Monday, January 7, 2019
While the company recently announced its intentions, the plan is contingent upon approval of the primary jobs incentive by the Tucson’s City Council and closing on the land purchase.
The eastside hospital follows an announcement last May when Northwest shared plans to build an 18-bed neighborhood hospital and medical offices facility in Sahuarita that will open in early 2020.
“We stepped outside of our ‘northwest’ footprint more than eight years ago when we opened an urgent care in Green Valley,” said Kevin Stockton, Regional President and Market CEO for Northwest Healthcare, in a release. “Since then, our commitment to deliver quality care at convenient access points throughout Pima County has not wavered. We have long wanted to provide acute care services for residents on the east side of Tucson. With the success of our freestanding emergency room and physician clinics in Vail, this new hospital is a logical and very exciting next step.”
According to Northwest, the eastside hospital will offer a “broad range of services designed to keep residents close to home.” Expected services will include an emergency room, cardiac cath lab, comprehensive surgical services, labor and delivery including a NICU, outpatient imaging and a medical office building housing primary care, orthopedics, cardiology and OB/GYN.
Joe Snell, president and CEO of Sun Corridor Inc., said, “With the addition of nearly 600 jobs, this expansion of Northwest Healthcare will deepen the healthcare assets on the east side of our region.”
Sun Corridor also announced the news via press release, welcoming Northwest Healthcare’s expanded footprint in Southern Arizona.
"Access to quality healthcare is always a top concern of both area employers and site selectors, and we congratulate Northwest on choosing Tucson and southern Arizona once again," Snell said.
Northwest Healthcare already includes Northwest Medical Center, Oro Valley Hospital, Northwest Emergency Centers in Vail and Marana, five Northwest Urgent Care locations, The Women’s Center at Northwest, Northwest Allied Physicians, Northwest Cardiology, Northwest Tucson Surgery Center, Tucson Surgery Center and Center for Pain Management.
Tags: Northwest , Medical Center , hospital , Tucson , Eastside , healthcare , Image
Friday, January 4, 2019
Judging from the complaints I heard during the election season, sending people unsolicited text messages about political campaigns isn't the best way to persuade voters to support you.
Nonetheless, the National Republican Congressional Committee made a point of spending money to text an unknown number of constituents in Arizona's Congressional District 2 to let them know that newly elected Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick voted for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House. The NRCC press release:
Today, as House Democrats went back on their promises to constituents and elected Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, the NRCC launched its first paid campaign ads of the cycle.
Immediately after the Speaker vote, voters in districts across the country received text messages, paid for by the NRCC, informing them that with their first vote as a member of Congress, their Democrat Representative has already sold them out to the radical left and voted to hand the Speaker’s gavel to Nancy Pelosi. Today’s vote sets the tone for what voters can expect from congressional Democrats as the party continues to follow their radical base and march to the left on everything from immigration to taxes to national security.
We don't know why the NRCC would boast about this effort, but if what we can expect from the NRCC is spam text messages, we suspect the GOP's reputation in Southern Arizona is going to continue to decline.
Let's see, what are the most important education issues facing the legislature this year? Fulfilling its promise to continue raising teacher salaries is definitely on the list. So is increasing charter school transparency and oversight to weed out rampant corruption and profiteering. And decreasing teacher shortages. And decreasing class sizes. And increasing education budgets so old buses can be replaced, old schools can be maintained and old textbooks and technology can be updated. And let's not forget ridding the state of its destructive English Immersion model for ELL students.
Other problems could be addressed as well, like, say, updating the Department of Education's computer data systems and fully funding the oversight and management of the ESA voucher program (Yes, those are important).
Any more? I know I've left stuff out, like increasing access to preschool and who knows what else. In a state that has shortchanged its children for so long, the list is almost endless.
But I know one issue that doesn't even make the top one hundred: getting politics out of the classroom.
So what has the media talked about nonstop for weeks? A proposed bill to get politics out of the classroom.
Yes, such a bill has been proposed. Yes, it would be a travesty if it passed. But no, it doesn't deserve all the attention it's been getting. (And yes, I'm fully aware that I'm giving it more attention by writing about it.)
Giving that much press coverage to a non-story uses up all the oxygen in the room. Substantive educational issues struggle to get the media attention they deserve.
Tags: Arizona schools. Teacher salaries. State budget. Politics in the classroom. RedforEd. , Image
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
The problem was, after declaring in November I was hanging up my blogging hat ("Pretty much, anyway," I added in the headline, just in case) and I had a no-pressure month during which I enjoyed the freedom from deadlines and putting the right words in the right order, I found myself reading something and thinking, "OK, I have to write about that." Then I remembered, "Nope, you can't." I shrugged and moved on. Still, I kept adding new links to my long list of stories I might want to write about. Old habits die hard.
I interrupted my blogging hiatus in December to post about the TUSD decision to get rid of the Freedom Center-created high school course, Ethics, Economy, and Entrepreneurship, for good and all. I mean, I wrote the piece that brought the course to the public's attention, so I should be the guy who writes about its demise. However, the course is still being taught in three local school districts, so the battle isn't over.
Meanwhile, stories about charter problems in Arizona and around the country kept popping up on my desktop, along with items about curriculum, federal spending on education and bills proposed for the new state legislative session. Since I stopped blogging two months ago, I added more than fifty new entries to my list of links.
The tips of my fingers began itching. My keyboard beckoned. So I'm back.
But I've decided, instead of a steady output of two to four posts a week, I'll post on a "Need to write" basis — only when I say to myself, "I really need to write about this." Right now that sounds like once a week, maybe twice a week if the spirit moves me.
That means it'll be harder to find my posts among the steady stream of postings on The Range. If you're a Regular Range Rover (Nice turn of phrase. Maybe I should trademark it), that's no problem. But if you mainly drop by to look for my posts, it can be an issue.
One solution is to bookmark my page on the Weekly which lists all my posts starting with the most recent. You can check occasionally to see if I've posted something new. Also, I usually link to my posts of Facebook or Twitter, so you might find them there. Or if you know how to create an RSS feed (I've never done it, so you'll get no help from me), you can get an email notification when I post something new.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
An Arizona nonprofit recently launched two new websites that can be used to help migrants currently travelling to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Robin Hoover, president of Migrant Status, Inc. worked with the help of Mexico City-based journalist Laura Garciandia to get valuable information about traveling through Mexico to Central American migrants via a downloadable PDF guide available at guiamigrantes.com.
The guide, written in Spanish, includes information on transit methods and routes, criminal organizations and their known locations to avoid, tips for crossing through the desert safely, emergency resources, first aid advice and more.
Hoover had been working with the idea of compiling and publishing information for migrants to use while travelling to the border for quite a while. In his experience, information is what could help them most.
“Up came the idea of the [online] migrant guide and then some people in Mexico approached me saying they had very similar ideas,” Hoover said. “People need to understand more about the route and what public resources are available. We started sandwiching these things together and a lot more is going to go on the website.”
Creating an online guide that was accessible to migrants came with its own set of obstacles. Hoover said his team had to figure out how to get the information to those with limited internet access. That’s where the second website comes in.
Robinhoover.com is being repurposed into a tool for shelters in Mexico. They can download a PowerPoint version of the guide and have it displayed in shelters 24/7 so migrants without their own cell phone or internet access can view it. The website is also used for outreach to promote long-term relationships between nonprofit groups who want to help and the shelters that need it. Hoover said such a partnership could help get resources directly to migrants at a higher efficiency rate.
“There's not a U.S. or Mexican authority that's putting resources directly into the service providers hands,” he said. “There are religious groups, friends, but not the government. Folks in the U.S. who want to help, we can take them down there to do face-to-face introduction.”
Hoover has been involved in advocacy for 33 years. He founded Humane Borders in 2000, which is a local faith nonprofit that maintains a system of water stations for migrants travelling through the desert to use. He left his position in the organization in 2010, and retired from ministry two years later.
Despite the change, Hoover said he is still very active in advocacy for migrants and the issues they’re facing today. He’s been working “quietly” on specific projects, experimenting with satellite locator beacons for migrants and issuing flashlights for rescue operations. He published a book in 2016 called “Creating Humane Borders.” In it he gives an ethical analysis of border policies, an overview of the help faith communities provide and his recommendations for policy reform. He lectures and goes on speaking tours as well.
“There's a lot of people who want to do the right thing and [learn] how they can help,” Hoover said. “The resistance is just this hate-filled Trump administration and all the anti-immigrant sentiments. It means that any kind of substantial reform is still a long ways away.”
Migrant Status, Inc. is actively seeking contributions to continue dispersing valuable information to migrants. Contributions can be mailed to 2250 W. Painted Circle, Tucson, AZ 85745.
“Five dollar contributions make all the difference,” he said. “When I ran Humane Borders we raised a quarter of a million dollars and it was a Mississippi of five dollar bills, so what people contribute really does matter.”
Tags: Migrant , Border , Mexico , United States , Immigration , Nonprofit , Advocacy , Humanitarian , Aide , Robin Hoover , Humane Borders , Migrant Status Inc. , Image
Monday, December 31, 2018
Happy new year, everyone! If you're wondering what lies ahead in 2019, I joined Yellow Sheets editor Hank Stephenson and Green Valley News editor Dan Shearer to talk about issues to watch in the coming year on Arizona 360, AZPM's new public affairs show with host Lorraine Rivera.
Tags: AZ360 , politics , roundtable , 2019 , Image
Friday, December 28, 2018
In the past, migrants have been dropped off curbside at bus stops with no information for how to find shelter or food while they wait for their asylum cases to be processed. This time, local faith communities mobilized within hours to coordinate with ICE for the migrants to be dropped off at their shelters instead of being left out in the elements.
“No one with a child who speaks a different language and has not a dime to their name should ever be dropped at a bus station to try to figure out how to get to Atlanta or wherever they’re going for their sponsors,” Rev. Delle McCormick said this morning.
McCormick is a pastor at a midtown church who works with a network of faith communities that have both permanent and temporary resources to shelter migrants released from ICE custody. These migrants already have sponsors (either relatives or friends) located throughout the country who have agreed to provide residence for them. The church staff and volunteers help them contact their sponsors, arrange for transportation to their sponsor’s home, and make sure they are clothed, fed and sheltered during the transition.
In the church’s multi-use room, a dozen or so migrants sat in foldable chairs and talked quietly amongst themselves in Spanish. About five or six in the group were children, they seemed happy as they played with a couple of toy trucks that were available. The right side of the room was lined with tables where orange juice, milk and cereal were left over from breakfast. A church staffer sat at an adjacent table and made phone calls to ensure the church has enough supplies and beds for their guests to be comfortable tonight.
While there are two churches that have a permanent shelter system set up, McCormick’s church and several others do this on a temporary per-need basis. She said this began in mid-October and went on until the end of November. During that six week period her church saw 514 migrants come in and out; half of those were children.
“ICE would send me an email saying who was coming and what time they were coming in,” McCormick said. “The people that deliver our guests to us are not your stereotypical non-caring person. They’re real people and they love to bring people to the church because they know that they’re going to get extra special care.”
Tags: Border Patrol , ICE , Migrants , Central America , Honduras , Guatemala , Church , Shelter , Immigration , Border , Mexico , Image
We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018
Eric Levitz at New York magazine notes that Democrats have little incentive to cave to Trump:
Donald Trump entered the holiday season with a bulletproof plan for advancing his electoral and legislative goals: He would sabotage the basic functioning of the government that he presides over, so as to draw attention to the fact that the Democratic Party does not support an extremely unpopular immigration policy. Or, more concretely, he would refuse to fund the federal government until congressional Democrats agreed to appropriate upwards of $5 billion for his border wall (even though the Republican Senate had already signaled that it was willing to fund the government without such an appropriation, and Democrats would only need to wait a matter of days before they assumed control of the House).
And yet, somehow, the government has been (partially) shuttered for six days now — and the Democrats have yet to surrender.
Friday, December 21, 2018
The crash, which occurred in the eastbound lanes and shut down traffic until just after 3 p.m., caused the the Arizona Department of Public Safety to warn of serious traffic impediments through the afternoon.
Details on how and when the crash are unknown, but traffic is currently being detoured off the interstate at Marana Road westbound.
DPS said they would provide more updates through the afternoon, but cautioned that travelers should take alternate routes to I-10 if at all possible this afternoon and evening.
Tags: Crash , accident , I-10 , Marana Road , four dead , holiday traffic , drive safe , Image
Thursday, December 20, 2018
In terms of overall resident growth, Arizona ranked fourth in the nation with 122,770 new Arizonans recorded between July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018. In terms of percentage growth, Arizona also ranked fourth, with a growth rate of 1.7 percent. Over 122,000 people moved to Arizona of the course of the time studied.
As stated in the report: “The U.S. population grew by 0.6 percent and Nevada and Idaho were the nation’s fastest-growing states between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2018. Both states’ populations increased by about 2.1 percent in the last year alone. Following Nevada and Idaho for the largest percentage increases in population were Utah (1.9 percent), Arizona (1.7 percent), and Florida and Washington (1.5 percent each).”
The office of Gov. Doug Ducey sent out a press release Dec. 20 to announce the positive growth for the state.
“In the game of states, people vote with their feet, and Arizona is winning,” said Ducey, in a release. “With our high quality of life, growing economy and abundance of new jobs, and some of the best schools in the nation, Arizona continues to prove itself as an unbeatable place to live, raise a family and retire."
Read all about the new census report here.
Tags: Arizona , residents , places to live , growth , population , Arizonans , new people , Image
