The good, the bad and the ugly in Tucson these days:
• The good: A while back, I had to go downtown on a Saturday night to deliver an important message to my son, who didn’t have his phone with him. It so happened that it was the second Saturday of June, and downtown Tucson was jumping.
The Second Saturday extravaganzas that are being put on by a forward-thinking coalition of folks are a huge success. From the Rialto and the Hotel Congress on the east, to the Fox Theatre on the west, thousands of people were on Congress Street, Broadway Boulevard and all of the connecting north-south streets in between. There were live bands and food booths, street performers and art shows, young couples and entire families.
My son had attended the Weird Al Yankovic concert at the Fox, and I waited for him out front. As I waited, I watched a steady stream of people walk by—young and old, hip and lame, those who were interestingly dressed, etc. When the Weird Al concert ended, the near-sellout crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk in front of the Fox. People initially began to disperse, but then several imperial stormtroopers emerged from the theater, accompanied by Lord Vader himself. I assumed they had been part of Weird Al’s show, but one never really knows these days.
It reminded me of a story that comedian David Steinberg told a long time ago. He was going to appear on a show, and he was walking toward the studio. It was the early 1970s, and Steinberg had relatively long hair (not ponytail-length, but resting on his shoulders). Approaching his destination, he walked past a line of people waiting to get into a different studio for a taping of Let’s Make a Deal. As he walked past the would-be contestants, his hair flapping in the breeze, he heard an angry voice shout, “Hey, you weirdo!”
Steinberg turned in the direction of the voice and saw that the man who was yelling at him was dressed as a pizza.
Anyway, people walking by didn’t even do a double-take. They just walked up and started taking pictures with the stormtroopers and high-fiving Darth. It was way cool.
• The bad: I’m still getting e-mails praising Tucson City Councilmember Regina Romero for her part in keeping the evil mini-dorm developers out of the Jefferson Park Neighborhood. It’s really easy to root against those developer guys, and it’s human nature to want to protect one’s property value. However, I find it somewhere between disingenuous and outright hypocritical for people whose aforementioned property values are higher simply due to the proximity to the university to turn around and rail against the university and its attendant student-housing shortage.
A few years back, the people in Sam Hughes—in a display of hubris that was both vile and magnificent at the same time—complained about the “light and noise pollution” caused by University of Arizona football games. They also didn’t want the common rabble parking in or walking through their exclusive enclave. The Tucson City Council had to order ChapStick by the truckload after kissing the rear ends of those folks.
It’s amazing: You’ve got houses that would be worth a couple hundred grand, max, if they were in any other part of town that are worth much more because they’re right next to the university, and these people are going to complain about six football games per year. That’s about 30 hours, total. How about the other 99.7 percent of the year, when you’re basking in prestige and rolling in dough thanks to the name and location of Sam Hughes? Ingrates.
Likewise for the Jefferson Park people. The simple fact is that the university is growing at a staggering 5 percent per year, and student housing isn’t coming close to keeping up. The day is coming when the financially strapped UA is going to go on an eminent-domain frenzy to grab land for dorms. They’ll force all freshmen to live in dorms and make a sizable chunk of money. The days of the mini-dorm will appear quaint by comparison.
• The ugly: At its June 21 study session, the Tucson City Council learned that the takeover of the Pascua Neighborhood Center by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe would save the city of Tucson around $90,000, with the suggestion that the money saved could be used to open three of the 17 city-controlled public swimming pools that are closed.
But then some suit from the Parks Department spoke and said something like, “With the time it will take to get papers signed … blah blah blah … trouble the staff would have hiring people … blah blah blah … shortage of qualified lifeguards … blah blah blah…second session of summer school … blah blah blah … let’s just open those pools next summer.”
NEXT SUMMER?!! They never should have been closed. You have pay raises and car allowances, but a majority of the city’s public swimming pools are closed during a Tucson summer? That’s inexplicable and indefensible.
I’m just wondering how many of the nine people at that table (the mayor, six council members, the city manager and the Parks Department suit) have access to a swimming pool when they go home.
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.
Vader and the Stormtroopers are part of the Dune Sea Garrison, which is part of the 501st. The DSG is an amazing group of people…they do an incredible amount of fundraising for excellent charities like Make a Wish and kids Need to Read. They definitely rock!
I find that even on a subject in which I am not particularly interested/involved that Mr. Danehy’s style of writing and [warped…] sense of humor keeps me intrigued enough that I read his column from beginning to end each week.
re bad: i live in daytona beach – it used to be the biker capital of the world (one week of the year); but the old folks (and i am up there myself so i’m not bashing) can’t tolerate the “loud pipes” thru their neighborhoods for that one week, and the city council has driven up vendor/participant prices to where they’re unaffordable; hence, the bikers have moved to the surrounding communities; the bikers that one week brought in more revenue than all the other weeks combined (daytona 500 car race x 3 weeks, 4th of july race, spring break x 2 weeks, RV week, “turkey run”, etc) and yet the city council “doesn’t understand” where they’ve lost revenue, causing the need for raising city taxes and losing services; due to shortsightedness and listening to a few nay-sayers, they killed their golden egg; the university can’t move – so let’s support what we have while we have it and contribute to a solution where everyone gives a little! it’s called tolerance
There were plenty of qualified lifeguards looking for work last summer when theydecided to close those pools. What a shame and now a huge amount of money will be needed to get these pools back in shape if they do ever decide to re-open them? Hundreds of teenagers lost their jobs last summer due to poor planning by the city.
On the Good: Downtown Saturday Night is the best thing about going downtown, period.
On the Bad: Boo-Hoo….no sympathies here.
On the Ugly: I was wondering when someone was going to say something about the entirely unfair and inhumane closing of the City’s pools, the only reasonable oasis of relief and entertainment for Tucson’s average working family and the poor, during typically hellish summers. I am so disgusted and saddened by this state’s disregard for anyone who flies below the “financially secure” radar, that I would boycott all services like the city pool, except for two things: 1. I have a daughter who loves to swim and 2. I don’t think anyone would care if one less family frequented the city pools. Since doubling the cost of entrance to $2 for adults and $1 for kids, I have seen less and less children and families in attendance. This may not inconvenience the lane-swimmers and perhaps the retirees who frequent the facilities, but it is a sad turn of events for the youth of our city. You wanna know what they are doing instead? Tagging, loitering, and generally getting into trouble elsewhere in town. Way to save a buck, City of Tucson!
Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch that lack of access to city pools=vandalism, but the writing is on the wall (so to speak): anti-family legislation and budget cuts will inevitably lead to more expensive problems!
Tom, live next door to one of these Mini Dorms and you’d have a different opinion. Stop falling for the “Neighborhood is against students” claim. We aren’t. I was recently a student. The design of the building doesn’t fit Tucson. The rent charged isn’t affordable for a normal student, or Tucson resident for that matter. The residents of these houses are probably 70% rich party kids, and their environment (the minidorms) definitely effects their behavior for the worse.
I’m so tired people bringing up these suggestions of anti-student, anti-affordable student housing, because mini-dorms (at least Michael Goodman’s) are not affordable student housing.
James last I checked student housing isn’t rent controlled. I rent to 3-4 “rich party kids” a year and love them. They pay my mortgage and allow me to keep a house that otherwise may have went back to mr. big evil banker (not my thoughts but I figured it fits here in the liberal weekly). Just because you weren’t one of the rich party kids doesn’t mean you didn’t want to be and just because I have a red sticker from TPD on the front door doesn’t mean I hate my tenants.
I’m tired of people trying to change laws in mid stream and exposing the city of Tucson to future law suits. If you want to change laws so folks can only bid like property than make it so. Until then don’t punish the people that have found a way to make a profit and pay the city 10s of thousands of dollars in impact and permit fees to build legal residences for multiple students. It’s your neighborhood make development impossible if you wish. That being said don’t pressure people to “reinterprate” building clode to disinfranchise construction permits already issued.
“Until then don’t punish the people that have found a way to make a profit “… and “don’t pressure people to “reinterprate” building clode to disinfranchise construction permits already issued.”
Or as Moyla would prefer, how about pressure people to disenfranchise the neighborhood residents and punish homeowners so the house-owners can make a profit!
The university IS growing Tom but that is their decision so trying to make the neighborhood responsible for the university’s decisions is just faulty logic Tom. Plus I don’t see the University building these mini-dorms, for they actually do have the desire to work with the neighbors and keep a positive public image.
I gotta go now, need to see if truly nolen will take $50 in exchange for $100 dollars worth of work. I mean that’s what people here apparently do right – keep up services that they can’t afford instead of canceling them?
With the University investing in some down-town (Capstone) ventures, the ‘mini-dorm’ days are really numbered. It’s also unlikely that the UA will continue to grow – graduate students enrollments have been capped or reduced in many departments, there are a couple of units on campus that have lost nearly 30% of the faculty. Add this in: with Pell Grants and student loan deferment on the blocks in the debt ceiling negotiations, we could see a radically transformed UA with all of the rest of the U.S. system of higher education. The UA has hit it’s ‘pricepoint’ for tuition, and we should expect enrollment will be relatively flat this year – slightly larger freshman class is expected, but that will probably be offset by non-returning students leaving for financial reasons and a lot of departents enrolling fewer graduate students. And finally – actually enforcing the building code rather than the cronyism of the prior permit process that had allowed the group dwellings into an RI neighborhood isn’t ‘changing mid-stream’ – it’s following both the letter and the spirit of the law. 5 separate leases for 5 separate adult residents is not a single-family dwelling by any stretch of the imagination. Add in 5 more sweethearts and there’s a house with 10 cars on trying to park on single lot, not enough trash pick-up for the overflow housing, and you’ve made a real mess of the neighborhood. Danehy – come live next to, or better yet, between 2 of these mini-dorms.
Tom, you live in Oro Valley so your opinion about MY downtown in MY city is null and void. Your opinion about MY university that I attend is also unwanted.
Second Saturday blows.
Minidorms suck.