Greetings!
Imagine this across the whole page...
… and welcome to another Baja Arizona Kos Open Thread. I am your host today, providing a bit of Baja news and of course pictures from my backyard.
AZ-02
Jim Nintzel reported in the Tucson Weekly this week about fundraising by our various candidates. Basically, the party establishment picks are doing very well, and everybody else, not so much.
Victoria Steele is having an event today. 5:30-7 PM, at 3331 W Pepperwood Loop (near Thornydale & Cactus Canyon). Featuring Gabriel Ayalo.
Steele has just had a shakeup of her campaign staff, and right after that I saw a notice that she has opened a campaign office at 5151 N. Oracle (just north of River Road).
Short Rant: Pushbutton Campaigning
This week, I got an email from a candidate saying "[YP], join us this Earth Week in telling Martha McSally to take our environmental responsibility seriously. Sign our petition now." Aside from the fact that I've been signing petitions in favor of the environment for decades now, and the fact that McSally is not likely to pay attention to this petition anyway, isn't the whole point of the campaign to get McSally out of office? And then who will care what she thinks?
And we all know that these petitions are completely pointless, except as an excuse to get you onto the candidate's web page, so they can ask you for money. I think the national party organizations include these petition gambits in their "How to run for office" brochures. And both parties do it, just with different hot button issues: Push our buttons and we’ll give you cash. It's just manipulative and rude.
Space Balloons
How did I miss this?
Usually the name of my local Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller (District 1) brings up memories of various loony episodes from her early days in that office. Things have been mostly quiet in more recent times, at least until now. This month she wrote a piece for the Daily Star , in which she felt she needed to defend herself from more recent accusations from the Board of Supervisors and the County Administrator, that she is "damaging the Pima County brand".
She believes that it is they who are "damaging the brand". Now, setting aside what we may all be imagining as the "Pima County brand", this all sounds similar to the squabbles from the early days, and not really appropriate behavior all around among these grownups. The general tone of the reporting surrounding this issue is that Ms. Miller is acting loony again.
But wait. Did she say Space Balloons?
Yes indeed. In January, the Board of Supervisors decided to sell $15M in bonds to build us a spaceport, for some reason.
The spaceport will be owned by the county, but entirely operated by World View, for the purpose of providing rides (at $75,000 each) on their helium-filled space balloons.
The Board voted 4-1 in favor of this idea; apparently Ms. Miller voted against it and has been speaking against it, in public and out loud, and is now getting the reaction to that.
I honestly don't think Ally Miller is the problem this time. And if the county Board of Supervisors can sell $15 million in bonds, I can surely think of more useful things to do with all that money.
And here's a picture from my backyard:
Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum)
I'm digging a new bed for the garden this year. It will be 5'x8', and 2' deep. While the digging continues, the dirt is being piled at the back of the yard. Every morning this week, this critter has come by and tried to burrow into the dirt pile. The dirt in the pile is very soft and dry, so it just collapses before the burrow gets very far.
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