Welcome to District 5's Home on the web!
I want to keep visitors to this website up-to-date on what the board is doing on behalf of county residents in general and my District Five constituents in particular. Those who survey all the features of this website will get a good idea of who I am and where I stand. Hopefully, it will inspire you to get in touch with me to let me know where you stand, and where and when you believe I am on track or astray.
Richard Worked to Save the Coronado Hotel for Elderly, Disabled 12.23.2009
Richard created a plan and won Board of Supervisors approval of it for Pima County to submit a bid to buy the 42-room Coronado Hotel and keep its low-income elderly and disabled residents in it. Although the county was not awarded the bid, Richard is hopeful the building will continue to serve these who need it.
The City of Tucson and the Downtown Development Corporation bought the 1928-vintage hotel at 902 E. Ninth St. in 1989. Their renovations to prepare it for occupancy by low-income people who are elderly or physically disabled were completed in 1991. It has served this clientele since then.
The city’s contract turning over the property to Downtown Development required it to maintain the facility for low-income elderly and disabled people for a minimum of 15 years. The requirement expired in 2006.
Downtown Development maintains control of the facility as General Partner, but now Boston Capital, a real estate investment company with holdings in 49 states and several territories, holds a 99-percent interest in the building.
Downtown Development and Boston Capital recently decided to sell the Coronado without consideration for possible eviction of the tenants or future use of the building. The minimum bid they set is $670,000.
Richard wants the building, on North Fourth Avenue across the railroad tracks from downtown, to continue housing the low-income elderly and disabled who, because they have limited mobility, need this proximity to nearby services, shopping, and the Ronstadt Transit Center.
He located funds earmarked for county construction of this type of affordable housing. However, buying the Coronado at close to $670,000 would retain 42 units of affordable housing at a cost much lower than new construction of the same number of units. He negotiated with the City of Tucson and won its agreement to provide needed rehabilitation of the Coronado and subsequent oversight of the facility to house the low-income elderly and disabled people.
The Pima County Housing Commission approved the use of up to $800,000 of the county funds to bid on the Coronado. The Board of Supervisors approved the submittal of a $700,000 bid on the Coronado on December 8.
District Five Mourns the Passing of Artist and Acivist Maurice Grossman 02.03.2010
Maurice Grossman, a Democratic Party activist and register of voters extraordinaire who was rarely seen without a smile on his face, died recently as a result of heart-surgery complications. He was 82.
Maurice was a professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he taught art classes from 1955 to 1990, and until his death was a prolific artist. He specialized in ceramic pottery. After the death of his wife, Marilyn, in 1979, Maurice came out as an openly gay man.
In recent decades, there rarely was a local political demonstration, art-gallery opening, or human-rights event that did not include Maurice and his infectious smile. Often he was registering voters or collecting petition signatures for a candidate, or for a progressive cause.
Maurice studied in Japan as a Fulbright Scholar, founded the UA’s ceramics program, in the 1960’s helped found the Tucson Craft Guild, won the UA’s Creative Teaching Award, and in 1986 received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. The Tucson Craft Guild was located in the Tucson Art Center, which evolved to become today’s Tucson Museum of Art. Maurice’s ceramic pottery creations achieved international recognition.
As an activist, Maurice helped found the Southern Arizona Stonewall Democrats, won Wingspan’s Godat Award for community leadership, helped get several local political candidates into office, supported many local artists, and donated his artwork to numerous charitable auctions.
Maurice grew up in Detroit and began his college studies, focused then on painting, at Wayne State University. He “fell in love with clay” and went on to earn a master’s degree in ceramics at Ohio State University. He studied ceramics over summers at Alfred University in New York and earned his Fulbright to Japan for the year before he joined the UA faculty.
He was the father of three children, one of whom died of cancer in the same year his wife died. The other two, daughter Lauren Grossman and son Stephen Grossman, survive him.
Richard Helps Dedicate M.L. King Painting in Main Library 02.09.2010
A local artist’s painting that honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was dedicated, with Richard’s help, in the downtown Joel D. Valdez Library in January.
The painting, “The Dream,” is the work of Andrew Polk, a renowned artist who lives and works in Tucson and is on the University of Arizona faculty. "The Dream" now is on permanent display on the stairway landing between the second and third floors of the Main Library, 101 N. Stone Avenue.
Polk’s works have been exhibited throughout the United States and in numerous foreign countries. He has been a Professor of Art in the UA’s School of Art since 1984, and is represented by the Davis-Dominguez Gallery.
Polk said he donated “The Dream” to the Main Library “because it belongs in a space where it can be contemplated and appreciated by people of all ages, backgrounds and economic circumstances.”
At the January 14 dedication ceremony, Richard said: “This magnificent painting fully embodies the spirit and essence of what Dr. King stood for.”
Board Enacts a Resolution Against Artifical Trans Fats in Food
11.06.2009
The Board passed a resolution on November 3 that Richard sponsored calling for the voluntary elimination of unhealthy artificial trans fats from food sold in restaurants and served to the public in other venues such as schools and hospitals.
Artificial trans fats are found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil that has been chemically modified; they do not exist in nature. Scientific evidence is mounting that shows human consumption of artificial trans fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes, pre-term births, strokes and other serious afflictions.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that people minimize their consumption of trans fats and since 2006 has required packaged food companies to list the trans fats content of the marketed food on the package.
However, the FDA regulation does not apply to restaurant, bakeries, or school or hospital cafeterias and many of them still serve food high in trans fats content. Richard’s resolution calls for restaurants and food-service establishments in Pima County to voluntarily eliminate trans fats from the food they serve.
Bishop's Committee Works on Refugee Assistance Plan 11.05.2009
Bishop Gerald Kicanas is chairing a refugee-issues committee that includes Richard, Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup and representatives from Pima County, the City of Tucson, refugee-assistance agencies, the State of Arizona and the business community. The committee will create a plan to improve the lot of refugees in Tucson and Pima County. After an initial meeting October 16, we continue to work on the plan.
There are more than 10,000 refugees from 69 countries living in Tucson and Pima County who have settled here after fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands. In recent years, between 1,000 and 1,200 have been arriving in this area to take up permanent residence here each year.
The federal government provides funding for resettling these refugees, but this funding is good for only six months after thier arrival. Many of these refugees speak little or no English or Spanish and for many the employment skills that served them in their home countries do not easily translate to available local jobs.
Successful survival after the first six months is very difficult for many refugees. State and local assistance programs are limited and may of them have criteria that render many refugees ineligible for their funds.
Areas that the committee needs to address in its plan include: asking our Congressional representatives for addtional federal assistance; compiling statistics on the status of local refugees; obtaining estimates from local assistance agencies on the financial needs to get refugees to independent stability; finding out if English-language teaching can be improved; addressing refugees' transportation needs; improving refugees' employment training and job placement; and addressing the health care and housing needs of refugees.
Tucson Carpenter and Expert Set Maker Richard Morgan Dies 02.03.2010
Longtime Tucson creator of sets for local theatrical productions, and for motion pictures and television shows, Richard Morgan, died recently of pancreatic cancer. He was 62.
A master carpenter, Morgan remained in the background in both his a professional life and his personal life – he was the husband of former Tucson City Councilwoman and 1999 mayoral candidate Molly McKasson. The two were married for more than 40 years.
Morgan was technical director for Arizona Opera for 20 years and performed set construction work for Arizona Theatre Company and for Old Tucson Studios. He produced sets for numerous movies and television shows, including “Three Amigos,” “The Young Riders,” and “Little House on the Prairie.”
His brother-in-law, Mark Cowburn, said Morgan “probably worked on every movie that came through Tucson.” Morgan was a quiet man, but he loved music and poetry and he had a great sense of humor.
Dealing With Foreclosure/Don't Borrow Trouble Pima County
03.02.2009
Pima County has sponsored several workshops on how to deal with the threat of foreclosure on homes and how to deal with foreclosures after they occur. Attendees received general information and private, confidential consultation. The events were associated with the onging Don't Borrow Trouble Pima County campaign to deal with the crisis in home foreclosures.
If you want to buy a home, to refinance a home mortgage, to take out a home-equity loan, to prevent an impending foreclosure, or to consolidate debt, you can make use of Don’t Borrow Trouble Pima County campaign resources.
The campaign includes brochures, radio and television announcements, workshops, an informative website: http://www.dontborrowtroubleaz.com, and a telephone “hotline,” (520) 792-3087, that reaches trained professionals who can answer many questions for free and can refer callers to appropriate experts who can answer other questions.
Pima County and several local organizations have joined Freddie Mac in this campaign to inform people about how to avoid predatory mortgage loans, which have caused a widespread national outbreak of loan foreclosures and of lending company failures.
If lenders make claims that sound too good to be true, their claims probably are not true. “Pre-approved” home loans offered over the telephone or in the mail are an invitation to trouble. Borrowers must demand to have any offers in writing and should talk to several lenders before making a commitment, or signing any papers. Borrowers should ask about “prepayment penalties” and “additional fees.” They should not sign documents with any incorrect dates or blank fields.
Scam lenders use an array of gambits to trick borrowers into agreeing to a bad deal that can cost them dearly, and too often even costs them their home.
Borrowing against a mortgage or on an increase in a home’s value can result in a much longer-term loan at a higher interest rate, so the borrower ends up paying much more over time. Since the borrower’s home is collateral, borrowers can lose their homes if they fail to make payments. The number of people losing homes to foreclosure has gone up 200 percent since 1980.
Freddie Mac is a government-backed but stockholder-owned company that Congress created in 1970 to support homeownership and affordable rental housing. In addition to Pima County there are 23 other local supporters of Freddie Mac’s Don’t Borrow Trouble Pima County campaign.