Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (June 4

Skinny BLOCKED? Kudos to the Tucson City Council, which finally found a way to prevent Olga Block from destroying the serenity of the Richland Heights West Neighborhood, an urban oasis of dirt roads and large lots bordered by Campbell Avenue, Fort Lowell Road, Tucson Boulevard and Prince Road.
As you may recall, Olga had decided--without so much as meeting with the Richland Heights folks--to open a BASIS charter school in the midst of their neighborhood. (One person discovered, to her horror, that a classroom would be just 20 feet from her bedroom.) And, since state law allows charter schools to open just about anywhere, there seemed to be little the residents could do to prevent their 'hood from being shattered by a school subsidized by state tax dollars.
But the City Council may have found a way to help the neighborhood: They unanimously passed a new traffic ordinance which might just prevent the BASIS school from opening. Under the new law, if property owners change the uses of their properties, they're prohibited from using residential streets if the new use would result in a five-fold increase in traffic.
Olga may still find a way around the new ordinance, or she may be able to work out a deal with a nearby business on Campbell Avenue to provide access to the school's parking lot. This fight ain't over yet.
Keep in mind that Olga Block is married to Michael Block, a UA economics professor and former member of the now-dead Constitutional Defense Council, an idiotic organization which blew hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in pointless squabbles with the federal government at the direction of convicted felon J. Fife Symington III, who is scheduled to start serving time in a federal penitentiary as soon as those liberal judges quit being soft on crime and make him do his time.
Michael Block is also a big muckety-muck with the Goldwater Institute, an allegedly conservative Southwestern think-tank.
It's sad, really, that with Barry's passing last week, his legacy is now in the hands of arrogant assholes like the Blocks, who have no qualms whatsoever about destroying their neighbors' serenity, peace of mind and property values. Their we-don't-give-a-shit-about-our-neighbors attitude in this case makes them just the sort of people Goldwater would have liked to kick in the ass.
MEANWHILE, IN ARMORY PARK: Next week, the City Council is scheduled to look at how they can help residents in the historic Armory Park Neighborhood.
The Armory Park folks are concerned that the Arizona Department of Economic Security has already signed a lease with Alan Levine, who owns a parcel adjacent to the neighborhood. Levine wants to build a warehouse on the parcel and rent it to DES.
Residents are worried the facility will increase both car and foot traffic through the neighborhood. On top of that, they have concerns with the design of the building.
A few weeks back, the Council voted to oppose DES' move and directed City Manager Luis Gutierrez to write a letter to the agency, asking them to reconsider the move.
The response, written by DES staffer Vince Wood, brushes aside the concerns of the neighborhood and Council.
"DES is in a fully executed and legally binding lease with the owner of the new facility," Wood wrote. "Given these circumstances, DES cannot reconsider its decision to relocate services to the new facility."
Translated, the DES response is: Why don't you go screw yourself?
Not only is DES refusing to budge--the agency is also willing to pay a whopping $15.75 per square foot, according to city staffer John Updike, who says that's "a market rate for Class A space." In other words, DES is willing to pay the kind of rent you'd normally find at a place like the Norwest Tower--for warehouse space. And they're forcing Levine to have the warehouse built by August 1, or face penalties of $1,200 a day.
Updike also says Wood is full of crap when he says the lease prevents reconsideration of the site. Updike says the lease can be terminated with 60-days notice.
The situation is frustrating to the Armory Park residents, who say Levine probably wouldn't even be building the warehouse if he didn't have a tenant who was willing to pay top dollar--so again, state tax dollars are subsidizing the undermining of a neighborhood.
Given the number of times we've heard about vacancy problems downtown, it seems absurd that a state agency would need to build more office space, especially if the ultimate effect will contribute to urban blight.
Councilman Steve Leal has asked the Council to look at its options at Monday's meeting. Let's hope city staff can be as resourceful here as they've been in Richland Heights.
And we have to wonder: Isn't there something Gov. Jane Dee Hull's office can do about this mess? Or do they just not give a shit?
AND NOW A WORD FROM THE AMPHI SCHOOL DISTRICT IDIOTS' CABAL: The Amphi District School Board, a tight little group of self-serving, anti-democratic dimwits--with the exception of Nancy Young Wright, who is both bright and honest--has sent out a questionnaire for citizens to complete and return, supposedly anonymously.
Yeah, right. So what's with that sequential serial number on the bottom of each copy? Gee, they won't be able to tell who filled out which form, will they?
The questionnaire appears to be designed to help the corrupt Amphi Board majority identify sympathetic, or simply ill-informed, citizens willing to support them in their continued control and abuse of the district.
Furthermore, the document is worded in such a way as to downplay the growing demand for a call-to-the-audience segment at school board meetings, a feature common to most democratic bodies in this nation, but not in the Amphi District.
If you're inclined to support the call-to-the-audience proposal, mark your calendar now--the Board will discuss the topic at a special meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. on June 16. But remember: Board President Mike Bernal has promised to address the topic before, only to weasel out later.
SICKLY RESPONSE: GOP state Sen. Ann Day, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, has made a lot of noise about the problems with HMOs, earning her a reputation among the easily impressed daily papers as an HMO "watchdog." Last November, Day assembled a committee of doctors, business leaders and HMO execs to study this increasingly troublesome area. And--surprise!--they didn't come up with any answers.
They did manage to tell us that many people are growing even more unhappy with managed care as service levels decline and costs escalate. And they noted that the doctors and other "street-level" care providers are getting less of the higher premiums everybody's paying. They also found that top HMO execs are making obscene amounts of money. And that took six months? You could have figured that out by taking in As Good As It Gets at a bargain matinee.
Conclusions? None, really. Day's brilliant take? "People expect you (HMOs) to provide them with quality care when they need it, and you promise quality care, but people have to fight to get it." Very observant, Senator--did that take you years of watchdogging to put together?
Of course, Day's little group doesn't tell you that the current healthcare system built around insurance companies is the real culprit in these horror stories--the same stories we've heard before about socialized medicine in Britain and elsewhere. They also neglect to mention we now have two kinds of healthcare welfare in America--one for the very poor, who get better care than many HMO members, and another system for the very rich, who own the insurance companies and who are subsidized and encouraged by an increasingly corrupt government.
Try studying that, Senator, and maybe you'll be little less clueless in the future. For now, you sound like Emily Litella on the old Saturday Night Live Weekend Update.
THIS GUN FOR HIRE: The Growth Lobby, which goes bonkers over the mere thought of property being down-zoned, recently persuaded the Arizona Legislature to pass a miserable law to eliminate the power of local governments to down-zone much of anything. Gov. Jane Dee Hull, mumbling something about "property rights," signed the bill into law.
While that new law waits the mandatory 90 days to come into effect, we observe one of Tucson's biggest Growth Lobby law firms, Lewis & Roca, working diligently--to get a down-zoning!
The property in question, located on Kinney Road, was rezoned CB-2 in the '80s so the owners could build a feed store, which the neighbors didn't mind at the time. Now, however, the property owner has transferred a liquor license to the place and plans to open a bar, which is OK under CB-2 zoning.
This has upset the neighbors, who've hired Lewis & Roca to get the property down-zoned back to CB-1, based on the rationale that the zoning code has been changed and now allows the original feed store under that designation.
And attorney Frank Bangs Jr. told the Board of Supes they had to hurry because the new law would prohibit them from taking the action if they didn't act fast. The supes duly acted, referring the matter to P&Z and recommending the down-zoning.
So the property is now back to its original CB-1 and the neighbors won't have to put up with the bar. And we got a laugh out of seeing one of the biggest advocates of the down-zoning prohibition pushing for a last bite of the apple.
THINGS AREN'T SO GROOVY OVER AT JUVIE: We've been hearing a lot of complaints from employees of the Pima County Juvenile Court system. They're saying the management style there is Draconian, but many won't file legitimate grievances for fear of retaliation. We're told turnover and transfers to adult court are higher than normal.
The alleged problem seems to center around Court Administrator Don Shaw and his assistant Judy Holgate. A refugee from Maricopa County, Shaw took over the job last year. Both Shaw and Holgate seem to enjoy the full support of Presiding Juvenile Court Judge John F. Kelly. We're told Kelly consistently shrugs off complaints--which are now mostly anonymous, unfortunately--as the rumblings of a few dissidents.
Apparently Kelly doesn't see a morale problem in his court. But we've seen and heard enough evidence to think otherwise. Juvenile Court and other judicial employees are not entitled to the same merit system protections as other county or state workers--so these folks have come to us.
Running a juvenile justice system has to be a somewhat depressing job in the best of situations. To make it even more depressing by managing by intimidation, as many employees claim, isn't a bright idea, and certainly wouldn't serve the system well. We hope this is a wake-up call for Judge Kelly, who seems to be a decent, hard-working guy.
FORTUNE COOKIE: Nerdy Republican Board of Supervisors candidate Ken Marcus told the Neighborhood Coalition of Greater Tucson last week that a recent fortune cookie revealed he'd be changing jobs. Apparently Marcus thought it was a clever way of saying he could unseat appointed incumbent Ray Carroll and stave off Brenda Even (who continues to terrify the public with that unnaturally orange hair) in a special September primary election in District 4, which includes eastside Tucson and Green Valley.
But it turns out Marcus, manager of finance at Bell & Howell in Tucson, has another career change ahead. Although he's been with the company for eight years, he'll be out of a job when B&H closes its local office this summer. All total, Tucson will lose some 70 B&H jobs.
Unless he starts taking tougher stands--Marcus couldn't even say if supported the Sierra Club's Urban Growth Boundaries initiative--we doubt if Marcus will be finding a new job on the Board of Supes.
BLOCKED-HEAD SCHEDULE: Raise your hand if you remember when school started at 8 a.m. and got out at 3 p.m. Okay, okay, put your hand down; you're attracting attention. If you felt a little stupid raising your hand, we have something to make you feel much less so, in relative terms.
Listen to this tortured schedule for next year at Sunnyside High School: On Mondays, students will go from 7:25 a.m. to 1:40 p.m., but only go to first, second, third, and sixth periods. Tuesdays, it's 7:25 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. again, but this time it'll be only first, second, fourth and fifth periods. Wednesday is reserved for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth periods only, but school starts at 8:45 a.m. and gets out at 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday it's back to starting at 7:45 a.m., and kids actually attend all six classes in the same day. But school gets out at 2 p.m. on those days.
Unless there's a full moon.

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