So we're hearing a lot about these super delegates and how they might have the power to decide the Democratic presidential race. Blog for Arizona takes a look at the Arizona super delegates today.

Perhaps you're wondering how you can become a super delegate yourself. How does it work? Do you have to be bitten by a radioactive presidential candidate?

Actually, you just need to win a spot as a first vice chair of the Democratic Party. And it turns out there's an opening because Donna Branch-Gilby is giving up her first vice chairmanship as she prepares to challenge Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson in the September primary.

The new first vice chair will be elected at the state convention on April 26. Want to apply? Call Pima County Democratic HQ at 326-3716.

If you haven't been downtown lately, you might not have noticed that the first segments of track for the urban streetcar have been laid in the messy construction zone of the Fourth Avenue underpass.

The good news: Congress Street is scheduled to reopen next month, ending the wack detour we now have when we enter downtown.

The bad news: The underpass construction still has another year or so to go.

So I opened up next week's Free Will Astrology column, and Irene Messina--who does the first read of the column--had left a note at the top of a column, noting that she had a question about these two sentences:

The average male owns 15 pairs of underwear, while the typical female has 21. (The other three genders average 25, 31 and 13, respectively.)

I am only, um, familiar with two distinct genders. So, being the crack investigative reporter that I am, I quickly did some elementary math and rushed off to Google, where I Googled the term "five genders."

There were more than 2.3 million results.

Turns out there's a belief in some circles that there are, in fact, five genders.

Here's an excerpt from an article I found on the PBS show Nova's Web site, by Anne Fausto-Sterling:

In 1993 I published a modest proposal suggesting that we replace our two-sex system with a five-sex one. In addition to males and females, I argued, we should also accept the categories herms (named after "true" hermaphrodites), merms (named after male "pseudohermaphrodites"), and ferms (named after female "pseudohermaphrodites").

So, well, there you go. Check out that article to learn more, or just Google "five genders" if ya wanna learn more.

Thoughts?

As we note in this week's Range, the final vote counts are in for our Project White House presidential candidates. Congrats to Sandy Whitehouse, who appears to have landed 626 votes. Whitehouse defeated both Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel.

Four candidates have taped concession speeches that we'll be posting on Project White House YouTube channel this evening. The first is from Republican Sean "CF" Murphy, who is open to a vice-presidential slot on either ticket.

... just in time for Valentine's Day, here's a new issue of the Weekly, online and ready for your perusal.

Feel free to comment on its contents here.

A fellow food and wine enthusiast sent this to me. I'll say that I have dined around, and this is one dining experience that I never want to have.

Scroll down, and you can see how far off the ground you are.

I have vertigo just looking at it.

And worse--what happens if you have to go to the bathroom?

A Pima County sales-tax proposal tossed around a couple of years ago probably looks pretty good to bureaucrats right now, as county department heads scramble to meet the demands set by County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry in a memo issued to all departments on Feb. 4.

Huckelberry had told county department supervisors that he needed to see a reduction of 2 to 5 percent from each department, with some departments like Development Services being explicitly told to consider layoffs.

Employees in Development Services are nervously waiting to hear from director Carmine DeBonis what areas of the department will begin layoffs. DeBonis presented a plan to save money with a hiring freeze and permit-approval streamlining, but Huckelberry told him it wasn’t enough--and to prepare for layoffs.

Development Services was a nice cash cow for the county while housing and commercial building increased, but that permit money is now almost nil as housing construction has turned south. In any case, DeBonis deserves some credit: He transformed a neglected department into one that most city governments would envy, as he restructured the department to make permitting faster and more efficient.

Huckelberry’s Feb. 4 memo also let department heads know the 2 percent minimum budget-reduction request first announced in January would possibly need to be greater.

“Consequently at this point it appears that my budget recommendation to the Board of Supervisors will necessarily include a reduction in existing base budget expenditures of at least 2 percent and the likelihood is that the recommended reduction will be greater,” he wrote.

The budget challenges he outlines include salary increases to commissioned and corrections officers that will cost an additional $2.4 million next year; mandated increases to officials' salaries next year costing more than $250,000; and existing employee medical insurance is expected to rise in costs more than $2 million.

While Huckelberry has said new libraries and parks could be delayed, the Pima County Bond Advisory Committee continues to meet and plan a bond proposal to bring before the Board of Supervisors. The committee continues to look at everything from libraries and parks, to conservation acquisition--aka open space land purchases.

The last committee meeting was Feb. 1, and the next meeting takes place Feb. 29 at the Manning House, 450 W. Paseo Redondo. More than $1.4 billion in project funding requests are on the table. The committee will begin to look at whittling that down to about $700 million.

Friends at the Sonoran Desert Protection Coalition said they hope open-space land acquisition stays at about $285 million in order for the county to hold up its end of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. They’d like an additional $10 million to go toward flood plain acquisition.

Bond information and the committee meeting schedule is at www.pima.gov/bonds/committeeBAC/BACcommittee.htm. If you want to lend a voice in support of the bond and open space, the coalition recommends you send an e-mail to [email protected].

Hopefully someone will be there to receive the e-mail and not looking for a new job.

I'm still waiting to hear from Pima County regarding a lawsuit filed by the county two years ago against the Arizona State Land Department.

A call went out to Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry before the Tucson Weekly went to press this past issue, but the call has remained unanswered. The question: What is the status of the 2-year-old lawsuit filed by Pima County against the Arizona State Land Department regarding California Portland Mining leases? 

It's a simple question, and as far as the land department and California Portland folks are concerned, the parties remain in litigation (at least as of last week). Monday, a rumor surfaced that the county was going to drop the lawsuit. The call to confirm the lawsuit rumor grew more important, yet remained unanswered for the story we ran on a local group's effort to stop the proposed mines. 

Finally, and the day of publication (Feb. 7), the rumor was half confirmed when the Weekly received a copy of a memorandum sent to all Pima County Board of Supervisors by Huckelberry on Wednesday, Feb. 6 (the day after we go to press). I was told the lawsuit will be on the agenda at the board of supervisors' meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 12. It's there, under executive session. We've discussed in previous blogs that the board is legally entitled to discuss legal matters with their attorney in executive session. It would be nice and highly democratic, however, if the board chose to discuss this matter in front of their constituents. It would also be politically helpful if they decided to make their vote public on whether to proceed with the lawsuit or not. In executive session, the board can vote with no one knowing how each board member voted. Could be handy during election season.

Meanwhile, folks from the Empire-Fagan Coalition are shocked by the possibility the county could drop the lawsuit. The coalition is made up of a group of residents who would have to live near the proposed mines. They'd have to deal with the blasting and dust, and the possible contamination of well water and sharing the small roads with the 23-ton mining trucks transporting limestone to crushing facilities.

Besides those little quality of life issues, the coalition is concerned that leaving the state trust land alone and/or selling it to the county for open space would make the land more profitable for the department.

According to coalition president Mike Carson, he and other members plan to be at the Tuesday board meeting, and they plan to pack the room. 

For the Empire-Fagan folks we're talking about something much needed in this day of development vs. open space (with water an ugly issue beneath all of these discussions)--HOPE. Coalition members are starting to feel like they are running out of hope after getting nowhere in their discussions with the Arizona State Land Department.

According to the recent memorandum from Huckelberry's office, the road block on the lawsuit began on Nov. 19, 2007 when the county requested the court set an evidentiary hearing and authorize county expert witnesses to access the mining property and collect evidence. The land department opposed the request, and the court requested the county issue the request in writing. On Dec. 12, the county filed a request for a hearing and motion to authorize its expert witnesses and collect evidence. 

On Jan. 25, 2008, almost two weeks ago, the court denied the county's request. This is odd, considering the same court gave the county permission to move forward with its lawsuit to get the land department to appeal the mining leases. But now it is saying the county cannot collect evidence to support its lawsuit. 

The county's approach was to argue that the leases were not in the best interest of the state trust, because mining would harm waterways and wildlife, protected under federal law. But to prove this, it still needed access to the proposed mining areas to produce evidence. 

"... (F)rom the initiation of this case, the county has sought expert opinions on the relevant issues ...," the memo states. "Without the sufficient evidence, the county is not in a position to proceed with the case, and is required to dismiss it." 

However, the last two pages of the four-page memo offer some crumbs of hope.

California Portland is still waiting for approval of a 404 permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers. Previously, the corps rejected the cement company's first permit application ,because the company failed to provide requested information. The county plans to provide comments to the corps and notify the community regarding a public comment period. California Portland needs a 404 before mining occurs. 

Another crumb, which was discussed in our story, is the possibility that the state could declare Davidson Canyon an Outstanding Waterway. The designation, according to the memo, prevents the state from declaring water quality permits that could degrade this waterway. 

From the county's perspective, any protective measure is moving too slowly. They recommend sending letters to the water quality division to move the process faster (Joan Card, Division Director of the Water Quality Division, ADEQ, 1110 West Washington Street, Phoenix, AZ 85007). 

The other crumbs of hope are part of the age-old debate over changing the state trust land laws. One part of the statute prevents the state from auctioning lands where valuable minerals are located. Changing this part of the law would be one start. Changing other areas of the law are further supported in the memo, such as allowing state land trust property to be used for mitigation purposes when working with development and setting aside open space as outlined in the county's Sonoran Desert Protection Plan. The land department process must also begin to include public comment and put proposed land use application online for review. And finally, look more closely at water and land issues before doling out mineral leases.

All of this has been debated and discussed before. These changes could come too late for those in the Empire Valley.

We've wrestled with this for too long. The initiative process and the state Legislature have both failed to provide state land reform. The county, through its memo, makes its argument to get out of the lawsuit in a nice legal frame, but it needs to stick it out.

The people of Pima County needs someone to continue the fight, at least to dish out a little more hope.

As we close the books on our Reality Journalism competition, we're going to have one last Project White House Happy Hour from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Danny Baboquivari Lounge, 2910 E. Fort Lowell. Will we have concession speeches? Announcements of independent bids for the presidency? The revelation of what "CF" really stands for? Find out this afternoon!

Just in case ya haven't noticed yet ... our new issue is online! Exciting!

Feel free to comment on its contents here.