Welcome to District 5's Home on the web!
I want to keep visitors to this website up-to-date on what the board is doing on behalf of county residents in general and my District Five constituents in particular. Those who survey all the features of this website will get a good idea of who I am and where I stand. Hopefully, it will inspire you to get in touch with me to let me know where you stand, and where and when you believe I am on track or astray.
Board Renames Tucson Mountain Trail for Lorraine Lee 04.24.2009
In honor of the late Lorraine Lee, the Board voted 5-0 on April 21 to name a hiking trail in the Tucson Mountains for this social-justice activist and professional leader of Chicanos por la Causa, a social-service agency with a focus on home ownership.
The Lorraine Lee Hidden Canyon Trail, which loops into Tucson Mountain Park behind the Starr Pass Resort, now carries her name.
As an activist, Lee delivered impassioned speeches at numerous public forums in support of the undocumented, the disadvantaged and others discriminated against. As a professional, she was the top CPLC official in Southern Arizona for well over two decades, working tirelessly to provide homes for thousands of lower-income working families, to establish quality schools for students who thrive in independent settings, to provide leadership training for thousands of youths, and to guide thousands of struggling families through the social-services maze.
A wife, a mother and an influential member of a large extended family, Lee still made time to serve on numerous community boards, commissions and councils. Her dedication to the quest for social justice, particularly on behalf of the Latino, Asian and Native American communities, earned her widespread respect and national recognition.
Lee, who succumbed to throat cancer on Oct. 31, 2007, was a Tucson native whose father was a U.S. Army veteran of Chinese descent and whose mother was of mixed Latino and Chinese heritage. She was trilingual and tricultural.
Check this website for details about the upcoming trail renaming ceremony to again recognize the contributions of this remarkable woman. See the "Honored" section of this website to read more about Lorraine Lee.
Midvale Park Celebrates Completion of Street-lighting Project 06.05.2009
The Midvale Park Neighborhood Association in District Five had a celebration on May 30 of the completion of a $745,840 project to install 80 street lights in the neighborhood, improving its walkability and enhancing public safety. Roughly 19,000 Midvale Park residents in 5,000 households benefited from this project.
The largest funding source was Pima County's Neighborhood Reinvestment Program, using $396,108 of 2004 bond money. The City of Tucson contributed substantial sums from its Ward 1 (Regina Romero) Back to Basics Fund and other sources. Work on the project was completed the February.
The Midvale Park neighborhood, bounded by Irvington Road, the Santa Cruz River, Mission Road and either Valencia or Los Reales roads, now has 68 new street lights on Midvale Park Road and 12 new lights on Oaktree Road.
Richard and Councilwoman Romero joined current Midvale Park Neighborhood Association President Christina Cruz and former President Joe Miller for the celebration at Grijalva Elementary School. Camiliano Juarez coordinated the project for the Pima County Neighborhood Reinvestment Program and Andrea Altamirano of Richard's office provided project oversight.
Pima County Wins Auction to Buy Tumamoc Hill for Preservation
03.02.2009
Pima County was the only bidder on February 23 for 320 acres of state school trust land on the western slope of Tumamoc Hill, a District Five icon, which we now will buy so it can be preserved for future generations. Richard took a leadership role on the vital preservation project over his seven years in office.
Tumamoc Hill is home to the University of Arizona's 105-year-old Carnegie Desert Laboratory, which continuosly has studied the hill's Sonoran Desert flora and fauna since its inception. Pima County will preserve this land for the laboratory's benefit.
Pima County also will preserve and protect ancient Hohokam stone terraces and walls dating as far back as 300 B.C. and important Tohono O'odham burial sites from the much later historical period.
We will keep open for the use of walkers and joggers the paved road leading to the laboratory so residents and visitors can enjoy the hill's desert beauty while getting in some healthy exercise.
Richard worked with Ward One Tucson Councilmember Regina Romero on the final steps of this project. The City of Tucson operated a 25-acre landfill on the site from 1962 to 1966 and the City Council unanimously approved her February 10 motion for the city to accept title to the landfill property, which needs longterm cleanup.
Richard wishes to thank Pima County voters for authorizing the sale and use of bonds for this Tumamoc Hill land purcahse in 1997 and 2004. We will use $2.35 million from those bond authorizations to match a $2.35 million Arizona State Parks grant for the $4.7 million purchase.
Since the late 1990s, the county tried several approaches to buying this Tumamoc Hill parcel to preserve it. All had failed until now.
This purchase is a milestone in our effort to preserve a vital piece of our natural beauty, a critical link to our Native American heritage and the continuation of very important scientific study of our Sonoran Desert's flora and fauna.
Supervisors Approve Anti-Buffelgrass Measure 03.24.2009
The Board of Supervisors on March 17 revised a county ordinance to make buffelgrass a weed that the county can require property owners to eliminate. The measure applies to county jurisdictions outside city and town limits.
Buffelgrass is a hearty, fast-growing African clump grass that ranchers imported decades ago to supply their cattle with forage. It crowds out native Sonoran Desert sepecies and it is highly combustible, so it can produce devastating fires. This dangerous grass has spread far and wide in our area and numerous efforts are underway to eradicate it.
Under the revised ordinance, people whose property contains buffelgrass can be ordered to create a plan for its removal within 30 days. The Pima County Department of Environmental Quality will issue buffelgrass-remvoal orders and decide if removal plans are adequate. Affected people can appeal these orders to the Board of Supervisors if they believe thier orders are unfair.
Those who receive orders but do not appeal them, or whose appeals are denied, must carry out thier buffelgrass removal plans. If they fail to do so, the county
Environmental Quality Department can remove buffelgrass from properties where orders were issued and present the affected property owners with a bill covering the department's cost for the work.
Supervisors Enact Measure to Curb Underage Drinking 03.04.2009
Richard's ordinance to deter adults from providing alcoholic beverages to underage persons in the adults' homes won unanimous Board of Supervisors approval on March 3.
The ordinance makes it a class 1 misdemeanor for adults, in their homes, to supply underage persons with alcoholic beverages or to knowingly let underage persons consume alcoholic beverages. It applies to unincorporated areas of Pima County. The city of Tucson enacted a similar ordinance about two years ago.
Arizona law prohibits persons under the age of 21 from buying or consuming alcoholic beverages. It also prohibits adults from supplying such underage persons with alcoholic beverages at stores or in taverns, restaurants or other places of business.
When law enforcment agents are alerted to parties or illicit drinking in homes, however, they only have been able to cite underage drinkers and not the adults supplying them with alcoholic beverages or allowing them to consume alcoholic beverages on those premises.
Too often disturbances associated with underage drinking in adults' homes lead to injurious or fatal violence or alcohol-related, also sometimes fatal, traffic accidents. This ordinance gives law enforcement another tool that can help them save lives.
Dealing With Foreclosure/Don't Borrow Trouble Pima County
03.02.2009
Pima County has sponsored several workshops on how to deal with the threat of foreclosure on homes and how to deal with foreclosures after they occur. Attendees received general information and private, confidential consultation. The events were associated with the onging Don't Borrow Trouble Pima County campaign to deal with the crisis in home foreclosures.
If you want to buy a home, to refinance a home mortgage, to take out a home-equity loan, to prevent an impending foreclosure, or to consolidate debt, you can make use of Don’t Borrow Trouble Pima County campaign resources.
The campaign includes brochures, radio and television announcements, workshops, an informative website: http://www.dontborrowtroubleaz.com, and a telephone “hotline,” (520) 792-3087, that reaches trained professionals who can answer many questions for free and can refer callers to appropriate experts who can answer other questions.
Pima County and several local organizations have joined Freddie Mac in this campaign to inform people about how to avoid predatory mortgage loans, which have caused a widespread national outbreak of loan foreclosures and of lending company failures.
If lenders make claims that sound too good to be true, their claims probably are not true. “Pre-approved” home loans offered over the telephone or in the mail are an invitation to trouble. Borrowers must demand to have any offers in writing and should talk to several lenders before making a commitment, or signing any papers. Borrowers should ask about “prepayment penalties” and “additional fees.” They should not sign documents with any incorrect dates or blank fields.
Scam lenders use an array of gambits to trick borrowers into agreeing to a bad deal that can cost them dearly, and too often even costs them their home.
Borrowing against a mortgage or on an increase in a home’s value can result in a much longer-term loan at a higher interest rate, so the borrower ends up paying much more over time. Since the borrower’s home is collateral, borrowers can lose their homes if they fail to make payments. The number of people losing homes to foreclosure has gone up 200 percent since 1980.
Freddie Mac is a government-backed but stockholder-owned company that Congress created in 1970 to support homeownership and affordable rental housing. In addition to Pima County there are 23 other local supporters of Freddie Mac’s Don’t Borrow Trouble Pima County campaign.