaucrat. That’s the frustration the vast majority of the people working on immigration and asylum are facing. And that’s the group your donations are helping as they maneuver their way through that broken process.
With the November 20th interfaith meeting in mind, we continue to be the drop off site for donations. For this week we’re giving a focus to Youth on their Own (YOTO.) Palo Verde neighborhood takes this pre-Thanksgiving time each year to do a YOTO collection drive. They’ve been doing this for years. For this week we’re replacing the Community Food Bank donations with one in which all food and hygiene products are going to YOTO. Some of our Palo Verde residents will be collecting what’s donated and getting all of it over to the youth ahead of the holiday. We’ll keep the clothes you donate this week going to Casa Alitas. Warm weather items please.
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Of course, all food should be non-perishable and packaged. Please don’t try to drop off cooked meals. That’s not what we’re able to handle.
And the We Stand By Ukraine group is holding their final fundraiser of the year on Saturday, December 2nd at Our Saviors Lutheran Church. The church is located a block north of Speedway on Campbell. The event will take place from 10am until 3pm. Similar to last time they’ll be selling goods and food unique to Ukraine.
More on Protecting Victims
Coming in January the Pima County Attorney’s office will be hosting some informational meetings introducing the public on how they can be a part of their various victim services work. While this might seem to be an early announcement, these slots fill up quickly so if you’re interested you should reach out to the PCAO and get signed up.
Victim services can be anything from appearing in court with your ‘client,’ to simply being in a supportive role for the youth you’re working with. The informational sessions will be the precursor to the actual training that’ll happen in February. It’s significantly important work so they’re going through a necessary effort to be sure the people being trained are serious, reliable and committed. All of the contact information for getting started is shown on the lower right-hand side of the flyer.
PFAS Contamination
On Tuesday we’ll get another briefing on the PFAS pollution that’s threatening our water system. The most important thing to make clear is that Tucson Water is NOT serving PFAS tainted water to our customers. Through a combination of filtering and shutting down production wells, we’ve avoided that. But shutting down wells is not a solution. It’s a band-aid.
PFAS contamination was likely caused by the use of a fire-fighting foam on both Davis Monthan AFB and Tucson International Airport where the Arizona Air National Guard trains. The foam contains the chemicals that make up PFAS. This map shows how widespread the problem is. The red dots show where PFAS has been detected throughout the valley. Blue dots are where we’ve tested and none has yet been detected.
You can see the concentrations by the military base and by TIA. The concentrations by the airport have been over 11,000 parts per trillion. At DM they were over 1,000ppt. So, what does that mean in relation to health advisories? Earlier this year the EPA set a new health standard at less than 1ppt. We can’t even test for that low of a concentration using EPA approved testing methods. Their message at the time – any amount is worth being concerned about.
With that in mind it’s troubling to me that that same EPA is now proposing a Maximum Contamination Level (MCL) of 4ppt. That’s over 4x the level they said we should be concerned about. Setting an MCL is an important step for generating Superfund dollars to help remediate polluted areas. This table shows what’s being proposed by the EPA. The chemicals that make up PFAS are PFOS and PFOA the top two in the chart, and the one’s we’re finding in abundance by TAA and DM.
If the rule assigning those MCL levels is adopted water utilities would be required to continuing monitoring for PFAS, notify the public of the levels and take action to reduce the levels. We’re doing all of that, but funding for the ‘reduce the levels’ part is challenging.
There’s some serious money involved with this problem. One of the reasons the EPA set the MCL level so high is that they ‘balanced’ the environmental/health considerations against the financial impact of purifying the water. It’s fair to say that every city in the country that has a military base probably has a PFAS problem. Tucson Water has already spent or committed over $50M in addressing the issue. There’s a treatment facility being built at Randolph golf course – ADEQ has roughly $5M going towards it, the city has just under $7M and there’s another $2.25M coming from the federal government. That’s for one treatment plant. ADEQ has $25M going to treatment out at the TAA site. The work going on out there has an anticipated price tag of over $60M. That’s being funded through another variety of sources. And keep in mind that those costs are for a couple of treatment efforts. That work will have to be replicated several times just in Tucson. And then there’ll be the cost of operating and maintaining treatment plants, as well as the cost to replace the wells we’ve had to moth ball. This is a multi-billion-dollar problem that Tucson water ratepayers did not cause and should not have to pay for.
On Tuesday we’ll have a briefing on how much is being offered by 3M through our product liability suit. Guaranteed it won’t be anything close to addressing even a large financial minority of the problem. This will require federal intervention. I’m hopeful they’re more forthcoming than what is being signaled by the EPA with their newly proposed contamination level.
Watershed Management Group Fund Raiser
On a water-related note, our friends at WMG will be hosting a uniquely Tucson fundraising event on Tuesday, November 28th. The event will take place at their living lab located at 1137 N. Dodge, just down the street from the ward office. It’ll run from 5:30 until 8:30pm.
The event is being called the Rainwater on Tap Happy Hour. We’ll be approving their liquor license application for the event on tomorrow’s agenda. The event will include serving mixed drinks that contain locally captured and filtered Tucson rainwater. It’d be nice to have more of the rainwater supply so they could do these events more often.
WMG is also hosting another Build Your Own Basin (BYOB) training event on Saturday, November 18th. The event will run from 9am until 11am. In addition to teaching you how to build a basin, there will also be a free plant kit giveaway. These are sort of ‘train the trainers’ events where you’ll leave with one native shade tree, one native shrub, some native grasses, a packet of wildflower seeds and a bag of woodchip for mulch. The hope is that you’ll turn around and host a BYOB training in your yard to help spread awareness.
Ward 6 Solar
Quick note for those of you who have been asking when we’re going to get our solar back up and running at the ward 6 office. Back in the spring a city truck trashed the solar array that was behind the ward office. In fact, it hit the structure twice, just to be sure it was sufficiently damaged, I guess. Anyway, since then this has been our solar array:
When I checked on progress last week, I was told the vendor we hired to replace it had put the value of the work to repair the damage at around $28K. The city risk management feels it can be replaced for $4K, which is clearly absurd. The vendor has been given until next April to respond. It might take them that long to stop laughing at the city estimate. This is the same city entity that told me it’d take between $20K and $30K to put a little solar canopy in front of the tiny house we’ve got at the ward office. Servicing our entire building can be done for $4K? More coming on this.
Rincon Heights Community Gardening
When you visit Watershed Management Group, you’ll see their gardening work. Similarly, when you visit Rincon Heights neighborhood you can stop by their community garden. In fact, they’re offering plots for rent so you can not only look, but you can be a part of the whole vision.
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The neighborhood is recruiting gardeners for plots in their garden. It’s located at 1047 E. 8th Street. Each plot is 20’x3’ and each one comes with its own drip irrigation system. When you sign up for a plot you gain access to their tools, compost and mulch, and your plot will be one of the many secured in a gated fenced area that you’ll be able to access according to your own schedule. You can be an experienced gardener or someone who’s just starting out. Either way being a part of the RH community garden puts you in touch with a diverse group of others with similar interests. The memberships are for either 6 months or annual terms. If you’d like to get more information on how to get a plot contact them at RHNAgarden@gmail.com.
Differential Water Rates
If you follow this newsletter, you’ll know that a little over a year ago the city passed a water rate structure that charges county residents more per Ccf (100 cubic feet) for water than we charge city residents. We set some rates that are on average 10% higher for county residents and then did a cost-of-service study to validate that was a reasonable differential. For the most part the study gave that validation.
The county sued us on their own behalf saying they should not be charged a higher amount. We voted to treat them the same as other governmental agencies and rescinded the county differential. But their suit was not a class-action asking that the differential rates for all county residents be deemed illegal. That’s an important bit of information to remember.
Last week County Administrator Jan Lesher wrote a memo updating the Board of Supervisors on where their suit against the city stands. Here’s the text of that memo:
Nobody gains when the city and the county are litigating against each other. There’s really a rational way out of this. We’ve already put the differential rates on hold pending some resolution. Let’s simply sit down together – city and county – do a new rate structure study and let the chips fall where they may. If it validates our 10% rate, fine. If it doesn’t then we all agree ahead of time to live with whatever the cost-of-service study shows are fair rates.
Everybody involved with this suit knows that the court did not say differential rates are illegal. In fact, several other cities in Arizona have them. What it said was that we implemented ours before we did the study and then did the study to justify them. So, let’s do a new one and invite the county to be a part of it. We all live with the results. And we can have a conversation about how to make county residents whole/or partially whole for the rates the court just challenged. Remember, the county did not file a suit on behalf of each county resident or even ask the court for a restraining order to prevent them from going into effect. We can figure this out – and we should. And we should avoid going to court with Pima County over it.
National Caregivers Month
November is National Caregivers Month. It’s a time to shine a spotlight on the great work being done by people who play invaluable roles in support of loved ones. So many people in our community play the role of caregiver without even recognizing that’s what they’re doing. The care they give to others is given out of love, not to wear a badge and gain a title. Our friends at Pima Council on Aging (PCOA) are working to support and give well-deserved recognition to everyone playing that role.
The folks at PCOA fully understand how difficult caregiving can be. There are unique challenges involved with caring for loved ones and doing so without any formal training. To that end, PCOA is offering free training for unpaid, informal family caregivers. It covers the physical parts such as proper body-moving techniques and transferring, it looks at safety and fall prevention amenities for in the home, and it offers stress reduction techniques for the caregivers. You can find more about these classes at this link:
All of the classes are offered at the PCOA headquarters located at 600 S. Country Club. Here’s an informative description of what’s offered, when and how to sign up.
Tucson Parks Events
Coming on Saturday, November 18th at the Reid Park DeMeester Amphitheater Parks will present the 16th annual Family Festival in the Park. The events will run from 10am until 2pm. It’s free and will be a great opportunity for you to get the kids out, enjoy some music, activities, food and get $1 admission to the Zoo on that day between 9am and 4pm. All of the proceeds from those admissions will go to support the zoo conservation fund. In addition, the Edith Ball aquatic center will host free swimming from 10am until 5pm. The center is immediately north of the zoo entrance.
There will be donation boxes scattered throughout the event site for you to drop off non-perishable food for the Community Food Bank. You give the food and then you can support some of our local vendors at the food trucks working the event. Don’t forget two things – your sunscreen, and to have a great time. We’re grateful to Cigna for once again being the title sponsor for this event.
In addition, Parks’ staff is hosting the annual Armory Park Bark in the Barrio dog adoption event. The Pima Animal Care Center is once again overstuffed with lovable and adoptable dogs. The county is co-sponsoring this event along with city parks staff. There will be dogs on site for adoption, and there will be food, activities, music and Santa will make his first visit to Tucson this year for photo ops with your furry family member.
The event runs from 11am until 2pm. This flyer has all of the information you’ll need to find and take part in the event.
Buffelgrass Removal Hike
Would you like to take a 45 minute off-trail hike with a group of like-minded folks out in the Saguaro Monument west? At the end of the hike your group will join together to take part in a buffelgrass removal activity There are some saguaro-related benefits; one is that you’ll be saving some of the cactus from being starved out by the buffelgrass, and the other is that you may win a saguaro cactus for your own yard.
Side bar – I purchased 5 small saguaro and planted them in my yard. That was several years ago when they were all about knee high or smaller. Now they’re all taller than the house and some are growing arms. You’ll love having one adorning your yard.
The Panther Peak Buffelgrass removal trip will happen on Saturday morning, November 18th. The event is a guided one since this area is generally inaccessible to the public. You’ll be working on a slope that has some loose rocks. Short message – some level of fitness is a good idea before you sign up for the work.
Please reach out to the event organizer Frank Staub for information on how to get involved. His email address is fjstaub@hotmail.com.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
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