sustainability

Legislative Whirlwind Part 4: Lettuce & Birds (video)

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Lettuce in Yuma
Here we can see miles of fields of Romaine lettuce with crews of migrant workers in the distance. In the foreground are 1000s of discarded outer Romaine lettuce leaves. Workers severely trim lettuce heads down, so they can be sold as “Romaine hearts”. The leaves will be plowed back into the ground for nutrients, but still, the waste was surprise to someone like me who heard “waste not want not” many times while growing up.

During our Yuma Legislative Tour in December, we saw miles and miles of lettuce, cotton, broccoli, seed crops, and more. We got muddy and trudged around the Romaine lettuce fields with migrant workers, and we also toured a cotton gin. (More photos are here on my Facebook page.)

After our first day of touring Yuma’s agricultural areas, we heard multiple presentations at a hosted dinner paid for by different growing/ranching industry groups and served up by 4H and JTED youth. The presentation by Paul Brierley, director of the University of Arizona Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture, stuck out in my mind. He talked about using engineering technology to help growers in the Yuma area. According to the UA website, “The [Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture], based in Yuma, is a public-private partnership (PPP) between the college and the Arizona and California desert agriculture industry, dedicated to addressing ‘on-the-ground’ industry needs through collaboration and research.” The website continues on to say: “More than two dozen industry partners from Yuma and Salinas, California, have invested in the center, together committing more than $1.1 million over the next three years.”

Brierley is an affable engineer who grew up on a large farm. According to Bierley, the primary problem that industry partners wanted the PPP center to tackle was “productivity”. He talked about different ways to boost productivity by using technology. For example, Brierley said that the date palms needed help with pollination. He showed a photo of a migrant worker pollinating date trees using a machine that looked like a leaf blower strapped on his back. This human-assisted pollination worked, but to improve productivity, the UA and Yuma growers began experimenting with drones. They found that drones to be more efficient pollinators than people. Technology to the rescue: mechanical birds. (For some jobs, this is the future: people being replaced by machines.)

Another problem area that had been identified as a hindrance to productivity was birds.

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World View

Sustainable Econ Dev: $70 Mil for 2 Corps or $1 Mil Each for 70 Local Businesses? (video)

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World View
Contractors have begun blading the desert at the World View site.

In the name of economic development, Rio Nuevo and Pima County are poised to dole out $70 million in corporate welfare to two big corporations– $50 million to Caterpillar and $20 million to World View.

Ironically, one day before the Rio Nuevo Board announced the multi-million-dollar Caterpillar package for Tucson, I posted this article on saying “no” to Wall Street debt and corporate welfare and “yes” to helping local small businesses and entrepreneurs thrive with low-cost loans.

Let’s think about this a moment. These two governmental entities are have voted to invest $70 million worth of taxpayer funds in two companies– one company is being lured away from other states to move here and the other is a Tucson company with big ideas and little cash. Is borrowing millions of dollars to give it away sustainable economic development?

According to data from the University of Arizona Eller College, Tucson has one of the highest per capita rates of new patents in the US. We also have new start-up tech companies being nurtured at the UA Tech Park. We have smart scientists + new ideas. Why aren’t we helping entrepreneurs and growing our own local businesses with low-cost loans via a public bank?

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Broadway Blvd.

Broadway Widening… Again! How Many Times Do the People Have to Say ‘NO!’

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Broadway Village Shopping Center, designed by Tucson icon Josais Joesler, is one of the most unique shopping locations in Tucson. It could be destroyed with the widening of Broadway.
Broadway Village Shopping Center, designed by Tucson icon Josais Joesler, is one of the most unique shopping locations in Tucson. It could be destroyed with the widening of Broadway.

UPDATE: About 200 Tucsonans came to the Tucson City Council meeting publicized below. The Arizona Daily Star reported that the city “got an earful” from residents who want a modest project on Broadway. The final City Council vote will be Tuesday, April 19.

Remember all of those public meetings in which the citizens of Tucson said they don’t want Broadway Blvd turned into a massive eight-lane highway?

Or how many times we said we wanted to keep valuable historic buildings on Broadway? Or how many times we said that following obsolete growth projects was a silly idea? Or how many times we said, “We’re widening Grant Rd., why widen Broadway, too?”

Well, apparently, we have not told the Mayor and Council, “Enough is Enough” enough times.

I thought the fight over sustainable development and modest expansion of Broadway had been won months ago when the citizens task force voted to go with a smaller foot-print for the widening– a plan that the neighbors and concerned citizens agreed with– but no. Developers, real estate speculators, and automobile promoters are putting pressure on the Mayor and Council to ignore the will of the citizens.

TONIGHT – April 5 at 5:30 p.m. is another major public hearing on the Broadway Widening Project. Note the location change. It will be at the County Board of Supervisors meeting room. Details from the Broadway Coalition, link to a petition to sign, and links to four years of past articles after the jump. 

SunLink Streetcar

Tucson Loves the Streetcar: 60,000 Ride in First 3 Days (images)

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SunLink StreetcarTucsonans celebrated the debut of the modern streetcar in a BIG way this past weekend– by riding it en masse. Following multiple ribbon-cutting ceremonies along the route on Friday, July 25, 2014, 17,000 Tucsonans rode the SunLink streetcar on the first day alone.

A total of 60,000 people total rode the streetcar for free over the three-day weekend and flooded special events, restaurants, bars, and retail venues along the route. If social media is any indication, the well-organized celebration was a smashing success, with hundreds of smiling streetcar riders posting Facebook selfies, Tweets, and random video clips of the festivities and their experiences on the streetcar, at the pop-up downtown beach, or at the multiple events. The city is to be commended for orchestrating a complicated roll-out of a new mass transit service. From ice-cold water bottles and helpful volunteers at all of the stops to a pop-up beach party off of Congress, every detail was well planned and well executed.

The modern streetcar was part of the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) vote in 2006. The RTA package included something for everyone– road widening for the sprawl promoters and bus pullouts, improved bike paths, and the streetcar for the sustainability activists.

But the streetcar is far more than a mass transit service. Here are the top 10 reasons why the modern streetcar (and mass transit) are good for Tucson– and good for you.

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Ronstadt Transit Center: City, Developers Ponder Proverbial Political Football (video)

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RTCneon326-sig-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Anyone who has lived in Tucson long enough knows that the vitality of downtown has ebbed and flowed with the winds of politics and the fortunes of capitalism.

Thanks to infrastructure investments, tax breaks, land deals, and the promise of Rio Nuevo college students with Daddy's credit cards, downtown is again on the upswing– with swanky bars, over-priced restaurants, micro-breweries, maxi-dorms, and a modern street car to deliver college students to the main gate of the university.

With the smell of money in the air, capitalists are ready to play "let's make a deal" with Tucson's Mayor and Council. One city property that developers have been trying to score for years is the Ronstadt Transit Center, on Congress. Once surrounded by seedy bars, funky diners, and shoe-string art galleries, the Ronstadt Center is now in the thick of downtown's rebirth as Mill Ave South.

Anyone who was around in 2009-2010 when developers lobbied for a land swap deal that would include ~40% of the Ronstadt Center for commercial development  should pay attention to what's happening now. Details and video after the jump.