Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (March 4

Skinny GUESS WHAT--NERDS CAN FLY. AND NOW WE'LL HAVE NERD POOP ALL OVER THE PLACE: The Arizona Daily Star, that bastion of hip, with-it alternative journalism, is set to launch a brand new publication in April. Called Caliente, it'll be cobbled together by people who don't know what they're doing from the paper's Starlight, StarTech and Outdoors sections, with plenty of to-do lists and a limp-wristed feature or two thrown in to boot. It'll reportedly come out on Fridays, and we expect to see it in racks right next to the Tucson Weekly in the months ahead.
Our spies tell us it's all part of the push by Star executive Editor Steve Auslander and Managing Editor Bobbie Jo Buel to hang onto their jobs in the face of the daily paper's declining penetration in this rapidly growing market.
Insiders are saying talented Starlight editor James Reel was treated shabbily in this snowballing journalistic debacle. He reportedly quit in disgust because he was kept out of the loop on the Caliente deal. The editor of the new tabloid is supposed to be Ann Brown, a bright lady who doesn't quite strike us as the editor type. She's more of a feature writer, whose life sentence in Tucson Newspaper's wretched marketing department was mysteriously commuted to time served.
Reel, who did a great job, considering what he had to work with at Starlight, should at least have been offered the job of editor of the new publication--and nevermind that he was talking about leaving the Star even before this latest episode of managerial incompetence reared its ugly head. Hey, Star staffers are always talking about leaving. In fact, the paper's reputation in journalism circles has grown so dismal, we're told they've recently been forced to hire two assistant managing editors out of Idaho, a state even more backward and wacko than Arizona.
And while Buel and Auslander apparently have money to beef up the Star's useless internal bureaucracy even while paying some pointless consultant $88,000 to tell them how to do their jobs, they've never seen fit to spend a single penny on, say, a kick-ass daily Metro columnist.
But then, they're probably so brow-beaten and cowed by Pulitzer Central, not to mention saturated with the Star's own mind-numbing internal culture of mediocrity, that it never occurred to this wretched, ink-stained odd couple that you increase penetration of a daily paper by working like hell to give people a damn good reason to pick it up every morning. Instead, they've waited until their jobs are on the line to try something new, however trite and unimaginative. That fact, more than anything else, sums up what's wrong with Tucson's morning newspaper: lackluster, sorry-ass leadership.
Don't believe us? No. 2 on the Star's big makeover list, after the Caliente launch, our spies tell us, will be--and we're not joking here--"a rethinking of what 'news' is." This at a newspaper which, until a year or so ago, consistently failed to cover this valley's biggest ongoing story--growth and its implications for our quality of life, a paper which relies on an independent "news service" for the bulk of its state capitol coverage, a newspaper whose content, for the most part, has consistently been dictated by its copy desk rather than its city desk, a newspaper that very seldom puts anything into useful context for its shrinking pool of increasingly bored and apathetic readers.
We predict the Star will eventually redefine "news" as that information which is useful to people--one of Auslander's pet beliefs. Which, in Star corporate culture will mean: more stories on the differences between bread-making machines, with helpful charts you can clip and take with you when you shop. God help us all.
Yes, we look forward to reading Caliente, which one of the people who dreamed it up, Star movie critic Renee Downing, described as an attempt to "treat the readers like idiots" in a February 12 meeting in front of about 100 staffers.
Come to think of it, that's nothing the Star hasn't been doing all along.
MAYORAL BID FOR MARCUS? It appears that three-term Democratic Tucson City Councilwoman Janet Marcus will be a candidate for mayor. Marcus has drawn a packet for that position from the City Clerk's Office. Should Marcus follow through by announcing her candidacy, she'll join fellow Democrat and former councilwoman Molly McKasson and Republican businessman Bob Walkup. And there may be more candidates to come.
A mayoral race would give Marcus something she hasn't had since her first election--a Democratic primary. That would be amusing, because she's consistently trailed fellow Democrats in her last two re-elections. Marcus was almost defeated by Republican Paul "Dim Bulb" Marsh in 1991.
The real news here, however, is that most political observers suspect a Marcus campaign would mean Mayor George Miller wouldn't be seeking re-election. Marcus has often been Miller's biggest toady on the council, and Miller has been searching for a candidate he can support against McKasson, whom he loathes. A Marcus candidacy might force McKasson to spend a chunk of her money in a primary fight, making her vulnerable to Walkup in the November general.
MEANWHILE, BACK IN WARD 2: If Janet Marcus does go through with the mayoral campaign, that leaves her Ward 2 Council seat open. Early rumors have Democrat Carol West, a former Marcus aide who now works for the pro-growth Tucson Regional Water Council, seriously considering a bid for the office.
Republican Rick Grinnell, who ran against Marcus four years ago, announced his Ward 2 candidacy earlier this week. Despite the fact that he gathered only about 34 percent of the vote in 1995, Grinnell was apparently heartened by the fact that Fred Ronstadt, the first Republican to win a Council seat since 1989, managed to break the GOP's losing streak two years ago.
AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE ENCHILADA AT MY LITTLE NEST: The Arizona Daily Star's front-page story on post-Clinton aftermath shared a story about a food fight in South Tucson and other cute insider's notes. Too bad few were true, including the concocted tale that Pima County supervisors Dan Eckstrom and Raul Grijalva, Democrats who share areas of the southside, fought over whether Clinton should eat lunch at Mi Nidito or Micha's, both fine South Tucson restaurants.
As it worked out, the Clinton entourage ended up at Mi Nidito, a well-deserved coup for the Lopez family, who've long operated their restaurant with diligence and class, and a coup for South Tucson.
Eckstrom, a South Tucson native who served as mayor of the spruced-up square-mile city for 15 years, would not pit Mi Nidito against Micha's. And it's doubtful that Grijalva could even name Jimmie or Chickie Lopez. To their credit, the Lopez family treats all their customers with great care. They didn't give anybody a rush or brush off before, during or after Clinton's visit. Clinton also was gracious at Mi Nidito, taking time to visit with all patrons.
Joining Eckstrom and Grijalva at Clinton's table at Mi Nidito was Clinton pal U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, a Phoenix Democrat whose nearly eight years in Congress has helped Pima County land about $20 million in federal projects, and Pastor's wife; South Tucson Mayor Shirley Villegas; Loretta Avent, a lobbyist and one-time Clinton official; former Democratic Congressman Sam Coppersmith; and Sharon Bronson, the Democratic chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors.
Clinton's visit couldn't have come a better time for one diner, a woman who'd been discussing with her family some bureaucratic nightmare she was suffering. She explained it to the President, who then dispatched a couple of his suits to get the details for a solution. Meanwhile, the crowd gathered across South Fourth Avenue at Guillermo's Double L, where the press was herded. Funny how none of the local press protested that the three supes dining with Clinton constituted a quorum. We're surprised that none of the local press hounds demanded a spot in Mi Nidito for that "supes meeting."
Noticeably absent from any of Clinton's activities after his test-market speech was Tucson Mayor George Miller, reportedly in a snit because he couldn't have his own lunch with the Philanderer-in-Chief. We also noted that Clinton did not change into the hokey Bellota Ranch shirt Miller gave him.
Pastor, who benefited greatly from the work of Eckstrom's machine in his first election victory in 1991, reeled in Eckstrom and Grijalva, who were initially left out of the welcoming party at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
Also in a snit was José Ibarra, the bright, hard-working Tucson city councilman from westside Ward 1. Ibarra also was a dedicated Clinton campaign staffer in 1992. Uncharacteristically petulant, Ibarra bitched about the lack of priority tickets and about his lack of an important role in the entourage. He ceded pre-speech stage time to out-of-place Ward 4 Councilwoman Shirley Scott, a Democrat who is rotating as vice mayor. He later spun it around in the Star that, after having met Clinton three times, he wasn't upset. Yeah, right.
HIGH-END MOSQUITOES: The Star's story Sunday about mosquitoes invading the Sam Hughes neighborhood gave some pricey fixes including a taxing district for mosquito abatement. The Star botched the projected mosquito tax bite saying that a tax of between 3 cents per $100 and 5 cents per $100, the owner of a $75,000 home (tax value, that is) would pay up to $37.50 a year. Wow! At 5 cents, the mosquito abatement would actually mean an extra $3.75 in taxes a year for the owner of a $75,000 home. At a nickel per $100, a Sam Hughes resident would need a $700,000 home to have to pay $25 a year for mosquito nets or spray.

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