Tucson Weekly: The Skinny (December 11

Skinny HONK IF YOU LOVE SWEETHEART DEALS: Lately we've been fulminating about problems down at SunTran, Tucson's fleet of 203 municipal buses. The city-owned company has been run by the mammoth management firm Ryder/ATE for nearly two decades.
It's a contract which city officials have allowed to stand for far too long, thus contributing to an absence of accountability and promoting the waste and abuse of our tax dollars.
The numbers speak for themselves: With a current inventory of bus parts valued at nearly $800,000, and without so much as a director of purchasing to oversee all this valuable stuff, the entire burden of keeping track of it falls on SunTran's two buyers. Oh, and of course, a parts management that consistently circumvents the company's already weak purchasing procedures. (Speaking of which, wasn't there a Tucson city councilwoman for whom SunTran's purchasing procedure was altered? Nahh, that would be too blatant.)
Because of the current parts management setup, or lack of one:
• With little or no comparative pricing, SunTran is paying excessive prices for inventory.
• Company officials have failed to revamp an inefficient and outmoded ordering system. They've also failed to implement a bar-code inventory control system;
• Due to an amazing--or convenient?--succession of computer crashes, SunTran warehouse and maintenance records date back only to December '96. After the latest crash, we're told, a computer specialist was brought in. He allegedly reported it might be possible to recover 95 percent of the damaged records. We're told he wasn't retained to perform this task.
• There's little or no tracking of components sent out for repair work, warrantied or otherwise. In some cases, our informants tell us, SunTran appears to be paying for work that should be covered under warranties.
• Despite a huge increase in the number of items handled, staffing levels have not increased in the SunTran warehouse for the last 15 years.
• Some parts are arbitrarily discarded, inventory records are erased, and some items are "dispersed" to private parties in what critics complain is a "questionable" manner.
• Bus transmissions sent to Phoenix for rebuilding are returned as "minor overhauls," at almost $7,000 each, double the in-house cost to completely rebuild them.
• Cross-referencing of parts numbers is not maintained, thus creating difficulties in accessing inventory. Without the necessary cross-references, parts are trashed when a particular series of buses becomes obsolete--without regard to their possible usefulness in another series of buses. In many instances, we're told, identical replacements for these thoughtlessly trashed parts must be purchased.
• SunTran has been known to buy cheap, imported fasteners--nuts and bolts--some which are listed on the S.A.E. Counterfeit Fastener and "National Highway Traffic Administration Suspect Bolt Headmark" lists. Profits over safety, eh, gang?
Of course, in the face of the audit of SunTran currently underway, change is now being promised on every front. Yeah, right. What's the cover story for the previous 19 years? Rip Van Winkle syndrome?
We've said it before and we'll say it again: It's time for a new management company at SunTran.
MEANWHILE, THE DEGRADATION OF THE AMERICAN WORKER CONTINUES APACE: Somebody please tell Ryder/ATE: If you want a clean fleet of buses, you make it a priority, you budget money, and then you pay people to perform the task.
It used to be that employees got paid overtime to come in on their day off and clean the bus fleet. Not this year. Now the company is offering hot dogs instead of pay.
If SunTran workers had any pride, they'd tell management where they could stick their teenie weenies.
THE BIGGEST NON-STORY OF THE FALL SEASON: The Arizona Daily Star's Rhonda Bodfield produced a giant "yeah, so?" story her editors thought was front-page material last Thursday, December 4. It was headlined "Developer's fund raiser for Pastor questioned," and featured a mug shot of Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson. It went on to explain...well, nothing really.
So Democratic Congressman Ed Pastor had a fund-raiser. It was held at a golf course in Green Valley partially owned by Fairfield Development. The rather large sponsoring committee included some Fairfield executives. Fairfield has a rezoning request before the Board of Supes for Canoa Ranch near Green Valley. Bronson attended the fund-raiser. Therefore, you might conclude something could be fishy--if you stretched real hard and talked to Supervisor Raul "Pour-Me-Another-One-I'm-Under-A-Lotta-Stress-Here" Grijalva.
Hardly. Bronson was supported by fellow Democrat Pastor in her supervisorial election, bought her own ticket, and says she didn't even talk to anybody from Fairfield in the large crowd. Part of that crowd included two top-level bureaucrats--County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and George Brinsko, county wastewater manager. One of the county's lobbyists, Art Chapa--he's also a member of the Arizona Board of Regents--chaired the event. A whole bunch of developers were there. So was just about anybody who contributes to Democratic candidates. Wow--hot stuff, Rhonda.
A more accurate headline reflecting the actual nature of the event would've been: "Democrat supervisor joins other Democrats in attending Democrat fund-raiser." The fact that it was held at a Fairfield course is about as politically significant as Democratic groups (and The Pima County GOP Club) meeting at the Viscount Hotel, which is owned by developer/land speculator Joe Cesare, who was one of the big sponsors of the failed Proposition 201. Bronson had her 1996 victory party at that hotel, with lots of heavies and developers present--including most of those who attended the Pastor fund-raiser, and even Grijalva. And this despite the fact that Bronson wrote one of the ballot arguments against Proposition 201.
Grijalva and Bodfield see the Pastor fund-raiser as some sort of secret plot by Fairfield to gather support for the controversial Canoa rezoning. The story was designed to give that impression, giving credence to the charges by some that Bodfield has become an unofficial PR flack for Grijalva in his subterranean war against fellow Democratic Supervisors Bronson and Dan Eckstrom. Considering the multitude of real scams and shady deals occurring daily around here, this turkey doesn't even warrant a story, let alone Page-One treatment.
GRIJALVA READY TO JUNK TRUTH IN BONDING? Board of Supervisors Chairman Raul Grijalva has announced he wants to condemn a large chunk of property owned by the Fairfield Corporation to save it from development. While saving Canoa Ranch is a worthy environmental objective, Grijalva faces one small problem: not enough money in the county budget or bond package. Had he thought of it a few months ago, he might have been able to get the votes to increase funds in this year's budget or earmark them in the earlier county bond election for open space acquisition. He didn't.
Now the only way to acquire as much of Canoa as Grijalva wants is at the expense of other open space acquisitions, and by moving the Canoa deal ahead of those passed by the voters in the spring bond election.
But to change that requires the virtual repeal of the Truth in Bonding Ordinance the supes created to induce enough voters to pass those bonds. It seems voters were tired of being lied to about how bond monies would be spent. Grijalva was apparently ready to sacrifice both the supes' credibility and other open-space needs worked out with local environmental groups and approved by the voters. And this probably explains why County Parks Director Dan Felix, a Grijalva ally, has been, in the opinion of several environmentalists, dragging his feet over acquiring the open-space targets listed in the bond package.
Much of what Grijalva wanted to purchase is flood-prone land and probably can't be used for development anyway--assuming, of course, that Pima County has the guts to enforce its own flood-control ordinances. Perhaps Grijalva's move was symbolic, as none of his colleagues favored dumping the Truth in Bonding Ordinance, hence the final vote this past Tuesday to ask staff to study the issue some more and report back. After all, it's highly unlikely that even Grijalva would be willing to anger the environmental groups who helped design the existing bond package.
We suspect what Grijalva really wants to do is claim he tried to save more of Canoa and blame his lack of success on his fellow supervisors for not going along. Symbolism over substance has long been a Grijalva trademark.
RONSTADT RESPONSE: Last week, The Skinny mused whether newly elected Ward 6 City Councilman Fred Ronstadt would support changing Tucson's current election system, in which council members are elected citywide, to a new system under which candidates would run only in their own wards. Since Ronstadt serves a strongly Democratic ward, the consequence of the change would make him an underdog when he faces re-election in 2001, although it would improve chances for Republicans elsewhere in town.
Ronstadt called The Skinny to let us know that he does support ward-only elections, despite the potential personal political cost.
DISTRICT 13 DOINGS: GOP activist and old-school insider Kathleen Dunbar is planning to run for the GOP nomination for the state House of Representatives in District 13. She's got her eye on one of the seats now held by Democrats Andy Nichols and Brian Fagin. Dunbar, well glued to the GOP establishment, should be able to raise enough money to make it an interesting race in that marginal district. Besides her GOP base, she's been active with other groups, particularly the Humane Society, which should aide her candidacy.
Nichols is the stronger and more effective of the two Democrats, but Fagin has the advantage of Hefty bags full of cash, which he spent winning last time. He'd better plan to do so again. Unless a strong GOP candidate emerges in District 14, or a strong Democrat in District 12, this could be the only targeted local legislative race for Republicans in 1998.
KVOA'S PARTIAL REDEMPTION: As you may recall, the Skinny recently was all over KVOA-TV, Channel 4's news team for wasting one whole half-hour in a shameless promo job for University Medical Center, where the relatives of several KVOA news nabobs hold PR jobs.
Now, hoping our kudos don't get him into trouble, we'd like to compliment reporter Frank Field for his recent excellent series on privacy.
Field covered many aspects of the issue and even touched on hospital privacy, specifically featuring problems at UMC, where information is released to vendors about patients without their permission, and where information is gathered that goes beyond what hospitals need to function.
Congrats, Frank--nice job.
AND SPEAKING OF PRIVACY: This month's issue of the National Privacy Journal features a hospital-related article, specifically on the easy access to Social Security numbers at Veterans Administration hospitals throughout America. The article credits one of Tucson's best local gadflies, Willy Bils, for having fought the issue to the attention of folks all the way to D.C. Nice shot, Willy.
ROUGH START-UP: On a 4-2 vote with one member absent, the Casas Adobes Village Council has hired the attorney for its incorporation committee, Greg Good, as its village attorney. The Council members chose to do so after they'd already held an executive session with the yet-to-be-appointed Good, discussing in secret not only his appointment but other matters.
This is the methodology that got that incorporation committee in trouble with Casas Adobes voters in the first place--too many secret meetings. We hope the newly appointed Council will take heed in the future and that no one sues them over what appears to us to be a clear violation of the state's Open Meetings Law.

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