Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (September 18

Skinny GIVE A HOOT: More trouble is brewing in the Amphitheater School District--seems the U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials are concerned the district's plans for a new high-school site could pose a threat to the itty-bitty pygmy owl, which was placed on the endangered species list earlier this year. The school site is located in prime pygmy owl habitat.
The school site, at Shannon Road and Naranja Drive, is one of two that came under scrutiny in the Tucson Weekly last year. In a series of articles, The Weekly examined how Amphi, using real estate broker Bill Arnold, paid top dollar for two school sites without having the land appraised. Apparently, district officials didn't bother with an environmental survey of the property, either, or they might have discovered the potential owl problem at the time.
The delay comes at time when nearly 3,000 students are attending Canyon del Oro High School, which was designed for only 1,800 students. To accommodate the overflow, trailers--oh, excuse us, modular teaching units--are popping up all over the CDO campus.
Although Amphi officials are saying they hope the delay will only be four to six months, others close to the district say it could be a year before the district gets permission to build a school--and that's if nobody (like, say, those monkey-wrenchers at the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity) files suit to stop construction. If that happens, we could be well into the 21st century before the district can break ground.
Another wrinkle: The proposed school site is in the newly formed Town of Tortolita, which is also taking an interest in the situation. Tortolita attorney Bill Risner sent a letter to Amphi earlier this week demanding all records related to the school site.
"I am not unmindful of your school district's reputation for frustrating your obligations to make records available to the public," Risner wrote in his letter, reminding Amphi officials that attempts to hide or destroy records would be felonies.
If you're an Amphi parent or taxpayer who's interested in finding out more, the district has planned a public meeting to discuss the property at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 23, at the CDO High, 25 W. Calle Concordia.
VITAL STATS: The Arizona Daily Star's northwest section reported last week on a car-jacking in Oro Valley, at the ABCO in Rancho Vistoso. The perp forced the victim to drive into Tucson at gunpoint, then dropped him off and sped away. When the victim hailed a Tucson Police Department car, the officer told him to use a pay phone and call the Oro Valley police! The victim later got a Pima County Sheriff's deputy and another TPD officer to call OV for him, and they came down, picked him up, interviewed him at the OV police station and took him home, according to the Star.
Law enforcement sources tell us this is standard procedure between Oro Valley and Tucson cops, apparently based on the premise that TPD has enough crime to worry about as it is, while OV cops have a lot less to do. Of course this "we-don't-do-windows" attitude allowed the perp a whole lot more escape time, but hey, it's the statistics that really matter, right?
So now, if a woman is kidnapped and raped in Oro Valley and the rapist dumps her off inside the Tucson city limits, where she approaches a TPD cop to report her ordeal, will he simply tell her where to find the nearest pay phone while the rapist escapes?
Both the Oro Valley and Tucson cops need to remove their heads from their statistical asses. And it's time for the governing bodies, for whom they theoretically work, to start caring about protecting people, not tweaking statistics.
CADDYSHACK ATTACK: Like the beast in all those Jaws flicks, the sand sharks who run Oro Valley keep coming back to try to feed on the new Town of Tortolita. Even though Tortolita was incorporated by the Pima County Board of Supes on September 2, the Oro Valley Town Council, under the direction of Town Manager Chuck Sweet, is pursuing annexation on large swaths of what is now part of Tortolita. Sweet & Co. have told the media these annexation attempts are "just in case" Tortolita's status is successfully challenged in court.
The Tortolitans' response, besides demanding Oro Valley get its town limits signs out of Tortolita's rights of way, is to announce they, too, are considering an annexation attempt aimed at parts of what is now Oro Valley. Seems many good people in Oro Valley are fed up with the land speculator and developer stooges running things and would rather be part of Tortolita. These dissatisfied Oro Valley residents are examining statutes that allow both de-annexation and disincorporation. The odds of this occurring are slim, but the hell-raising Tortolitans are getting ready--"just in case"--to see if they can snag the besieged riparian gem of Honey Bee Canyon before what's left is bulldozed by Oro Valley land rapists.
GIMME SHELTER: Sunnyside High School is a closed campus, with school district monitors and Tucson Police Department officers prowling the grounds to keep folks both in and out. Sadly, these dedicated servants end up standing in the blazing sun, a routine broken only by the occasional soaking rainstorm.
They have to endure these miserable conditions because Sunnyside High School Principal Mary Garcia (wife of TUSD Superintendent George Garcia) doesn't seem to consider their comfort important.
On one occasion, a small, air-conditioned building was donated to the cause, but the school's honchos worried that the lowly and low-paid monitors might goldbrick if they were out of sight indoors, so the building was usurped for other purposes. Several makeshift ramadas have blown down over the years, leaving the monitors and cops without shelter.
Several monitors have come down with heat rash and heat stroke this summer. TPD officers, meanwhile, are sweating bullets because they're forced to wear those stupid, dark uniforms. Principal Garcia hasn't been able to find the funds to keep them out of the sun and rain, but she did recently acquire about $10,000 worth of new office furniture.
GEE, WHO COULDA GUESSED? The latest Nielsen report is out, and guess whose TV news has taken a dive? KGUN-TV, Channel 9's, of course.
Long a strong No. 2 in this market, frequently just behind perennial No. 1 KVOA-TV, Channel 4's Eyewitless News, Nine News has fallen behind longtime loser KOLD-TV, Channel 13's increasingly slick-looking production. (Of course, "slick" is no synonym for "substantive," mind you--KOLD offers the same unimaginative gruel as the other guys, but with more attractive on-camera clones mouthing the same predictable blather.)
KGUN blew what little credibility it had with its ill-considered move to a one-hour newscast at 5 p.m., a newscast that seems to have the same woefully inadequate amount of dull local reporting as the old half-hour show, but spread even thinner between canned network stories. Add to that the fact that Guy Atchley and Colleen Bagnall just don't seem to click as an anchor couple, and you wind up with a ratings disaster.
Guess station management can always blame their ill-considered moves on some consultant or other.

Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives