August may have been our vacation month, but the news didn’t slow down.
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen the resurrection of Project Blue, tensions between Tucson and Pima County leaders, a City Council election dispute, a Cochise County scandal, and a familiar face running to be Oro Valley’s next mayor.
Let’s get caught up.
It’s baaack!
The developers behind Project Blue aren’t giving up, so now the question is whether they are going to have more sequels than the Poltergeist movie series.1
Last week, Beale Infrastructure confirmed that Tucson Electric Power had applied for a special permit to supply Project Blue 2.0 (yep, that’s what we’re calling it until someone buys the naming rights) with 286 megawatts of power.
On behalf of Beale, TEP filed an Energy Service Agreement with the Arizona Corporation Commission, outlining their agreement to charge what they refer to as “tariffs” for large-scale energy use.
Several elected officials — all who voted to kill Project Blue — are furious, saying the proxies for Amazon are simply refusing to listen to a community largely opposed to the data centers.
The vaguely worded memo from Beale to Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher is short on some key details: Is the 286 megawatts figure just for the start-up phase or the full build-out? Are they still putting the data centers next to the fairgrounds? Are they still planning on using water to cool the servers or are they using a more expensive air-cooled design?
Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen said late last week she believes Amazon will use an air-cooling method, which uses less water but a lot more energy.
The amount of energy TEP is asking for would be the equivalent of approximately 259,000 Tucson households, estimates Ed Hendel, the co-founder of Tucson-based Sky Island AI.
TEP’s filing with the ACC was part of a contract it signed with Beale, Tucson Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock wrote. TEP waited until the last day to file the request. If they hadn’t filed the request, they would’ve faced legal consequences, he noted.
The sales-purchase agreement between Pima County and another proxy for Amazon Web Services for 290 acres required that the property be annexed into Tucson. It’s unclear how they will overcome this clause in the contract.
And you can be sure, absent a judge’s order, that the Tucson City Council isn’t going to willingly welcome the data center into their backyard.
The only other thing that is crystal clear is that the letter proves Beale Infrastructure — on behalf of Amazon — is still committed to opening by 2027.
Lesher’s memo to the Board of Supervisors states the County has not had any substantive conversations with the developer since August 6 and the filing with the ACC came as a “surprise.”
The Board of Supervisors is also going to discuss Project Blue in executive session today, specifically getting legal advice related to contracts. Like the one the board signed saying it has to sell those 290 acres to the data center developers.
Beef over mayor’s remarks
In the aftermath of Project Blue 1.0, there’s a political feud brewing between the city and some of the county supervisors.
Supervisor Rex Scott penned an op-ed in the Tucson Sentinel defending his vote to sell county-owned land to Project Blue developers. He said Mayor Regina Romero’s remarks during the vote “gratuitously attacked the Board of Supervisors and county staff for our actions.”
During the Council vote on Project Blue about a month ago, Romero said the Pima County Board of Supervisors should have killed the project when asked to sell 290 acres of county-owned land to the developers.
“The Board of Supervisors and their team also should have stopped this right there,” Romero said.
Supervisor Matt Heinz doubled down on the Buckmaster Show about a week ago, accusing Romero of pressuring him and other board members to support the planned data centers before ultimately voting against them.
“This process behind the scenes was driven in part, by the mayor’s office, and her staff, and the city manager. They knew about this project way before I had any idea about this,” Heinz said.
Earlier this month, Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure told Bill Buckmaster he was aware of Project Blue since 2022.
Both the Council and Supervisors took action this month to regulate large water users, making any revival of Project Blue more difficult moving forward. But not impossible.
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Not a town hall
True to form, Tucson Congressman Juan Ciscomani held a “town hall” during the August recess, meeting with a few dozen hand-selected residents in Green Valley.
Some members of the press were invited2 but Dan Shearer, editor of the Green Valley News, refused to attend after Ciscomani’s staff said they couldn’t guarantee the congressman would take press questions, despite the nearly month-long Congressional recess.
“Regurgitating pablum from a tightly controlled event with no media questions does not serve our readers. Ciscomani’s staff has declined several offers to have him address the difficult issues facing his district, our state and the nation. We hope he’ll agree to talk to us in the near future,” Shearer said.
This is fairly standard for Ciscomani, who has avoided traditional open town halls in favor of tightly controlled photo ops, usually meeting with small groups. His staff also says he prefers tele-town halls.
Shaw fights City Hall
Last week, Ward 3 Democratic candidate and Tucson Unified School District board member Sadie Shaw lost a court battle over the results of her city council race, citing a screw-up by the Pima County Recorder’s Office, which sent the wrong ballots to 76 voters in Ward 3.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Wayne Yehling rejected her request for a do-over election, paving the way for an automatic recount.
On Friday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Kuhn certified the results of the recount, which showed Shaw’s opponent, Councilmember Kevin Dahl, winning the Democratic primary by a mere 19 votes.
This was, for those who don’t follow city politics that closely, the same margin before the recount.
Dahl will face Republican Janet “JL” Wittenbraker in the general election this fall.
Antenori’s $10 million text?
We don’t write much about Cochise County, but County Supervisor Frank Antenori made the news last month.
A fixture in Tucson Republican politics for decades before moving out of the Old Pueblo, Antenori is being asked to resign for — get this — sending a text message to the head of the Pima County Republican Party.
Antenori texted GOP Chair Kathleen Winn to complain about appointing Bobby Wilson to the party’s executive committee, the Sierra Vista Herald’s Terri Jo Neff reported.
Wilson apparently caught wind of the message and called it an “unsolicited and criminally libel and false text message.”
Wilson — who unsuccessfully tried to sue the Arizona Republic for writing in 2018 that he murdered his mother (he wrote a whole book about why he killed her, but says it’s not murder since it was in self-defense) — wants $10 million or for Antenori to resign.
Oro Valley’s next mayor?
Don’t call it a comeback. Mark Napier has been involved in Tucson politics for years.
The former Pima County Sheriff announced on Facebook that he would seek the Republican nomination for Mayor of Oro Valley. Current Mayor Joe Winfield told KGUN 9 he isn’t seeking a third term.
While Napier made his announcement publicly, Oro Valley officials said they aren’t accepting filings from would-be candidates until next spring.
Voters will elect Oro Valley’s next mayor next summer.
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Chalk this up to our occasional departure from LOLs to awwww territory.
We here at the Agendaverse want to say our good-bye to Tucson City Attorney Mike Rankin, who will end his 21-year career this month. Technically, he will hold the record as the Old Pueblo’s longest-serving city attorney.
Joe, Curt, Hank and Nicole have all worked with — and probably fought — Rankin over the years.
Defending the city for two decades probably wasn’t the easiest of jobs, working by our count with three very different mayors and six (or is it seven?) city managers.
Next week’s Tucson City Council meeting will be his last as city attorney — although we definitely would pay good money to see him show up to call the public just for the meta value of it all.
Thanks, Mike.
Now about our public records request … 😆.
The horror film franchise has released four films, although Hollywood has plans for another.
We’re pretty sure our invitation got lost in the mail.
You might have missed all of the articles around the country about people's electric bills increasing significantly and data centers being considered the main reason for the increases.
Congressman Ciscomani campaigned on creating a path to citizenship for the undocumented dreamers and DACA recipients and the preservation of Medicaid. Instead, he has stood by and voted for legislation that will result in millions losing their access to healthcare and millions of hardworking residents being detained and deported. I would hide if I were Ciscomani, too.
When referring to Democratic Socialists, I can't help but noticed how many go straight to the socialist part and skip the democratic part.
You obviously didn't miss much, and welcome back.
Now we are fairly sure Juan (Cisco) is the unheralded brother of Santino, Fredo, Michael, and Connie. Step aside Tom Hagen...Cisco is the new Consigliere.