Topics in This Issue:

Climate Action Plan Comments

Plastic Program 

Republic Services

Electric Prods at the Tucson Rodeo

Homeless Outreach / Businesses

29th Street Tree & Garden Fair

Garden District Multi-home Yard Sale

Community Wireless Pilot Program

Gun Safety Class

Refugee Donations

Theft

COVID

Before I get into the body of the newsletter, I’m opening with this reminder of why we at ward 6 are so passionate about advancing the plastics program. Thanks to Matt for sharing the CBS News article with me over the weekend. Here’s the headline:

Article headline says 4-year-old whale of one of the world's rarest species is "likely to die" after becoming heavily entangled

A little background first. The Right Whale is found in the North Atlantic. There are fewer than 400 left known alive. They cannot begin having babies until they’re 10 years of age. They have one per year at the most, having a 1-year gestation period. It’s common for a female to give birth only every 6-10 years. Only about 70 females of child-bearing age are known to be alive. In the past 6 years, only 57 calves have been born.

The leading cause of death for whales is us. The fatalities and serious injuries that lead to death come from either vessel strikes or entanglements. The 4-year-old mentioned in the headline is the daughter of one of the mother whales being tracked and studied by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.) The youngster was spotted by aerial teams on January 8th. She had fishing lines wrapped around her body and around her mouth. The lines have left her with serious wounds and whale lice on the wounds on her head. The NOAA team is quoted as saying “the whale is likely to die from this injury.”

At that time, she was not entangled. A day later she was spotted about 20 miles off the North Carolina shore with what will be the fatal entanglement.

There are lots of environmental reasons for why we want to advance this plastics program. Saving marine wildlife is one that fits into the category of simply how we co-exist on this planet with other animals. Thanks to those of you who are participating in the program.

Climate Action Plan Comments

Tucson Resilient Together – our climate action and adaption plan – is nearing completion. The draft is the result of months of community outreach and internal discussions about what priorities for responding to the climate emergency should be. I write often about several of the ongoing initiatives we’re championing here at the ward 6 office; PFAS response, plastic reuse, glass reuse, Green Stormwater Initiatives to name a few.

The draft plan is still available online for your review and comment. Please use this link to get to the plan.

Tucson Resilient Together

Tucson Resilient Together Tucson Resilient Together comments

On the site you’ll see an icon for submitting your comments. They’re due by February 21st. The plan is scheduled to come to M&C for our comments shortly after that date.

Plastic Program 

On Tuesday, January 24th I’ve got a study session agenda item for the M&C to talk about how we scale up the plastic program. I’m very pleased to have both the mayor and council member Dahl co-signed onto the item in support. We will vote on something that afternoon – hopefully to advance and expand the program and to solidify our relationship with ByFusion.

Please mark your calendar for Wednesday, January 25th from 5:30pm until 7pm. ByFusion will be joining my staff and me here at the ward office for a presentation on exactly what was agreed to during the study session, and to talk about plans for the program. We’ll certainly be open to answering any questions you’ve got about where this is all headed.

The pilot was overwhelmingly successful. ByFusion and the city leadership see the community support. Come on by on the 25th and we’ll have a full report on where this is headed. And thank you for caring about this issue so deeply. I can’t script the result of the M&C vote but I can say that I’m anticipating this will be a program Tucson and the region will be proud to have kicked off for years to come.

Who could have predicted that when we put up the plastic holiday tree it’d unearth so many grinches? First was the **** who stole the star from the top of the tree. No, he has never come back and confessed and paid his dues with food for the Community Food Bank. Then there was the grinch who under duress from Cindy-Lou Who returned the star. Last week I shared the pictures of Santa joining the plastics program with his own contributions. Now this!

Somebody actually had this Santa sitting out in back by the plastics roll off, waiting to be crushed into a ByBlock. The ward 6 staff saved him from that untimely end. Nobody from ByFusion warned us when they flew out to help with the tree that this series of psychological traumas would result. But we’re a resilient group in the office so we’re dealing with it.

To all the kids who may have eyes on this newsletter, you can rest easily knowing that Santa is safe and he will be making a return trip to Tucson this coming Christmas.

In the past week, I ran across a couple of plastic-related articles. One included a pretty interesting idea that’s being tried in Ukraine. In an effort to reduce plastic production and consumption, they’ve developed a new type of disposable coffee cup. It’s made from spent coffee grounds. Their goal of course is to reduce the production of single-use lined paper cups and plastic lids. And they’ll be diverting the food waste from the landfill. Something similar is being done in Germany. Here’s a picture of the coffee-ground coffee cups.

The cups will begin to self-dissolve in about 30 minutes when holding hot drinks and in about 2 hours when holding cold ones. The world is joining together in efforts to combat the overabundance of plastic. This is one rather new and creative approach.

In France there are 3 environmental groups taking Danone to court alleging it has failed to reduce its plastic footprint sufficiently. They’ve got a law in France that requires large companies to address their environmental impact. It’s called their ‘duty of vigilance’ law. The law contains ways for those companies to be sued if they don’t make strides. It’s within the framework of that law that Danone is being sued.

Danone makes yogurt. You’ve likely seen their product on grocery shelves.

The groups who brought the suit accuse Danone of being one of the world’s top 10 plastic polluters. Relying on a Brand Audit conducted in 2022, the groups hope to demonstrate Danone has ‘failed to live up to its duties’ under the French law. It’ll be interesting to watch that make its way through their court system. And in case you’re wondering – the top 5 plastic polluters identified in the Brand Audit are Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, Unilever and Mondelez International. Together those companies produce nearly 900 million metric tons of plastic annually. We won’t be running out of the material anytime soon.

And in yet another article a NY Times reported tried to go a full day without coming into contact with or use plastic. He found that as soon as his feet hit the floor in the morning and landed on a nylon-pile rug, he had failed. The guy took a wooden stool into the subway to avoid the plastic seats. He couldn’t use his cell phone – it's made of plastic. Commuting in a car composed largely of plastic was an issue. I just mentioned food producers – personal hygiene products (his toothbrush and toothpaste tube – plastic.) It was an eye-opening experience making him understand how unavoidable the material is. I know many of you I’ve spoken with about the program we’re kicking off have made similar comments. Plastic is all around us. Partnering with ByFusion we’re trying to make the best of that situation.

As we approach the January 24th study session on the program I am getting more questions about the testing ByFusion has gone through to be sure the blocks are good for construction. Their goal is to sell them to contractors first so the testing will be an important piece of scaling up the program.

ASTM is the American Society for Testing and Materials. They are made up of professionals from a variety of industries and have put together testing standards for multiple materials. ByFusion’s blocks are compliant with the state of California UL standards which are some of the strictest in the nation.  And they have data sheets they’re sharing with contractors showing the results from testing related to compression, thermal (heat) qualities, sound transmission, surface burning, strength testing and building construction specs. It’s not a Lego – these are construction-grade blocks. As soon as ByFusion hits the ground and stands up their operation contractors throughout the region should be ready to pick up their phones. I’ve spoken to several already. There is a lot of interest.

The International Code Council has also looked at these blocks. If you’re in the industry and would like to browse over the reports, here are some links.

ESL-1255

ESL-1256

ESL-1257

Plastics are manufactured from fossil fuels. Throughout their life cycle they’re responsible for nearly 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions ( one recent study found, )  We’re working with you on a local solution.

Late last week I had an excellent exchange with the owners and management from the Roadhouse Cinemas – Swan and Grant. They’re very interested in getting involved with the plastic program and I let them know we’re thrilled to have them as partners.

Roadhouse is beginning this week by collecting the plastics they use on site and will be bringing them to the ward 6 roll off. They serve meals during the movies so their participation will be more like a restaurant than a regular theater. In addition, they’ll have large jugs their condiments come in, empty hand sanitizer gallon bottles and lots of shrink wrap. I’ll begin working with them on a PSA that will air on their screens before each movie. I’ll share that with you when we’ve got it ‘in the can.’ I’m very grateful to Scott Cassell from Stadium Theaters for reaching out and initiating this conversation. Once ByFusion has their local presence established we’ll work on expanding this relationship to include the entire shopping center where Roadhouse is located.

Our total collected to date has now passed 40 tons (40.94 tons.) That’s over 80,000 pounds of plastic diverted from the landfill. So, what does that translate into in terms of CO2 diverted from the landfill? Every ton of plastic that ends up in a landfill releases the equivalent of 3 tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. So, the 40 tons of plastic you’ve brought to the roll off has diverted 120 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. To put that into perspective, check out this graphic. Realize that 33’ tall ball represents 1 ton. Ours would be nearly 4,000 feet tall. What we’ve gathered is roughly the equivalent in CO2 emissions of 60 round-trip plane trips from New York to Paris. We’re making our little local dent.

And thank you to the Arizona Daily Star for making this program their #1 question in their weekly news quiz. I certainly hope anyone reading this newsletter gets the answer to this question right.

Republic Services

While I’m grateful to Roadhouse and all of the other partners who have stepped up to support this program, the same cannot be said of Republic Services. They run our Material Recycle Facility (MRF) where all of the blue barrel recyclables are sent. Anything they get out there that is not recyclable they pull from the conveyor and divert it into the landfill. And we pay them over $330,000 annually for that contamination. Please be careful with what you put into your recycle bin. If it doesn’t belong there it’s costing all of us money. And Republic is laughing all the way to the bank.

Republic also has contracts to pick up trash and recyclables from commercial businesses throughout the region. They charge what’s called a ‘tip fee’ - the amount it costs to ‘tip’ their loads into the landfill. The city charges Republic about $22 per ton as a tip fee. Republic charges in excess of $40 per ton to many of their customers, plus a fee for just showing up at the door. But it’s worse than that. When you back out the city’s costs for operating the landfill and prepping for landfill closures, we net out about $15 per ton. We pay Republic a ‘processing fee’ of about $49 per ton for them to manage the MRF. When you add into that their revenue from selling the commodities, they net out about $140 per ton. So, they’re charging double what we charge them for tipping fees, plus they’re making all of those added dollars for managing the MRF and for selling the recyclables into the market. It’s no wonder that they had a record-setting year last year. I pulled this statement from their own stockholder report:

Last week the M&C voted to increase the amount we charge for residential and commercial trash pick-up. The fee increase was needed to help the Environmental Services department to cover their costs. We have not increased those fees for 11 years. During that same amount of time, we’ve increased Republic’s fees 6 times. The point I made during last week’s M&C meeting is that our residents and businesses are subsidizing a Fortune 100 company, and it’s not right.

We will be holding an executive session on January 24th to talk about Republic and their remaining contract. In a previous newsletter, I shared that Balcones Resources just signed a 10-year deal with the city of Phoenix for $158M to operate their MRF. Their focus is on recyclables, not simply fattening their bottom line. Our current pricing structure with Republic expired last December so we’re due for another amendment to their contract. I’ll be advocating for it to be much more balanced in terms of what we pay them, how much they pay for tipping fees, and looking at a process for putting this contract back out on the street now that we’re seeing new players entering the market.

Electric Prods at the Tucson Rodeo

The Tucson Rodeo is coming in February. Also coming in February is the start of our budget talks. For me the two items will be in direct conflict if the Rodeo Board doesn’t respond to exchanges, I’ve had with them.

For over a decade the Tucson Rodeo has allowed the use of electric prods on animals used during their events. I’ve written about the practice before. I’ve also written to the Rodeo Board chair, asking them to issue a formal policy statement ending the use of prods on the animals. Despite several attempts, they haven’t confirmed that they’ll stop the practice.

I’ve clipped this sequence of frames from the 2019 video link shared below. The guy in the white hat – not always good guys – has the prod in his hand, administers it to the shank of the bronco as it leaves the gate, and then hides it back in his pocket waiting for the next horse.

The practice is used on horses and on bulls. It happens fast so you’ve got to be watching the guys leaning over the chute – there's one for every ride in the video.

2019 Tucson Rodeo: Horses shocked around head. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/op5ybqi23qtsta0/Tucson%202019%20Clips.m4v?dl=0 

When I first sent this to their Board, they were in the middle of a chairman transfer. So, I’ve resent it and twice followed up. I won’t be doing any more of that – instead I’ll be advocating that unless and until the Rodeo puts a policy in writing that ends the practice of using electric prods on their animals, I won’t be supporting any funding for their event, or for their parade.

The most recent response I’ve gotten from their Board came on September 30th. Here it is.

One reason they haven’t gotten back to me may be that they know the statement in the letter about the people with the prods “NOT (being) members of the rodeo organization” is not true. They’re clearly directly involved with the operation of the event. Members of the general public don’t have access to the chutes and certainly would not be allowed by rodeo management to lean over and shock the animals. I’m done trying to be proactive with them. Now it’s a budget conversation unless they come forward and end the practice.

Homeless Outreach / Businesses

My staff and I met with some TPD officers last week, setting up a schedule we’ll use to go out and engage with ward 6 businesses that are having problems with homeless men and women. Our goal in making these visits is to let them know we’re aware of their issues, that my office does not agree with the approach currently being taken for managing the issue, and to give them some self-help pointers that can assist in making their premises less attractive as a hang-out area. To quote one of the officers we met with last week – with the police staffing and with higher priority calls generally coming ahead of a call about some guy ‘hanging out’, “the cavalry isn’t coming.” So, we need to give tips on how businesses can be proactive.

Some of the ideas are related to simply the business design - ‘safe by design’ is the idea. Here are some examples provided to one of our businesses.

Exterior

The dumpsters could use a hasp and lock so employees can lock the dumpster stalls when they are not dumping waste. The space between the dumpsters and the corral wall provide ample cover and concealment for homeless and substance users. Locking the dumpsters gates will prevent this and make a safer environment for employees using the dumpsters.

No trespassing signs should be posted on all four exterior walls of the business that are clearly visible to a reasonable person. Also, a trespass letter should be filed with the Tucson Police Department. With the signs in place as well as the trespass letter, officers can actively enforce the trespassing when the business in closed or open.

There is a pony wall along the drive through on the side of the building.  This is a prime location for loitering and sitting for panhandlers and trespassers. We recommend some sort of metal work be placed on the bricks to prevent the ability to sit on the wall and disturb customers.

The breaker box on the west side of the building should be caged. Currently it is exposed, and anyone could cut off the power to the building by pulling the power source handle.

The lighting on the patio on the North side of building should be well lit during night time hours in order to prevent subject from overnight camping.

Remove the bushes from the building and replace with ARID desert landscaping (agave).

Added exterior security cameras on all sides of the building and drive through. Also a rolling shutter at the drive through window would enhance security and prevent burglaries via the drive through window.

Interior

A 360-degree security camera in the dining area.

There are also some simple operational practices that can be put into effect. One of the cops we’re meeting with and taking on our door-knocks is a former small business owner. That experience yielded suggestions such as these: greet every customer, make eye contact, have some sort of measuring instrument (even inches and feet painted on the door jamb) so if necessary you can give height as a part of a later description, and have a code word that alerts all other employees if an incident is occurring.

Forming Business Watch groups where businesses establish a rapport with others in the immediate area to share information as necessary is another example. We’re all familiar with Neighborhood Watch – the same thing can be done among businesses.

We’ll be starting our outreach this week. We’re grateful for the like-minded support coming from the TPD folks we’re working with. There’s a lot of frustration – our hope is to give some tools to assist in reducing that feeling of being on an island.

29th Street Tree & Garden Fair

We’re partnering with the ward 4 office in support of the new Thrive initiative taking place around the 29th Street corridor. On the heels of the recent very successful block party comes this next event – a free tree and garden fair. It’ll be held from 4:30pm until 7pm on Tuesday, January 17th out at the Freedom Park Center (5000 E. 29th.) That’s tonight in case you live or work in the area and would like to take part.

Kudos to the city housing staff that’s taking the lead on planning and scheduling these outreach events. In addition to the goodies, you can see on the flyer, you’ll have the chance to share with city staff what’s important to be incorporated into the Thrive redevelopment plan for the area.

Garden District Multi-home Yard Sale

Coming this Saturday is the Garden District multi-home yard sale. They do this annually – very similar to their multi-home Porch Fest. Garden is a well-connected neighborhood that we’re happy to represent.

The ‘yard sale’ is taking place on Saturday, January 21st. It’ll run from early morning until midafternoon – each yard making its own schedule depending on how much stuff they’ve got to offer. The night before the event you can go to the Garden District website, and they’ll have the fully updated list of locations. Their site is www.thegardendistrict.org. The yard sales will be located between Grant and Speedway, and between Alvernon and Swan.

Community Wireless Pilot Program

Right now, there are 225 active participants in the city community wireless program. While the intent of the program was good – get internet connection out to as wide a part of the community as possible – we really didn’t do a great job of promoting it and educating people on its value. So, the pilot program is coming to an end on January 31st. Letters are being sent out to advise participants that there are options they can exercise in order to keep their connectivity going.

Connect Arizona is the resource that’s determining eligibility. You can access them through https://connect-arizona.com/ They’re a group being led through the Arizona State Library and Archives and Public Records division. They’ve got people on hand to help with a transition. You can also look at the city’s update/informational line through this link:  ACP HotTopic

Providers in the area who can step in and keep people connected include  Cox, Century Link, Verizon, and T-Mobile for both in home and mobile internet access.

Gun Safety Class

If you’re interested in signing up for the gun safety training class, we’re hosting with Diamondback Shooting Sports, you need to do it soon. The training is coming this weekend and there are only about 7 seats left.

Ben Anderson is the owner of Diamondback. He reached out to talk about how we can have a more robust local response to straw gun purchases. That’s where one person buys a gun for a prohibited possessor. It’s a federal offense so all arrests TPD makes for a straw purchase are assigned to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution.

In the course of our talking about that issue, Ben offered to conduct some gun safety training – for free, and for the general public. I think it’s great to connect with a gun store owner whose focus is on gun safety and not simply pushing ‘product’ out into the public. Ben has also agreed to post some flyers in his business giving people contact numbers to call if they’re suffering some depression, suicidal thoughts or having other troubling personal issues. He is the first and only gun store owner who has taken me up on the offer to provide that information.

If you’d like to register for the safety training, please use this link: [email protected] 

Diamondback is located at 7030 E. Broadway.  The course will run from 9am until 4pm this Saturday with an hour-long lunch break. Everybody is welcome to take part as long as there’s still space available.

Refugee Donations

Last week an Afghan refugee contact of mine came to ask for some help. He flew helicopters for the Afghan military for 15 years in support of our effort over there. He was shot down, got caught up in the messy evacuation that took place in August of ‘21. He’s here now while his wife, daughter and sons were stuck in Kabul. He was a high-profile target for Taliban, so they’ve been harassing his family trying to find out how to get ahold of this guy.

In an effort to keep his family safe he was able to use human smugglers to get his 2 sons into Kazakistan. Neither speak the language. After a short time, there they were in an accident and one of the sons is now in a coma. The other is injured. My friend wants to travel there to take care of his sons. That requires an emergency travel document. Over the weekend I was in touch with some immigration legal folks – the waiting time for an ‘emergency’ travel request is about a year.  That’s for a guy who has already had his asylum case approved and whose family is in daily mortal danger. And if you’re here and want to bring a sibling over from that area of the world – even if you’re a U.S. citizen – the wait time is over 10 years.

I’ve also shared in previous newsletters about my friend and his family – living in Tucson, all U.S. citizens – one son married a Pakistani woman. She’s in Pakistan with their 1-year-old son. We cannot even get State to respond to their application for a reunification interview. Everything else in their case has been approved. It is now into the 2nd year waiting. His son has never seen the U.S. and the only time he sees his dad is when my friend literally flies to Pakistan for a visit.

To say that our immigration system if flawed and broken is an understatement. My office and I will continue trying to get the attention of our congressional folks, Homeland Security, USCIS, and all the other agencies who are mismanaging the process, costing lives in the process. The topper is that they’re now asking for a significant increase in processing fees. I told one attorney over the weekend that you don’t give a larger tip to the waiter who dumped your meal in your lap. Do your job well – then we can talk about fees. These are refugees after all – not rolling in cash.

So, with that as a lead in, yes we’re still collecting donations. Small size clothes – travel size towels and washcloths – hygiene products of all sorts – sunscreen, shampoo, new underclothes, kids toys and puzzle books that adults can use while traveling from Tucson to their final U.S. destination. You can bring them to the ward office M-F from 9am until 1pm, or if you want to do the Amazon route the mailing address is 3202 E. 1st, 85716.

Theft

Normally you'd expect this sort of visual to be me asking if to be alert for these two guys who stole the bikes they're riding. In this case though they rode the bikes into a midtown carport and stole their security camera. Not before it captured their images though. 

COVID

With the understanding and widely accepted notion that COVID is something we’re simply going to have to live with, we won’t be having any more COVID updates as a part of our M&C meetings. If things change drastically, we can always resume them, but lately the message has been the same; get your booster, and do all the common sense things the CDC has been recommending for 3 years. Masking, distancing, staying away from others if you’re sick – that stuff.

There has been some recent coverage of a new COVID subvariant called XBB.1.5. It’s an Omicron ‘subvariant’ not a new mutation and a new variant. So, the vaccines now in circulation are effective in treating it, mitigating the impact if you catch it. This subvariant is said to be the most adept at dodging immunity from vaccines or from prior infections, but it does not yet seem to be more severe, making people sicker than the current Omicron variants do. It’s in Arizona, but is still not the dominant strain that’s going around. It is however gaining traction in the northeast where people are cramped indoors together.

Two weeks ago, I said that I was not convinced what was then an apparent levelling off of COVID cases was a trend I’d put any faith in. We still have the post-holiday surge that has been common since we started wrestling with COVID in 2020. Last week we saw a slight uptick in new case numbers. That same trend continued again with this week’s update. Here’s the case count chart I’ve been keeping updated.

Weekly COVID tracking chart in Pima County and State of Arizona

Fatalities due to COVID also continue to be a real thing for far too many Arizona families. Statewide there were 192 deaths last week, and in Pima County COVID took the lives of 29 loved ones. It continues to be more than a ‘bad cold’ for far too many people.

You can check the Pima County health site if you want to see where to test or to get a vaccination: https://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?pageId=527452 

Please do not come to the office if you have any symptoms – COVID or otherwise. Call and reschedule. And if your group is using the ward office, we strongly encourage you to require participants in your meeting to wear a mask. My casual observation is that some groups are requiring it, others are rolling the dice. Respiratory diseases are spread in part through airborne transmission. While not 100%, masks do help in reducing spread.

Click here to view more for City Of Tucson A Message From Steve K Newsletter - January 16, 2023