Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (April 23

Skinny ATTENTION PERSECUTORIAL MORONS: Yes, it's a shame novelist Leslie Marmon Silko's snake mural was painted over last year. The mural, on the side of a nondescript building on North Stone Avenue, was an inspiration for poor people and minorities seeking justice in white-dominated Amerika. Silko painted the mural when she was struggling with the second half of her haunting masterpiece Almanac of the Dead.
Then along came local T-shirt magnate Tommy Tucker, who bought the building and--despite the pleas of neighbors, artists and Silko herself, not to mention an editorial in The Arizona Daily Star--replaced the mural with some cheesy UA Wildcat graphic. He later stuccoed over the blue-and-red eyesore he'd created.
It was a bad move on Tucker's part, in our opinion. But he owned the property, and he was perfectly within his rights to express his apparent lack of sensitivity in such an egregiously petty manner.
But that's not the end of the story.
Since the mural was destroyed, a group calling themselves Tucsonans Against Tommy Tucker has been distributing hate literature calling on people to attack the T-shirt magnate. As much as we disapproved of Tucker's treatment of the mural, we find it even more egregiously petty that someone would advocate physical violence in this situation. Violence is a tool that is properly reserved for desert-raping developers of tract homes, as well as people who string up innocent Mexicans and Indians without a trial. To advocate violence for do-it-yourself art critics is, well, overkill.
And besides, lately Tucker's enemies have been picking on the wrong Tommy Tucker, a talented local blues guitarist WHO IS NOT RELATED TO THE T-SHIRT GUY, and who is baffled by the negative attention. This other Tucker, who actually liked the mural, is now concerned about the safety of his wife and kids.
Anti-T-shirt-Tucker forces recently leafleted cars at a pub where the other Tommy Tucker was playing--a clear case of libel if ever there was one. (Trust us, we know about libel.) But Tucker the guitarist isn't like to sue these errant morons; he just wants the harassment to stop.
And while they're at it, maybe the members of Tucsonans Against Tommy Tucker could also get a life.
CHAIN GANG BLUES: Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal sees the recent influx of chain restaurants here as a threat to small business. Last week he held the first of a series of meetings with local business folks to discuss the situation.
Among other things, Leal pledged to check on the possibility that chain restuarants are getting a break when it comes to applying for liquor licenses, and to explore rumors that chains may be getting discounts on utility rates that the little guys aren't privy to. He's also promised to check with the League Of Cities and Towns to determine if there are any ordinances elsewhere in America that would allow local governments to favor locally owned and operated businesses over the national chains, whether in tax structures or other matters.
We're also told Leal would like to conduct a study of how money flows through the chain operations versus the local folks' businesses. It may be that if more dollars stay in town because of local ownership, a tax break for the natives may be justifiable. (We think such an ordinance should apply to newspapers, too!)
Then again, maybe not. But at least Leal is trying to do something in the face of this national onslaught, which is more than we can say for most of the bovine-like pols in this burg. At last week's meeting there was even talk of starting a local merchant's association that would be more than just another Republican PAC like the Greater Tucson Chamber of Commerce. Local people concerned about local issues and developing a local agenda--what a concept!
For years in this town, people griped that our economy consisted of doing each other's laundry. Now it appears we're increasingly doing the laundry for wealthy, out-of-town plantation owners, while fewer and fewer Tucsonans can affording any clothing of their own.
TAKING A BITE OUT OF TORTOLITA: In their insatiable quest to suck up to anybody who wants to build anything, the Oro Valley Town Council passed two more pre-annexation agreements with developers. One would allow a 160-acre parcel to convert from residential to commercial; the other would waive the Oro Valley grading ordinance and allow developers to bulldoze under Pima County's regulations, which are more lax.
Both actions are more evidence that the Growth Lobby owns those council members, who evidently have so little respect for their own grading rules that they'll waive 'em for anybody.
But there's more: Both parcels are within the corporate boundaries of Tortolita!
The developers would clearly prefer to deal with Oro Valley rather than Tortolita--and their stooges on the Oro Valley Council, led by Town Manager/Chief Empire Builder Chuck Sweet, will go that far to accommodate them. The annexation can't be finalized unless Tortolita is dissolved--and there are still fights in the court and the Legislature to keep the town alive.
This is one more example of why Tortolita was founded. Maybe some of the pseudo-environmentalists who are opposed to incorporation because it will make "regional planning" more difficult should start to understand that if there is no Tortolita, you can kiss off everything north of Ina Road. Oro Valley and Marana will annex it and let the developers bulldoze it.
And it also clearly illustrates just how weak Pima County's current grading ordinance really is. The Board of Supervisors should quit stalling and pass a real one.
The vote to cut this disgraceful deal was 3-1, with former Oro Valley Mayor Cheryl Skalsky dissenting. Skalsky may have rediscovered her conscience, following her memorable breakdowns at Oro Valley Council meetings, which forced the present council majority to remove her from the mayor's post. Councilman Paul Parisi was absent, leaving the decision to lame duck Councilman Bill Kautenberger, who just lost a mayoral bid, and the two council members who were appointed and never chosen by Oro Valley voters--current Mayor Dick Johnson and Councilman Frank Butrico.
Butrico is up for re-election next month in a run-off after finishing behind Fran LaSala in the March primary. Oro Valley voters who believe in their grading ordinance and who think that cutting deals with developers over land in other towns is a crappy way to do business oughta vote accordingly.
BALLOT BOXING: Now that Bill Kautenberger has gone down in flames, the Growth Lobby can be expected to support the guy who ran second, Mike Cadden, against Oro Valley Neighborhood Coalition member Paul Loomis, who finished first in the primary.
Cadden, a former navy SEAL, is a classier horse than Kautenberger and may be too smart to become a total stooge. But his predilections hardly favor the neighborhood types fighting to make Caddyshack once again respectable. That the Growth Lobby basically supported Kautenberger in the primary over Cadden--a former head of the Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce--indicates just how much they prefer a stooge to a winner.
Oro Valley's politics seem to be sliding out of the grasp of the Growth Lobby, which seems incapable of containing the local neighborhood activists, who are not exactly the First Marines. The neighborhood folks seem to have a bias against raising any money effectively. In an earlier Skinny column, we pointed out that they didn't even endorse their own candidates in their newsletter. We were later told that, as a non-profit group, they couldn't endorse anyone. But why bother working as a non-profit group if saving money on postage precludes you from political action in the first place? And why didn't you set up another committee to back up your own people?
We're guessing that Cadden will have the most money. If Loomis gets anywhere near close--or even wins--it means that Caddyshack has had it with blind support of the bladers and graders.
WHERE WAS ROD? Inside Tucson Business editor "Odd" Rod Smith has the honor of being the first regularly scheduled speaker to miss an appearance at the Pima County Republican Club.
The club is meticulous about sending reminders and re-confirming, which they did. Club members tell The Skinny that Smith told the GOP group that "he just spaced it."
We have another suspicion. Smith's columns have demonstrated that he knows very little about Tucson. We figure he got lost and just couldn't find the Viscount Hotel.
AT SOME NEWSPAPERS, "SPORTS REPORTING" ISN'T AN OXYMORON: Maybe The Arizona Daily Star's editors don't realize that some people actually rely on it for news. The April 17 sports section story by Scott Simonson about Amphi putting baseball Coach Danny Hernandez on leave was pathetic. After prattling about how Hernandez was suspended for a "rules violation" (not having a current teaching certificate), Simonson wrote: "Yesterday marked Amphitheater's second brush with controversy in recent weeks. In a recent edition of a local weekly paper, unnamed sources accused the program of recruiting Mexican nationals to come to Tucson to play for the Panthers."
Soooo, does the Star then reveal a knack for simple reporting? Does it at least try to knock down The Weekly's story that there are nine Mexican nationals playing on the team? Does it ask if anyone thought Hernandez's suspension had anything at all to do with The Weekly's story? Did Simonson ask Amphi Principal Ramon Paz what exactly was going on at Amphi? Nope.
The rest of this mush was devoted to assisting volunteer assistant coach Ron Dominquez, (an adult probation officer, who should know better) in making a fool of himself. Dominquez, instead of acknowledging the Mexican nationals on the team and the problems this situation has caused, comes across sounding like one of his probationers protecting his homies: "I guess there's other underlying things. There's nothing but negative press. I think emotionally we're very loyal to Danny. We're like family. When one of us has a problem, all of us has a problem." (You got that right, Ron.)
Then Dominquez goes on to play the big card: "There's sort of a subtle kind of racism at work there. The bottom line is any time there is controversy, we as adults tend to lose sight of what is most important." (You got that right, too, Ron.)
The Star, on the other hand, just didn't seem to "get it" at all. Mark our words. The whole Amphi baseball story, which the Star (at this writing at least) seems intent on not reporting, ain't out yet. And it ain't gonna be pretty.

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