Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (March 25

Skinny WET SCHEME: On that same old 4-3 vote, the Tucson City Council gave its blessing to Tucson Water's latest public-relations flowjob, a "demonstration project" that will deliver a blend of CAP and groundwater to fewer than 100 households over the next several months. Opposing the project were Council members Jerry Anderson, José Ibarra and Steve Leal.
As The Weekly reported a few weeks ago ("Pricey Pilot," March 4), the project is essentially a PR effort to show that CAP water, by golly, isn't so bad after all. Under the proposal, water will be pumped out of the Avra Valley recharge facility, blended, and trucked to different neighborhoods, each of which will get the tasty blend for two months. The cost of this project--which will come from ratepayers' wallets--has risen to more than $1.7 million, or about $17,000 per household for two months of water service. And, since project participants have been carefully screened, it's unlikely it will even prove anything.
"Six months ago, I said this is 50 percent PR and 50 percent science," says Leal. "The way it's evolved today, it looks like 90 percent PR and 10 percent science. And very expensive PR."
According to Ibarra, some of the project's scheduled participants aren't even on board.
"We had five residents of the street that were undecided or they were opposed," says Ibarra. "So we didn't think it was appropriate to move forward with something, especially when they (Tucson Water) said it was 100 percent solid. We knew it wasn't 100 percent solid."
Ibarra had planned to meet with residents this week to learn if they would support the program.
Anderson thinks the lackluster response to the project from Tucson residents shows they are still skeptical of CAP water.
"Tucson Water spent a lot of time and money putting the word out about this, and according to them, they've had 300 phone calls," Anderson says. "Gimme a break. That's pretty dismal. I think that says people are still not convinced they want that water in their households."
HARD TO SWALLOW: It's a sad day in hell when Mayor George Miller feels he has to lie to the people for their own good.
Miller recently told a Rotary Club audience that the proponents of Tucson's latest water initiative stand to profit greatly because it will force the use of a specific filtration method, one that's patented by one of the initiative supporters.
That's horse shit, George, and you know it--the initiative doesn't mandate any patented filtration method. It's designed to keep harsh, chemically treated CAP ditch water out of our homes and force recharge efforts in the central well field.
The only reason people are supporting this latest initiative at all is because Miller and Tucson Water have refused to abide by the spirit of the 1995 Water Consumer Protection Act. The normally docile public passed that initiative by a strong majority after stinky, improperly treated CAP water ruined their pipes and killed their plants.
Since then, Miller and the Growth Lobby, rather than trying to find alternative uses for CAP water, have done all they can to ensure Tucson Water avoids meeting its obligations under the '95 law.
Why? Because they want to force us to drink that crappy, chemically-laced CAP swill so that developers won't have to come up with the 100-year assurances the state requires when they throw up yet another desert-raping, infrastructure-straining, butt-ugly swath of pink stucco walls and fake tile roofs. If we all get our H2O from Tucson Water, which gets its supply from the CAP ditch, the reasoning goes, we won't have to worry about our future in the desert.
Wrong. In the first place, who says that even with CAP water Tucson has enough liquid sustenance to continue growing for the next 100 years at its present rate? Nobody. And besides, who would want to see Tucson grow on and on like some Phoenix or L.A.-style malignancy?
Perhaps that last question is easily answered by looking at who was sitting near Miller when he spouted his lies to the Rotarians. None other than Jim Click, de facto leader of the Growth Lobby's business/Republican orthodoxy in this burg. Click and guys like Buck O'Rielly stand to sell hundreds of millions worth of cars in this town if present growth rates continue. Their land and business investments will continue to appreciate in value year after year as the water continues to flow and the town continues to metastasize.
Meanwhile, of course, the quality of life for us average folk will continue to decline. Our roads grow more crowded by the hour, our air gets dirtier and dirtier. And our water--well, if you were one of the unfortunate thousands who turned on their taps to find rusty CAP crud bubbling out, you know what we mean.
Developers, car dealers, real-estate operators--none of them are evil per se, and we're sorry if we sometimes give that impression. We all have to earn our livings, after all, and we all have to feed our families. But what is evil in our present situation--terribly evil--is the incredible, greed-fueled short-sightedness we've exhibited in this desert. And, yes, it's evil to allow the commercial and developmental interests to dictate public policy, as they have for so long in this precariously balanced community. It's evil to ask those of us who already live here to sacrifice quality of life, and to pony up for ever-upward spiraling taxes, so that still more people can move here.
And all for what? So our kids will have a nice supply of minimum-wage phone solicitation jobs? So they can buy Fords from Jim Click? Thas' egg-zactly right, Hank.
This is nuts. And the only way to justify current growth rates to the average Joe and Jane is by lying:

They lied to us when they said CAP water would be used only for mines and agriculture.

They lied to us when they said people wouldn't mind drinking CAP water.

They lied to us when they said our new, $80-million-plus water treatment plant would work fine, just fine. And they basically lied to us again when they covered up the final court settlement after that boondoggle blew up in their faces.

They lied to us when they said they were complying with the Clean Water Initiative by "recharging" water in the Avra Valley, when all they're doing is pumping it in and then pumping it right back out.

They lied to us about the pressing need for a big, fancy reservoir to store all that CAP water and, golly, maybe it would allow us to promote some boating and fishing--and oh, what the heck, some nearby development.

They're lying to us on a regular basis with their $100,000-a-year public relations scam that features Tucson Water Director David Modeer as some damply earnest Abe Lincoln we're all supposed to trust.

And all of them are lying to us when they say growth is a revenue-producing panacea. Snake-oil salesmen, the lot of them.
And now George Miller is reduced to lying through the hairs on his chiny-chin-chin. Blatantly and without shame. He's telling lies about decent people who want only to do what's right for their fellow citizens.
How pathetically this once-bright man's public career peters out in the end.
GAL POWER: We note with amusement The Arizona Daily Star's eager puff piece on Betsy Bolding's non-announcement for the Tucson mayor's race. Bolding let it be known last week that she'll probably be running in the Democratic primary. She'll probably be making it official any day now.
Golly, isn't that great and important news?
Bolding, a former lieutenant under Bruce Babbitt's gubernatorial administration, is to the mayor's race what Carol Zimmerman was to the City Council race in the last election--a Democratic shill for the Growth Lobby. Another potential Demo candidate, Councilwoman Janet Marcus, is waiting in the wings as well, assuming Mayor George Miller decides to bow out, as our sources say he will. (Our insiders also predict George will endorse Bolding in the Democratic primary, snubbing Marcus, his longtime ally on the Council.)
What's really going on here, of course, is a Growth Lobby attempt to confuse voters with a plethora of female candidates now that Molly McKasson has officially announced her mayoral intentions.
McKasson will likely be the only candidate in the race who firmly opposes direct delivery of CAP water to our homes. That's reason enough to vote for her. The fact that Growth Lobby types fear a McKasson administration because she's taken up the cause of the ever-increasing proportion of working poor in our community (despite all of our wonderful growth in the last few years) is merely frosting on the cake.
NOPE, NO CRITICAL HABITAT HERE: When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued its intention to name all the critical habitat for the endangered pygmy owl in Eastern Pima County, the Growth Lobby stooges on the Oro Valley Town Council voted four to one to ask the federal agency to leave them out of the mix. That was duly reported. The part that wasn't: They also asked the feds to leave out large sections of Tortolita.
Why? Because, said the Oro Valley folks, they'd already determined most of that town was a great candidate for high-density development!
One more time: So why do supposedly environmentally concerned Tucsonans continue to support Mayor George Miller and the rest of the insane Council majority in opposing Tortolita's incorporation and assigning it to the gentle hands of the Growth Lobby shills in Oro Valley?
To his credit, Oro Valley Mayor Paul Loomis was the one dissenting vote. Council members Paul Parisi and Dick Johnson are proud to be owned by the Growth Lobby, and Cheryl Skalsky just got blown out the door and replaced by Wayne Bryant, who had the strongest pro-green statements of any candidate yet. We detect a trend. So will Councilman Fran LaSala begin acting like what he pretended to be when he ran, or will he now continue to give Parisi and Johnson the third vote they need for environmental sludge?
Maybe this burg needs another recall.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH: And speaking of Tortolita's foes: We've openly wondered why state Rep. Bill McGibbon, R-Dist. 9, was trying so hard to screw the Town of Tortolita on behalf of the insane growth maniacs in the state Land Department. McGibbon is ready to give that bureaucracy full power to veto any incorporation of any town that contains any state lands, even though there's little any town, new or old, can do to control what happens to those lands under current statutes.
An observant Skinny reader noticed that rancher McGibbon has a number of grazing leases with the state Land Department, and this could conceivably explain McGibbon's great deference to this group of unelected bureaucrats.
A few years back they repealed almost all the conflict-of-interest statutes, so McGibbon really couldn't have one, could he?
STARLAND: Just when you thought it was safe to read beat coverage in The Arizona Daily Star, reporters have been made to play management's sick game of musical chairs.
Environmental reporter Keith Bagwell, who's done a fine job--particularly with stories about questionable practices and prosecutions by County Attorney Barbara LaWall--covering Superior Court for the last seven months, is the new City Hall reporter. Hipolito "Poli" Corella, who has covered Pima County and City Hall for more than three years, is being sentenced to the dreaded Main Plant and will take the part of the education beat deserted by Monica Mendoza when she left for greener pastures. That's good and bad news. Corella has never had to work out of the Death Star's foul headquarters. Before moving to court and government coverage, he was camped out at the police station. Corella did an excellent job at the county. Now he'll take that to the Sunnyside School District, which will no longer be able to get away with its shenanigans.
Meanwhile, Joe Burchell, chief of the Star's downtown bureau for the last 100 years and an unrivaled City Hall reporter, will take another swipe at Pima County--he had the beat from 1990-'92, and continued with his dogged pursuit in 1993 of corrupt County Assessor Alan Lang and his top henchman, the incredibly conflicted Tom Naifeh. When all the goofy Tucson media were pissing their pants over Lang's carrying a gun and vacationing in Vegas, Uncle Joe did the hard work, focusing on what Lang and Naifeh were doing to property values for their friends and the rest of us. It was Burchell who got to the bottom of the sexual harassment complaints against Lang.
The switch also means Joe can get closer to the Star's powerful Pygmy Owl reporter, Tony Davis. Cop reporter Inger Sandal will move her coverage of bad guys to Superior Court.
Finally, Sarah Tully Tapia, the Star's TUSD reporter, will take the lead in a remake of The Substitute at a high school near you. Tully Tapia is going, not exactly under cover, to get a taste of teaching at Rincon High School. We can hardly wait for that series.

Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives