Miller turned this Sam Hughes neighborhood dwelling into the only existing masonry home to qualify for Tucson Electric Power's Guarantee Home Program, which offers discounted rates.

Green builder John Wesley Miller wanted to prove a point.

So he plopped down $450,000 for a leaky, inefficient 1962 home in the Sam Hughes neighborhood and started adding things like solar panels, a solar water heater, a super-efficient heat pump and double-pane windows.

When he was finished, Miller had the only existing masonry home to qualify for Tucson Electric Power’s Guarantee Home Program, which offers discounts and heating and cooling price guarantees to energy-efficient houses.

The program is designed for new homes.

“We wanted to show that you could take an old house and turn it into a superefficient home,” Miller said recently during a tour of the 2,000-square-foot ranch home at 3002 E. Hawthorne St.

TEP worked with Miller throughout the renovation, said Dan Hogan, the company’s supervisor of residential new construction programs.

For new construction there are normally three inspections required for a home to qualify – for framing, insulation and airflow – but inspectors visited the Miller house an extra time, Hogan said.

The program gives a roughly 10 percent discount on electric rates for the life of the home and a guarantee from TEP that your heating and cooling costs won’t rise above a certain level for five years. That cost is custom-set for each home, Hogan said.

Miller’s isn’t the first existing home to qualify for the program, but the others required far more extensive upgrades.

“It’s the first one we didn’t strip to the studs,” Hogan said.

Though the lift was lighter than the previous attempts, getting the masonry house up to the TEP standard was not easy.

“Practically everything you see is new,” Miller said.

That includes extra insulation on the outside of the burnt adobe walls, which was then covered with a layer of plaster.

New windows ($6,000), a rooftop solar electric panel and water heater ($15,000-$20,000), insulation and new stucco ($10,000-$15,000) and a new heating and cooling system ($6,000-$8,000) are among the improvements that helped earn the TEP guarantee, Miller said.

The roof was topped with an extra 4 inches of insulation, too.

The changes were not a good investment. Miller put about $300,000 into the house and has it listed for $699,000, he said.

“I won’t even get my money out of it,” he said.

Originally, Miller thought he could make money from the renovation, which includes custom woodwork and solid cherry doors, Corian countertops and all new tile throughout.

But ultimately he simply wanted to encourage recycling on a new level, he said.

“This is the ultimate recycling. You recycle a whole house.”

Renovations that meet the Guarantee Home standards will continue to be rare, Hogan said.

“It’s just too expensive. Until it can be done much cheaper, I don’t think it’s going to be done too frequently,” he said.

“But it’s good to know it can be done, because then you can look for ways to make it economical.”

Green builder John Wesley Miller shows the tankless water heater and the blower for a high-efficiency heat pump at the home. Miller has put about $300,000 into the house.

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On the Web

TEP Guarantee Home Program: www.tep.com/Green/GuaranteeHome

City Manager Mike Letcher hopes to acquire warehouses like these on the northeast corner of East Toole and North Stone avenues for the Warehouse Arts Management Organization.

New City Manager Mike Letcher was out of the loop with Rio Nuevo during the Mike Hein era, even though Letcher’s office shared a wall with the city manager’s for nearly the full life of Rio Nuevo.

So Letcher did not offer any grand announcement about Rio Nuevo to start his tenure as the city’s top bureaucrat.

Hein had personally taken charge of Rio Nuevo and did not keep his deputy apprised of project details.

“I was not involved in Rio Nuevo,” Letcher said of his eight-year stint as deputy city manager. “I was involved in internal operations management. What I’m doing is making sure I know what’s going on.”

Letcher answered all Rio Nuevo questions with a prepared statement he submitted for a Tucson Citizen interview

“The mayor and council are taking great steps to get Rio Nuevo aligned with expectations of the state legislature,” Letcher wrote. “We are doing all the right things to ensure that Rio Nuevo will continue to improve our downtown.”

When asked specific questions in a brief interview, Letcher responded: “I’ll stand on the previous statement.”

“At this point in time, (Assistant City Manager) Richard Miranda and I are just getting up to speed on all the projects and progress,” he said.

As deputy city manager, Letcher was directly involved in negotiations with the Arizona Department of Transportation to acquire the state-owned warehouses along Toole Avenue. Several are occupied by artists with month-to-month leases, and Letcher’s intention is to acquire them for the Warehouse Arts Management Organization.

During 2008, the city was trying to arrange a land swap by giving the state three city-owned properties in exchange for about two dozen warehouses, but that swap fell through, Letcher said.

“We have another (property) that ADOT wants that’s gaining traction,” Letcher said. “There is a gap between what the value of the warehouses is and the property ADOT wants to secure from us.”

Abode walls going up on city’s re-creation of 18th-century structure

Construction crews continue to build the wall that will someday enclose the Rio Nuevo Mission Gardens Heritage Park at the base of "A" Mountain. The 4-acre garden is to be lined with fruit trees such as pomegranates and grapes.

The adobe walls re-creating the 18th century Mission Gardens should be completed in a couple of weeks, but don’t expect to see anything growing there any time soon.

Former City Manager Mike Hein in February shelved planting the gardens in favor of focusing all Rio Nuevo attention on the Tucson Convention Center area. That hasn’t changed under newly appointed City Manager Mike Letcher.

“I have not received any other direction,” said Fran LaSala, an assistant to Letcher. “As far as I know, we’re going to build the walls and vacate the site until they have funding to complete the gardens and maintain them in an appropriate manner.”

The garden walls cost $900,000 and completing the gardens would cost another $900,000 to $950,000, LaSala said.

The 4-acre site includes a buried pit house. “There is still a lot of archaeology there that we are not disturbing,” said Jeff Dupuis, superintendent with Lloyd Construction, the firm building the walls.

The gardens were supposed to be completed by this winter, but the City Council switched course in February and put the entire Tucson Origins project on hold. That includes the Mission Gardens, the Mission San Agustín, the University of Arizona Science Center/Arizona State Museum, Arizona History Museum and Tucson Children’s Museum.

The wall around the garden will be completed in about two weeks, Dupuis said.

By Teya Vitu, Renee Bracamonte

The first layer of asphalt went down Friday to give the first inkling of what the new Scott Avenue will look like between Broadway and the Temple of Music and Art.

Trees and shrubbery will be planted this week along both sides of the newly laid sidewalks.

The five blocks of Scott south of Broadway should be ready for pedestrians May 4 and “shortly after that” the street should be reopened for vehicle traffic, said Fran LaSala, assistant to the city manager. Drivers will find a drastically narrower street and limited parking.

The $4.8 million streetscape project was funded with Rio Nuevo tax increment financing money and also involved replacing water lines. A grand opening ceremony is set for May 20.

RENEE BRACAMONTE/Tucson Citizen

Michael Luria, co-owner of the recently closed Café Terra Cotta, has been named the new executive director of the Tucson Children’s Museum, 200 S. Sixth Ave.

He had served as interim executive director for the past five months and before then was the president of the museum’s board of directors.

Luria was the face of the museum in the past two years in efforts to get a new Tucson Children’s Museum included in the now-delayed Tucson Origins museum complex west of the Santa Cruz River and south of Congress Street.

“Michael has a contagious enthusiasm and dedication to the museum that we have seen in action throughout the years,” board President Louise Sternberg said.

Business owners on Scott Avenue want Congress Street businesses to know getting your street torn up for several months of infrastructure work may be noisy and dusty but it’s not debilitating.

Scott Avenue south of Broadway is nearing the end of five months’ work that took away all the existing street and sidewalk and rebuilt a narrower street with wider sidewalks and foliage and better street lighting.

Tenants on the street had such close communication with the city and the work crew that they got to know Archer Western Contractors employees by their first names.

“I have (the Archer Western project manager’s) number programmed in and he has mine,” said David Cap, production manager at Arizona Theatre Co., where new street pavement was being poured Wednesday morning.

Cap said attendance at ATC has not diminished during the construction, which took away all the Scott Avenue street parking used by early arriving theater patrons.

“We’ve been very proactive telling patrons what’s happening,” Cap said.

The Royal Elizabeth Bed & Breakfast Inn, 204 S. Scott Ave., attributes any drop in attendance to the economy and none to the construction that tore out the sidewalk and street just beyond the front door.

“To be honest, our guests come from around the world,” co-owner Jeff DiGregorio said. “They say, ‘This is nothing. We have construction where we live, too.’ ”

DiGregorio, Cap, and Tucson Children’s Museum interim executive director Michael Luria lauded the close and constant communication with Fran LaSala, the city’s project manager, and Archer Western.

“They come around and tell you what’s going to happen,” Luria said. “We’ve known all along, in advance, when Scott’s going to be closed.”

Michael Flanagan, manager of Flanagan’s Celtic Corner, 222 E. Congress St., was encouraged by what he heard from his Scott brethren that street construction may not be as bad on his business as it could be.

“The potential sounds like that,” Flanagan said. “It sounds like they found ways to get around issues that will impact traffic flows.”

LaSala and the Downtown Tucson Partnership worked closely with Scott Avenue merchants to design the new Scott Avenue streetscape and carry out the project. Partnership Executive Director Glenn Lyons described Scott as a trial run to get a communication process in place for the Congress Street infrastructure project.

Work on Congress was supposed to start immediately after Scott, and both originally were part of the same construction contract overseen by LaSala, an assistant to the city manager. But management of the Congress project has been assigned to the city Transportation Department and has been delayed indefinitely.

“It is our understanding that with the recent transition in the (city) manager’s office, the project is on hold until reviewed by the new city manager,” Transportation Department spokesman Michael R. Graham said.

The Congress work would upgrade utilities under the street, move them out of the way of the streetcar tracks and install streetcar tracks.

A new online arts directory started Monday at showup.com gives Tucson its first comprehensive Internet listings controlled by the arts community.

For people looking for a show, showup.com lists what’s going on in theaters, music venues, museums and art galleries around town, and people can buy tickets at the site.

One click can take shoppers to a specific organization’s ticket site for regular tickers or to showup.com‘s Ticket Marketplace.

“We make the decision of what tickets go up there (at the marketplace),” said Kevin Moore, managing director at Arizona Theatre Co.

The marketplace mostly carries last-day tickets that were not sold or tickets that were returned. They typically are discounted, said Matt Lehrman, executive director of Alliance for Audience, which started showup.com in Phoenix in 2004 and added a dedicated section for Tucson.

Ticket Marketplace has attracted theater newcomers as well as theater veterans expanding their entertainment options, Lehrman said.

People from dozens of arts organizations showed up for the site launch event at the Tucson Museum of Art, playing right into Lehrman’s selling point that showup.com in Phoenix led to arts organizations getting to know each other and collaborating more to build audiences – the key objective for the arts community, Lehrman said.

Arts and cultural organizations can e-mail listings and promotional art to events@showup.com to have them posted at the site.

The Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau provided $50,000 to begin and operate the Web site for its first year. The bureau collaborated with the Tucson Pima Arts Council, which listed an online directory as the first priority for the Pima Cultural Plan.

Chamber’s president being very proactive

Maricela Solis de Kester runs the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce with passion and purpose. She wants to strengthen Hispanic businesses and bridge the gap between the Hispanic and non-Hispanic business worlds.

As the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, the organization is shifting its reputation from social networking to helping improve Hispanic businesses.

Maricela Solis de Kester, chamber president, said one way is to welcome Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike. The No. 1 question the group gets is “Do you have to be Hispanic to join the chamber?” she said.

The answer is no.

Solis de Kester this month launched workshops for non-Hispanic merchants, “How to Reach the Hispanic Market: Breaking Barriers.” The next ones will be May 14 and June 18.

“Why should your business be Hispanic ready? If your business is not Hispanic ready, you are missing business,” she said. “On the flip side, the Hispanic-owned businesses are also trying to enter the mainstream market, especially those who come from Mexico. We’re trying to bridge those two gaps.”

Bridging the gap is only one set of words on Solis de Kester’s list. One word one will never see is waiting – it’s not in her vocabulary.

Two months ago, she witnessed how business owners were confused when city procurement officials explained how to get contract work.

The following week, Solis de Kester advertised workshops to prepare Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce members to land city contracts, and the next week workshops started.

Now, two months later, 20 merchants finished the first set of five procurement workshops. Seven workshops are left of the second set.

“Patience, I struggle with it,” said Solis de Kester, who has been the chamber’s president since January 2008.

“If we have an identified need in our community, then it becomes like a puzzle for me. I search for the pieces, put them together and move forward.”

Sandra DiCosola saw this first hand as Solis de Kester and the Microbusiness Advancement Center recruited her to teach the procurement workshops.

“What’s impressive to me is they hit the ground running,” said DiCosola, owner of Summit Contract Management. “If they say they are going to do something, they do it. Hold on to your hat when you work with them.”

As Solis de Kester took the job 16 months ago, she quickly realized the deficiencies of the chamber building at 823 E. Speedway Blvd. were a lost cause. By August, the Hispanic Chamber had moved downtown into the Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities offices, 120 N. Stone Ave., with free rent offered by TREO Chief Executive Joe Snell.

“We needed to find somewhere to go,” Solis de Kester said. “Joe said, ‘If you need a space, give me a call.’ Six months later, I was calling.”

Snell wasn’t dropping a line with “if you need a space.” TREO uses at most 9,000 square feet of its allotted 12,000 square feet in the Compass Bank building. TREO staffing has dropped from 26 to 16 in Snell’s 3-1/2-year tenure.

“I never did see when we would be able to fill this much space. We have always been looking,” Snell said. “We don’t charge them.”

More collaborations

The Hispanic chamber collaborated with the Microbusiness Advancement Center and DiCosola to guide 20 Hispanic merchants through the government contract procurement process in a series of five workshops in the past two months.

Merchants got one-on-one guidance on how to register on government Web sites and how to get certified to bid on Tucson and federal contracts.

“Navigating through government bureaucracy is a challenge to all,” DiCosola said. “It’s across the board for small businesses. They’re typically good at their industry. Scientists and engineers are no different to work with than blue collar.”

Margherita Arvanites is president of Desert Glen Commercial Landscape Group, which has active projects at the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain in Marana, at the Rio Nuevo Mission Gardens and in Green Valley. Yet she had not figured out the government procurement process until she took three of the five Hispanic chamber workshops and got certified March 18 with the city procurement office.

“It’s worth the hour or hour-and-a-half to go to this class and figure out how to do this,” Arvanites said. “I’m sure we would have struggled and stomped over ourselves otherwise. If we do this right, we hope to pick up $2 million or $3 million in business.”

The Hispanic chamber has led the way in pushing and encouraging the city Procurement Department to implement a February mandate from the City Council to give priority to the Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise program to increase the percentage of contracts awarded to minority-owned business.

“Now we are stepping up our outreach,” said Mark Neihart, the city procurement director. “She definitely contributed to that. I would say the Hispanic chamber has been at the forefront.”

Solis de Kester has firm goals for these workshops.

“What I would like to see in a year from now is at least $5 million in contracts awarded,” she said. “I’m thinking for $5 million, I’d like to have at least 25 of my members get contracts.”

Edmund Marquez Jr., who chairs the Hispanic chamber’s board, has seen a marked change since Solis de Kester came on board.

“She is doing a great job making sure our members are educated to survive in this economy,” Marquez said. “She has gotten us more involved in public policy and what’s going on in local government.”

Solis de Kester, 36, wants to bring a generational shift to community leadership.

“I want Gen Exers to come out and join me to shape the community,” she said. “I’m ready to pick up the torch.”

Part of her push is to embrace downtown, where the chamber has staged three events.

• The March 21 world premiere of the “Beisbol: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” documentary at the Fox Theatre.

• The annual gala at the Leo Rich Theatre.

• Business mixers at Club Congress.

“I love downtown,” Solis de Kester said. “I think downtown is misunderstood.

“The value has been, for one, the City Council is across the street. The other benefit is the business community downtown is close knit.

“Our members are seeing it’s OK to be downtown. You can park. You can walk.”

Gary Cullivan (left) and Jose Macias are laying pavers at a Barrio Viejo project. They work for Desert Glen Commercial Landscape Group, which enrolled in Hispanic Chamber workshops to win more city contracts.

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Editor’s note

Downtown reporter Teya Vitu will answer your questions from 11 a.m. to noon on Monday. Go to the comment section of this story for the interactive chat.

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GOALS

Maricela Solis de Kester’s goals for the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce:

• 1. Get people to understand you don’t need to be Hispanic to be a member.

• 2. Get more members through the government contract procurement workshops.

• 3. “I want to be a voice for the the business sector in policy matters. That is a new direction of ’09. Be very present, have a voice, shape and form policy (at City Council and Pima County Board of Supervisors).”

Contract Procurement workshops

• When: Tuesday, Thursday, April 30, May 5, May 7, June 2, June 4 ; most are 3 to 5 p.m.

• Where: most are at Pima Community College Community Campus, 401 N. Bonita Way, Room A130

• Cost: $40 per class

• Contact: Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at 620-0005.

Reaching the Hispanic Market workshops

• When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 14, June 18

• Where: Arizona Inn, 2200 E. Elm St.

• Cost: $35 for each

• Contact: Ricardo Esquivel at 990-3806.

The Government Cemetery in Tucson, circa 1870

Eight months after archaeological researchers removed the last of more than 1,300 remains from a nearly forgotten 19th-century downtown cemetery, some faces from the past are beginning to emerge.

The Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services believes it has identified at least five sets of soldiers’ remains, some from members of the 2,300-strong California Column dispatched to Tucson in 1862 to drive out Confederate troops that briefly occupied parts of the Southwest during the Civil War.

The remains of 58 U.S. soldiers stationed at the then-Fort Lowell location near the cemetery have been exhumed and will be reburied with full honors at the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Sierra Vista on May 16.

“Serving in the Western territories was a thankless job back then and I can’t think of a better way to honor these soldiers,” Joey Strickand, director of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services, said Friday.

There were adjoining civilian and military cemeteries downtown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Army’s Camp Lowell was then located in what is now the Armory Park area and was later moved east to near what is now the intersection of Glenn Street and Craycroft Road.

By comparing old cemetery maps and Army records, Veterans’ Services officials believe they have given names to at least five soldiers buried downtown.

The soldiers’ remains will be buried in a specially constructed 19th-century-style cemetery near Fort Huachucha, Strickland said.

The downtown site, at Stone and Toole avenues, was excavated to prepare for a new Pima County-Tucson Joint Courts Complex approved in a 2004 Pima County bond package.

State law required the county to hire an archaeological consultant to study the site before beginning construction of the courts complex.

What was found was beyond expectations.

“We have an unparalled view of a period of Tucson history of which we have some documentary information but little in the way of physical,” Roger Anyon, project manager for the Pima County Cultural Resources and Historic Preservation Office, said Friday.

“The cemetery gives us a view of Tucson life then and the people who lived here,” Anyon said.

Few of the more than 1,250 civilian remains exhumed and stored for reburial later this year likely will ever be identified, Anyon said.

Archaeologists studying data from the field are finding some clues about how tough life was back then.

One grave revealed three burials, possibly of a family who died at the same time and were buried together, Marlesa Gray said Friday. Gray is the project manager for Statistical Research, Inc., the archaeological consultant hired by the county.

“There were the remains of a fetus and the mother” who may have died together in childbirth, Gray noted.

Territorial Tucson had several deadly outbreaks of disease at that time, including smallpox in 1870.

“There may be certain sections of the cemetery that can be dated to those epidemic periods,” Gray said.

The epidemics took a heavy toll on the very young and very old, records show.

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SOLDIERS

Tentatively identified more than 120 years after their burials:

• Sgt. John C. McQuaide: Company B, 2nd California Infantry. Arrived in Tucson in May 1862. Died July 12, 1862, from disease.

• Cpl. Paul Remy of Cologne, Prussia. Company D, 23rd U.S. Infantry: Died in Tucson May 11, 1872, from acute dysentery.

• Farrier John Foley from County Wexford, Ireland, Company D, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Died May 11, 1872, from trauma from a fall from his horse.

• Pvt. Peter Bus of Delfshaven, Holland. Company K, 21st U.S. Infantry. Died Feb. 19, 1872, from accidental gunshot to his right arm.

• Cpl. John English of Ireland. Company A, 32nd U.S. Infantry. Died July 16, 1867, of acute dysentary.

The seventh annual Fiesta Grande Street Fair takes place on the West Side roadway all day Saturday and Sunday.

The fair runs from 9:30 a.m to dusk on Saturday and from noon to dusk on Sunday.

The fundraiser for the Barrio Hollywood Neighborhood Association fills Grande between Speedway and St. Mary’s Road, four blocks west of Interstate 10.

The fair mixes a Ferris wheel, jumping castles and other games with a car show, arts and crafts and music from local bands. Local restaurants will serve up Mexican food. Entrance is free.

Fair sponsors include Golden Eagle Distributors, Pepsi, Qwest Communications, Food City and Pima County Public Works

This was my absolute favorite sign from Wednesday’s Tucson Tea Party tax protest at El Presidio Park:

“Taxes are revolting and so are we.”

OK. I had to get that out of the way. The event, one of more than 700 anti-tax rallies held around the country, was well-organized and well-attended, with an estimated 3,000 Tucsonans showing up to oppose excessive government spending.

As such, I wanted to take the protesters seriously. But they all sang the same one-note – no, make that two-note – song: Taxes are bad and Obama is destroying America.

As to the second note, where were these folks for the last eight years as George W. Bush systematically destroyed America? If Obama fails, it will be because the damage of the Bush years will have proved too great to undo.

As to the primary note of the song, I couldn’t help, as I walked around Presidio Park, but to think about how each and every person in attendance benefits from government spending.

It’s not that I love paying taxes or that I don’t think that government is often wasteful. But, overall, our collective tax dollars are used to do some pretty amazing things.

Among other things, tax dollars are used to educate our children, to keep the public safe by putting police on the streets and keeping the bad guys they catch in prison, to pave the streets we drive on and to provide financial security for the elderly.

Many of those in attendance Wednesday were senior citizens. I doubt that any of them would forsake their Social Security and Medicare benefits or categorize those benefits as “wasteful government spending.”

I also saw parents with young children, at least some of whom are or will enroll in public schools paid for by taxes.

Star Elliott, 35, attended the event with her adorable young son Cash. She’s worried that he’s growing up in a country that is losing its values. She worries that excessive government spending is creating debt that his generation will have to pay off.

“My son already owes $35,000 and he’s 6-and-a-half months old,” she said because of government spending.

I asked if she plans on sending her son to public schools.

“We can’t afford private school. We live payday to payday,” Elliott said, adding, “Our public schools aren’t very promising.”

Fair enough. But I’d argue that’s exactly why taxpayers should be increasing the investment in public schools, rather than complaining about taxes. Quality doesn’t come cheap.

After Elliott and I said our goodbyes, I came across a little girl with a funny sign.

“Where’s my free pony?” it asked in big print. In smaller print, it added, “and laptop, lunch and healthcare.”

Her mother, as it turned out, is a public educator who doesn’t think our taxes should be paying for breakfast, lunch, basic medical care or laptops for schoolkids.

My conversation with the mother was pleasant, but our positions at polar extremes.

See, I don’t like the idea of an impoverished child sitting in class with an empty, grumbling belly. And I’m OK with my tax dollars being used to feed that kid if his parents can’t.

As far as computers for school kids, if we want kids to compete in a global economy, making sure they have laptops is as essential as providing them with papers and pencils.

Another thing I noticed at the protest was a sprinkling here and there of “Thank a cop” bumper stickers.

Hmm. How do these anti-tax advocates plan on showing their appreciation to our heroes in blue? With flowers and a smile?

City of Tucson police didn’t get a raise this year. If you want to “thank a cop” with a raise in fiscal 2010, it’s likely that the city will need more tax revenue.

Before I left the protest, I approached Beverly Hyatt, 52, who had a sign identifying her as “One Pissed Off Voter.”

What are you pissed off about? I asked.

“Where do I begin?” she said.

Socialism. The bailout. The stimulus plan. Taxation. Restrictions on the Second Amendment. Restrictions on freedom of speech.

Wait a minute. Has Obama proposed some new gun restrictions that I’m unaware of?

“Not yet,” Hyatt said.

Has he moved to restrict your freedom of speech?

“Not yet,” she said.

Has the administration imposed new taxes?

“Not yet, but they will.”

Back in the real world, Obama’s stimulus plan created a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for families making less than $250,000 a year.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve seen the difference in each of my last two paychecks.

Fox Network and conservative commentators, who combined to aggressively promote the “grass-roots” tea party protests, would have you believe the rallies are the start of a revolution or an indication of widespread discontent with the Obama administration, despite polls that say otherwise.

The protests around the country proved only that there are some ticked-off voters from the losing side, as there are after every election.

Maybe they should just settle in on the couch with a nice cup of chamomile tea and calm down.

Anne T. Denogean can be reached at adenogean@tucsoncitizen.com and 573-4582. Address letters to P.O. Box 26767, Tucson, AZ 85726-6767. Her columns run Tuesdays and Fridays.

Dedication May 31 for community facility honoring Monsignor Carrillo

Joe Hernandez, of Adobe Anvil Iron Works, talks about how he made the metal flowers for the stage and bandshell for the new Monsignor Arsenio S. Carrillo Placita.

A 22-foot-tall, steel lattice band shell with decorative floral details now graces the St. Augustine Cathedral grounds, the signature piece for the Monsignor Arsenio S. Carrillo Placita and Hall.

The placita’s dedication is set for 1 p.m. May 31, said John Shaheen, property director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson.

Work on the placita, at 192 S. Stone Ave., will continue until mid-May.

“The idea behind it was, this would be a community space, not just for the parish,” Shaheen said. “The whole placita area is designed to handle craft fairs, farmers markets and such.”

The placita can seat 600 for concerts and 300 for sit-down dinners, he said.

The band shell covers a 1,600-square-foot stage.

The shell is decorated with more than 300 steel flowers;1,000 steel leaves and branches; 18 steel butterflies; and a half-dozen steel birds, all crafted by blacksmith Joe Hernandez and two people he hired for the four-month forging job. Hernandez also supervised the installation of his floral work during the past four weeks.

“I just came up with a design (for the flowers),” said Hernandez, who owns Adobe Anvil Iron Works. “Each flower is about seven pieces.”

The flowers range from 24 inches to 12 inches wide. They were airbrushed with color by Fernando Holguin and Chris Andrews.

The placita is a 4-year quest of Tony S. Carrillo to honor his brother, Monsignor Arsenio S. Carrillo, who was the cathedral’s rector for 40 years. Tony Carrillo chaired the 31-person placita committee that has raised about $1 million. It still needs about $150,000 to pay for the sound and lighting systems.

“It’s very exciting to be able to have a facility that is going to be open to the public that can be used for weddings and quinceañeras,” Tony Carrillo said. “The fact that it will spur interest in further development downtown is also important to me and the bishop.”

The placita has been taking shape since last April, as crews transformed the cathedral’s long-neglected space at Stone Avenue and Ochoa Street into a dedicated gathering place.

About 1,200 paver bricks will make up the placita surface, and new restrooms were attached to the exterior of the former cathedral hall. A small grotto in honor of the monsignor is being built at Stone and Ochoa.

Groups wishing to use the placita can call Shaheen at 792-3410.

Joe Hernandez of Adobe Anvil Iron Works explains how he made the metal flowers for the stage and band shell.

Francisco Merancio (left) and Manny De Loreto of Escalante Concrete prepare forms for the steps to the stage and band shell.

Last week’s daily scramble to save Rio Nuevo is having little impact in the Legislature, where lawmakers are poised to take control of the downtown revitalization project from the city.

The firing of former City Manager Mike Hein, cutting Rio Nuevo director Greg Shelko’s position from the budget as of July 1, and the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District Board’s announcement Friday that it would seek new management and financial management for Rio Nuevo are hitting on deaf ears with the Legislature.

“It’s irrelevant,” state Rep. Frank Antenori, a Tucson Republican said. “We’re going full-speed ahead for a state oversight board.”

State Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, is crafting legislation to either add state-appointed members to the Rio Nuevo board or create a new board with state-appointed members.

“We’re still working on the language,” Paton said. “I’d say we’re not going to have a budget soon.”

Antenori said legislation would focus Rio Nuevo entirely on the Tucson Convention Center expansion and companion hotel.

“No trolley, no Fox Theatre, no Mercado District, no more anything else,” Antenori said. “We gotta get the convention center built.”

The City Council, in the meantime, will consider a resolution Tuesday stating the TCC and its hotel are the top priorities for downtown revitalization, a position the council had already taken March 17.

The Rio Nuevo Board on Friday made its first public hint at changing the intergovernmental agreement that has the city operating the Rio Nuevo district, but no marching orders were issued to Rio Nuevo legal counsel Bill Hicks.

“I have none to speak of,” Hicks said about assigned duties regarding refashioning Rio Nuevo. “It’s at this point an undefined course of action.”

Hicks said “presumably” there would be modifications to the IGA, “but none of that has been discussed.”

The decision to cut the Rio Nuevo director from the fiscal 2010 budget also presumes changes to the agreement, but interim City Manager Mike Letcher said he would get advice from the city attorney about the IGA.

Letcher dismissed notions the city was handing off Rio Nuevo, even though it won’t have a director for day-to-day operations.

“There’s still people in charge,” Letcher said. “I’m in charge.”

Your DNA can play a big role in determining your odds of getting cancer.

“Genetic mutations can cause a much higher risk of cancer,” said Dr. Joanne Jeter, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Arizona Cancer Center.

Heredity plays a major role because incidence of cancer in family members can mean an increased likelihood you will get the disease, she said.

“The most important thing is to know your family history of cancer,” Jeter said. “You want to identify who has these mutations and who doesn’t, who has high risk and who has standard risk.”

Jeter and Dr. Christina Laukaitis of the Arizona Cancer Center will present “Live Smarter: Cancer Genetics and You” at Tuesday’s University of Arizona Flandrau Science Center science cafe.

Science cafes are casual forums where people meet to discuss a particular scientific topic with UA researchers.

The event runs from 6-7:30 p.m. at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, 198 W. Cushing St.

Jeter said if a family tendency for a disease is identified, genetic counseling can lead doctors to test genetic material for mutations.

“Know the family history of disease. That will help identify people who need additional testing and may need additional interventions,” she said.

Strategies for at-risk people could include screening, chemotherapy or even surgical intervention, she said.

The science cafe event scheduled for May 5 – the final before a summer hiatus – will feature Peter Smith, principal investigator of the UA-led Phoenix Mars Lander mission, said Sam Kane, Flandrau’s associate director for marketing.

Smith will discuss the science that has occurred since the Lander arrived on Mars on May 25, Kane said.

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IF YOU GO

What: Flandrau Science Center science cafe event

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, 198 W. Cushing St.

Topic: “Live Smarter: Cancer Genetics and You”

Presenters: Dr. Christina Laukaitis and Dr. Joanne Jeter

Cost: free, with food and beverages available for purchase

The Rio Nuevo Multipurpose District Facilities Board, nearly invisible for the past nine years, stepped forward Friday to announce its intention to take back control of the beleaguered downtown redevelopment project.

At a hastily called special meeting Friday afternoon, the board decided to explore getting an outside management firm for Rio Nuevo and outsource the district’s financial management.

The city has operated Rio Nuevo since its inception in 1999 through an intergovernmental agreement initiated by the Rio Nuevo board. That agreement will likely be revisited, said Anne-Marie Russell, the board’s chairwoman.

“We have the opportunity to move from a passive structure to a more active structure,” Russell said before the three board members and Rio Nuevo legal counsel Bill Hicks retreated to a 35-minute closed session.

City Councilwoman Nina Trasoff, who chairs the council’s Rio Nuevo subcommittee, welcomed the idea to have City Hall pass Rio Nuevo back to its board. The Rio Nuevo district is an independent political subdivision of the state.

“I think this is a major step forward,” said Trasoff, the only council member at the board meeting. “I think this is a perfect time to take (Rio Nuevo) out of the political arena.”

The board’s sudden move in its first meeting this year stems from this week’s firing of former City Manager Mike Hein and continuing threats from the Legislature to stop the Rio Nuevo tax increment financing.

“We have to do what we can to strengthen our relationship with the state Legislature,” board member Jeff DiGregorio said. “We need to shift the district financing to a more independent mode, separate from the city. We need better transparency and better accountability.”

Board member Dan Eckstrom, attending his first board meeting since his appointment in July, suggested forming several collaborations beyond City Hall to carry Rio Nuevo forward.

“We can set policy that will bring this whole thing to fruition,” said Eckstrom, who declined to say why he has not attended previous board meetings. “It’s a process that will take some time, but I’m up to the task.”

The state statute that created the Rio Nuevo district gives the board control of Rio Nuevo, but the board in 1999 chose to rely on city management rather than duplicating staff, Hicks said.

The intergovernmental agreement made the city manager the executive director of the Rio Nuevo district and the city finance director the district’s treasurer, and the City Council set Rio Nuevo policies. The Rio Nuevo board met sporadically, mostly to give initial approval for major expenditures that got final approval from the city.

The Rio Nuevo board consists of two members appointed by the Tucson City Council – Russell and DiGregorio – and two appointed by the South Tucson City Council – Eckstrom and Roman Soltero, who was absent Friday. South Tucson is involved because the state law that allowed formation of Rio Nuevo requires two government entities to sponsor such a district.