CIVICS LESSON
The sheer absurdity of the modern-day Republican Party was on full
display last week, when conservatives came unglued at the notion that
President Barack Obama was going to address schoolchildren,
because they were worried he was going to indoctrinate them in
socialism and turn them against American values.
Yes, this is what it’s come to: Republicans now hate the president
of the United States so much that they believe he should not be
encouraging students to stay in school and study hard.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, a
Republican who regularly visits schools himself to encourage them to do
well on the AIMS test, joined the pitchfork-and-torches crowd. This
shouldn’t come as any surprise; Horne wants to run for attorney general
against Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a much more
conservative Republican, so he has to develop his right-wing bona fides
somehow. And what better way than busting on the most hated Democrat in
America?
Horne maintained that he was concerned that the teaching materials
sent out to accompany Obama’s speech seemed too much like “hero
worship,” because they didn’t encourage students to challenge what the
president had to say.
Asked what could possibly be challenged about a message that
children should stay in school and study hard, Horne said that
“certainly, everyone agrees with that. But my guess is that it will be
more than that.”
And, indeed, it was more than that. Obama also told the kids to be
sure to wash their hands so they don’t spread the flu.
ROCK ON
Following a summer featuring threats of eviction, demands for “back
rent” and other hostile back-and-forth, our friends at the Rialto
Theatre Foundation are out of immediate danger of being kicked out of
the building behind the theater that they use as a green room and
office space.
The foundation came to a lease agreement with the property owners,
Scott Stiteler and Don Martin. The foundation will now
pay $2,800 a month in rent and had to give up the attorney’s
fees—in the neighborhood of $6,000—that they won when a
judge ruled they were not illegally occupying the property during an
eviction action brought by Martin.
That’s good news, although the Rialto Theatre
Foundation—headed by former Tucson Weekly publisher and
editor Doug Biggers—can’t move forward with plans to
improve the lobby until they strike some kind of deal with Stiteler and
Martin to acquire some of the space they’re now renting. In the
meantime, the foundation hopes to begin work on a new patio on Herbert
Avenue east of the theater.
As regular readers may recall, the whole fight came about after the
foundation opposed a complex deal that involved giving Stiteler and
Martin about $4 million in city-owned property in exchange for the
developers fixing up the Rialto block, giving some land to the city and
fulfilling various other requirements. That proposal was rejected by
the City Council earlier this summer.
Which brings up a couple of interesting questions:
• Will Stiteler try to strike a new redevelopment deal with the
city that would include giving some of the Rialto building to the city
of Tucson (which now owns the Rialto Theatre)?
• Will the city agree to pay Stiteler up to $950,000 for his
expenses in putting together the deal that collapsed?
UNBALANCED LEADERSHIP FORGES UNBALANCED BUDGET
Arizona finally has a budget in place, although it’s not what the
economists would call “balanced.”
As Labor Day weekend approached, Gov. Jan Brewer did some
slicing and dicing of a GOP budget blueprint that was hammered out in a
long special session.
To restore some of the cuts that Republican lawmakers had made to
education and welfare programs, Brewer vetoed an extension of a $250
million property-tax cut. Republican leaders are, of course, outraged.
The cost to an owner of a $200,000 home will come out to about $70 a
year. Big whoop.
Brewer has given up, for now, on her insistence on a
one-cent-per-dollar temporary sales-tax increase, although she vowed to
keep fighting for it—or at least we think she did. It can be hard
to tell what Brewer is talking about sometimes.
The governor also wants lawmakers to come back for yet another
special session to clean up some of the mess left by her various vetoes
last week.
Make no mistake: Tax collections for the current fiscal year
continue to come in under projections, and the state has yet to hit
bottom, so this budget will need more revisions when the Legislature
reconvenes in January.
And it’s likely to only get worse. When lawmakers start writing next
year’s budget, all those stimulus funds that are helping to get us
through this fiscal year will be gone, and nearly all the gimmicks will
be played out.
The real pain is yet to come.
THE VOTERS MUMBLE
You probably didn’t notice, but the city of Tucson had a contested
primary election for the Republican nomination in Ward 5. Shaun
McClusky captured 59 percent to beat Judith Gomez.
In raw numbers: McClusky got 456 votes, while Gomez got 318 votes.
That’s a pretty unimpressive turnout, but then again, there are only
4,398 Republicans in Ward 5, so the 780 votes (counting write-ins,
blank ballots and over-votes) come out to less than 18 percent of the
electorate.
Only 132 people cast votes on Election Day. The rest—82
percent of the voters—cast early ballots. It might have been
cheaper to go to the voters’ homes and ask them if they wanted to vote
than to open the polls.
McClusky will face Democrat Richard Fimbres in the Nov. 3 general
election.
PERHAPS SOMEONE SHOULD CHECK OUT A COPY OF ‘HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE’
We wrote last week about how Oro Valley wanted Pima County to give
them money to run their library, and how Pima County said they’d be
happy to take over Oro Valley’s library so residents there wouldn’t
have to spend their precious tax dollars on it.
Oro Valley officials have rejected that offer, saying their library
is so much better than all the other “average” libraries in Pima
County.
Oro Valley residents made their pitch for more funding at last
week’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Jayne Kuennemeier, who
helped form the Friends of the Oro Valley Public Library, explained
that Oro Valley was different from the rest of Pima County.
“We have an interesting community,” Kuennemeier told the board. “We
have a higher education level. We have a higher income. We probably
read books that other people don’t.”
Hmmm—maybe with those higher incomes, Oro Valley residents
could just buy books and help support authors instead of being
cheapskates and checking them out at the library. Or maybe they can
afford to pay a little extra in taxes and help the rest of the poor and
uneducated people in Pima County have access to books and other library
programs.
Pima County Supervisor Richard Elías took exception to
Kuennemeier’s comments.
“While I recognize that your community has affluence, that does not
give you intellectual superiority,” Elias said. “We all read the same
books, believe it or not.”
Find early and late-breaking Skinny at The Range, our daily dispatch.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.
Having volunteered at both Oro Valley PL and PCPL, I can tell you that the only real difference is that the Oro Valley patrons are 90% white and skewed much older. That meant that a lot of their patrons were there needing help getting into their AOL email accounts.
Re: The Rialto. It’s really depressing that this wasn’t resolved. Now the Rialto guys will have to deal with more interminable delay, dealing with the entirely unprincipled and dastardly Stiteler and Martin. It’s enough to make one give up on Downtown altogether. I am gonna wager that in 12 months nothing happens, the Rialto stagnates, and Stiteler and Martin are heaped with more scorn, all of it deserved. God help this shithole of a cowtown.
Re BO’s education speech. It was not the speech that raised Horne’s ire, it was the lesson plans. Horne did not advocate challenging the content; he objected to asking kids to listen ‘reverently’ rather than critically.
Also, I wonder what the original draft of the speech was, before the objections forced BO to alter his rhetoric.
Chuck: If you read what I wrote, I said that Horne’s problem with the speech was the accompanying materials. But you’ll have to explain to me how listening critically is different from advocating students to challenge the content.
As far altering the speech goes: My guess is that Obama originally was going to recite the Communist Manifesto, just like they do in classrooms in his native Kenya.
Jim, I love the sarcasm, but you have to keep in mind that the reality-challenged will take what you say at face value and be dittoing you about the CN and Kenya and all. Right now there’s a whole bobble-head battalion sitting there doing a nodding dog impression and muttering in unison about how right you are.
I think it is cool and a good idea for EVERY president to address our school children.. I think it should be a requirement in fact to have this speech once in fall and once in spring.. I am sure the kids were impressed that the President was speaking to them.. As long as it is a general “pep talk” with ZERO political stuff.. none of the green, health care, ….. Then it is a very good thing.. I am quite sure Jim would have been just as supportive of President George W. Bush giving a pep talk speech. Right Jim?.. I am sure you will get the chance to support a conservative, republican president someday soon when he gives his school pep talk.. I wonder how that will be received at the Weekly and by libs.. Won’t that be exciting? Just as exciting as President Obamas speech? It should be as it is the President..Right? We ALL know the truth.. Admit it.. You won’t admit how much the opposite of Obama giving that speech would irk you.. but it would.. Had McCain won and done this the libs would be insanely angry.. It is the libs turn to play big shot.
libs and dems won and to the victor comes the holy high ground and the right to look down on the peasants…It is a game and that is all.. Quit the holier than thou approach Jim. If the shoe were on the other foot, you and libs would be pissed.. Might be Sara Palin in 2013 talking to the kids. Won’t that be exciting for you and the kids?
Re: Sept 4 AZ Illustrated comment about health care Town Hall mtg… “keep gov’t out of my Medicare”. FYI many, including self, get our benefits thru a Medicare Advantage plan operated by private insurer not gov’t. I have full copy of HR 3200; IMO, it wants to eliminate the program. THAT was the message. There’s a big disconnect between what the President says and HR 3200. Uninformed (humor?) commentary doesn’t help. My continued viewing will be with a pinch of salt under my lip.
Hi Bob: The GAO reported in Feb. 2008 that “payments to (Medicare Advantage) plans have been estimated to be 12 percent greater than what Medicare would have spent in 2006 had MA been enrolled in Medicare (Fee-For-Service).” So while I think it’s great to be experimenting with whether the private sector can deliver health-care services more efficiently than the government can, the early evidence points in another direction.