Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (June 5

A VICTORY OF SORTS: Our county supervisors last week sent a big message to the U.S. Forest Service and its corporate overlord, ASARCO mining company--Pima County doesn't want no stinking copper mine in the scenic Santa Rita Mountains, much less another business venture with Superfund-violator ASARCO (a name which, we speculate, stands for Arizona Sarcoma And Respiratory Carcinogen Organization--anybody got a better idea?).
Skinny The vote against ASARCO's proposed Rosemont Ranch land exchange was 4-1, with Supervisor Mikey Boyd bending over and spreading 'em as usual for big industry. After the session was adjourned, Boyd shared a few minutes of disappointment with long-faced Dale Dixon, ASARCO's Rosemont project coordinator. In return Dixon thanked Boyd for all his help. Such good friends. Mikey probably wears one of ASARCO's spiffy white hats when they golf together. (Of course, we're not sure Mikey really golfs out there on the course--some whisper he just likes to wield his 9-iron in pursuit of the occasional "wascally wabbit.")
Thus Pima County's supes joined with the Tucson City Council and Santa Cruz County Board of Supes in opposing the land swap, which ASARCO wants so it can continue the desecration of Pima County when its Green Valley Mission Mine plays out.
Now if we could only figure out what the Pima County Parks and Recreation Commission is up to. They voted 9-1 to oppose a land exchange nearly two months ago, but the vote was never memorialized into a resolution.
Members of the Commission are appointed by the Supervisors to advise them on parks issues. But the supes have already taken their stand, so isn't the issue moot?
Perhaps ASARCO is behind the Parks & Rec Commission delay--who else would give a damn at this point? At any rate, the Commission is planning a Recreational Users Forum soon. Broad-based recreational user groups such as the Huachuca Hiking Club and Friends of the Sabino Canyon are being asked to send one representative to the invitation-only shindig.
Apparently ordinary citizens aren't welcome--dandy evidence for doing away with the damned Commission, as far as we're concerned. If any old taxpayer can't just walk in and sit down at this proceeding, what's the point of the taxpayers keeping it around? So special interests can use it as a political tool against the general interests of our community?
Save the Scenic Santa Ritas (SSSR), the powerful coalition that has been relentlessly dogging this issue, was originally left off the invitation list. Calls to County Parks Director Dan Felix rectified that. The Skinny hopes their speaker gets one of the pre-printed name tags necessary for entrance into the main hearing room.
It's an unusual format for a Pima County forum. Maybe Judith Abrams, local public relations queen, had something to do with it. She's ASARCO's hired gun on this one. Her hubby, local developer Stan Abrams, spoke out recently in favor of the proposed mine, saying--and we paraphrase here--Pima County already has scenic vista after stinking scenic vista, so who cares if they dig a great big pit in the middle of one?
Besides, who could tell an open pit from one of Stan's typical projects?
NOW TRY A BIG SWIG OF RUSTOLEUM! Have you seen Tucson Water's new commercial?
It features PR flack Mitch Basefsky making a public apology on behalf of the city-owned utility which forced us to drink that Central Arizona Project crap a couple of years ago. Then, in a move which demonstrates why all public relations people should be hunted down and beaten with sticks, he literally turns around and begins pushing the city's new, and increasingly ballyhooed, "At The Tap" campaign--an expensive ploy to get us to drink CAP water again.
A fortnight ago The Weekly published a report on this $658,000 propaganda push to get us all to drink CAP and like it--never mind that local voters soundly rejected the ditch's brew when they approved Proposition 200 awhile back.
We find it appalling that pols and bureaucrats would spend tax dollars to propagandize taxpayers on this or any other matter, but it appears to be a common practice. For example, the ivory-tower dunderheads at the University of Arizona were at one point this year seriously debating a proposal to spend roughly $500,000 to tell us all how wonderful they are. (Save us all the annoyance, assholes, and just give us back that portion of our money you really don't need--and maybe, just maybe, we can send more minority kids to college.)
All these PR campaigns prove is that government, at all levels, has badly misplaced priorities. And, apparently, way too much of our money.
But getting back to Tucson Water, they--meaning our public servants and the high-priced PR firms they've hired to propagandize us at our expense--actually plan on sponsoring some CAP-tasting parties. In other words, they'll offer a bunch of uncritical dupes different samples of CAP water, all laced with varying levels of potentially harmful chemicals. Once these idiots choose a great-tasting brew, and Tucson Water delivers it to our homes, supposedly we'll all happily drink the ditch water.
It's a typical propaganda technique--give your victims some semblance of a choice, no matter how meaningless it really is, and, if you're smoth enough at it, they'll likely think they're an important part of the decision-making process, and thus they'll be much more likely to accept whatever humiliation you wish to force upon them.
Of course the decision has already been made by the Growth Lobby that Tucsonans must drink CAP water in order to assure adequate water supplies for future development. So bottoms up, suckers.
TALK-SHOW HOST DE JOUR: KTUC-AM station manager Tom Hassey just axed his new, mid-morning talk show host, Willy Bils, before his first week was up. Hassey says he fired Bils--hard to do, since Bils had a three-month contract--while Bils says he considers the contract abrogated by Hassey's attempt to control program content and abusive language, among other breaches. Hassey later repeatedly tried to apologize and get Bils to return, but Bils refused.
Bils' last show included an interview with Ken Watts, local manager of TCI, the city's cable-TV provider. We're told Watts whined to the station's sales director about Bils' interviewing style. The sales director chastised Bils, and Hassey backed her up (no surprise--the sales manager is his daughter). When Bils asked whether TCI was advertising on the station, he was informed TCI was a potential client.
So it seems Hassey will try to squelch any host or news report that might endanger even potential ad revenue. Yeah, KTUC is a real hard-hitting news/talk operation, all right.
In the meantime, Hassey will probably fill Bils' time slot with more of Hassey's own inane babble, or more freebie satellite programming while he tries to peddle more infomercials.

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