Today’s newsletter looks a lot like the agenda for today’s Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Why? Well, Joe is out for the week and he’s the one who does the actual reporting on local government meetings. I mostly sit on the sidelines and complain about how needlessly messy these meeting agendas are.
So what I did today was lay out the newsletter with the same numbering scheme as the supes’ agenda. We’re going to burn through each item one by one. I’ll highlight the interesting items, point out the incomprehensible ones and basically narrate the agenda.
It’s all part of my grand plan to put readers on the same page as reporters.
The iconic Pima County dome.
I’m convinced there really isn’t any good reason why a random Pima County resident shouldn’t be able to skim an agenda in a minute or two and come away with a solid understanding of what their politicians are doing.
But that’s just not the case right now. Instead, it requires hours of work to decipher the language used in meeting agendas at most local governments, not just Pima County.
Plus, I have to admit I have a soft spot for all the little news nuggets that never get any attention.
Anyway, consider this my first attempt to sketch out a better way to write meeting agendas.
Are you as excited as I am?
OK. Let’s get into it.
Getting started
First off, everything we’re talking about today can be found in this document, the meeting agenda for today’s Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Each agenda starts with disclaimers and rules for public participation. We’re going to skip those today.
Roll call: Everybody here?
Pledge of Allegiance: Where’s the flag? OK. Got it.
Land acknowledgement statement: Native people were here long before the concept of “Pima County” existed. Yep.
Current events/public acknowledgements: Political tidbits from the electeds.
Agenda adjustments: Usually this means killing agenda items for any number of reasons.
Call to the public: The only part of the meeting that is live and unscripted. This is often a fun watch. A while back, a guy sat on top of the table and just smiled at the supervisors.
The supervisors may go into executive session at this point in the meeting. Nobody scheduled one for today, so everything will be discussed out in the open. Yay!
The supervisors sit as the Flood Control District Board
This agenda item is gobbledygook. It has something to do with a $201,000 contract, but I don’t really understand it. Pro tip: If you’re ever flabbergasted by an agenda item, click the link to the attached document and scroll until you see “Program Goals/Predicted Outcomes.” I know, this is a ridiculous task to foist on the public, but at least you can see the contract deals with construction on Irvington Road.
Same story for this one. I couldn’t write with confidence about it. The item talks about a $7.4 million contract and the attached documents mention restoring native habitat on the Santa Cruz River. Fair enough. But if it were happening in your backyard, would you be able to tell if this explanation was all you had to go on?
Contract
Borderland Construction Company, Inc., Amendment No. 3, to provide for Construction Manager at Risk Services: Santa Cruz Cortaro Narrows
Training Structures, extend contract term to 6/30/28, amend contractual language and scope of work, Flood Control District Tax Levy Fund,
contract amount $7,391,721.71 (PO2500029212) Administering Department: Regional Flood Control District
Attachments: PO2500029212
Again, not totally sure what this is. It looks like the county is tweaking a flood control contract by $59,000.
This one is a little more straightforward (at least, I think it is). The county is adding 25 years to its lease agreement with the Tucson Wildlife Center.
It looks like the U.S. Geological Survey is going to operate gaging stations on several local rivers, creeks and washes at a cost of $1.25 million. (Thanks again to the Program Goals section for providing even that amount of detail.)
Hearings
Fireworks! Love them or hate ‘em, there are usually several local groups that apply for fireworks permits every meeting.
Liquor licenses! Same story as fireworks.
Procurement
This one could be a little juicy. A contractor is upset they didn’t get a wastewater construction contract that apparently would be worth $25 million annually. And it looks like they’re winning the argument! County Administrator Jan Lesher wrote a memo recommending Achen-Gardner Construction be awarded at least part of the contract.
Consent calendar
The catch-all bin of routine county business. Basically, approving the muffin budget does not need a five-minute conversation. Then again, last week’s Tucson City Council agenda buried two important items on the consent calendar, which ruffled some feathers among the council members. Today’s consent calendar includes items like adding another $90,000 to pay lawyers in the Louis Taylor lawsuit and amending a $2 million contract for HVAC services.
Board of Supervisors
County administrator hiring process: Lesher is retiring in about 90 days, so the board gets updates every two weeks about the search for her replacement.
County administrator
Also an interesting item. The county is following in the footsteps of Gov. Katie Hobbs and other officials who are trying to block public employees from using inside information on prediction markets. I’d expect to see this pop up in a trend story sometime soon.
Economic development
The county’s economic development plan. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and formulating long-term policy takes multiple conversations. If you hate data centers, this conversation is important to watch.
The county is considering a $122,000 contract with the Southern Arizona Education Council. Simple enough, right? Well, as the Star’s Tim Steller pointed out, the fact that Rocque Perez would get most of that cash as director of the council has turned this item into an arena for the Hernandi vs. Grijalva Machine battle.
Elections
20-25. Five local water districts didn’t have enough candidates to hold elections, so the supervisors are going to appoint board members. The supervisors also will cancel uncontested elections in fire, water and health districts.
Regional Wastewater Reclamation
This is kind of funny, unless you live on the street where it happened. From what we can glean from the attached documents, a Sonic restaurant got in trouble after a sewer overflowed and released sewage onto a street. Now, somebody from the restaurant has to attend Pollution Prevention School, which I didn’t know existed.
Procurement
Something about Borderland Construction Company and six other contractors working on pavement preservation as part of a $35 million contract. It looks like $10 million is getting added to the previous $25 million contract? There’s a lot of procurement language in the documents and the “Program Goals” section doesn’t really explain anything.
Something about spending $683,000 on the Eric Marcus Municipal Airport in Ajo. The Program Goals section says it should help people who want to take day trips to Mexico. Luckily, KJZZ’s Connor Greenwall took an interest and wrote a story about why that money is needed.
Grant application/acceptance
The county applies for a ton of state and federal grants, but the supervisors have to sign off on the final agreement, as most grants require at least some financial buy-in from the county. This item is another one for the Eric Marcus Municipal Airport in Ajo. This time it looks like $17,000 is in play for runway equipment.
Yet another one for the Eric Marcus Municipal Airport. It looks like about $20,000 for runway equipment.
Adjournment. A word that can cause tears of joy after sitting through a five-hour meeting.
But wait…there’s more!
That was just the agenda that went out on Thursday!
There’s plenty more. Aren’t you so glad this is still going?
County officials almost always add more items, known as “addendum,” on Fridays.
Usually, that means Joe has to hustle on Friday afternoon to call whoever can answer his questions. It’s kind of a pain, but the addenda usually are the interesting items that end up making headlines.
A proclamation for the “Southwest Soul Circuit 20th Anniversary.” Sure, why not? Sounds fun.
This one is probably going to make some news after the meeting. Supervisor Matt Heinz wants lawmakers to phase out flood irrigation for farming, in light of the dwindling supply of Colorado River water. He also wants lawmakers to give counties more freedom with regard to constables and justices of the peace.
The federal Office of Management and Budget is changing the rules for federal grants, and County Attorney Laura Conover wants the supervisors to consider joining a lawsuit to stop those changes. The item doesn’t explain what the deal is, but Conover’s office did include a date that leads me to believe it’s referring to this notice, which would make DEI a big issue for getting federal grants. Sigh.
Something about Sewer System Revenue Obligations worth $75 million. No idea what this is all about.
Not sure about this one. It looks like officials want to use county-owned property like the Public Works Building as collateral to finance $30 million in capital projects. Maybe?
Duplicate warrants. This is a type of financial housekeeping that local governments do periodically. Today the duplicate warrants involve relatively small amounts.
Congratulations to Roberto Jaramillo and Joseph “Rocky” Rivera Jr., who just “won” seats on the Sunnyside school board. They were both write-in candidates, but nobody else wanted to run for the seats, so the county is canceling the elections. The Star’s Sierra Blaser reported that several other school board races were canceled, too.
A deal with the University of Arizona and a university in Taiwan to get the knowledge flowing about semiconductors (the AI boom is tied directly into all this). This was the lead item in Tucson Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock’s rundown of local public meetings.
A $35 million contract with Kiewit Infrastructure West (Fun fact: Kiewit was one of the main contractors for President Donald Trump’s border wall in Arizona) at the Tres Rios Wastewater Reclamation Facility.
Items 10 to 12 deal with appointing people to the Bond Advisory Committee, the Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission and the Election Integrity Commission. These groups can play a big role in what public officials ultimately decide to do.
There you have it. That’s everything on today’s meeting agenda. It’s a lot, isn’t it?
Now imagine being responsible for accurately conveying the most important bits to readers, with your reputation as a reporter on the line every time. That’s what Joe does every week.
Finally, I’m trying to be constructive today, so here’s my suggestion: If I were writing the agenda for the next supervisors meeting, I would pull language from the Program Goals sections and use that in the agenda item itself.
The Program Goals have a little life in them and would make it a bit easier for the public to understand what’s going on with each item.
Anyway, Joe will be back next week and I bet he’ll be eager to sink his teeth into whatever local officials are doing next.
But I’ll keep an eye out for another opportunity to offer my two cents on agenda writing.
A Tucsonan in the White House?: While U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly tries to boost his Democratic allies ahead of the November elections, he’s also raising his profile as a possible presidential candidate in 2028, including at a recent event in Tucson, Stephanie Murray reports for the Republic. For now, Kelly says he’s “thinking about it,” but hasn’t decided yet.
“We need to make sure that we’ve got leaders in the United States Senate, in Congress and potentially in the White House as well,” Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said, coughing toward Kelly. “Who can actually understand what we need to do and support veterans. I’m gonna nudge him a little bit. I have to,” Fontes added as the crowd cheered.
Uneven playing field: Medical practices in rural areas like Cochise County are facing a lopsided market where Medicaid pays big bucks to federally qualified health centers but far less to privately owned practices, the Herald/Review’s Matt Hickman reports. A spokesperson for the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers says the higher payments to health centers cover more than a simple visit, such as preventive care, and the health centers must treat anyone, regardless of whether they can pay. But that still leaves private doctors, who are urgently needed in rural areas, feeling the pinch.
A lot on his plate: Now that Marana voters have given Jon Post a full term as mayor, his to-do list includes figuring out how to deal with people who “just don’t want Marana to grow,” making sure transportation projects stay on track and handling the controversies surrounding the ICE detention center and new data center projects, per Arizona Public Media’s Katya Mendoza.
“I watched the situation with the City of Tucson and Project Blue and that really went national,” Post said. “So it was really important for me to make sure that when people talked about Marana, they knew that we were willing to bring businesses into our community.”
Bisbee’s attic: The historic Copper Queen Library in Bisbee just got some national recognition, L.M. Boyd reports for AZPM. The library was selected for the inaugural Rural Library Cohort, which means it will hook up to a digital network with 16 other rural libraries and the Smithsonian itself. The library was on deck to get $650,000 from the federal government, but the funding request from Democratic Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was denied in May because the library hosted two drag storytime events.
We’re so glad we don’t depend on federal grants. Thank you to all our paid subscribers! Join the club and help local journalism flourish.
New name on the masthead: Starting Sept. 8, veteran reporter Chanse Hall is taking the reins from Dan Shearer as editor of the Green Valley News and Sahuarita Sun. Shearer will continue as editor of the Nogales International and editorial director for Wick Communications, the family-owned chain that runs most of the rural papers around Southern Arizona. Hall was the sports editor for a paper in Iowa (he just rode his motorcycle from Iowa to Arizona), and he used to be the managing editor of a former Wick-owned paper in North Dakota.
Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is really embracing her role as co-chair of the Big Businesses Are Always Right Coalition.
Actually, it’s called the AI Infrastructure Coalition, but the way Sinema is talking about data centers (while also pushing bitcoin) sounds like a lobbyist parroting the company line, instead of a former senator who took pride in blazing her own political trail.
She’s now condescending to people who protest data centers, saying “it’s unfortunate that many of the facts are being distorted” about electricity use and air pollution, while suggesting data center opponents are being manipulated by foreign adversaries.
It’s a bizarre claim — which we wrote about in June when a Republican state lawmaker was pushing it — that doesn’t jibe at all with the grassroots, spontaneous organizing against data centers we’ve seen in Southern Arizona.
In a letter to the editor in the Washington Post1 defending data centers, Sinema pointed to a news story about China, Russia and Iran using their state media outlets to feed local controversies about U.S. data centers.
It’s hard to keep track of it all. Was it Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping who pushed Pima County officials to sign controversial non-disclosure agreements with the Project Blue developers, setting off months of public outrage?
1 Also worth a lol, Sinema is now relegated to sending letters to the editor, rather than getting her own op-ed space.