City Of Tucson Arizona

City issues rebuttal of Brodesky column

On Thursday, the city of Tucson issued a response to an Arizona Daily Star column critical of the city management.

The response, posted on the city website and sent to city neighborhood associations and those on the city's email listserv, took exception with the Thursday column by Star columnist Josh Brodesky criticizing City Manager Mike Letcher, the City Council, and the mayoral candidates for this year's election. Brodesky opined the city lacks leadership.

The response by Mike Graham, city public information officer, asserted comments about city layoffs and a controversial west-side land deal were inaccurate.

The Star analyzed they city's assertions and found:

1. City response: Following the rejection of the half-cent sales tax in November, the city of Tucson has in fact eliminated 468 total positions from the organization. The author inaccurately states that positions were not eliminated.

• Finding: The column clearly references only claims by Letcher and Mayor Bob Walkup before last year's sales-tax election that 400 mostly police, fire and parks workers would be laid off if voters rejected the tax, and a November news conference after the election at which they repeated that assertion.

The 468 positions cited in the city response are random positions spread across many departments. As the Star has reported numerous times, the city has eliminated hundreds of positions by not filling vacant jobs and through early retirements.

But 400 public safety and parks workers were not laid off. The just-adopted city budget includes zero layoffs.

2. City response: On Feb. 17, 2010, the City Council voted 7-0 to authorize the city manager to extend the Gadsden Development Agreement as necessary to facilitate the Urban Innovations Senior Housing opportunity. The most recent extension request was made by Urban Innovations to ensure all required permits and other obligations were in place to secure financing and to receive the federal low-income housing tax credits. The city manager proceeded as directed by the council's vote on Feb. 17, 2010. The development agreement has never been modified by the city manager, as was inaccurately stated in the article.

• Finding: The city did authorize Letcher to extend the development agreement as needed in February 2010.

However, Letcher subsequently promised in October 2010 he would bring any changes to the agreement back to the council for approval after controversy erupted about the plan to sell the land for $250,000 so Gadsden could resell it for $1.43 million.

White out: City censors artist's creativity - News - Arizona Daily ...

Joe Pagac, a heavy-bearded, dark-haired man, slips in iPod headphones, humming songs by Peter Bjorn and John and the Magnetic Zeros. Six gallons of paint, six rollers and dozens of brushes are tucked under his arms. It's only the beginning.

A 60-by-14-foot wall and eight hours to paint it. Over his music soars the drunken yelps of vagrant men, doling out street corner financial advice, and blatant advances of single women, which leave his girlfriend quite remiss. To some, it would be distracting, to Pagac it's inspiring.

It's not an impossible feat; 10 months of art precede this work.

It's not an impossible feat … but this time it's his final act.

Because of a complaint filed with the city against the signs, after the mural for the New Pornographers' July 21 show brought up the subject of pornography between a mother and child, this mural will be Pagac's last.

"In America, for whatever reason, we have a ‘get rid of it all and avoid the lawsuit' mentality," said Pagac, a Tucson native, UA visual communication and illustration alumnus and the Rialto Theatre's muralist. "This is one example of things getting so boring and the fun getting sucked out of everything."

The mural is located on the side of the Rialto. Its surface is matted, rocky, expansive and pops vibrantly with blues and reds and yet people pass by it daily, unaware of its story.

Pagac also used to paint a similar mural on the side of the Bookmans on Grant Road and Campbell Avenue.

The Bookmans mural is the one that the complaint addressed.

Dusk has replaced dawn and Pagac's white tank top and khaki shorts are dotted with sweat and $7-per-gallon Lowe's house paint. A wall which once was a constant art flux now holds a single image.

The mural is a testament to the Rialto, which Douglas Biggers, the executive director of the Rialto Theatre, calls the "People's Theatre."

From the right, 10-foot high impressions of couples jitterbugging, Elvis strumming, and Springsteen thundering, climb the stucco wall. From the left, images from Pagac's paintings gone and replaced by bright white, birds and winged skeletons appearing bound and gagged as a city worker is trying to paint it all white, to paint it all away.

"I wanted something on that wall that … somehow speaks to the fact that we are being censored and that the city is trying to take us down," Pagac said.

Today, pushed to the right edge of the wall is a skeleton, adorned with wings, its hands locked behind its back, its mouth covered. Censored.

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