WARD 2 OPEN HOUSE AND TOY DRIVE
Join us for some holiday refreshments and a children’s Toy Drive to “Stuff the Bus” benefiting the Miracle on 31st Street Charity on Monday, December 20, 2010, from 4-7 p.m. at the Ward 2 Council Office located at 7575
E. Speedway.

Please feel free to stop by Ward 2 Eastside City Hall parking lot all day on December 20 starting at 9 a.m. to drop off new unwrapped toys. You may also bring some cookies, brownies or other holiday treats to share with others at the open house. You may RSVP by calling 791-4687.

Ward 2 Councilman Paul Cunningham was appointed in May, 2010 to this position, after the previous Councilman Rodney Glassman resigned to run for U.S. Senate against incumbent U.S. Senator John McCain.

Councilmember Paul Cunningham

Ward 2 Council staff:
Katie Bolger, Chief of Staff
Mary Fimbres, Council Administrative Assistant
Justin Searle, Council Administrative Assistant
Amanda Colón, Administrative Assistant
Demitri Downing, Aide

Mary Fimbres is Ward 5 Councilmember Richard Fimbres’ wife, and Demitri Downing is one of former LD 28 House Rep. Ted Downing’s sons.

Donate some toys, enjoy the refreshments, and meet the new Councilmember.

Other recent Council ward holidays events:

Ward 1 Tamale contest & holiday event on Dec. 9 (click here).

Wards 3 & 6 holiday events on Dec. 15 and 17 (click here).

My husband located his on the Northeast panel and I found mine last night on Southwest panel 1, as all 4 panels are now up on the walls. We were excited to finally locate our portraits amongst the thousands of other tile portraits.

Check it out at www.tucsonportraitproject.com. The photographer was Darren Clark and the concept was created by Gary Patch.

I blogged about this project on August 21, after Tucson’s Birthday Celebration in 2009, but only one panel (the Northwest one) was up at that time. Click here to read my original blog, with details on how to locate your face.

What a great sense of community we felt by being amongst 7,000 other Tucsonans.

Note: Here’s a partial list of some faces I recognized:
NE panel – Randy Accetta, Michael Carson, Al Classen,Tim Keene, Phil Lopes, CT Revere, Ruben Reyes, Regina Romero, Ken Scoville, Chris Tanz;

NW panel – Donna Branch-Gilby, Michael Patrick Brewer, Michael Bryan, Gail Cordy, Albert Elias, Gene Einfrank, Julia Fonseca, Bud Foster, Joyce Gee, Jim Glock, Nancy Janetta, Roslyn Miller, Ron Spark, Karin Uhlich;

SW 1 panel – Laura Burge, Roger Carrillo, Pat de Vito, Carmen Dolny, Rodney Glassman, Maurice Grossman, Jim Hannley, Gary Low, Pancho Medina, Monique Martin, Jim Nintzel, Tom Prezelski;

and SW 2 panel – Katie Bolger, Raul Grijalva, Sat Bir Khalsa, Erika O’Dowd, Alan Leibensperger, Diana Rhodes, Shirley Scott, Nina Trasoff, Robert Walkup.

City Manager Mike Letcher and Katie Bolger, aide to Councilmember Glassman made the welcoming remarks.

Neighborhood leaders present (whom I recognized) for this final dialogue were: Margo Gray, Dina Scalone-Romero (Pro Neighborhoods) and Paul Mackey, but there were also less people than were in attendance at the Wards 3 and 6 dialogues.

The results of all eight meetings will be posted online at www.tucsonaz.gov/dialogues. Already on this website are links –results from the dialogues– long, long lists of what residents/participants in the previous ward meetings thought needed to be improved, and what could be cut from the City’s budget.

Also online is the power point presentation made at these meetings for those of you who were unable to attend.

The website also states:”This is not a one-time effort. We will be inviting you to participate in additional dialogues in the future: City Budget & Work Plan (1 – 3 year view), Economic Recovery Plan (3-10 year view), and the General Plan Update (Vision for the future).”

Let’s wait and see what the new City Manager and his staff recommend from the results from these dialogues. At the very least, there appears to be more community input into the budget process than before. When I asked Mr. Letcher about budget priorities from these 8 dialogues, he responded that they would look for “common threads and themes” and then make suggestions to the Mayor and Council for early 2010.