Topics in This Issue:

- Refugee Needs
- Plastic Blocks
- Zoo Lights
- Street Fair Street Closures
- Great Decisions Dialogue
- Boards, Committee's and Commissions
- Homeless Issues
- Sam Hughes Block Party 
- Sol y Luna
- Flu and COVID Update

Final reminder – the Nightmare Before Christmas show is being shown at the Loft this coming Sunday at 2pm. The Tim Burton classic is totally family friendly. And the Loft is teaming up with Friends of Aphasia and will donate 10% of the proceeds to the work Friends is doing in support of Aphasia victims. Please mark your calendar for Sunday, December 18^th at 2pm.

Aphasia is a condition in which the person with it has trouble understanding speech and/or delivering speech. Sometimes it’s caused by a stroke or traumatic injury. In other cases, the condition is dementia-related and is irreversible and progressive. That’s the kind my brother has. Very sadly, right now he cannot carry on a regular conversation. While the money being earmarked from the Loft this weekend won’t be able to help Pete, it will certainly go to assist others who suffer from the condition in the future.

In the promo’s you’ll see this tagline:

A portion of the proceeds from this screening will benefit Friends of Aphasia, in honor of Oscar-nominated visual effects artist, Pete Kozachik.

I’m grateful to the Loft for recognizing and honoring Pete and his work in the film industry in this way.

Refugee Needs

Thank you all for seeing and responding to the call for bath towels and blankets. I said to Diana from our office last week that it constantly amazes me the generosity of people in this community. That’s you. Thanks. In addition to those items, we still need the hygiene items I’ve been listing. Please keep in mind that many of the people we’re seeing come through the Alitas program are not large folks. Any of the underclothes you bring should have that in mind. 

New - See Specifics below: 

New and unopened underwear, (men’s - sizes small & medium only, women’s sizes small & medium only and children’s), new socks, personal hygiene products. That’s shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, lotion, toothpaste, feminine products, soap – that sort of thing. New children’s toys, bath towels only (washed) and blankets (no sheets).

No Clothing Please. Just the items listed. We’re located at 3202 E. 1^st Street,  across Speedway from the Loft. Our office is open until 1pm every weekday. We appreciate the responsiveness of the community.

We’ll be working through the Tucson Muslim Community Alliance to get the blankets distributed. This effort will continue through the end of the year to be sure we’re doing our part to help our new residents on a purely non-sectarian basis stay warm as the temperatures begin to drop.

Also, the Community Food Bank collection box at our front entry is being filled and emptied regularly. Especially as we enter the holidays the CFB is stretched thin in terms of what they are being called on to provide in support of the community. Your donations are an important part of meeting the growing needs. All non-perishable foods are in need.

We recognize that making trips to the ward office with things for all these groups is an added chore in your day. Having interacted with families represented by each of those for whom we’re gathering items for, I can say that the gratitude expressed makes that extra effort worth it. The people receiving from you continue to be very grateful for your graciousness.

Thank you to all of you who are helping meet these ongoing needs in the community.

Plastic Blocks

I’m going to open this week’s ‘plastic block’ section with a comment about cardboard, and a request from me and my staff about how the cardboard dumpster being used at the ward office. The market for corrugated shipping materials is exploding. Amazon is estimated to have sent out nearly 8 billion parcels just last year. Cardboard manufacturers have been breaking production records every quarter since COVID hit. It’s a market for a recyclable commodity, and the bin behind our office is intended to be used to get your cardboard over to the material recycle facility for recycling and ultimately for reuse.

Last week the NYTimes had an interesting article on cardboard production. The international market for corrugated packaging has passed the $200B mark. That’s more than the GDP of many mid-sized countries.

Here’s the problem. Far too many people are tossing whatever they feel like into the cardboard bin behind the ward office. That’s contaminating the load. Cardboard is recycled at nearly a 90% rate – compare that to the 5% for plastic. But when the bin is contaminated, it negates the good intentions most people have when they fill the bin. The city is paying Republic Services over $300K annually to pull the contaminants from what’s delivered to the MRF. You can help by not using our cardboard bin for your trash. It’s not uncommon for you to see me and my staff out at the bin cleaning up the mess. Aluminum cans do not go in the cardboard bin. Magazines, food waste, glass and used clothing don’t either.  I asked for that bin to be put by the glass roll off so that people bringing their bottles in a cardboard box would have somewhere to leave it after they leave their glass. It has turned into a dumping ground.

Fair warning – I'm not going to continue to ask my staff to join me in cleaning up other peoples’ mess out behind our office. It’s not fair to those of you driving through to leave your plastic or glass to have to look at a mound of trash. We will have it removed if the condition doesn’t improve.

If you’re using the cardboard bin, please take an extra minute to break down your boxes so more of it fits. Sometimes people have no choice but to leave their boxes on the ground (they could take them home for their own blue barrels) because people toss in full boxes and the volume quickly fills the bin. We need your help in policing this. We love the passion for the plastic and glass programs, but we can’t make a trash heap out of our parking lot in the process.

Ok, that’s off my chest. Thanks, Ron, for sharing the NYTimes article on cardboard.

In the past couple of weeks several people have seen me out by the plastics roll off and asked if the program is really going to end at the end of the year. After having had several meetings with city staff and ByFusion I feel very confident in saying that the ‘pilot’ program proved its point and that we will in some fashion continue this project indefinitely. There are some very fluid talks about how to get the ByFusion blocker to Tucson, where to locate it, what sorts of additional collection opportunities will be put into place, and what the city’s role will evolve into. But nobody on any of the calls seems hesitant about the level of support we’re seeing from the community. I think we all sense that the ball’s in our court to figure out how to make this work on a scaled-up level. So no, the roll off is not going to disappear on New Year’s Day. Keep your plastic coming.

The Saturday tree planting event was made even nicer by having some seasonal rain added in. Building a holiday tree when it’s 100 degrees outside doesn’t compute. So, the chilly wet weather was a welcome addition to the morning.

I’ll walk you through the process of how we built the tree. We started at about 9:30 and were finished with the tree portion before 10am. The material is extremely easy to work with, saving cost in both labor and in materials. Many of you joined in when we added the lights. Thanks to all who took the time to come and show support for this program.

Unloading the truck may not seem worth showing, but this long tube I’m carrying contains the threaded rods and other hardware we needed for the tree. I show it because when you order something like a bench or other structure from ByFusion, they include both the blocks and all of the other material you’ll need. All you add is some pliers.

First, we threaded the rods into the base. Hand tightening is fine. All this is for is to guide the placement of the blocks.

Once the rods were in, we began sliding the blocks onto the poles. If you’ve been to the ward 6 office you’ve likely seen our sample block. It’s identical to what we used to build the tree.

Once the base of the tree was complete, we of course wanted to have a spot to add a star at the top.  The piece of wood on the top has holes drilled that each of the tall rod's poke through. They’ve each got a nut attached securing the blocks together.

Here’s the 9’ tall holiday tree that will be outside the ward office until after the end of the year.

Here it is lit up after sundown.

Thank you to all who came to take part. In this picture you can see the ladies from the UA Compost Cats who also came to participate. They signed up over 50 people during our brief event. Thanks for supporting their work as well.

Our tree is made up of 72 blocks. It represents roughly 1,500 pounds of plastic that would have otherwise ended up in the landfill. I like what we’re doing with that debris as an alternative. It was great to see city manager Ortega with his granddaughter, Stephanie Stahl Hamilton and Priya Sundareshan from the state legislature, my colleague Kevin Dahl and his wife, Charlie Buchanan from Habitat for Humanity, several church and Rotary groups who want to promote the program, neighbors who are interested in benches and other amenities for their pocket parks, the Oro Valley Basis students who are bringing donations twice per week, representatives of Poly Print – one of our local commercial partners – and neighbors from all over the city. With all of this interest and community support we will figure out how to scale this up and bring the operation to Tucson.

Over 27 tons now, and still with a month to go. Keep your plastics coming. It’d be cool to top 35 tons before the end of the year. Here is this week’s updated data.

As many of you know we’ve been giving out plastic bags in our Starter Kits since August. Last week a wonderful lady stopped in and re-gifted us a huge roll of 25-gallon clear plastic bags to share with you all. We at ward 6 send this big ‘thank you’ to her for thinking of a new way of supporting the work we’re doing.

For the past several weeks the Assistance League has been providing significant weekly donations of all sorts of plastic. We appreciate their loyal partnership in this program. They’re holding an important fund raiser to support the valuable work they do in the community. Back in Michigan I used to watch “Hockey Night in Canada.” On Saturday, December 10^th you can join the Assistance League with hockey night in Tucson. Visit their site at www.ALTucson.org and you can help them out by purchasing some Roadrunner tickets at a discount. Thanks for supporting the work they do for Tucsonan’s.

Zoo Lights

On the heels of our tree planting, the zoo has now begun the 2023 Zoo Lights exhibit. It will run through the end of the year. It’s larger than ever this time around, still including food, family activities, music, tons of lights, falling snow – and Santa. Here’s their schedule – note that Sunday, December 4^th is an off day for them.

6 - 9 p.m.

December 2, 3, 5 - 23

Encore Nights December 26 - 30

Street Fair Street Closures

This weekend will be the 53^rd annual 4^th Avenue Street Fair. They’ll host hundreds of artisans, musicians, foodies, and thousands of visitors to the Avenue. The event will impact streets in the area, as well as the operation of the streetcar.

During the fair the streetcar will not operate on 4^th Avenue. You’ll have Sun Tran there to serve as a bridge to the nearest Sunlink stop where that service resumes. The Avenue will be down beginning on Thursday, December 8^th at noon. There will also be some closures of side streets between University St and 8^th Street. Everything will be back open as usual by 10pm on Sunday, December 11^th.

Here’s a map showing the impacts. This is the major fund raiser for the 4^th Avenue Merchants Association so please stop by and support their work.

Great Decisions Dialogue

Starting on Monday, January 23^rd we’re happy to host at the ward 6 office the Tucson Great Decisions Association. It’s a non-partisan group who will meet to talk about the issues of the day. Everybody is welcome – non-judgmental, open, and civil exchanges about issues you’ll otherwise simply read about in the news, and possibly yell at your television about.

Great Decisions is the local chapter of the national non-profit Foreign Policy Association. They work kind of like a book club where people get together to talk about a book, they’ve all read. In this case they’ll be discussing a chapter from a Briefing Book that’s a part of the program. The topics will range from climate to famine, Middle East issues, energy – all over the map. The meetings are facilitated, but they’re not lectures. They’re conversations in which all perspectives are welcome.

The American Association of University Women will host the meetings. They’ll run each Monday from 10am until 11:30am. There’s no cost to take part, but the Briefing Book costs $27. You can take part here in person or by Zoom. We’ll provide the link for the virtual option in coming newsletters.

Contact Shirley Muney for more information. She’s at [email protected]. And to look over the program more generally you can go to www.tgda.org.

Boards, Committee’s, and Commissions

Since early in COVID the city BCC’s have been meeting virtually. Pre-COVID we hosted several of them here at the ward 6 office. In the past several weeks I’ve had some BCC members ask when and if they can resume meeting here in person. The short answer is now.

Below you’ll see my update on COVID, the flu and other respiratory issues floating around Pima County. With that in mind I am going to be sensitive to peoples’ desire to stay safe and avoid group meetings in indoor settings. If you are a BCC and you want to meet in person at our office, we will be requiring that you also offer all members of the commission, and the public the opportunity to participate virtually. Get in touch with us here at the ward office, we’ll schedule you in and then we’ll work with you and the city clerk’s office to properly send the link out in a public forum so everyone interested can take part. 

Homeless Issues

Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a series of motions. While there was nothing earth-shattering or game-changing, they did mention some cooperative work with the city. That’s good – we cannot satisfactorily address the needs of the homeless, and simultaneously the needs of residents and the business community by working in silos. Here’s what the county voted to do:

- Work with the County Attorney, Sheriff, Courts, and any other involved parties to identify any barriers or impediments to effective enforcement or prosecution and report back to us with plans for addressing them.
- Devise a plan for making use of the Mission Annex as a site for the expansion of pre-trial and probation services.
- Report to the Board on any current joint efforts being undertaken by County and City of Tucson staff to provide such services, any further opportunities for greater collaboration and ways that private sector agencies can join in support of these efforts.
- Fully evaluate and report back to the Board on any options for reallocating unexpended ARPA funds to pay for any expenses associated with any of the items addressed in these motions.

One of the barriers to effective enforcement is the policy of the county attorney that has been less than supportive of police efforts to use incarceration as one tool among others for compelling people to secure treatment. If the word on the street is that there aren’t consequences, that simply makes TPD’s work more difficult. It will be interesting to see how that is addressed when they report back to the Board.

Going on 3 months ago I met with La Frontera administration, Sheriff Nanos and one of the county representatives who oversees their housing needs. Our topic was use of the Mission Annex as a combination triage center plus setting aside space for detox services, a commercial kitchen, residential space (both inside and outdoors) and access to showers and restrooms. The county wanted to explore other options – and now that they have, they’re coming back to the Annex as a location. Based on their motion it's not clear they’re still considering the residential component. We need rooms – beds. And the vacant lot behind the Annex could be used for tents and/or mini houses. Some in the city also took issue with their idea of using the facility until ‘we’ could take part in the planning. That’s now happening. We’ll see if this is going to be more than simply a pre-trial and probation service facility or if the original vision is incorporated in the final plan.

What’s still missing in all of this – and in the direction the city continues to head are things I’ve been asking for since last year. A homeless court could be an effective tool to compel getting people into services. There’s still no talk of that. Also, we need a low/no barrier shelter for men. I’ve suggested various large warehouse types of buildings that are on the market. We’ve seen no movement there either. And we need to see a law enforcement response when criminal activity is involved. Businesses are being burglarized, residents have been assaulted and threatened, customers of one midtown business were threatened with a machete, and vandalism is common. Adding a component of accountability must be a part of how we approach this issue.

The M&C will have our own discussion of homelessness at tomorrow’s study session. It needs to become less rigidly focused on Housing First and in addition incorporate these other ideas. Every major city in the country is testing options. Nobody has found the magic solution. What we do know is that following one single path is not working.

In two months, Glendale will host the Super Bowl. Our local homeless numbers will increase as a result. We’d better be ready.

Sam Hughes Block Party

Several ward 6 neighborhoods are getting together for block parties as we approach the holiday season. Sam Hughes is next in line.

Sunday, December 18^th from 2pm until 5pm the residents of Sam Hughes will be gathering for a variety of activities. The event will take place in the 5^th street/Wilson Ave area. There will be food, music, activities for the kids and lots more. The Community Food Bank will have collection sites at the event – please consider bringing some non-perishable food for their work. Bring your own chair so you can relax and enjoy some people-watching and listening to the music.

Sol y Luna

So far there’s nothing but positive to say about the new owners of Sol y Luna. Last week there was yet another incident in which items were thrown off a balcony and onto the mosque property below. The new owners quickly got the video from the Islamic Center folks, identified the room and an eviction notice has been sent to both the tenant and to his parents. Nobody from my office or the city attorney’s office had to coax the action. These guys understand their joint liability and aren’t taking this stuff lightly – unlike previous owners. See video here Sol y Luna Video

In addition, in the aftermath of that incident this letter was sent out to all residents and their guarantors. It clearly lays out their position on behaviors, both inside the building and those affecting people outside.

The Vespers Holdings group is working on their own video system, and they’re getting bids on screening in the balconies. They’ve also met with the ICT group and are exploring some sort of covered parking area – possibly with solar panels. The $205M they invested into the property was seemingly just the beginning.

Their on-site manager and I have shared phone numbers. This is the first time since the place opened that we’ve had this level of dialogue. All of us at the ward 6 office are encouraged.

Flu and COVID Update

Based on the extreme uptick in flu infections nationwide I’m going to start with that in this week’s ‘COVID’ update. This map shows how severe things have gotten with respect to the flu virus. Sure, it’s ‘that time of year,’ but all of this can be mitigated by following the simple suggestions that have been with us for COVID – masking when in groups, get your vaccination, social distance and stay home if you’re not feeling well.

It’s not just flu infections that is causing alarm. This graph shows the hospitalization rates from the flu are also skyrocketing.

The lines in the graph represent age groups. The red is for age 65 and over. But the yellow isn’t for the next lower age group.  The yellow is for ages 0 through 4. Seniors and little kids are being hospitalized for the flu. So is everyone else, but those two groups are being hit particularly hard. Our health care system and workers are once again strained. Please do your part in avoiding adding to the numbers.

If you have a meeting scheduled in the ward office and you’re experiencing any symptoms, please call and reschedule. And we are recommending that groups using our facility self-regulate and ask attendees to wear a mask. We have them available all the time on the table by our office entryway. 

COVID cases continued at a very high level this past week. The numbers for both Arizona and Pima County were about what they had been 2 weeks ago, but that’s not a level anyone in public health is comfortable with. Since this all started in March 2020 over 31,000 Arizonans and over 4,000 of our friends and loved ones in Pima County have died from COVID.  There’s no excuse for letting the guard down. Masks, distancing, vaccines, staying away from others if you’ve got symptoms – all of that is only being considerate of others.

Here’s the chart I’ve been keeping. The numbers are headed in a bad direction right ahead of the season when they were already expected to increase.

You see the news. Hospitals are full again, not just with COVID patients, but with people suffering from the flu and other respiratory ailments.

Here’s the statewide COVID count map by county. Pima County is now over 300,000 cases. That’s roughly 1/3 of our population.

City of Tucson Resources

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