By Bryan Bearden

Spring Training, Opening Day, start of Little League, America’s pastime is back! Teams can go undefeated (at least for a while), batters will have averages of 1.000 (at least for a while) and every team can be a contender (you guessed it, at least for a while).  A new baseball season is here!

One of my fondest memories is when I took my 5 year-old son to his first big league baseball game at Capitol One Ballpark in Phoenix for an Astros and Diamondbacks game.  After weeks of anticipation, we finally entered the ballpark and were struck by the grandeur of this modern cathedral fully adorned for a big league ball game. My son stood there gazing upon the field, hot dog in one hand soda in the other and simply uttered, “Wow.” The dome was closed due to the heat, the field was pristine, and we watched the big leaguers smartly warm-up for the game. The opening pitch was thrown and signaled the beginning of a perfect evening for a father and son.

In that game, we saw home runs, double plays, bad calls by the umpires, funny people cast on the huge big screen – all the things that make visiting a big league park great.  We had cotton candy, pizza, peanuts, hot dogs and seconds and thirds on the soda and beer.  We totally spoiled ourselves.  And of course the best part was that the Astros, my favorite team, won.  My son’s first baseball game could not have been any better.

Several weeks later, I received an email at work stating that the following Tuesday was military appreciation night at Hi Corbett Field, home of the Tucson Toros!  I was able to get two tickets, so my son and I were off to see another baseball game!

As with most minor league ball clubs, the stadium is a small venue providing an intimate setting in order to get an up-close view.  The evening at Hi Corbett Field was not quite the same experience as we had a few weeks earlier in Phoenix. First of all, we were able to curb park just yards from the gate.  After quickly passing through the entrance line we found that the venders were plentiful, very friendly but with a more limited variety of fare.  However, everything was there that we needed for the perfect baseball culinary experience: peanuts, popcorn, hot dogs, soda and beer.

Another distinct difference was the carnival atmosphere in the stadium.  Whether it was the music playing under the stadium seating, or the vendors catcalling to sell Toro trinkets, the smell of open grills or the giant bouncy houses (a favorite of my son) along the left field foul line, there was a distinct county fair feeling to the ballpark.

As we emerged from the vending area, we were met with a slightly different site than in Capitol One Ballpark in Phoenix.  As the field came into view my son again uttered, “wow,” but it was not due to the grandeur of a stadium with a dome, as this was an open-air stadium with no outfield seating, but his excitement was for the Army Blackhawk helicopter parked in the middle of center field for the military appreciation night.  We were instantly met by Tuffy Toro, the team mascot, who gave my boy a big “nuggy” on the head, a hug and a souvenir plastic baseball.  He was in total awe!

The fun continued.  After the national anthem ended, the Blackhawk took off from center field albeit not with the precision of a major league event.  The takeoff seemed to be uncomfortably delayed, out of sync with PA announcer and it nearly blew over the color guard that for some reason had remained on the field until the helo’s departure.  Very humorous.  After a few innings of error-full baseball there was a crowd participation fun run between innings that proved to be a folly of trips and spills.  Very humorous.

Finally, early in the 4th inning, my son couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to play in the bouncy houses.  I of course obliged, bought a beer enroute to left field and watch my son totally enjoy playing with the other kids all while I kept track of seemed to be a record setting error-laden game.  Very humorous.  This was an absolutely joy of an evening.

Totally exhausted by the 6th inning, we decided to leave – it was, in fact, a school night.  We took the short walk to the car, strapped in and took off or home happily discussing the events of the evening.  Halfway home, the conversation from the back seat slowed as my son’s eyes started getting a little heavy.

To sum up the evening, I decided to ask him, before he drifted off too far, “So, did you like the game tonight?”  He answered yes, and when I asked him why, he simply stated, “Because that was real baseball.”

Curious about his answer, I tried to explain the difference in minor league baseball and the big leagues, that tonight’s game wasn’t like the “real baseball” that we saw up in Phoenix, in the big stadium with the big leaguers.  But despite my valiant effort to draw the differences between the two, he said, “No dad, that was real baseball.”

So naturally I asked him why he thought that night’s game was “real baseball” and his answer was one I’ll never forget.  He stated, before he drifted off to sleep, “Because it was outside under the lights, dad.”

It was then I realized that no matter how big or small the venue, no matter the salaries of the players or what big names on the rosters, baseball, America’s pastime, brings joy!  And certainly that night, in the eye of a 5-year old boy, “real baseball” occurred outside, under the lights in a casual, fun setting.  Thank you Toros and thank you baseball.

Bryan Bearden, a former resident of Tucson, is currently a professor at the Marine Corps University at Quantico, VA.

By Clarence Dupnik
Pima County Sheriff

As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in Pima County, I have had the privilege and responsibility of serving the citizens of this community for over three decades. During that time, I have seen many changes aimed at the betterment of our State. Unfortunately, I have also witnessed several ill-conceived, poorly planned legislative efforts become law.

House Bill 2571 is one such short-sighted, ill-intended piece of legislation. The Arizona Legislature – with the support of Governor Jan Brewer – intend to strip protections afforded public employees returning our state to an earlier, problem-plagued time in which public servant’s were subject to termination at any time without cause. And worse yet, the Governor is offering a bribe — a five percent pay raise — for those employees willing to forego the protections of the merit system.

The Merit System was a response and a solution to abusive hiring practices. I know this first hand; my agency – the Pima County Sheriff’s Department – was formerly a hotbed of political cronyism and corruption. In 1970, before I became Sheriff, then-Sheriff Walden Burr was indicted for selling jobs and promotions. He was allowed to make hiring and firing decisions based on political and financial considerations.  Absent the State Merit System protection for workers, politicians could be afforded this same ability to end the careers of valuable public servants and replace them with incompetent political hacks or unqualified family members.

Merit Systems provide protection and brings integrity to the practices of hiring, disciplining, and firing government workers. For thirty-two years, I have worked with merit systems and—while not always agreeing with their findings— have always been and will remain a staunch supporter of their objectivity and independence. As an elected official, I do not have, nor do I want, the power to hire and fire personnel based on politics. I believe any leader, whether elected or appointed, who desires such authority is not working in the best interest of the State.

Eliminating Merit System protections for State workers is the first step toward eliminating merit system protection for all public servants. Elected officials and appointed leaders will be given the right to hire and fire on a whim, replacing the fairness of a merit system with favoritism and politics.

Arizona cannot afford the cost of this legislation; removing the protections of the Merit System will result in the loss of loyal, dependable public servants subject to replacement by political lackeys. Calling this legislation a solution is inaccurate; the loss of the Merit System will only return Arizona to the problem filled days of yesteryear.

President Garfield must be turning over in his grave. His assassination was the impetus for civil service reform. Generations have worked hard to insure fairness and equity in government employment. But Arizona’s legislature wants to return to the days of rotten and corrupt administrations, replacing “Help Wanted” advertisements with signs reading “Jobs For Sale.”

by Steve Kozachik
Tucson City Councilman, Ward 6

To state the obvious, the roads in Tucson and in many of the surrounding jurisdictions and unincorporated Pima County are horribly in need of significant reconstruction. The problem is far beyond potholes.

The taxpayers of the region should not be asked to dip further into their incomes to pay for road repair until elected officials and public servants have exhausted every other option available.

One option that contains the seed-bed of a very large pool of money, and that exists in the form of an existing tax is the RTA sales tax.

In 2006, the voters were asked to approve a 1/2 cent sales tax, the use of which was to go into expanding road capacity in the region. The 20 year anticipated revenue stream from the tax was estimated at being $2 billion. The projects shown on the ballot included something for everybody – and so it passed. That’s how we do bond elections around here. Everyone sees some ornaments on the Christmas Tree that they like, so they buy the whole deal.

Fast forward to today’s reality. The RTA continues moving ahead, as they were told to do by the voters, and starting projects that will expand our road capacity. And while that is occurring, our existing transit infrastructure has deteriorated to the point that it is a safety issue throughout the community.

It is also a disincentive to businesses thinking of relocating to our area.

And some of the projects are based on flawed traffic projections, and if designed as per plans will eliminate millions of dollars worth of sales and property taxes generated from existing businesses along corridors that we now know do not need to be expanded to the extent the voters were told would be the case.

For example, based on 1987 traffic studies, the voters were told that by 2030, Broadway would need to be 150′ wide to accommodate traffic projections. The RTA has now found that those projections were invalid.

The Broadway project has $42 million of RTA money as a funding base. The total project cost is over $71 million. The difference was to be made up by county bond money – but that pool has dried up, so the city of Tucson is on the hook for the delta if the project goes forward as planned.

Never mind that it will eliminate 115 historic structures and small businesses that form the tax base for our local government General Fund.

Never mind that we’re spending millions of dollars for a project to which multiple neighborhood associations and business owners have taken exception.

And never mind that in doing the work, we’re encouraging traffic density along that arterial, knowing that the volumes do not exist in reality, and knowing that when the Broadway traffic passes into downtown, it will pinch into a single lane. Gridlock.

The RTA correctly says that their list of projects was “voter approved.” As economic, traffic and road conditions change, I am advocating that we hear the voice of the people again in two specific areas:
First, do a project by project reanalysis to see if the underlying bases on which they were sold to the public are valid. If not, down-scope the projects and save millions of dollars in both project costs and saving businesses along the corridors.

Second, ask the voters in each jurisdiction if they’d approve setting aside 20 percent of their RTA tax dollars and earmark it for road reconstruction in their jurisdiction. On a population basis, for the city of Tucson that would equate to over $200 million over the 20 year life of the RTA. Then let’s have a community wide conversation that identifies how we re-scope and possibly put on hold projects so we can afford that reallocation of funds.

What I am proposing is offering the taxpayers a dedicated funding source that already exists and earmark it to road repair. The trade off is forcing the RTA into a modern-day community discussion about what the “voters approved” back in 2006.

Before we ask the taxpayers to take on more debt, let’s ask if they’d like to reallocate some existing debt to fixing our roadways. Getting to that point will require the RTA Board to present an idea such as this to the County Board of Supervisors. It might require tweaking a State statute. But if the people speak out, and if there is that level of leadership at the Board of Supervisors and in Phoenix, the question can still appear on the ballot this fall.