The Broadway Boulevard Project suffered a meltdown last week, when several members of its Citizens Task Force—apparently convened to be a flock of sheep—finally revolted against their imminent fleecing.

At the packed meeting on March 19, they railed against being hoodwinked by city transportation planners, who had diligently gathered their suggestions over more than two years, and then just as earnestly cast those recommendations aside. Even worse, city officials had simply designed the six-lane roadway they wanted, and then pretended that it had come from the citizens group.

Task force team member Colby Henley sparked the insurrection, as he rifled through a duplicitous paper trail stacked across the the conference table before him. He pulled out one transportation department memo pledging that city planners would honor the task force’s call for two dedicated mass-transit lanes in the final Broadway widening plan. He hoisted another transportation memo to Tucson’s Mayor and City Council pledging the same thing. “But somewhere between the mayor and council and the (Regional Transportation Authority) briefings, that changed,” said Henley. “It was out of the sight of the public, and I still have not received an answer about when and who changed that.”

It turns out that city staffers quietly ditched the transit-lanes option when presenting their six-lane plan to the Regional Transportation Authority. (The RTA oversees funding for this and other projects under a sweeping road plan approved by voters in 2006. The agency has repeatedly demanded that Broadway be transformed into the car-dominated behemoth mandated by voters nearly 10 years ago, and based on faulty traffic projections concocted nearly 20 years before that.)

“…I think the public process is a bit of a charade right now,” Henley continued. “If we were told to design this roadway with no strings attached, after hearing what we’ve heard at all the public meetings, if you’ll remember, the number one concern was historic preservation. And yet the one historic district that abuts this roadway is taking the brunt of the demolitions.” That would be the Rincon Heights National Register Historic District, which Henley represents on the task force. Located north of Broadway it could lose some 40 buildings under the city staff’s jerry-rigged plan.

Several other task force members then chimed in angrily, complaining about the city’s bait-and-switch. The room erupted, as hired task force “facilitator” Nanci Beizer flapped ludicrously about, trying to shepherd the conversation towards numbing, consensual bliss. When Beizer finally stopped pleading, an ashen Jenn Toothaker—the city’s Broadway project co-manager—leaned into her mic to admit that, yes, city staffers had covertly scrapped the plan actually approved by the Citizens Task Force and the Mayor and Council.  And yes, all this deception was aimed at pleasing Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and the RTA’s blade-and-pave crowd, both of whom have threatened to withhold funding unless they’re obeyed.

Contacted later, City Councilman Steve Kozachik—whose Ward 6 encompasses the Broadway project—said that Broadway project officials had squandered their credibility. “I told them this was going to implode on them, and it has. The city has come to expect citizens task forces to take the direction of staff and consultants and just follow along on a leash. But this group has finally stepped up and said, ‘Our name is on this.’ They have a right to demand of the city that whatever comes out of this task force—whether or not the RTA likes it, whether the county likes it, whether the mayor and council likes it— needs to reflect the will of the task force and what they’ve heard from the public.”

Gov. Doug Ducey says he is against the Common Core standards, but isn't asking the state Board of Education to get rid of them, yet. Instead, Ducey proposed a thorough review of the language arts and math standards to search for ways they can be more Arizona and less federal government.

The involvement of parents, students and teachers from around the state are a must.

"We can learn from others, but at the end of the day the standards need to come from Arizona and they need to help us achieve our objectives," Ducey told the board this morning. "And in any instance during your review, you find situations where Arizona standards can outperform the ones already adopted, I ask you to replace them."

Last week, we reported five students from Flowing Wells High School had been arrested for allegedly plotting to kill a fellow classmate. 

Now, a Fundrazr page has popped up to raise money for Christopher Gibson, an 18-year-old suspect. The page appears to be run by Gibson's sister—the attribution at the top says only Anastasia Mitchell—who describes Gibson as a 4.0 student and a complete gentleman.  

From the campaign page:

Christopher has grown up in the same house, in the same neighborhood, with the same friends for almost his whole life. He’s respectful, has manners, and is a complete gentleman. My parents raised him exceptionally well and because of this he always has and always will respect and fight for the ones he loves.

As of today my brother, his two best male friends, a girlfriend and the girl who was being bullied in the first place are in custody. They are being held at a 25,000 bond and my brother is being held on a 100,000 dollar bond. They are being tried as adults for conspiracy to commit first degree murder. While threats are completely unacceptable and unforgiving we also have to think that five of the smartest students at Flowing Wells High School could lose their promising futures for trying to stand up for one another.

The page says the family cannot afford to pay for quality legal counsel. Gibson's sister ends the Fundrazr with a plea: "Please fight this fight with me as friend, a neighbor, or just as someone who believes in second chances." As of this posting, the page had raised $170 of a $20,000 goal.

The students were allegedly planning to kill another student with a knife. A student alerted school administration to the plan, and the school turned the case over to Tucson Police Department detectives. One of the suspects had a knife in his or her possession.

This blog post comes to you in two parts!

Part 1: Let's make desk jobs less boring
I spend a lot of time at my desk every week—At least 40 hours, many of which involve data entry and mindless copy and pasting. To prevent my brain from turning into chocolate pudding (yum, but not ideal for functionality), I'm always looking for things to stay entertained. And by "I'm always looking," I mean I'm officially tired of listening to the Amy Schumer station on Pandora. She's hilarious, but I think it's time we see other people. 

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is the first high-profile figure to announce he is running for president. He made it official early this morning via a message on Twitter and then a speech where he mentioned Jesus Christ a few times. (Here's a good "things you should know about Cruz" list compiled by NPR.)

The so-called Tea Party hero isn't a fan, to say the least, of President Obama's executive actions on immigration. He'd like to gut all of them—both deferred actions for undocumented youth and adults brought here as children, and deferred action for parents of U.S. citizen or legal resident kids. 

Prior to Congress finally approving a budget for the Department of Homeland Security, Cruz was on the bandwagon to include an amendment that would have dismantled extended DACA and DAPA, which were later temporarily blocked by a Texas judge, anyway.

He has, in the past, expressed will to "facilitate" legal migration, such as more visas for workers. "Immigrants deserve a better system in which they will be welcomed to the United States safely and with dignity," he says on his U.S. Senate campaign website. (Sounds like an all too familiar tactic to get the Latino vote.)

Cesar Vargas and Erika Andiola, co-directors of the Dream Action Coalition issued this statement about Cruz's candidacy:

“The only policy Latinos hear from Ted Cruz is that he wants to end DACA for Dreamers, block DAPA for our parents, and obstruct immigration reform for years still. We reject Ted Cruz, which is sad, because while he is the first Latino to declare his candidacy, he may be the most anti-immigration candidate on stage during the debates.

While Ted Cruz has a Latino name and immigration in his past, that’s where the similarities between him and the Latino community end. While he may have taken over the niche left by Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in leading the Tea Party, this doesn’t give him a serious chance at the presidency, and most likely he’s in the race in the same context as Donald Trump and Herman Cain: he’s there only to build his personal brand understanding he doesn’t have a real chance at winning the primary, let alone the general election.

As I read this story Sunday, I kept flipping back to the front page to make sure I was reading the Business section of the NY Times and not The Onion. The story has the tone of deadpan absurdity perfected by The Onion's faux news. Yep, it was the Times. The story is written by Robert Frank, who is the CNBC wealth editor (really, that's his title). He also wrote "Richistan," which exposed the ways of the wealthy, so maybe he had tongue planted firmly in cheek as he wrote this seemingly laudatory story. Or maybe not.

I recommend you stop reading this post, link to the story, A High School Where a Student Might Letter in Polo, and read the whole thing. Honestly, I can't do it justice. But let me give it a try.

William I. Koch, the sports/playboy billionaire brother of the famed David and Charles "Koch Brothers," put up $60 million to open a private high school so his children had a school they could attend near his Palm Beach, Florida, home. (Thoughtful dad. How people are willing to pony up $60 million for their children's educations?) Tuition is a hefty $25,000 a year, though I'm guessing if William was asked about increasing spending for public schools, he'd say money doesn't matter and complain about people who want to "throw money at schools."

Here's a wonderful stat from the story about the growing education spending gap.

High-income families now spend, on average, seven times as much each year on education as lower-income families, up from four times as much in the 1970s, according to one study. From 2007 through 2011, while the broader economy was weak, enrollment at private schools with tuition averaging $28,340 jumped 36 percent, according to federal data.

Polo wasn't part of the original curriculum. It began as an attempt to serve the needs of one student who was a competitive polo player. The school started the program so he wouldn't have to miss so much school. Really, isn't that what a good education is all about, meeting the needs of your students?

Remember when we told you that Alton Brown would be coming to town to try out the best Tucson's food and beverage world has to offer? Well, Brown did indeed stop into the city on Sunday, March 22 and it looks like he might have taken some of the suggestions that we saw the most.

Brown posted a photo of the Santa Fe tamale from Tucson Tamale Company, to which one commenter responded:

"Greatest restaurant in the history of restaurants."

Then he snapped a shot of an iconic Sonoran dog from El Guero Canelo, prompting another commenter to say:

"I tried making them last year. It's not easy," attaching a photo of some not-quite-Canelo-worthy dogs ... leave it to the pros.

Next up,  Brown added a photo of him posing with some fresh churros from the Just Churros cart, earning the straightforward response:

"Churros! Gimme."

Before finishing up with a cup of "very good coffee" from Cartel, Brown got a half and half "iced fruit drink" with strawberry and pina colada at Eegee's. While we all know what's up at the Tucson institution, commenters explained it to out-of-towners like so:

"You can't even accurately describe an Eegee's because there's nothing else like it. It's not a slurpee. It's not an icee. It's not a fruit cone. It's one of a kind." Well said, Eegee's-lovin' commenter.

So, what do you think? Did Brown do a good job of hitting up Tucson's must-stop locations for Old Pueblo eats? Where should he come on his next visit?

If you're still lazing about at home and starting to think about feeding yourself on this Sunday morning, remember that Sunday is Brunchday and brunch means it's okay to start drinking in the morning.

Playground is hosting what, according to the Facebook event page, is the first of their Trumpets & Tequila brunch events. Today's event features music from Mariachi Luz De Luna. 

From event page:

Trumpets & Tequila will feature $6 specials on generous pints of Milagro Bloody Marias & Margaritas made to order, as well as Playground's full Sunday Brunch menu—from Breakfast Chilaquiles to California or Southwestern Omelets to vanilla-infused Texas French Toast!

Brunch ends at 2 p.m., so get your tequila face on and get down there.

Zona Politics Eps.22 from Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel on Vimeo.

On this week's Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel: Congressman Raul Grijalva talks about immigration, health care, climate change and much more. Then Pima Community College Chancellor Lee Lambert talks about how state budget cuts will affect PCC and the college's future now that it is off probation.

Cheating on high stakes tests, or at least evidence of possible cheating, has reared its ugly head once again, this time at Wade Carpenter Middle School in the Nogales Unified School District. And once again, the validity of high stakes test scores as a measure of student achievement and school success has been thrown into question.

An analysis of eraser marks on AIMS tests at Wade Carpenter Middle School showed wrong answers had been corrected three or more times on 23 percent of seventh grade reading evaluations. Eighteen percent of math tests had four or more corrections. By comparison, just .006 percent of children statewide successfully change wrong answers this frequently.

If anyone cheated on the tests, it was teachers and/or administrators who were doing the erase-and-replace, not students. Patterns of wrong-to-right erasures on these tests usually mean someone other than the students went back and changed the answers. And it's possible this isn't a one shot deal at the school. It may have been going on since 2010.

Is this a problem at one Nogales school, or is it more widespread? No one knows at this point, and the only way to find out is to conduct a full scale, district-wide inquiry where multiple investigators interview teachers and administrators over and over again to see if they can uncover evidence of cheating. That's how the widespread Atlanta cheating scandal was uncovered. The staff repeatedly denied cheating until relentless inquiries led someone to admit the truth. The result has been high profile court trials of teachers and administrators. No other school district has been investigated as thoroughly, though based on an extensive study of erasure patterns at schools across the country, it's probable this kind of thing has happened elsewhere. No telling how hard the Nogales school district will look for more signs of cheating, though the superintendent has promised to have someone outside the district perform an investigation and is asking that people come forward with any information they might have.

Nogales Unified has defied the odds and received B and A grades from the state in spite of its high percentage of poor and ELL students. It has been cited as a model for what schools serving kids from poor families can accomplish, and the district has bragged that WCMS is the top Title 1 school in the country. It looks like we have a case of "cheating repeating itself." The Atlanta school district was named one of the finest in the country based on its test scores before the cheating scandal broke.