Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (December 3

Skinny INCORPORATION UPDATE: Much to the chagrin of Tucson Mayor George Miller and other anti-new-town zealots, Casas Adobes and Tortolita are still with us. The state Appellate Court upheld Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Alfred's decision to allow the towns to continue to exist pending the resolution of their case challenging the constitutionality of the 1961 law denying incorporation to those within six miles of an already-existing municipality.
Thanks to an ongoing campaign of disinformation waged by the City of Tucson, as well as the inability of the establishment media to sort it all out and report it accurately, it's difficult to get a handle on what's actually happening in the incorporation fight. But the bottom line is this: Casas Adobes and Tortolita did not, as many media falsely reported, get a "reprieve." They get a new trial, probably several.
The issues currently before the courts number at least six, by our count. They are:

The City of Tucson will probably appeal the recent decision by the Appellate Court. Odds are reasonably good that the state Supreme Court will not overturn a unanimous call by a three-judge panel upholding the trial judge, but Miller will push for it. This will extend the process and the decision time at the state level. If the Supreme Court leaves the decision alone, the matter of hearing the arguments concerning the constitutionality of the 1961 law will be go back to Judge Alfred.

The constitutionality issue is also currently before the U.S, District Court, where it's being heard by Judge Rainer Collins. Judge Alfred may defer to that case at a later date.

Tortolita has appealed the ruling of Superior Court Judge Chuck Sabalos upholding Oro Valley's ability to annex portions of Tortolita while the town still exists. We suspect Sabalos made a bad guess about what he thought the Appellate Court would do concerning disincorporation, as did Judge Mike Brown earlier when he treated Tortolita like it really wasn't there and shackled its town council from taking any meaningful actions.

Meanwhile, to further obsfucate matters, the federal courts have just enabled Oro Valley cops to patrol Tortolita once again, since Oro Valley has finally complied with a portion of the federal Voting Rights Act covering Oro Valley's threatened annexation of Tortolita. This decision was a minor victory on a procedural matter, and did not address the basic issue of Oro Valley's ability to annex in the first place.

Tortolita has two more lawsuits on hold. One is against Marana concerning the legality of Marana's annexation of 1,200 acres around Thornydale and Tangerine roads owned by Forest City Development of Cleveland. The other is the suit brought by the Attorney General of Arizona basically on behalf of Forest City and the state Land Department challenging Tortolita's right to exist based on some curious definitions of what constitutes a "community."
Expect these to be further appealed by either side, and don't expect to see a resolution of the two towns' existence for some months. In the meantime, they're still legal entities. Sorry, George.
GROWING FATTER, GROWING RICHER: With a straight face, Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull actually stated that "all options are open" when it comes to the provisions of the "Growing Smarter" initiative Arizona voters passed last month.
Check out the members of the commission that will oversee the law's implementation: Hull's five appointees are Jack Pfister, head of The Salt River Project: Steve Betts, a Phoenix real estate lawyer and lobbyist who represents clients like legendary land speculator Don Diamond; Flagstaff Rancher Mandy Roberts Metzger; Mark Schnepf, mayor of Queen Creek and director of the Arizona League of Cities and Towns; and the supposed "environmentalist," Luther Propst, executive director of the sham environmental group called the Sonoran Institute, set up by Diamond.
Add these five to eight members of the state Legislature, the state Land Commissioner and the state Parks Director, and the only real green you'll find will be in the wallets of the developers and land speculators who invented, funded and now totally control the phony "Growing Smarter" scam in the first place.
Undoubtedly the state will soon be buying land from guys like Diamond at an overblown price. That's what we all expect to be the only option under consideration by this phony commission in the near future.
GET THOSE BUMS OUT OF SIGHT: Tucson City Councilman Fred Ronstadt is leading the charge to get beggars and newspaper hawkers out of the city's medians. Citing fatality statistics, Ronstadt wants to ban them. And it now appears the powerful Tucson Newspapers Inc. is about to roll over, despite the opposition of homeless advocates like the Primavera Foundation and Brian Flagg, who are concerned that no other real job opportunities exist. Sorry, says Ronstadt, safety first.
Newspaper hawkers make about $6 hour when tips are included--and that's cash, instant money for those who are broke. Currently about 70 people a day take advantage of the opportunity, and there's really no substitute on the horizon for them. Even if the current batch were all housed and gotten decent jobs, what's the plan for the next group?
If safety is really the paramount concern, then several items should also be on the calendar for elimination. Bicycles are far too dangerous to ride in heavy traffic, as the number of bike fatalities proves. These, too, should be permanently banned, as should all those dangerous motorcycles. Statistics prove they're far worse than cars. In fact, considering the high number of pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries, we should probably consider making it illegal to cross those same dangerous streets where the medians are placed. We should at least make pedestrians wear the same protective headgear as cyclists and those attractive orange dayglo vests the newspaper vendors must don now before they're allowed to cross any of our highly dangerous intersections.
Interesting that Ronstadt, the Council's lone Republican--a member of the party that supposedly represents freedom of choice and individual responsibility--is the prime advocate for eliminating freedom and responsibility for the poor because it's "too dangerous." One would almost believe the charges of Flagg and others that this is nothing more than an attempt to push all those scruffy homeless people out of view. Yes, God forbid that we should have to look into the face of actual poverty now and then.
CRASH COURSE: James Kiser, editorial page editor of the morning fishwrap, somehow managed to lose and rediscover a conflict-of-interest during the recent nine-candidate race for two open seats on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board.
Seems three of the candidates--Judy Burns, Ken Kmak and Carolyn Kemmeries--met with members of the Star editorial board on October 14. Kiser led the session, which did not include two members of the editorial board, Judy Donovan and Tom Beal. A week later, four other candidates--Laurie Grana, Celestino Fernández, Rosalie Lopez and Diane Carrillo--were interviewed by a group that included Donovan and Beal, while Kiser was absent.
Burns was concerned about the discrepency, so she penned a letter to Kiser's boss, Star Editor Stephen E. Auslander, eight days after the election, asking some questions about the process.
"What I would like an explanation for is this--Where was Mr. Kiser's conflict of interest on October 14 when he interviewed Ken Kmak, Carolyn Kemmeries and myself?" Burns asked.
This is not a case of sour grapes. Burns, a tireless advocate for better schools and less bureaucracy in bloated TUSD, never hoped for The Arizona Daily Star's endorsement, though she never snubbed any interview requests. Plain-speaking, funny and blessed with terrific insight, Burns ran her last campaign for less than $500. We know that you also can tell a lot about a person from what they drive. Burns still has the 1968 Pontiac Tempest she ordered while in her native Michigan.
Burns never got the reply from Auslander. Instead she got a squirming, condescending letter back from Kiser, in which he says he temporarily misplaced his conflict-of-interest.
"This time around, I discussed my situation with my colleagues, and they didn't really see much of a conflict," Kiser wrote. "Thus, I sat through the first TUSD interview, in which you participated. But after that interview, I became aware I certainly did have a conflict. I then excused myself from the second interview and the decision on whom to endorse. I am sure you are not aware of it, but you played a role in my excusing myself."
"Between the two sets of interviews, you were quoted in the Tucson Weekly as making a comment critical of a TUSD program, the 4th R," Kiser continued. "That is the program in TUSD that my wife runs. Your comment made me aware that I did have a conflict. That was reinforced by my recognizing that one of your opponents, Celestino Fernández, was a member of the 4th R board of directors. Thus, when the second set of candidates came in, I told them I had a conflict and excused myself."
Kiser is being overly modest. He's more than a mere colleague of his editorial board members. He evaluates them, has a key role--if not the role--in setting their pay, and determines their assignments and schedules. In short, he's their boss. His wife, Shirely, not only works for TUSD and has Celestino Fernández on the 4th R board, but kicked in $55 to Fernández's nearly last-place campaign. And Shirley Kiser gave at least $20 to Kemmeries, who along with iconoclastic Rosalie Lopez, won a seat on the TUSD Board--currently one of the worst in town.
Curiously, the rotting Amphi School Board was left off the Star's endorsement schedule. Maybe we should consider ourselves lucky, since Kiser has shared several bylines with former Amphi Superintendent Rick Wilson, who is still close to Amphi Board President Mike Bernal. Voters bounced Bernal in the November 3 election.

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