1 Fourth Avenue underpass: Should open this summer to cars, bikes, pedestrians and new streetcar.

2Train depot: Now home to Maynard’s fine restaurant and deli as well as tony shops flanking the real rail depot.

3Scott Avenue: Being torn up south of Congress to make a street more friendly to pedestrians, with trees, benches and art.

4Modern streetcar’s downtown route: The streetcar will run from north of UA, along Fourth Avenue, through downtown and west of I-10.

5Depot Plaza parking garage: The 281-space underground garage opens in June, with the new, six-story Martin Luther King Jr. Apartments for seniors and the disabled to be built above.

6Hotel/arena/convention center: A 24-story, 525-room hotel will be paired with a convention center-arena to create what Rio Nuevo director Greg Shelko called a “three-pronged stool” designed to generate 1 million annual visitors, up from 150,000. Inadequate facilities are keeping hundreds of conventions from considering Tucson, and conventions (read: outsiders with cash to burn) are where the money is. TCC has about 100,000 feet of exhibition space; the new facility should have 130,000.

And a larger arena should mean more big-name music acts coming to town. Paul McCartney would have to charge $350 a ticket to make it worth playing at present-day TCC, which has a capacity of 7,500; enlarging the arena to 12,000 would enable him to charge a relatively reasonable $125.

7West Side development: Museums seen as a major anchor are on hold. Luxury homes are being built, and many have been completed and are occupied. A mercado opens this summer with a dozen local merchants.

Jerry Dixon is developing 30 acres along West Congress Street with homes and businesses.

The new convention center hotel and arena will be built just west of the current facility.

Maynard's bar patrons can rest their feet on a railroad rail, just one of the many railroad-related features that have been incorporated into the rail-side eatery.

This is the potential entry "canyon" into the new Arizona State Museum, which will share a building with the University of Arizona Science Center at Tucson Origins in downtown Tucson.

Tucson again has shot itself in the foot on Rio Nuevo funding – just as the Legislature is taking a close look at how the city has been spending the money.

In a story Monday, Tucson Citizen reporter Carli Brosseau reported that the city has been paying Rio Nuevo invoices submitted by the University of Arizona without the necessary scrutiny.

That’s a troubling revelation – and it comes at an especially troubling time.

Tax money diverted from the state is the backbone of funding for the Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment project. And with the state facing a multi-billion-dollar deficit this fiscal year and next, legislators are looking to grab every available dime. It is not an overstatement to say the future of Rio Nuevo hangs in the balance.

Brosseau reported that city accountants have long been questioning invoices submitted by UA for its planned Science Center-State Museum complex downtown. It got to the point that the Rio Nuevo finance manager asked City Manager Mike Hein to sign a statement that allowed UA to be reimbursed for “expenditures the City does not allow on other District projects.”

Among the questionable UA charges paid from Rio Nuevo funds were $161,585 for salaries as well as money for food, computers, trips to Italy and $77,025 for “other speciality & design consultant fees.”

The expenditures may well have been legitimate. But maybe not. The city paid them all – apparently without determining whether they fell within stated guidelines.

Hein said he assumed they were acceptable expenses because they were submitted by another public body.

But the Rio Nuevo funds from the state are entrusted to the city and the Rio Nuevo District. Both jurisdictions have the responsibility to the state and to their constituents to verify the legitimacy of all expenses.

Hein now says the city will conduct an “internal review” of all payments to UA.

And Councilwoman Karin Uhlich, who called for a city audit commission in June after an unrelated financial dispute with Hein, said a review of payments to the UA museum complex could be the commission’s first assignment.

There may be nothing wrong with the payments to the university, and all the expenses may be justifiable and reasonable. But the city must be extra careful to be squeaky clean with its Rio Nuevo accounting to assuage any legislative doubts.

This is not the time for the city to supply legislators with more ammunition for the state’s mounting criticism.

Legislative threats to yank millions of dollars in funding from Tucson’s downtown redevelopment are unfair and shortsighted.

And the threats are based on information that is outdated and irrelevant.

Nonetheless, Tucson officials must take the threats seriously as legislators who are desperate to erase a massive budget deficit look to grab every available dime.

And when the legislative grilling continues next week, those defending Tucson’s position should be far better prepared than they were this week.

At issue is Tucson’s use of tax increment financing for Rio Nuevo downtown projects. TIF allows the city to keep, instead of sending to the state, increased sales tax revenue in a given geographic area to spend within that area.

Legislators are unhappy with the pace of Rio Nuevo, and some want the state to cancel the deal. But before considering such a precipitous decision, legislators need to get their facts straight:

• Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said TIF funds have been used for 10 years. The funds didn’t start flowing until 2003.

• Legislators spent gobs of time hammering Tucson for spending money to study a project that was dropped and precious little time discussing what has been and is being built.

• Eviscerating Tucson’s downtown redevelopment funds would be a financial blow felt by the entire state.

• Tucson sold bonds to get work started and plans to repay the bonds with promised TIF dollars. The state can’t legally cancel a revenue stream on which Tucson has bonded.

Nonetheless, pressure on Tucson will continue next week with more legislative roasting. Tucson must be armed and ready to fight back.

It was not helpful this week when Greg Shelko, Rio Nuevo director, didn’t have all the facts and figures at his fingertips when legislators quizzed him. Shelko must have whatever he needs next week – even if he needs to take a truckload of documents with him.

A history lesson also is important: Legislators OK’d the TIF money for Tucson in an agreement that also included three TIF projects for Phoenix. A hockey arena and a football stadium were among the projects built in Maricopa County with money diverted from the state.

For legislators – most of whom hail from Maricopa County – to cancel the arrangement after Phoenix has sucked far more dollars out of the deal would be grossly unfair to Tucson, the state’s second-largest city.

Downtown redevelopment is not an undertaking as simple as building a $455 million stadium on vacant land – as Maricopa County did with some of its money.

Tucson has done nothing wrong in its use of Rio Nuevo money. In hindsight, work could have been done better and possibly quicker.

Legislators should order the city to clean up its labyrinthine accounting procedures so it is easier for someone without CPA certification to track the uses of TIF money. But they then should back away and let Tucson continue to keep money generated here for local projects.

An ambitious proposal to plan and develop a large portion of downtown has hit a snag – but the project is so important we hope it survives.

Williams & Dame Development, a highly regarded group from Portland, Ore., has left a three-way partnership that had big plans for the east side of downtown Tucson.

It is important to note the company’s departure apparently was because of the sagging national economy, not problems in downtown Tucson.

While the Williams & Dame departure is a major blow, two Tucson firms remain in the partnership and have indicated they hope to carry on.

WDD brought a wealth of downtown experiences to Tucson. As its Web site notes, “From the reinvention of Portland’s Pearl District to the rebirth of Los Angeles’ South Park District, Williams & Dame Development has been creating visionary residential and mixed-use developments for more than two decades.”

In Tucson, Williams & Dame had barely started. It took over the hulking Martin Luther King Jr. apartment building for the elderly and turned it into One North Fifth – about 90 hip rentals that have brought many young people into the core of downtown to live.

A new strip of retail space on East Congress Street has been built as part of One North Fifth and soon will be available for businesses.

So it was exciting when WDD partnered with downtown developer Jim Campbell and luxury-home builder Scott Stiteler to plan and build housing, commercial and other developments on 75 acres at the eastern edge of downtown.

The three formed the Downtown Tucson Development Co. Its immediate focus stretched north and east from Congress Street and Sixth Avenue, but eventually was to include investing $2.5 million to rehabilitate two dozen century-old warehouses for the Warehouse Arts Management Organization.

The development company committed to spending $10 million in pre-development work over three years.

In exchange, the three were to receive an option on city-owned land, including the Ronstadt Transit Center, a small downtown parking lot and the former Broadway Volvo dealership at Broadway and Park Avenue.

Williams & Dame now has pulled out of the company, leaving the two remaining partners.

The developers approached the city with a sound proposal. The ideas they developed remain sound.

Both Campbell and Stiteler indicated they hoped to continue their work despite the loss of Williams & Dame. We indeed hope that is the case. Downtown Tucson needs them, their ideas and their enthusiasm.

Recession imperils renovation of downtown’s adobe gem

Local historian Ken Scoville at the Marist College building, possibly the largest adobe structure in the state.

After 94 years, the hulking downtown building – scarred by protective blue tarps and propped up with steel beams – seems ready to give up and melt back into the earth from which it came.

But the building is stronger than it looks. And with some repairs, it could easily last another century or so.

That, however, seems unlikely. A rescue mission will take money – in an economy where money for things like saving old buildings is hard to come by.

Nonetheless, Ken Scoville is not giving up.

The building is the former Marist College, a massive adobe structure owned by the Catholic Diocese of Tucson. It is west of St. Augustine Cathedral and across the street from the Tucson Convention Center.

Although it is in the heart of downtown, the building has been overlooked as redevelopment gets under way all around.

The Marist College building is worth saving. Including a full basement, it has three stories with about 10,000 square feet inside. The two stories above ground were built with adobe. The top portion, above the second-floor ceiling line, is brick.

Scoville, a local historian, said the building is the largest adobe structure remaining in southern Arizona – and possibly in the state.

It was unusual to build multistory buildings from the mud bricks because of the crushing weight two stories would place on the bottom bricks. The concrete basement was an innovative foundation that helped support the weight of the adobes, which are stacked to make walls 18 inches thick.

In addition to the size of the building, the timing of its construction was unusual. Adobe was the building material of choice in the early years of Tucson because there wasn’t much else available.

In 1880, the railroad arrived, and with it came bricks, wood and more “sophisticated” buildings materials.

“This was built at the end of the adobe era in Tucson,” Scoville said.

According to Scoville’s research, four Marist brothers came to Tucson in 1914 to teach English. The building went up a year later with boarding and day students from elementary school through the sophomore year of high school accepted for classes.

The building was used as a school until 1968. After that, it was used as offices for the diocese until 2002 when it was vacated because of stability concerns.

Eric Means of Means Construction, a local preservation contractor, said the damage could easily have been prevented. Drains became clogged with fronds from nearby palm trees, causing water to pond on the roof. It eventually seeped down through the adobes, causing them to melt. A nonpermeable coating applied to the outside trapped moisture, accelerating the damage.

The corners of the building were the first to go. The northwest corner is held up by steel beams and covered with a blue tarp, but pigeons fly in and out. In recent months, tarps have been put on the other corners to minimize damage.

Means said the temporary measures have saved the Marist College, which has shifted less than 1/32 of an inch in the past several years.

“This building is unique and valuable,” Means said. He estimates it would cost $1 million to remove the harmful coating, replace the damaged adobes and bring the building back to structural stability. “It’s cheaper to restore it than put up a new building” of comparable size, he said.

John Shaheen, property and insurance manager for the diocese, said the church doesn’t have the money to restore the building.

If someone wants to restore it and has a proposal, the diocese is interested in listening, he said. It would have to be a use compatible with the cathedral, so don’t expect to see a bar in the building.

If you haven’t looked at the Marist College building, it’s worth a trip downtown. Walk around it and look at it – rounded window openings, the statutes on the north side, the detail around the doors. Despite the peeling exterior, it is a beautiful structure.

“It’s just melting away,” Scoville lamented. “But I still want to believe we can save it.”

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

Completed in 1915, the Marist College building is showing its age.

Ken Scoville

———

TO HELP

Ken Scoville (above) is trying to raise money and interest for preserving the Marist College building. Contact him at opt1775@yahoo.com.

Enjoying some sushi at downtown's On A Roll Sushi Bar and Restaurant are (from left) Javier Trudeau, general manager; Marcus Eldon, 7, a frequent customer and resident of Armory Park; Pablo Toscano, sushi chef; and Teresa Moreno, who with her husband, Dominic, owns the establishment.

I have been blessed to grow up and continue to live in Armory Park and work in downtown Tucson.

I’m even more grateful to have had the opportunity to share my memories with readers and to receive your positive feedback.

This is my last column for “My Tucson,” and I want to thank you. I wish I’d had more time! Don’t we all?

There are many more stories I’d have liked to share about days gone by, especially those even Rio Dinero’s spending can’t duplicate.

For example, I wanted to share my and other Tucsonans’ experiences in the Tucson Festival Society’s Children’s Costume Parade as part of Las Fiestas de la Placita.

That festival took place during the 1950s in the downtown commercial center that featured El Zarape and other restaurants, Ronquillo’s Bakery and many other businesses.

All were razed, along with a portion of a vibrant residential neighborhood, to make way for the Tucson Convention Center. Thankfully, El Minuto Mexican restaurant survived.

During the 2008 presidential election year, it would have been fun to share my political experiences from the 1970s.

I had a fabulous trip to New York City and the Democratic Convention in 1976 as an alternate delegate for then-congressman and presidential candidate Mo Udall.

It was an incredible opportunity to witness and participate in the building of a party platform. Meeting national elected officials and media celebrities was pretty neat, too.

Also, I would have liked to offer opinions on how to solve the economic crisis. One of my favorites is to give middle-class and low-income taxpayers a $50,000 rebate. We’d then have the money to buy a new car, catch up on mortgage payments, donate to church and charity and buy a few more necessities and maybe some impulse items. Economic crisis solved.

And I would have written a profile of local hero Gerry Verdugo, who, just before Christmas, donated a kidney to Barbara Valenzuela, both parishioners at St. Augustine Cathedral.

Gerry and his family made a courageous decision. Organ donation saves lives. Everyone should consider it.

Most important, with the start of a new year, it’s appropriate to look to the future with hope.

I believe downtown Tucson’s future lies in the hands of the tenacious businesspeople who have invested in my favorite restaurants: Enoteca, Caffe Milano, Casa Vicente, Ascolese’s and Barrio Grill. We need more.

Where are the Whole Foods, Sunflower Markets and Trader Joe’s that downtown residents and workers need and want?

Residents of Armory Park and surrounding neighborhoods want a grocery store and a bakery.

On weekends, I love walking downtown to my favorite restaurants, especially when events are taking place in the neighborhood.

It would be nice to be able to pick up a few groceries on the way home. Maybe my 7-year-old neighbor Marcus (pictured above) will live to see it.

When the economy stabilizes, we’ll all still be here. We’ll have a little less money in our wallets, but we’ll still need groceries. Believe!

Happy new year, Tucson!

Julieta González is a Tucson native, playwright and freelance writer who is active in the community and working for the Catholic Diocese of Tucson. E-mail: julietag2008@yahoo.com

Julieta González

We were encouraged to hear that Tucsonans are thinking outside the box when it comes to building a downtown convention hotel.

At a meeting this week to discuss the planned Sheraton Tucson Convention Center Hotel, several speakers challenged designers not to limit their thinking to the ubiquitous glass tower.

Architect Ken Martin said he was surprised at the applause when speakers urged, “Be bold, be iconic, use something that screams ‘Tucson.’ ”

One speaker suggested the designers walk up Sabino Canyon for inspiration – a noteworthy idea.

This hotel, at 27 or 28 stories, will be the tallest building in Tucson. It is essential that considerable thought go into building a structure that will bring pride, attention and a unique local identity to downtown.

No boring glass-and-steel box for us. Please.

With the Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment project plagued by delays and an uncertain future, it makes sense to turn to the private sector for a needed and visible boost.

So the City Council did the right thing this week when it agreed to allow three developers to take the lead in breathing new life into the east side of downtown.

If this goes as anticipated – and there is every reason to believe it will – the city and the private sector will each be able to focus on what they do best.

The city will continue to oversee large public projects, such as a new arena and convention hotel, as well as a complex of museums on the west side of Interstate 10.

And the private sector will bring its specialized expertise to bear on a specific part of downtown that has promise but has been struggling.

There is some risk for taxpayers’ dollars. But that risk is far outweighed by the possibility of exciting progress on projects that have been stagnant.

After a year of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the council this week gave its unanimous and enthusiastic approval to a pre-development agreement for housing, commercial and other development.

It brings three developers together to redefine the eastern edge of downtown – an area with some notable successes, but much more promise.

The three will spend $10 million in pre-development work over the next three years. In return, they will receive options on city-owned land.

Among the envisioned projects are a downtown eatery by successful restaurant owner Kwang C. An, a permanent home for Skrappy’s youth club and a revolving line of credit for artists in the Warehouse District to fix the buildings and help them get tenants.

Specific performance criteria are built into the agreement. Without that, some other downtown projects have been allowed to languish for years.

The developers approached the city with a sound proposal. They realized they would have a far greater chance of success if they worked and planned projects together instead of operating independently.

The city has wisely allowed them unusual access and development latitude, which is essential to getting something done in this challenging economic climate and in the doubly challenging downtown market.

The east side of downtown has successes – most notably renovation and operation of the historic Hotel Congress and the recently opened One North Fifth Apartments, which will include new retail space.

Both projects were done by the private sector. Let’s see what it can do with a larger canvas.

The Sheraton Tucson Convention Center Hotel will be the tallest building in town and a major part of downtown redevelopment efforts.

So let’s try to get something built that will be a source of pride, not the butt of jokes. You can help make that happen Monday evening.

The hotel, at 25 to 28 stories tall, will be the signature piece of a project that includes building a new Tucson Arena and expansion of the convention center. Construction is expected to start in early 2010.

At a Monday open house, the hotel design team will take public comments. They will return with a design at a second open house next month.

Have your say and help develop the next Tucson landmark.

Six future bond sales are expected to bring in $453 million through 2014 to complete the major features of the Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment project.

The city is hoping to give Rio Nuevo a major kick-start in 2009 with the issuance late this month of $78 million in bonds.

The bonds are a solid way to get some of the delayed downtown redevelopment projects under way. But an adverse economy could cause unexpected financial problems for the city when it comes time to repay the bonds.

The Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District Board this week authorized a bond purchase agreement. The City Council is expected to give its OK next week.

Then two bond underwriting firms will shop for buyers, with an expectation that a week later the city will know if the bonds are all funded.

These are precarious financial times to be looking for money to borrow. But it is encouraging that two underwriters – Piper Jaffrey and Stone & Youngberg – have signed up to find investors. The interest of those firms indicates a likelihood the bonds will be funded.

The money then would be used for design of a new Tucson Arena and of the University of Arizona Science Center/Arizona State Museum and for construction of a parking garage and freeway underpass.

Six future bond sales are expected to bring in $453 million through 2014 to complete the major features of the Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment project.

Selling bonds is a reasonable way to get an immediate infusion of money so work can begin. If work is delayed until a pot of money is accumulated, inflation could easily push costs out of reach.

But there are risks with bonds.

The bonds would be repaid with sales tax collected under a tax increment financing plan approved by the Legislature. That’s fine as long as the city’s revenue projections are accurate. They seem overly optimistic, however.

In fiscal 2008, which ended June 30, the city received $16.2 million as its share of taxes from the district. Projections show that climbing to $18.2 million by 2010, to $45 million by 2020 and to a staggering $64.2 million by the time tax collections revert to the state in 2025.

That means for every $1 collected in the district last year, $4 is projected to be collected in 2025. It represents a 300 percent increase in 17 years.

If the sales tax revenue is not sufficient to repay the bonds, the city general fund may be tapped. And that could affect basic services, such as police, fire and transportation.

Next year will be the 10th anniversary of voter approval of the Rio Nuevo District that allowed tax increment financing to be approved and the downtown work to be planned.

We hope next year also is the year in which we see real physical progress downtown.

Financial challenges are looming, but community treasure has been saved

The Fox Theatre has averaged about three events a week.

The Fox Theatre is going through challenging financial times – hardly surprising when the same can be said for most nonprofits, and for General Motors, Citigroup, the state of Arizona, and federal government.

But there is no reason to give up on the Fox – a 1930 movie palace that has been restored into a sparking icon of downtown Tucson.

There will be difficult times ahead for the Fox. The cost to restore it ballooned from the $5 million to $7 million range to about $13 million before it reopened Dec. 31, 2005. The Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation had to borrow $5.6 million from the city, and the loan must be repaid starting in 2011.

But it also is important to look at the successful side of the Fox.

Since it has reopened, the Fox has averaged 152 events per year – about three per week. In 2007, the entertainment options at the Fox represented about 31 percent of all downtown events.

The figures are from Herb Stratford, who led the Fox revitalization before stepping down early this year.

When the Tucson Citizen published a story this week about Fox’s financial situation, online readers called for the theater to be closed, with many saying they don’t attend events there.

The Fox is a community resource. Not everyone will go there – just as not everyone will be interested in University of Arizona basketball or in watching the latest episode of “American Idol.” But that doesn’t mean there should be fewer options available.

Instead of slamming the Fox, those critical Tucsonans should check out the varied offerings and make an effort to be part of a Fox audience.

And the Fox foundation should listen to its critics, too, and offer a wider range of programming that may attract some naysayers.

In 2009, renovation of Centennial Hall on the UA campus will cause some shows to be moved to the Fox. Such partnerships between the Fox and UA should continue, giving the university a role in helping downtown revitalization.

No one got rich or exploited the system by rebuilding the Fox. It has been a labor of love for thousands of people.

As Stratford noted, the plan was never for Fox Theatre to be the anchor or one of only a few visible downtown entities, carrying the weight of expectations and frustrations for a slow-moving redevelopment of the city center.

An investment in the cultural history of a community is never a mistake. Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation has said, “Every successful downtown revitalization in the U.S. has had, as a central component, a historic theater.”

For Tucson, the Fox is that component. It will find its niche.

Grijalva suggests the federal economic stimulus package should include provisions for public lands.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva released a report Wednesday that, even in two dozen pages, couldn’t list all of the Bush administration’s assaults on our public lands.

But the worst of the worst are in the report, which serves not only as an indictment, but also as a blueprint for corrections the next administration must make.

We hope the next president will heed his predecessor’s errors and ensure that good policies and procedures are undertaken – with a topnotch professional leading the Department of the Interior.

Grijalva’s re-election Nov. 4 is as certain as a Tucson sunset’s beauty, so this isn’t self-serving politics.

Rather, it underscores the devotion to our natural lands consistently demonstrated by the Arizona Democrat who chairs the House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee.

The Bush team, by contrast, has steamrolled scientific data, punted professionalism in favor of political hires and doubled an already huge maintenance load.

It has ignored the rule of law, rolled back regulations and pandered to the energy industry at public lands’ expense.

Near the Grand Canyon – the only U.S. park that is also a world wonder – Interior has OK’d a uranium mine despite a congressional ban on it.

Bison are being slaughtered at levels not seen since the 1800s, and wild horses and burros are being grossly mismanaged.

Parks visitors are painfully aware of the swarms of snowmobiles that have taken over Yellowstone National Park and of the inappropriate allowances for personal watercraft and off-road vehicles in parks and other public lands.

Still, some of the most egregious actions undertaken by the Bush administration cannot be seen by the naked eye – yet. And many of these affect southern Arizona directly.

For example, dozens of environmental, health, safety and public process laws have been waived in planning 700 miles of border fence – through national wildlife refuges, protected waterways, forests and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, among other sites with scenic, cultural and threatened wildlife habitat values.

The Forest Service seeks to streamline requirements for gold, copper and other mineral mining sans any environmental analysis, in direct conflict with the National Research Council’s recommendation.

And as Tucsonans well know, with the conviction of Mount Lemmon hiker Christine Wallace, fees have been added and increased on many of our national parks and forests, resulting in double taxation and discrimination against the poor and low-impact users.

As our economy continues sinking into severe recession, even the most ardent fans of public lands don’t expect generous funding to materialize, no matter who becomes president.

But reasonable appropriations are essential – and broken policies, rules and practices can be righted for little to no cost. Professionalism can be restored and science heeded, rather than manipulated.

Grijalva also suggests the federal economic stimulus package should include provisions for public lands.

A two-year, voluntary service commitment by young people, to defray their college costs, could be focused on maintenance work in our parks and other public lands, much like the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.

The environment can’t compete with the economy as an issue now, but Grijalva says the public still cares deeply – and we agree.

Our public lands are eight years overdue for thoughtful, scientific and professional stewardship.

———

Download the document

Read Rep. Grijalva’s report

The Tucson City Council showed foresight this week with a vote requiring that new homes be ready to use recycled water or gray water on landscaping.

The council unanimously approved the ordinance that requires builders to plumb homes for separate wastewater systems.

Water from washing machines, showers, bathtubs and laundry and bathroom sinks can be diverted from the traditional sewer system and instead used on landscaping.

Beginning June 1, 2010, new homes will be prepared so homeowners can take advantage of using the recycled water outside.

That will add about $500 to the cost of a home. But it will reduce the demand for fresh water on landscaping, especially in the summer when outdoor use is highest.

It’s a good move.

Over Labor Day weekend, Davidson Canyon was running bank to bank (as the O'odham cowboys say) and full with mud. The grass was waist high and reminiscent of its historical proportions. The caterpillars and flowers were plentiful.

This is truly one of the least appropriate places for a mine.

Driving the length of the designated scenic highway that is state Route 83, I was reminded that the Rosemont Mine and its blast dust will be visible from all over Sonoita – from the rodeo stands at the fairgrounds, from the Elgin School and from the Sonoita Fire Station.

The idea that they will place a berm along 83 as mitigation is laughable.

The mine will be seen from the west gate of Fort Huachuca and the entire Sonoita plateau, from backyards, schoolyards, churches, rented Harleys and thoroughbred horses, and from the ever-expanding vineyards.

If you have not taken this drive, please do. Driving north from the Huachuca Mountains toward Sonoita really is one of the most beautiful drives anywhere.

Along 83 north and south of Sonoita, you see the Huachucas, Santa Ritas, Catalinas, Rincons, Chiracauhuas, San Pedro Valley and more for 60 miles in every direction.

To say you will not see the pit where it climbs to the ridge of the northern arm of the Santa Ritas is absurd.

This area is home to people, pronghorn and cougars. To destroy such priceless resources as a lifelong safe home for our citizens in exchange for the short-term profits of a foreign investor is to guarantee that our homeland is not secure at all.

Geographically, this area is so diverse that it attracts tourists from all over the world.

It is the only land bridge above 4,000 feet between the Rockies and the Sierra Madre.

Look at any 1,000-foot contour map of the continents, and you will see this narrow isthmus between continental mountain ranges. Our weather is created there.

Traveling along Route 83 leaving the Sonoran Desert, you climb past the mine site into grasslands plateau truly rare in the Southwest and then into Madrean evergreen forest.

The mine is at the transition point where in winter you may first view the snowcapped peak of Mount Wrightson and in early summer the mass of monsoon building to the southeast.

This is where the monsoon meets the mountains and hot air rising from Tucson to create our rain, at the headwaters of our watershed.

Mine development in that location will not only destroy the Forest Service’s multiuse management goal, but also our own unique geography.

Economists, hydrologists, chemists, engineers and biologists will undoubtedly weigh the predicted changes, but the damage is easy to foresee.

Over Labor Day weekend, Davidson Canyon was running bank to bank (as the O’odham cowboys say) and full with mud. The grass was waist high and reminiscent of its historical proportions. The caterpillars and flowers were plentiful.

This is truly one of the least appropriate places for a mine.

While I shed a tear for this area, the sorrow will be much greater the first time someone dies in an accident on Route 83 involving a mining truck.

And it will be greater forever for residents of eastern Pima and western Cochise counties.

Greg Saxe is a University of Arizona graduate and Tucson resident who has worked locally as a planner for 15 years.

Barack Obama says the United States must “end the age of oil in our time,” with “real results by the end of my first term in office.”

Duff Badgley, the Green candidate for governor in Washington State, goes only a bit further: He’d immediately convert the Boeing factory from building jetliners to making solar panels and wind turbines.

He’d ration your carbon emissions, right down to your lawn mower. He’d outlaw single-occupancy vehicles and spend carbon tax money to ensure there would be a bus you could ride – but rural dwellers would mostly have to walk.

Both Obama and Badgley would make perfect sense if the Earth was suffering rapid global warming caused by human CO2 emissions. Fortunately, that isn’t happening.

The net global warming from 1940 to 1998 was a tiny 0.2 degree C, during nearly 70 years of the first, and theoretically most powerful, surge of human-emitted CO2.

Since 1998, temperatures haven’t risen at all, and over the past 18 months, the thermometers and satellites both report a sharp global cooling. Earth’s temperatures are now about where they were in 1900.

NASA admits the oceans “stopped warming 4 to 5 years ago,” and the Earth can’t warm if the oceans don’t.

The Jason satellite confirms the northern Pacific has entered a cooling phase that is likely to dictate cooler global temperatures over the next 25 years.

How long will it take us to realize that the CO2 explanation for our warming was wrong? I’d guess another three years.

The planet’s only runaway warming today is inside the global computer models. They’ve consistently predicted far more warming we’ve gotten. Now they’re predicting warming when we’re getting cooling.

What sort of policies does a 25-year cooling recommend for the United States?

Should we quickly outlaw the coal-burning that provides half of our electricity, as Duff Badgley thinks we should? Should we outlaw nitrogen fertilizer and grow all our food organically, even if this means one-third of the world’s people starve?

Should we drill safely along the Pacific Coast as we do the Gulf Coast and the North Sea, to bring down oil prices? Badgley thinks gas prices should be far higher than they are, so no one will be tempted to drive a personal auto and risk the planet’s future.

One of the biggest questions for our energy future is about the trillions of barrels of oil in the “tar sands” – in places such as Canada, Venezuela and eastern Utah.

The Environmental Defense group says the Athabasca tar sands oil production is “the most destructive project on earth.” That’s because mining the tar sands releases three times more CO2 per gallon than burning conventional oil.

But history says the CO2 doesn’t matter much. Earth has had seven previous global warmings since the last Ice Age, and none of them involved burning fossil fuels.

The problem for voters in 2008 is that John McCain isn’t much more realistic than Obama. McCain now approves of drilling “anywhere but ANWR (The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge),” but still believes that more human-emitted CO2 will mean dangerous global warming – even though CO2 has never demonstrated any correlation with our temperatures.

Both major candidates seem to have hired the Wizard of Oz as their energy consultant.

Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute (www.hudson.org) in Washington, D.C., and is the director for the Center for Global Food Issues. (www.cgfi.org) He formerly was a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years.” Readers may write him at P.O. Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or e-mail: cgfi@hughes.net