County OKs GV median improvement

Also contract for Performing Arts Center

TUCSON—With no debate, Pima County supervisors approved Tuesday a plan to let a Green Valley group to help beautify the medians of many of the larger streets, and it approved another $3,680 contract for plans for the Community Performing Arts Center.

The supervisors, in a five and a half-hour meeting, also heard impassioned pleas to discipline or not to discipline the county’s legal defender Isabel Garcia.

She’s accused of fomenting discord and violence by some, while others say her rights to speak out are guaranteed by the Constitution.

And near the end of a very busy day, the supervisors imposed a sort-of deadline of Aug. 18 to comment on the Corps of Engineers’ ruling on the navigability of the Santa Cruz River.

Green Valley’s Susanne Blodgett is president of MedianGreen, which would like to make the medians more attractive. In some places the medians are barren, with few or no plants and landscaping.

Blodgett said she has driven the more than 100 miles of medians.

So far, Freeport McMoRan, Green Valley Gardeners and the Lions Club have signed up to beautify and maintain medians.

In a short statement, Blodgett said she was pleased with the agreement with the county and of expected financial aid “As we have money, we will plant.”

The Community Performing Arts Center award was approved for Burns and Ward-Hopkins Architects Inc., bringing its contract to date to $1,347,736 for master planning and architecture design services.

Legal defender Isabel Garcia has been a lightning rod for speaking out and taking action supporting immigrants to the United States, some of them here illegally.

Thirty people spoke for and against Garcia’s actions during a July 10 rally protesting and applauding the appearance of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Some of the witnesses said there was violence and cited the partial destruction of a pinata made to look like Arpaio, while others said it was peaceful.

At one point, the head of the pinata, make to look like Sheriff Arpaio, was pulled off and Garcia carried it around the parking lot outside a bookstore.

Arpaio was inside signing copies of a new book.

A member of the public, Jack Lawrence, said she was inciting violence against law enforcement officers.”

He added that when Garcia picked up the papier-m‡ch/ head depicting Arpaio, he said, “I don’t shock easily,” but that was “a hateful act.”

Law professor Andy Silverman said the demonstration was peaceful. “There were no calls for violence or for Joe Arpaio’s death.”

The supervisors also gave county staff a members a kind of deadline of Aug. 18 to tell the Army Corps of Engineers what it thinks of enforcing Section 404 of the Clean Water Act in the Santa Cruz River.

The Corps of Engineers earlier this year declared parts of the Santa Cruz a navigable stream.

Section 404 prohibits dumping into a navigable stream.

But shortly after first declaring parts of the river navigable, the corps withdrew that statement from its Web site.

Some opponents of a proposed copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains have argued that if the river’s navigable, then the mining company would be barred from dumping waste in a Santa Cruz tributary.

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749