Goddard 'works it' in Tucson

Attorney General Terry Goddard knows that in order to beat Jan "beheadings!" Brewer in the race for governor of Arizona he has to win big in Pima County-- the one bright blue spot in a state dominated by that large red blob to the north.

Goddard has been everywhere in recent weeks. There was an impressive voter registration rally on October 4 with fellow Democrats on the UA mall, and this weekend there are back to back events.

Women for Goddard Rally and Movie at the Loft
Come to the Loft Cinema, hear Goddard speak and view the film Iron Jawed Angels, an amazing movie on the battle for the women's right to vote. (This is labeled as a women's rally, but I'm sure men can come also.)
What: Women Vote Rally
When: Saturday, October 9th from 10-11:30 am.
Where: The Loft Cinema, 3233 E Speedway Blvd.
For more info, please contact Erika Burkhart at (303) 514-3452.

Eastside Rally for Goddard
What: Eastside Rally for Terry Goddard hosted by City Council members Shirley Scott and Paul Cunningham
When: Saturday, October 9, 4-6 pm
Where: The Children's Outdoor Performance Area, 8123 E Poinciana (next to PCC East, north of Irvington, east of Pantano).
Come join us for food, music and show your support for Terry Goddard!
Please contact Max Torres at (520) 250-0473 or Pat Weidhoff at (520) 850-6755 for more information.

Goddard Got Art
The Goddard Got Art artist reception will be this Saturday. Goddard's campaign held a art competition. Come view the winners. This is the Second Saturday, so there will be loads of other things to do also. (If you're worried about parking, check out the Pennington Street Garage, by Cafe Poca Cosa. It's cheap or free for these events.)
When: Saturday, October 9, 5-7pm
Where: 1 E. Congress in downtown Tucson

17th Annual Pima County Democratic Party Honor Roll Gala
If you're into somewhat expensive political dinners, come this event and hear keynote speaker, Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development along with Goddard and State Senator Paula Aboud who will be the master of ceremonies.
What: Pima Democrats Honor Roll Gala, featuring Henry Cisneros and Terry Goddard
When: Saturday, October 9th at 12 pm. Registration begins at 11:30.
Where : University Marriot, 880 E 2nd St. Tickets are $75 ($65 for PCs and $50 for students). To purchase tickets, visit this Act Blue web link or call (520) 326-3716.

Cycling for Goddard
So, after that rubber chicken dinner at the Marriott on Sunday, join Goddard supporters Tuesday night for the community bike ride. We tried this last Tuesday, but that huge rain storm washed out our plans. We are calling on Goddard supporters to participate in the bike ride and show their support at the same time. We will be wearing lights and Goddard paraphernalia-- signs, t-shirts, bumper stickers-- to raise awareness. Barring bad weather (again), we plan do to this for each Tuesday night ride until the election on November 2.

Rumor has it that Connie Sanchez of Blondes for Brewer may even make an appearance at the art event and the cycling event. Is she switching sides? Come find out!
What: Tucson Community Bike Ride
When: Tuesdays, 7:30 pm
Where: in front of the Starbucks on University Blvd.

Goddard is workin' it in Tucson. Help him take back our state. Volunteer and vote!

Marijuana, the City Council, Goddard and aliens-- events abound this week

What's a politically active Tucsonan to do this week? Today and tomorrow (September 20-21) multiple meetings and events have been scheduled on top of each other.

Goddard
Today and tomorrow evening, beginning at 5:30 p.m., Women for Goddard is hosting phone-banking parties. We will be calling women voters and encouraging them to vote for Terry Goddard for Arizona governor. If you are a woman with a cell phone, contact Women for Goddard at 5000women.az@gmail.com for details.

Medical Marijuana
Also, tonight-- 5:15 p.m. at the Copper Room at Randolph Park-- Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall will tell us everything we ever wanted to know about marijuana-- or at least medical marijuana in Arizona. Arizona voters will get a chance to vote-- again-- on the decriminalization of medical marijuana. (Arizonans have approved medical marijuana at least twice before, but somehow the Legislature has been able to not enact the wishes of the voters.) Here is an excerpt from LaWall's promo:

Proposition 203 is a ballot initiative to be voted on during the general election on November 2, 2010. If approved by the voters, the initiative will enact a group of statutes titled the “Arizona Medical Marijuana Act,” to include a new Chapter 28.1 in Title 36 and amendment of Arizona Revised Statute (ARS) § 43-1201. If adopted, the new law would decriminalize possession, sale, and cultivation of marijuana for certain purposes under state law and would provide for the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries and offsite cultivation locations.

Tucson City Council
Also, Tuesday is another one of those big days for the Tucson City Council. Beginning at noon with a study session and continuing through the evening with the regular meeting and call to the audience, beginning at 5:30 p.m. For weeks, Councilman Steve Kozachik has been trying to hold the other council members' feet to the fire regarding budget cuts and the downtown hotel boondoggle.

As usual, the City Manager's office is telling voters to vote for another sales tax increase to pay for core services (police, fire, parks) or face a 15% across the board cut in services-- Plans A and B-- as if these are our only 2 choices. Kosachik unveiled his Plan C in late August and a Plan D more recently. You can read his ideas here.

I agree with Kozachik that there are some budget cuts the city could make now-- like getting rid of city cars and car allowances for staff, trimming top salaries by 2%, increasing some fees, etc. I also agree with him that they should stop fiddling around with that overly expensive downtown hotel project. Having worked in PR for many years and having planned events in Tucson, I strongly believe that we need a better hotel in downtown, but the long-term financial risk of this project is too great. As we know, the city has gotten itself into several bad land deals (1,2); this one would hurt us greatly if it did not live up to it's rosy projections.

Since the city is overly reliant on sales tax and tourism-- and both are down-- we need to make tough choices.

Aliens
If you're sick of politics by the end of the week, check out The Glow in Oracle. Fifty local artists-- including moi-- will display lighted sculptures, while 20 musical acts provide the ambiance.

An Congress-- Not?

If you follow downtown politics and development/non-development, you know that it has been a rocky road littered with bad real estate deals, broken dreams, and random glimmers of hope.

Last fall there was a big hullabaloo when downtown landlord and developer Scott Stiteler evicted 3 businesses (Tooley's, Preen, and Metropolis Hair) and 4 galleries (Dinnerware, Firestone, Rocket, and Central Arts [above]) on Congress to make way for a 7000-square-foot sports bar owned by Mr. An of Sakura fame.

I'm sure, at the time, Stiteler thought that Mr. An would be a more solid tenant than these funky small businesses and galleries, but that Congress Street gallery row-- coordinated for the most part by David Aguirre of Dinnerware Artspace-- created a very popular art scene and drew large crowds downtown to view rotating exhibits (1,2,3,4, 5, 6, 7).

Construction-- or destruction, actually-- started in the spring. Walls were knocked down to make way for the glittering new sports bar. The Arizona Daily Star trumpeted Mr. An's move downtown.

Now, construction appears to be stalled. Word on the street is that Stiteler is stuck with an empty shell with dirt floors, no tenants paying rent, and no Mr. An.

As Joni Mitchell sang, You don't know what you got 'til it's gone. You paved paradise and put up a parking lot..

Sept. 18, UPDATE: I received e-mails from Stiteler and Councilman Steve Kosachik on this story. According to Stiteler, construction and renovation inside structures on 200 block of Congress Street continues. He said that An and others are interested in the space but would not be more specific regarding future tenants. No time frame for completion was offered. Apparently, when the 1912 structures were gutted, they were found to be in rougher shape that anticipated. Watch for further developments on this story..

Sky Bar out of touch with clientele on SB1070

What started as another xenophobic law proposed by wingnut Republican Russel Pearce, SB1070 could be labeled the Ultimate Law of Unintended Consequences.

In addition to helping our GED-toting, unelected governor vanquish her Republican primary opponents, the ill-conceived bill has become a national sensation, fodder for comedians, rationale for boycotts, and the deciding factor on where to buy pizza in Tucson.

In early July, the humanitarian group No More Deaths started We Mean Business, the business-friendly answer song to Congressman Raul Grijalva's call for boycotts of Arizona after passage of SB1070. Approximately 90 local businesses agreed to post anti-SB1070 We Mean Business or We Reject Racism signs in their establishments. The rationale was that flaming liberals like me who oppose SB1070 would know which businesses to frequent and which to... well... boycott. (For a list of these businesses and a map, click here.)

Given the huge economic impact of Mexican shoppers in Arizona-- $7.3 million per day-- it makes good business sense to oppose SB1070.

According to the No More Deaths website, businesses interested in participating in the We Reject Racism movement are asked to take the following three actions:

- Post the “We Reject Racism” sign to publicly oppose SB1070

- Not allow law enforcement into their business for the sole purpose of checking immigration status of people inside*

- Not financially supporting lawmakers who voted for SB1070

*Legally businesses have the right to prevent anyone from entering or ask them to leave. The exception for law enforcement is if they have a warrant for someone inside or believe an individual is an immediate danger to the public.

Tony Vaccaro, owner of Brooklyn's Pizza and the adjoining Sky Bar on 4th Avenue, was one of the Tucson businessmen who initially supported We Mean Business 2 weeks ago. In a turn of events, Vaccaro took the We Mean Business signs down this week and contacted the Arizona Daily Star stating his flip-flop support of SB1070.

Vaccaro is quoted in the Star as saying that after having read SB1070, he now agrees with it. The Star also quotes Vaccaro as saying, "...I do not believe that businesses should get involved in politics. That is for individuals, politicians and lobby groups. I feel that I have let some of my customers down by getting involved in the SB 1070 debate."

Businesses shouldn't get involved in politics? Has this guy been living in a cave? The corporatists control our elected officials, run our country-- and are trying to run our city!

I find it hard to believe that he really thinks he let his customers down by opposing SB1070 and racism. Vaccaro's 2 businesses-- Brooklyn's Pizza and Sky Bar-- are in the heart of the 4th Ave shopping district-- nestled between the University of Arizona, the downtown arts district, and Tucson High School (whose student population is less than 50% Anglo).

Personally, I liked (note the past tense) Sky Bar. The open, airy venue features affordable pizza and adult beverages, theme nights, eclectic live music, and dancing. The downtown crowd is far from white bread-- being diverse in race, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation. Vaccaro's new position on SB1070 is out of step with them.

Artists for Action, another anti-SB1070 movement that popped up in July, may give Vaccaro-- who hires dozens of musicians to play at his club and whose clientele includes local artists-- some heart burn.

Spearheaded by Calexico's John Convertino and Joey Burns, Artists for Action urges artists and musicians to take a stand against SB1070 and help educate the public. The group is not advocating boycotts; in fact, it is encouraging out-of-state musicians to come to Arizona and voice their opposition to SB1070 -- rather than boycotting in protest.

Who will win this tug of war? Hopefully, not the xenophobes or those who exploit immigrants (documented or not).

Tucson lacks "the vision thing" but proposed charter changes won't remedy the problem

In the 29 years I have lived in Tucson, I have seen the city's fortunes ebb and flow like the ocean tides. No where has this cycle of growth and decay been more evident than in downtown Tucson. Over the years, many businesses and revitalization initiatives have come and gone regardless of how successful or popular they were.

A case in point: long before Rio Nuevo and Second Saturdays, there were the Tucson Arts District Partnership (TADPI) and Downtown Saturday Nights.

Both Rio Nuevo and TADPI were charged with breathing new life into downtown. TADPI focused primarily on downtown revitalization by showcasing Tucson artists, hosting downtown arts and music events (like Downtown Saturday Nights), and beautifying downtown with mural projects and pop-up galleries in vacant buildings.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a viable strip of shops and galleries along the east end of Congress Street-- Yikes Toys, Picante, Berta Wright Gallery, Pink Adobe Gallery, and others. Downtown Saturday Night attendees visited these shops and perused the wares exhibited by street vendors. One by one these business folded or moved.

Downtown Saturday nights and the other TADPI projects were wildly popular but were mysteriously discontinued in the 1990s.

Rio Nuevo was created in 1999 when voters approved a special tax increment district and began accumulating sufficient funding to support projects in 2004, according to the city's website. Rio Nuevo has had far more money than TADPI ever did but also has had less focus and much more bad press (thanks to a vendetta by the Arizona Daily Star). Second Saturdays is a downtown business initiative-- and not a Rio Nuevo project-- but projects occurring simultaneously downtown and tend to be lumped together in the minds of citizens.

By 2008, this same strip of shops on Congress Street (which had been vacant for years) had been reborn and housed four galleries, a coffee shop, a hair salon, and a trendy clothing resale shop, along with a few bars. Creative events (1, 2, 3, 4) drew hundreds of Tucsonans downtown to enjoy the art and check out the music and bar scene. To us supporters, downtown appeared to be experiencing a resurgence. By early 2010, seven of these businesses were closed or relocated by a developer to make way for a trendy sports bar, whose owner was glorified in a Daily Star puff piece this week.

While other cities are able to revitalize their downtowns (1, 2), Tucson's beleaguered city core suffers from the fits and starts. This leads long-time Tucsonans ask themselves: "Why does Tucson keep re-inventing the wheel? Why can't we get it right?"

Why? In my opinion, Tucson suffers from the lack of a visionary leader. Yes, we have had plenty of politicians, plans, proposals, and committees, but if you look behind the glossy PR of these initiatives, you'll usually find that they benefit special interests, and not the city as a whole.

Tucson's City Manager form of government is inherently flawed. Our Mayor is a powerless figurehead who signs proclamations and acts as a tie-breaker when City Council members can't agree.

With a City Manager form of government, there is no one elected official who takes responsibility and says, as Harry Truman did, "The buck stops here." Tucson has a City Manager, a Mayor, and six City Council members who run the government. It's no wonder that decision-making, at times, appears schizophrenic. This distributed governance allows some people to be scapegoated (like Nina Trasoff, who personally paid the political price for Rio Nuevo's perceived lack of progress), while Mayor Bob Walkup became our local Teflon Don and easily won re-election.

A leadership vacuum such as this affords the perfect opportunity for special interests to shape local government decisions. Enter the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (SALC)--a group of local businesses-- and the Tucson Charter Coalition (TC3), a spin-off organization, who want to save the city by making basic structural changes in governance.

Currently, these groups are lobbying the Tucson City Council to put city charter changes on the November 2010 ballot.

Some of these proposed changes I agree with. For example, changing city elections to even years would align them with the larger presidential and Congressional elections, thus increasing voter turnout and saving money. Changing the City Council's and Mayor's positions to full time and aligning their salaries with the Pima County Supervisors' compensation would allow the city to attract more qualified candidates. Since these positions are now all part-time, much power is held by unelected staff members. (Eliminating off-year elections will provide funds for the change from part-time to full-time positions.)

What I vehemently disagree with are SALC's proposals that would give the City Manager, another unelected official, more control.

Bureaucrats already hold too much power and are not directly accountable to the voters. Tucson needs a strong visionary Mayor to lead us into the future-- not a strong bureaucrat who owes his power to local businesses.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column.

Arts Advocacy Day of Action: Tucson can be 'arts friendly' and 'business friendly'

With Tucson and Arizona suffering extreme budget problems, a number of worthwhile programs have been or will be cut back or eliminated.

Rather than make the tough choices necessary to fix the state's revenue structure, the Arizona Legislature ended its 2010 session last week after slashing many state-funded programs, most notably education on all levels, healthcare for children and the poor, and the state parks system.

The City of Tucson also has tough choices to make. In recent months, the City Manager has offered solutions, but many have been shot down.

In tough economic times, arts funding is an easy target. During the 2009 city council elections, local talk radio hosts and the Arizona Daily Star (formerly the Red Star but now a right-wing mouthpiece) hammered the Democratic-controlled City council for not being "business friendly". Repeatedly, they called for cuts to arts funding as a way to solve the city's budget crisis. This kind of talk makes great sound bites for the small government folks, but Tucson's arts funding is already so paltry that eliminating it only nips at the edge of our budget problems. (Often, I believe that the right-wingers are just bad at math. Arizona's and Tucson's budget problems are cause by a tax structure that relies too heavily on sales tax. When sales go down-- as they do in a recession-- revenue plummets. Ultimately, we need to make the tough choices to fix our tax system, but that ain't happen' with our current state government.)

On Tuesday, May 4, Tucson City Manager Mike Letcher will submit his recommended FY 2011 budget to the Mayor and Council.

On the local level in FY 2010, the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC)and ACCESS Tucson have suffered budget cuts. The question now is: Will they survive?

I believe that the dichotomy of "arts friendly" vs "business friendly" is just political rhetoric. Tucson has been blessed with a vibrant and diverse arts and music scene. The Tucson city government can be both "arts friendly" and "business friendly". It is not an either/or situation as the right-wing local media would have us believe.

Supporting the arts IS business friendly. Three great examples of how cities have flourished by touting their arts and/or music scenes are: Austin, New Orleans, and Ashville, NC.

My friends and I recently returned from a trip to New Orleans to attend the 27th Annual French Quarter Festival. This is a free music festival that features only musicians from Louisiana. There were 12 stages of music and plenty of food, art, and dancing in the streets. An estimated 450,000 people attended that festival in 2009, and they expected more in 2010. We came for the music, but we spent plenty of money in restaurants, shops, and the B&B where we stayed. Local businesses kicked in funds to support and promote that free music festival because they knew they would benefit from hordes of tourists attending it. This is a prime example of the New Orleans business community working with the music and arts community for the economic and cultural betterment of the city.

Over the course of our long weekend in New Orleans, we repeatedly asked ourselves: Why doesn't Tucson do this? Tucson has many music festivals-- the Folk Festival, the Mariachi Festival, the Chamber Music Festival, the Blues Festival, the Blue Grass Festival, Club Crawl, etc. Do we bill ourselves as a music destination? Not that I know of.

Today is an Arts Day of Action organized by Tucson artists and TPAC. There will be several events around town to highlight the city's arts and music scene. Here is a list of events:

- Arts for All, Coffee Reception, 7 – 9 AM (Arts for All, 2520 N. Oracle Rd)
- The Loft Cinema, Playing PSA videos all day (The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd)
- Invisible Theatre, Draping marquee, (Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. 1st Ave)

Downtown beginning at 5:30 pm:
- Jodi Netzer, a running butoh clown (starting at Maynard's)
- Flam Chen/ Critical Stilts (between Maynards and the library)
- Jeff Grubic on sax (Pedestrian bridge between El Presidion Park and La Placita Village_
- Mitzi Dasheya Cowell and pals (Scooters in La Placita Village
- Katie Rutterer and New ARTiculations (La Placita Village Plaza)
- To-Reé-Neé (near the griffin at Scott Ave & 12th Street)
- Batucaxé and Acroyoga (near Armory Park, 6th Ave & 12th Street)
- Odaiko Sonora & Lorie Heald (on the Diamondback bridge)Denise Uyehara, Adam Cooper-- Teran and friends, video projections (Amtrak depot, after 7:30 p.m.)

Check the Arts Day of Action website or tweet @tpacartadvocacy for additional events that may be added.

By ignoring the arts-- or worse, by further cutting funding-- Tucson is missing a perfect marketing opportunity to set itself apart from other tourist destinations. This is a wake up call to not only the city government but to business community and the arts community. I urge you to drop the us vs them attitude and work together.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column.

The Water Project: celebrate and educate!

Water is as precious as it is scarce in the desert. This weekend Tucsonans will celebrate water, our most valuable natural resource.

The Water Project-- Tucson's inaugural water festival-- will take place citywide March 26-28.

Festivities start Friday, March 26 with a film festival at The Screening Room in downtown Tucson. The evening begins at 6 p.m. with short locally-produced films. The feature film-- Blue Gold: World Water Wars-- begins at 8 p.m.

On Saturday at Himmel Park in midtown Tucson, the Water Project will hold an Enviro-Vendor Fair with art, food, music, and dance from noon - 6 p.m. Solar Rock-- a solar-powered music concert-- will take place simultaneously at Himmel Park.

Sunday's events will begin with a cross-cultural, inter-faith water ritual at Sabio Canyon. Check the Water Project website for meet-up and carpool information. Sunday afternoon, an Enviro-Vendor Fair and educational workshops will take place at Armory Park Center.

The Water Project grew out of a series of community brainstorming meetings. Artists, scientists, politicians, educators, developers, water conservationists, city planners, youth, and other community members who are interested in addressing water issues came together to develop the mult-faceted event.

Tucson’s Water Project was scheduled to coincide with World Water Week. Water workshops and celebrations will be held in other countries and cities-- creating an international observance of World Water Day, an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

For more details and a full schedule of events, check out The Water Project website and the Solar Rock website.

This article originally appeared in my Baby Boomer Examiner column.

What is our shared vision for downtown Tucson?

This month marks the end of an era in downtown Tucson-- an era of art, innovation, diversity, and creative energy.

Three galleries on East Congress Street will be closing this week--Dinnerware Artspace, Central Arts Gallery, and Rocket Gallery. A funky coffee shop and a fourth gallery have already closed. Five local businesses -- plus two others-- have been evicted to make way for a sports mega-bar.

These businesses paid rent, hung on through construction and the summertime, and looked forward to the revitalization of downtown. They were the pioneers of revival; they were downtown before anyone else wanted to be.

The galleries and shops in the 200 block of East Congress Street filled once-vacant storefronts and breathed life into downtown by bringing art, fashion, music, and community to a forgotten part of town. They complemented the existing bars, restaurants, movie theaters, and music venues. They will be replaced by yet another large bar-restaurant.

What is our shared vision for downtown Tucson? Do we want a downtown filled with bars, student housing, and parking structures? If we allow the developers to rule downtown, they will chase the quick cash and invest in mini-dorms and bars. People who once came downtown for the art scene will be greeted with restaurants decorated with generic sports bar kitsch.

The artists are not leaving downtown altogether, but they are being pushed to the fringes. Once again they will be moving to a part of Tucson that everyone else has forgotten--the warehouse district. Initially, Dinnerware and others will move to the Citizen's Storage building on East 6th Street. Eventually, artists will occupy the warehouse at 1 East Toole Ave.

In the meantime, Tucsonans who care about downtown must remain vigilant. We must not let the developers and politicians chase the quick fix while short-changing for our culture and our future.

Tucson's vibrant art and music scenes set this city apart from others. Cheap housing and generic sports bars are everywhere.

This article originally appeared in my Progressive Examiner column. To view the accompanying slide show, check out this link.

UPDATE: For an update on this story check out An Congress-- Not?