DRIPS: Tucson Vice Mayor Steve Leal has again stood up for the rights of Tucson Water customers. This time Leal was able to rescue a public hearing on how to best implement the anti-CAP Proposition 200. It seems the staff, which appears to be accident prone when it comes to implementing Prop 200, somehow managed to schedule three other items for public discussion on the same night as the Prop 200 hearing. And that's the point, isn't it? Our pro-development "public servants" want to slash the time for the public's input and deny meaningful discussion. Thanks to Leal, the public hearing has been rescheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, at the Crystal Ballroom of the Tucson Convention Center. Leal says no other item is on the agenda. A full four-hour hearing is now scheduled. Oh, and Tucson Water failed to get its Prop 200 proposed implementation plan turned in by its March 7 deadline. Each day Tucson Water fails to publicly produce the plan means a review day lost to those citizens preparing to participate in the upcoming public hearing. GOD BLESS HISTORIC DEMOLITION: It's time for yet another non-profit to get behind the demolition dais and preach destruction. First Christian Church on Speedway has applied to demolish an historic home they own at 1036 N. First Avenue in the West University Historic District, so that they can--get this--have better access to their parking lot. Hey, weren't they the same folks who tore down at least one other historic structure on Speedway so they could have a parking lot, which they now lease to the credit union across the street? This time the church kicked out their 10-year tenant, who ran a foster home for disabled kids. The kids were removed from the home for two weeks earlier this year following anonymous calls to the state saying they were "worried" about the children's welfare. Apparently things weren't too bad in the house--considering the church hasn't made any discernible attempt to repair anything there in the last couple of years--but the tenant did have to put a sock over a dryer hose to catch some lint, and you know how life-threatening lint is. Apparently the First Christians want some kind of a grand entrance to their church on Speedway and would prefer all their traffic come in off First Avenue rather than Speedway, where the cars go now. House in the way? Blast it all the way to heaven. Hey, can anybody guess which side of this issue First Christian members like state Rep. Andy Nichols and ancient real estate mogul Roy Drachman are on? With the Postal History Foundation in the throes of construction down the street following their own historic bulldozing of a structure for a library, and Speedway neighbor Casa de los Niños now snuggled into its new administration building, for which they ripped down three historic homes, we must ask: Is this how non-profits in historic neighborhoods will continue to act? CO-OP BLAB: Tucson's Food Conspiracy Co-op has been through some tough times, what with a naive attempt at too large an expansion that ended in bankruptcy and infighting among officers and members. As much as we enjoy reading the recent nasty exchanges in the monthly newsletter, it's a little like a soap opera that's gone on just a few years too long. Our yuppie friends, busily shopping at Reay's, used to laugh when we bemoaned the events that threatened to wipe the first natural foods store in town off Fourth Avenue. But recent board elections appear to have brought in more people with vision, meaning the Co-op may make it yet. The membership avoided electing Arizona Daily Star environmental-beat reporter Keith Bagwell (We enjoyed his recent piece on the show and sale of doubloons and other recovered treasure, and if we think hard about it we're sure we can tie it to the environment--cleaning up the oceans by diving for dollars, maybe?) and his like-minded pal and board badgerer Soaring Bear. Word is these two have spent just a few too many hours hovering in fear of big corporate brother and bad-mouthing the idea of accepting credit cards at the grocery store. What are a couple of e-mail guys worrying about accepting plastic for? With the rumors of a large natural foods store coming into town soon, we look forward to the Co-op moving into plastic. And as far as dropping the Food Conspiracy name, as has been suggested, because it sounds too, um, post-Cold Warish: Let's not go into veggie overload, folks. ARE WE JUST TOO DARN NEGATIVE, OR WHAT? People have been complaining lately that The Skinny and the Tucson Weekly in general are just too darn negative. Golly, we're sorry. We didn't realize what we've been doing has offended the Community, and we do mean Community with a capital "C." It's such a wonderful Community, too, where the Anglos live in their little areas in the rapidly expanding foothills (we apologize for our frequent use of the word "metastasizing" when referring to the mostly Anglo area), and the Hispanics live in theirs on the south side, and the African-Americans, well, we do have African-Americans here, don't we? We saw a couple of them once, and it was awesome! Yes, Tucson is a happy place where the rich get richer and anybody can shop at the wonderful malls and drive around for hour after happy hour in their cars. And where many people have air-conditioning. Why, even the buses run on time--and you can always find a seat! Did we mention the city wants to pay its new transportation director about $90,000 a year? Isn't that super! Sure, we've got a few little problems and a few bad apples here and there, but, gosh darn it, Tucson is a wonderful place. And it'll be much more wonderful when we hit 1.5 million people in the next 20 years or so. If we've given some other impression, we're really sorry. It's a place where our children can grow up free and, except for a few drive-by shootings and the occasional "stranger danger," relatively unfettered. It's a place where even people without homes like to come to escape the freezing cold winters elsewhere. Too bad they don't stick around for our summers, but that's their problem. And Tucson is full of golf courses and resorts and other places where workers can earn at least $4.25 an hour. And our big telemarketing operations are second to none! So we've finally seen the light. We don't know what came over us all those years ago when we first began to harp and complain about our wonderful Community leaders and the great power structure and their Mercedes cars like the one well-loved City Manager Mike Brown drives in his private life when he's not driving his big city car, and all that fabulous growth and stuff. Once again, we're sorry. From now on, we promise, we're going to be positive and happy! And just as soon as we get off our silly medication maybe this awful bloating and our dry-mouth will stop, too, and we can get down to the pleasant business of publishing more funny animal stories and printing pictures of cuddly kittens who wouldn't dream of eating the rotting corpse of their dead master like in that dreadful story in The Arizona Daily Star, an otherwise fine publication, last week. Nope, just the sunny side of the street for us smiling gals and guys here at The Skinny from now on! Thank you, and have a really happy week!

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