Saturday, May 7, 2016
Jarrad Barnes, 24, has been identified as the driver of vehicle that crossed the median and hit Ann Day's car. At 8 p.m. the day of the accident, Barnes was released from the hospital and booked into the Pima County Jail for one count of manslaughter and driving under the influence. The investigation is ongoing.
Original Story:
Ann Day, former Pima County District 1 Supervisor, was driving her Toyota Prius eastbound on Ina Road when a driver of another car traveling westbound crossed lanes, struck the median and hit her car head on. A truck driving behind Day was unable to stop in time and struck the rear of her car.
Northwest Fire District paramedics transported Day to Banner-UMC Trauma Center where she was pronounced dead.
The driver of the other car and the driver of the truck were both transported to Banner-UMC Trauma Center in serious condition with non-life threatening injuries.
Ina Road at Firenze Drive will remain closed for a few hours while Pima County Sheriff’s Department traffic detectives investigate. It is unclear if there will be any charges filed against the drivers.
Day represented District 1 for three terms, from 2000 to 2012. She also served in the Arizona Senate for 10 years.
Friday, May 6, 2016
McSally has sidestepped the question, no doubt hoping like many Republicans (and especially GOP candidates) that Trump would falter before winning the nomination. But Trump essentially clinched the nomination this week amidst rumors that McSally would be an ideal choice to join him on the ticket as VP.
After the Weekly asked if McSally would be interested in a VP slot, she said via email that she's "still trying to make sense of it all" and she needs to give him a closer look before deciding if she can vote for him. McSally's statement:
I just returned from Afghanistan to the recent political news and like many Republicans, am still trying to make sense of it all. We’re in unchartered waters with two presumptive nominees who are viewed unfavorably by the majority of Americans. More specifically I have concerns about statements Mr. Trump has made regarding women, but I also respect the will of the voters.it's not surprising that McSally, a cautious politician in a swing district, would be reluctant to embrace Trump. He remains a total wild card, but most polling at this point shows that he's incredible unpopular, especially among women and people of color.
So I’ll spend the next six months if needed, watching closely, learning more about him and determining what kind of man he is before I decide whether to give him my vote.
We have serious issues ahead of us and I hope this election becomes more about a battle of ideas and solutions while making the case for who should be the next Commander in Chief in a dangerous world.
Southern Arizonans elected me to do a job representing them, not because of my affiliation with any past or future presidential candidate, and I am all-in on doing that job. I have spent my whole life defying stereotypes and labeling and I'm going to continue to be that independent voice for Southern Arizonans regardless of who wins the White House.
That has many Republicans trying to figure out whether to embrace Trump, go with #NeverTrump route or just reserve the chance to see how it goes before making a commitment, as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan did earlier this week. McSally is going the Ryan route and saying the Trump will have to earn her vote. (Don't know how that affects her chances for ending up Trump's VP, which she didn't address in her statement to the Weekly, but it seems unlikely that she'd sign on to that kamikaze mission.)
Jonathan Chait as NY mag sums up the problem for downticket races with Trump as nominee:
Chicago's Alinea went to a ticketed system, ditching the standard reservation system. Other James Beard award winners, like Chez Panisse in Berkeley, have done away with tipping. It seems no matter where you look, fine dining restaurateurs are tweaking the typical protocol in order to find a system that works across the board: a good quality to price ratio for guests, a fair wage and sane hours for employees and a workable amount of cash leftover for the owner.
It might sound simple just to list those three things, but achieving them, especially in a town like Tucson where the median household income is about $5,000 less per year than the rest of the state and about $10,000 less than that of the U.S. as a whole, is another story entirely.
That's where chef Albert Hall comes in. At 60 years old, he's been in kitchens for 45 years and has seen some dramatic shifts—particularly in the last 11 years while his fine dining restaurant Acacia was in business. But, on Sunday, May 15, Acacia is closing its doors for good.
Tags: albert , hall , acacia , fine dining , tucson , restaurant , future , Image
At the intersection of hyperlocal and small-batch craft distilling, Tucson's Three Wells resides. Following Hamilton Distillers lead, Three Wells, which is led by distiller Matt Montgomery and Chris Dudding, became the second licensed distillery in Tucson—but the spirits maker is forging a unique identity by using place-specific ingredients to craft its wares.
Tags: three wells distilling , prickly pear , agave , tucson , creosote , gin , sonora , craft , small batch , distiller , hensley
This recent Republican move isn't as bold as withholding votes on the budget until KidsCare is reinstated. If it fails in the Senate or doesn't get Ducey's signature, that means it's too little, too late. I'm hoping this works. We'll see.
Initially, I was concerned that the KidsCare reinstatement was attached to SB 1457, a private school voucher bill. However, it's not one of the big bills that substantially increases funding or the number of eligible children. The bill allows a student who already qualified for one of the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (aka Vouchers on Steroids) due to a disability to continue receiving funds through the age of 22 if it's determined that the disability still exists. Honestly, I don't know enough about this to have a strong opinion one way or another. I remember in the school district where I worked, some students with disabilities could continue attending high school well after they turned 18, so it isn't an unprecedented move. This sounds like one of those times where the benefits of the compromise far outweigh the possible drawbacks.
Tags: KidsCare , Andy Biggs , Doug Ducey , Empowerment Scholarship Accounts , SB 1457 , Image
Your to-do list for this weekend: set yourself up with an icy drink, work out your summer survival plan and finish your Best of Tucson® ballot.
When you're all done with that, maybe settle into your couch for a movie or two. Here's your Casa Video Top 10 for the week:
1. The Revenant
Tags: casa video , shop local , tucson video store , dvd rentals , Image , Video
Thursday, May 5, 2016
A handful of the UA's School of Theatre Film & Television Bachelor of Fine Arts seniors will share their thesis films with the Tucson community in the Institute’s “I Dream in Widescreen” screening event this Saturday, May 7, at The Fox Theater.
The event is the culmination of the entire BFA program, according to Lisanne Skyler, an associate professor at the School of Theatre, Film and Television.
“It is such a celebration of filmmaking and the creative process, and it really is an event that brings together the whole community because its not just students in the program that are working on the films, but also actors you might see in the community at the Rogue,” she said. “There’s really a lot of collaboration with the Tucson community.”
Skyler said the student filmmakers start synthesizing their story ideas and screenwriting their respective films over the summer before their senior year so that when they return to school in the fall, they’re ready to hit the ground running.
“By that fall semester, they’ve cast it, they’ve shot it and they’ve put together a rough cut,” she said. “And then in the first part of the spring semester, they start refining the cut, getting feedback, they start working on their sound design. And right around now, they’re putting on the finishing touches.”
Proud parent-like professor praises aside, the three BFA students I spoke to seem to share a collective attitude about “I Dream in Widescreen.” That being said, they’re excited it’s almost over. But not in a bad way.
Tags: School of Theatre Film & Television , I Dream in Widescreen , Video
It's time to break open those piggy banks and spend some of your hard-earned pennies on the woman who brought you into this world. Whether you're like best friends or it's best to spend one day per year together, your mom accomplished the superhuman feat of childbirth just for you, so you can spare a couple hours for brunch—and brunch you shall because here are 11 spots around Tucson where you can treat your mommie dearest right this Mother's Day (Sunday, May 8).
Tags: tucson , brunch , mother's day , list , dining , agustin kitchen , wildflower , penca , hilton , carriage house , the coronet , north italia , cafe a la cart , acacia , pastiche
Um, what?
To appreciate how devious and deceptive Hamer is willing to be, before you read his opening, you have to know that if Prop 123 passes and does what it says it will, it'll mean $300 million more for schools next year. Ready? Here goes.
The Arizona state Legislature has passed a $9.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2017. The spending package is an excellent one for education. This budget and passage of Proposition 123 will result in $300 million more for K-12 than we expected to have at this time last year.Right. Also, this excellent post of mine and two dollars will buy you a cup of coffee.
You can read the rest on your own if you wish, about how generous the legislature was in putting back the money it tried to steal from our schools, and about how the tax cuts for business encourage job creation. As Hamer wrote, "This is a budget that job creators will like."
The ending is another gem, a bookend worthy of the deceptive opening. In yesterday's post, I commented on the first step-second step circle dance being performed by some Republican legislators. Ducey likes to say that Prop 123 is a "first step" in improving education, implying that a state budget increase for schools is the next step. But some legislators pushed the idea that the budget they just passed is the first step and Prop 123 is the second step. Hamer went in the same direction.
A job well done to the Legislature and Gov. Ducey on this budget. Now let’s take the next step and pass Proposition 123.So if Prop 123 passes and someone asks, "What's the next step you promised?" the answer may be, "You've got it backwards. Prop 123 is the next step. The first step was passing the budget."
Tags: Glenn Hamer , Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry , Arizona budget , Education funding , Prop 123
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Have you noticed the Mother's Day-themed marijuana billboard on South Sixth Avenue, yet?
The Marijuana Policy Project-backed Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which is one of two groups leading efforts to legalize recreational weed in Arizona this year (the other one is Arizonans for Mindful Regulation), launched the sign on Tuesday at 3640 S. 6th Ave., across the street from Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs.
The ad is meant to persuade younger voters into talking to their parents, grandparents and older adults about marijuana and the benefits of legalization, according to a CRMLA press release. There is another billboard like this up in Phoenix.
The ads, which are targeted at younger voters, feature a young woman sitting with her mother and ask: “Have you talked to your parents about marijuana?” The goal of the ads is to flip the script on marijuana education and encourage younger voters to start conversations about marijuana with their family members—especially older generations who have been led to believe marijuana is more harmful than it actually is.The website that's pointed out on the ad, TalkItUpArizona.org, leads you to a page where you can send your parents (or any family member, really) a message explaining why older voters' support for legalization is important.
Tags: arizonans for responsible drug policy , arizonans for mindful regulation , campaign to regulate marijuana like alcohol , J.P. Holyoak , Seth Leibsohn , Sheila Polk , tucson , marijuana , weed
