Tucson Weekly May 21, 2020 by Tucson Weekly

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Varmint Hunter When the gophers are out of control, Eric Ivey is on the job A Tale of Tucson Salvage By Brian Smith

CURRENTS: Pima County’s COVID-19 Food Fight

SAVAGE LOVE: Is It Safe To Hook Up Again Yet?

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

MAY 21, 2020

MAY 21, 2020 | VOL. 35, NO. 21

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The Tucson Weekly is available free of charge in Pima County, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue of the Tucson Weekly may be purchased for $1, payable at the Tucson Weekly office in advance. To find out where you can pick up a free copy of the Tucson Weekly, please visit TucsonWeekly.com

STAFF ADMINISTRATION Jason Joseph, President/Publisher jjoseph@azlocalmedia.com

CONTENTS COVID-19 ROUNDUP

Southern Arizona’s recent COVID-19 news

CURRENT

Pima County moves toward easing new emergency regulations after complains from restaurant owners, state lawmakers

TUCSON SALVAGE

A call to duty in pandemic lockdown

Rat Patrol

Jaime Hood, General Manager, Ext. 12 jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com

EDITOR’S NOTE

TUCSON SALVAGE COLUMNIST Brian Smith returns to our pages with a profile of Eric Ivey, an Air Force vet who now makes his living trapping varmints and pests. It’s hardly an easy gig, especially as our temps increase, but Ivey does it with little complaint. He’s humane about it, too, trapping the animals and relocating them rather than killing them. Well, except for the gophers. Find the details starting on Page 8. Elsewhere in the book this week: I write about the latest on the local response to the pandemic on Page 6; staff reporter Austin Counts looks at the battle over Pima County’s emergency regulations for restaurants as they reopen their dining rooms on Page 7, as well as the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision that backers of initiative campaigns will not have access to the state’s E-Qual system to gather electronic signatures, despite the risks of gathering petitions during an outbreak on Page 10; and Cannabis 520 columnist Nick Meyers remembers marijuana advocate Mikel Weisser on Page 13. You’ll also find a roundup of the latest COVID-19 news on page 4. You’ll find details on those stories at TucsonWeekly.com, where our editorial staff—Logan Burtch-Buus, Jeff Gardner,

Casey Anderson, Ad Director/ Associate Publisher, Ext. 22 casey@tucsonlocalmedia.com Claudine Sowards, Accounting, Ext. 13 claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Kathleen Kunz and Tara Foulkrod—are bringing the latest on the outbreak and other news on a daily basis. Unfortunately, as you have noticed if you’ve picked up our print edition, it’s quite a bit slimmer than it was before the outbreak arrived. Our newspaper depends on bringing the community together—and right now, that’s the kind of thing we should only being doing in a metaphorical fashion. But our team is more committed than ever to bringing you the news you need—and if that’s something you value, please consider a contribution to keep our journalism strong in these challenging times. It’s not tax-deductible but every penny goes to keeping our staff on the job. Send a check to Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Road suite 125, or click the donate button in the upper right-hand corner at TucsonWeekly.com. Thanks for your consideration and huge gratitude to those of you who have already made a donation.

— Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about the latest on the outbreak at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday mornings on The Frank Show on KPLX, 96.1 FM.

Cover photo of Eric Ivey by Brian Smith. Cover design by Ryan Dyson

520 CANNABIS

Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, Ext. 10 sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, Ext. 38 jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Logan Burtch-Buus, Managing Editor, Ext. 36 logan@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Associate Editor, Ext. 43 jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Tara Foulkrod, Web Editor, Ext. 35 tara@tucsonlocalmedia.com Austin Counts, Staff Reporter, Ext. 37 austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Kathleen Kunz, Staff Reporter, Ext. 42 kathleen@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: Lee Allen, Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Andy Mosier, Xavier Omar Otero, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, David Safier, Will Shortz, Jen Sorensen, Eric Swedlund, Mark Whittaker PRODUCTION David Abbott, Production Manager, Ext. 18 david@tucsonlocalmedia.com Louie Armendariz, Graphic Designer, Ext. 29 louie@tucsonlocalmedia.com Madison Wehr, Graphic Designer, Ext. 28 madison@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, Ext. 26 ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, Ext. 17, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING Kristin Chester, Account Executive, Ext. 25 kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, Ext. 24 candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com Lisa Hopper, Account Executive Ext. 39 lisa@tucsonlocalmedia.com Brek Montoya, Account Executive, Ext. 20 brek@tucsonlocalmedia.com Tyler Vondrak, Account Executive, Ext. 27 tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com Liane White, Account Executive, Ext. 23, liane@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING VMG Advertising, (888) 278-9866 or (212) 475-2529 Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by 13 Street Media at 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona. Address all editorial, business and production correspondence to: Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona 85741. Phone: (520) 797-4384, FAX (520) 575-8891. First Class subscriptions, mailed in an envelope, cost $112 yearly/53 issues. Sorry, no refunds on subscriptions. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN). The Tucson Weekly® and Best of Tucson® are registered trademarks of 10/13 Communications. Back issues of the Tucson Weekly are available for $1 each plus postage for the current year. Publisher has the right to refuse any advertisement at his or her discretion.

Medical Marijuana

Arizona Supreme Court rejects effort to allow electronic signatures for Arizona initiative campaigns, including an effort to ask voters to legalize recreational cannabis use for adults

Copyright: The entire contents of Tucson Weekly are Copyright © 2019 by Thirteenth Street Media. No portion may be reproduced in whole or part by any means without the express written permission of the Publisher, Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, AZ 85741.

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MAY 21, 2020

Southern Arizona

COVID-19

By Jim Nintzel jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE LOCAL NUMBERS: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Arizona had topped 14,000 as of Tuesday, May 19, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Pima County had seen 1,888 of the state’s 14,566 confirmed cases. The coronavirus had killed 704 people statewide, including 158 in Pima County, according to the report. In Maricopa County, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases had risen to 7,482. THE NATIONAL NUMBERS: Nationwide, more than 1.5 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus, which had killed more than 90,000 people in the United States as of Tuesday, May 19, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University. The IHME model now predicts roughly 147,000 deaths in the United States by the beginning of August. The IHME model forecast of the most likely number of deaths in Arizona now forecasts 2,871 through Aug. 4, a slight drop from last week. LUNCH RUSH: Gov. Doug Ducey’s stayhome order expired last Friday, May 15. Ducey has said that retail stores, barber shops, salons, restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses are free to reopen although he encouraged Arizonans to be cautious and maintain social distance and take other precautions. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said she was concerned by Ducey’s easing of restrictions. “As eager as we all are to return to any sense of normalcy, I believe that the governor is moving too quickly and that we should proceed methodically and cautiously to prevent a re-emergence that would be even more damaging to our economy in the long-run,” Romero said. STATE LAWMAKERS TO PIMA COUNTY: SPREAD ’EM! The Pima County Board of Supervisors delayed a vote to revise new health code regulations for restaurants and bars. Supervisors set a May 21 meeting to revisit the regulations. The new health code is designed to reduce transmission of COVID-19, but

three state lawmakers asked the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to step in and force the county to rescind the rules. State Sen. Vince Leach and state Reps. Mark Finchem and Bret Roberts say the county is exceeding its authority in creating the regulations and have asked Attorney General Mark Brnovich for an investigation. Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the county was on firm legal ground. Huckelberry added that the county had received feedback regarding the regulations that ranged from complaints that the county was doing too much to concerns that the county wasn’t doing enough. SHUT DOWN AT CITY HALL: Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said other than city court, city buildings would remain closed to public access through June 8. When city buildings reopen, visitors will be required to wear masks and may need to undergo a temperature check before being allowed in. City employees can continue to telecommute, especially those with underlying health conditions or those who have children who need care. The city is continuing its moratorium on disconnecting water service and the moratorium on evictions at cityowned properties through June 30. MEANWHILE, IN THE SUBURBS: The towns of Marana and Oro Valley issued amendments to local emergency declarations last week to fall in line with Gov. Ducey’s update orders. Marana Mayor Ed Honea announced that local restaurants can temporarily expand their outdoor seating to provide for increased distance between customers, and the town opened several park amenities on Friday, May 15. All basketball courts in public parks have reopened, but only for shooting practice. No games are allowed at this time. Marana also opened the skate park at Continental Ranch, dog parks, tennis courts, ramadas, soccer fields and more. Playground structures reopened on Saturday, May 16. Oro Valley Mayor Joe Winfield issued an amendment allowing restaurant seating to expand, and announced that dog parks, tennis courts, pickleball courts, basketball courts and

Roundup more are all reopening. The Oro Valley Aquatic Center, Community Center, playgrounds and volleyball courts will open June 1, though the town has canceled its summer camp program. HOUSE PARTY: The Arizona House of Representatives resumed work this week after temporarily adjourning in mid-March, with an aim of wrapping unfinished business by the end of the week. Although the Arizona Senate has already adjourned for the year, House lawmakers could still pass bills that the Senate had already approved and send them to Gov. Doug Ducey for approval. A special legislative session could happen later this year to deal with budget issues and other legislation related to COVID-19, including limiting liability for businesses that could

JEN SORENSEN

face lawsuits related to the outbreak. TIME TO RETURN THOSE OVERDUE BOOKS: Pima County Public Libraries reopened this week with limited services, including book pickup, computer use on a first-come, first-served basis, and printing, copying and fax services. The new open hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. People who visit the library should wear face masks, maintain physical distance and be prepared for temperature checks before they will be allowed to enter. The library will also allow only a limited number of people in at a time. ■ —Additional reporting from Kathleen B. Kunz, Austin Counts, Jeff Gardner, Tara Foulkrod and Logan Burtch-Buus

MAY 21, 2020

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MAY 21, 2020

Between Ducey’s confident assertion that Arizona was on a downward curve on Tuesday, May 12, and the Weekly’s print deadline on Tuesday, May 19, Arizona’s confirmed cases jumped from 11,736 to 14,566. To justify lifting the stay-at-home order, Ducey is relying on a “gating criteria” developed by the CDC. Among them: • States should have a downward trajecGov. Doug Ducey has lifted the stay-at-home tory of influenza-like illnesses reported in a order, but health officials advise continued 14-day period and a downward trajectory of precaution COVID-like symptoms reported within 14day period. Arizona meets that criteria. By Jim Nintzel • Hospitals should be able to treat all pajimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com tients without crisis care and have a robust testing system in place for at-risk healthcare WHEN HE WRAPPED UP A PRESS workers, including emerging antibody testconference announcing he’d let his stay-athome order expire last week, Gov. Doug Du- ing. The hospitals are handling emergency cey assured Arizonans that the worst of the cases from the outbreak and can now return to elective surgery and private labs are hanCOVID-19 outbreak was behind the state. dling most of Arizona’s testing. “We are clearly on the other side of this • Here’s the sticky one. The CDC calls pandemic,” Ducey said. for a downward trajectory of documented There’s no denying that the stay-at-home cases within a 14-day period OR downward order, first issued at the end of March, had trajectory of positive tests as a percent of a devastating impact on many Arizonans. total tests within a 14-day period. More than a half-million people in the state Arizona definitely has not had 14 straight have filed for unemployment and the numdays of declining positive tests. As of ber who have lost jobs is even higher. MeanTuesday, May 19, that clock was reset on while, many business owners are struggling Thursday, May 14, when the state reported to survive as their customers have stayed 382 positive tests. away or drastically decreased. But until recently, Arizona was last in the Despite Ducey’s assurances, however, the nation when it came to per capita testing, pandemic curve continues to climb in Ariaccording to tracking by the Kaiser Family zona. As of Tuesday morning, Arizona had Foundation. Given that a lack of test kits more than 14,000 confirmed cases, while 704 meant the state put in strict restrictions on people had died after contracting the virus.

CURRENTS

GRADING ON A CURVE

CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones

who could get a test, it’s not surprising to see the number of positive cases rising now that more tests are available. But as more tests become available, it’s also virtually inevitable that the alternative criteria that the Ducey administration is using to justify lifting the stay-at-home order—14 straight days of a decrease in the number of positive tests as a percentage of overall testing—will be met. State lawmaker Randy Friese, who also works as an emergency room doctor, says that creates an “artificial downward trend.” “The population of people tested before the blitz were high-risk, right? Exposed, having symptoms, things like that,” Friese said. “So the proportion of those tests are going to be higher than if you tested the general population. Now the general population is being tested in the blitz. So yes, I would expect proportion of positive tests to decline. And would expect that the governor would take that into account and say I’m not going to make decisions based on this decline. But it seems like he is pointing to the decline and saying, ‘We’re ready to open,’ which to me is a little disingenuous.” Ducey spokesman Patrick Ptak pushed back on Friese’s assertion, saying that testing is still limited to people who exhibit symptoms or who believe they have been exposed to COVID-19. “Throughout this process, we’ve prioritized expanding testing in Arizona,” Ptak said in an email. “Our state has faced the same shortage of testing supplies we’ve

seen across the country, but as supplies build, we’ve been able to expand and increase testing. This is a good thing. There is no way to artificially create a downward trend. This is especially true as Arizona continues to prioritize testing for our vulnerable populations and those who believe they’ve been recently exposed.” But there’s little denying the trend: Even under the stay-at-home order, cases of COVID-19 were growing, not shrinking. Lifting the stay-at-home order now means that more people will be interacting with each other, giving the virus more opportunity to spread. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero is among those who believe the state is moving too quickly. “As eager as we all are to return to any sense of normalcy, I believe that the governor is moving too quickly and that we should proceed methodically and cautiously to prevent a re-emergence that would be even more damaging to our economy in the long-run,” Romero said last week. “Dr. Fauci and our nation’s top health experts testified earlier this week that without widespread testing and a robust contact tracing plan in place, states that are re-opening risk a second wave of the virus. Although some improvements have been made, we lag the rest of the country in both areas. I don’t want our economy to just re-open, I want it to remain open. That will not happen if there is a second wave of the virus and we are forced to shut down again.” ■

MAY 21, 2020

CURRENTS

FOOD FIGHT

Pima County moves toward easing new emergency regulations after complaints from restaurant owners, state lawmakers By Austin Counts Austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE PIMA COUNTY BOARD of Supervisors delayed revising new regulations added to the county health code to help prevent a COVID-19 outbreak as the state reopens for business during the pandemic. The Board of Supervisors will meet again on Thursday, May 21, to finalize an easing of the new restrictions. The move to change the regulations came after complaints from restaurant owners and an investigation by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who was asked to look into the situation by three state lawmakers. The new regulations were first created during an emergency meeting last Wednesday, May 13. The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to proclaim 15 of the 17 new guidelines recommended by the county’s Back to Business Bars and Restaurants Task Force as temporary regulations to the county health code. Supervisors Steve Christy and Ally Miller voted against the proclamation. State Sen. Vince Leach and state Reps. Mark Finchem and Bret Roberts filed a complaint with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office on May 15 calling for an investigation into Pima County’s actions. The state lawmakers say the county’s proclamation attempts to supersede Gov. Ducey’s May 12 executive order allowing dine-in service at Arizona restaurants as long as they follow the state’s recommended guidelines. “We’ve seen throughout this crisis how important it is to balance health concerns with the need to reopen businesses and get Arizonans back to work,” Leach said

Valadez said the three state lawmakers are “playing political games” during the pandemic while the county is trying to “save lives.” “Why did we do these conditions? It’s about saving lives. Why did they make this claim? To play political games,” Valadez said. “They’re playing political games with people’s lives and I don’t think that’s a game we should be playing.” Members of the county’s Back to Business Bars and Restaurants Task Force said that while they helped create guidelines and best COURTESY PIMA COUNTY practices, they didn’t think their recommendations would become regulations with in a prepared statement. “Gov. Ducey and fines attached. the Legislature have been working with “We offered to help be a part of this from experts to find that balance and determine the very beginning and now we’re the ones the best course of action for the entire state. being targeted with fines,” said Ray Flores, It is unfortunate that Pima County is taking owner of El Charro and its related restauactions that are not consistent with the state. rants. “If it’s really about public health and The cumbersome regulations in its proclahuman safety, then all businesses should mation will not facilitate an easy reopening have to go through this. This is not a restaufor businesses.” rant problem, this is a human population The lawmakers filed the complaint with problem.” Brnovich under a 2016 law that prevents The task force, which was composed of local jurisdictions from taking actions eight restaurant and bar owners as well as that conflict with state law. Under the law, five county health department staff memjurisdictions face a loss of a portion of their bers, was organized late April with the job state-shared revenues until they repeal the of crafting guidelines and best practices for contested regulations. bars and restaurants in the county. Among Finchem said while he doesn’t agree with Gov. Ducey’s emergency regulations because they are too restrictive to business, he thinks it was “inappropriate” for Pima County to take additional action. “A plain reading of the governor’s order in comparison to what Pima County has done gave us sufficient cause to believe the county had exceeded what the governor had approved,” Rep. Fenchem said. “Now that we’ve turned over our findings to the Attorney General’s Office, we really shouldn’t be commenting on it any more than that.” Board of Supervisors Chairman Ramon Valadez said the county’s proclamation was drafted “to be in compliance” with the governor’s order. Valadez personally sent the proclamation to Gov. Ducey before the county’s emergency meeting took place, he said. “When we drafted the proclamation and the conditions, we gave specific orders to our attorney that those conditions had to be in compliance and not conflict with the governor’s orders,” Valadez said. “I sent a letter with the 17 considerations and the proclamation to Gov. Ducey to make sure he was aware of what it is we’re doing. That doesn’t mean he is aware of it at this point or not, but we sent the letter the day before we considered it.”

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

the recommendations: wellness and symptom checks; cloth masks and gloves to be worn by all staff; patrons exhibiting signs of COVID-19 are not permitted on premises; and no more than 10 diners allowed per table, as well as no bar-top seating. Flores said not only was it disappointing to see such a highly regulated industry such as food service now being threatened with fines, but restaurateurs were being expected to act as pseudo-healthcare workers with no training and very little guidance on how to proceed. “Nobody in the restaurant business wants to make anyone sick,” Flores said. “At the same time, nobody in the restaurant business is a healthcare professional.” Pima County Environmental Health Supervisor Gary Frucci said the county health department is still figuring out how exactly to enforce the new regulations, which could carry a $500 fine after the third violation. Frucci said the health department’s goal is to educate restaurants on how to be in compliance, not to issue fines. “We don’t expect (issuing fines) to be an issue for a variety of reasons. One of which is most facilities appear to be in compliance,” Frucci said. “On average, most food facilities this applies to would be inspected every four to six months.” ■

Congratulations Class of 2020

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

MAY 21, 2020

Story & photos by Brian Smith

A CALL TO DUTY IN PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN “ARE YOU AN EXPERT IN POOP?” “Of course. You have to be.” Eric Ivey rattles off differences in small animal turds, both scientific and layman, the squirrels and pack rats and ringtail cats, mice and roaches and so on. The poor lizards and their giant poops. “You don’t want to be a lizard.” In this pandemic-lockdown era, where so many are forced to examine the interiors of their own lives or suffer, this guy works as much, if not more, than ever. A wild or deadly animal living in a house or yard is, to those who call in, an emergency. He straps on his Velcro knee pads, pulls an alarmingly sized hypodermic needle from his bag of tricks in the back of his truck and chooses between jars of animal piss. He inserts the needle into the fox piss and sucks out a quarter shaft. He moves to the storage room, bends down into a dark recess over the dirt floor and squirts small amounts of piss around the holes. “Whatever critter is holed up in there,” he says, “it won’t come near it anymore.” We climb into his pickup, a red, sun-ripened GMC with ladder racks and Arizona Animal Experts emblazoned on its sides, the licensed company he works with, and roll to his next job. A Hispanic couple with two small children have been hearing noises in the attic of their house. A dead gopher ripens in a zip-lock baggie in the back. A grim prize from a morning golf-course hunt at the Forty Niner Country Club, a Carl Spackler exercise in gopher exasperation. (“The only way to trap gophers is to kill them,” he says. “I never seen anyone trap a live gopher.”) Earlier he had produced a pen and a wood board and sketched out an underground gopher community, a marvel of endless underground tunnels and passages. He is not fond of killing animals. He catches and relocates them, as is the policy of his heart, and Arizona Animal Experts, as well as the company he owns, which is on the backburner

now. Injured, sick or orphaned animals go to licensed wildlife rehabs, they don’t separate mothers from babies. “I wouldn’t do this if I had to kill animals. I never use poison.” But gophers are different, he says. Yes, coyotes and owls hunt them, snakes and skunks too. Several times he mentions a gopher’s infinitesimal brain, perhaps as a way to deny their otherwise undeniable craftiness, which he seems wary to acknowledge, even after explaining how gophers regularly cover his neck-snap traps with dirt. He talks of golfers getting hurt and twisting ankles on gopher holes, recalling one who broke an ankle and successfully sued a local golf course. We laugh at the insanity of that. Not the gophers but the golfer. Essentially suing nature. I say let the gophers feast on the grassy fields, a mine field of burrows would make the golf game more interesting. Sure, gophers can carry virus’ and diseases like other rodents, transmit fleas and ticks, and their sharp claws and monster teeth can wreak havoc on a house, kill gardens, rip apart underground utility cables and water lines and so on. The vegetarians feast on plant roots, which ravage the much doted-on, water-sucking green expanses. Considering this is a desert, such 18-hole acreage shouldn’t be here at all, and one could argue gophers do their part to save what’s left of the Sonoran Desert. Yet, watching this guy work it is soon obvious he is at the very least, COVID-19 fear or no, concerned about maintaining the brute reality of the desert, and the critters who share it with us, even in the people-infested worlds of ranches and sub-divisions. Less animal life means a lesser world, or a dead one. He knows, man. We arrive at the next job. The eastside place is a spacious, pricey and wellsealed gated-community stucco job. Its yard is professionally landscaped with brick paths and a swimming pool. Two giant air-conditioning units decorate

Eric Ivey squeezes into tight spaces in his hunt for wildlife.

either side of the home. The homeowner dad, who keeps his COVID-19 six-feet distance at all times, explains the scratch-and-drag sound heard above the ceiling. The house shows no detectable entrance points on the roof, the eves, the dark corners, where pigeons and doves and mice tend to collect. Ivey reasoned earlier it’s probably a racoon or ringtail cat, his decades of experience catching all manner of creatures informs this opinion, and, besides, they can squeeze through damn near anything. Soon Ivey is crawling that narrow attic, its matrix of angled two-by fours, new-construction smell and itchy pink fiberglass insulation. It is suffocate-you hot, and it’s not summer yet, but it is a 101-degree day in Tucson. Here is this “old man” of 72, a Nam vet in khaki Dockers shorts with sun-dial face crevices and gray hair, a retired copper-mine professional, father and grandfather, scaling a ladder into a small opening and tracking a pesky varmint in the house of strangers, face and arms wet with sweat. He calls himself “old man,” I don’t. Because a true old man would never navigate such an attic, much less stalk wildlife. Ivey is a zoology autodidact, a quickstudy wildlife biologist without the degree, working from an arsenal of earned wisdoms over decades of observing animal behaviors. He can determine the role of snakes, javelinas, bobcats and

packrats in specific areas and ecosystems and how they interact with human beings. Can talk the rarity of diseases some animals may carry. Some mice carry hantavirus, which can infect and kill you (38 percent fatality rate) if one breathes too much of the airborne turd particles while cleaning them up. The virus is not person-to-person spreadable, at least not yet. Scientists in China discovered certain bats carry more than 400 coronaviruses, though the direct human spillover is rare, so far. He is unaware of such zoonoses in Southern Arizona. “I’ve never heard or seen or know of anyone who has seen or heard of any diseases here from bats, not even rabies,” Ivey says. “Right now, it’s mating season for bats, so we don’t remove colonies, if you move the adults, the babies will die. If someone calls with one in their house, I just take the bat outside and let them fly away.” His avuncular, homespun wisdom (“It’s a damn hard life for the critters in the desert”) mask a much deeper understanding of desert wildlife. There are no nests or holes, no interruptions—just the critter existences that have become so absorbed in him they’ve passed into familial bonds. It is who he is. IVEY IS PURE 20TH-CENTURY Arizonan born into copper mining in Ajo, that haunted town 40 miles from

MAY 21, 2020

the Mexican border. He is old enough to remember when Ajo had more bars than churches, was still a mine-fortified, Phelps-Dodge-headed boomtown, where sons followed fathers into the pit. For decades, his old man worked in the smelter, his uncles and brother worked mine-related gigs too, often pitiless but good-paying work. Both his father and brother died young of heart attacks. As a teen, Ivey worked a Texaco station, learned to rebuild cars, bought his own too, had motorcycles. He owned a ’50s Chevy convertible in which he’d take out Helen, his high-school sweetheart. (Those high-school sweethearts have now been married 52 years.) They’d idle the convertible and climb in back as it rolled slowly down the railroad tracks. Phelps Dodge shuttered the mine in ’84 in a mess of union worker disputes, plummeting copper prices and even murder. Ajo is now home to maybe 3,000, employees of U.S. border enforcement, societal dropouts, artists, cranks and retirees. A few dreamers too, Ivey says, still waiting for the mine to come back. Beyond Ajo toward Mexico lay the Sonoran dying fields of undocumented immigrants. It is a dusty town immersed with a presentiment of some other lost world. These days, Ivey sometimes returns to Ajo, to visit the ghosts, the dead loved ones in the cemetery, occasional reunions with old high-school friends. Was the mining in his blood? “Nah, that’s crap” he says. He refused to work in the Ajo mine, entered university at UA to study metallurgy, but enlisted. Nearly four years in the Air Force, with a solid year of fighting in Nam. “Growing up in Ajo, I didn’t know anything else,” he says. “I had to do something so I went into the service, Air Force. I didn’t know better.” He witnessed horrors, the slaughter of friends, the Agent Orange that blanketed them. (The dead herbicide left no ill signs on him but he thinks his son, who is now disabled with a spinal problem, was affected.) “There was no therapy then for what’s now called PTSD. If you acted [traumatized] in any way they’d make fun of you, ‘don’t be a pantywaist.’” He shakes his head. “Fifty years ago, I came back on a commercial airliner by myself, had my flak jacket, my helmet, and my M-16 on the seat next me. In those days, you took

the pin out of the gun and put it in your pocket and you were good to go.” He had that look, he says, “when you look at someone and you know they’ve been there. I had it for a few years.” He returned to Tucson rattled inside and out. He resumed studies at UA, working his way through college and grad school at the VA hospital. He earned a public administration MBA. Later he trashed his Nam keepsakes, black-and-white photos he’d snapped,

housed its Hidalgo Copper Smelter and tract homes for its employees. He worked it, earned his way up to shift foreman. The smelter is gone now, wiped from the earth, a hideous black land scar in its place. (Playas is now an off-limits training grounds for first responders, counter-terrorists, and Border Patrol.) Four years and a few resumes later, his family escaped New Mexico and landed in Peru. A veritable goldmine of copper, and he did well. He learned Spanish,

“I wouldn’t do this if I had to kill animals,” Eric Ivey says. “I never use poison.”

uniform, everything. “I guess I was trying to forget it ever happened.” We roll along in the GMC. A Nam service medal pin in Vietnamese flag colors decorates his wool Stetson cowboy hat, and a matching symbol, inside an animal-face wildlife scene, embellishes the truck’s back window. He harbors solidarity with war vets. The blue Mason ring his Freemasonry, a 32nd degree. The not-sosecret society, he says, is about making a “good person better.” In teacherly ways, he talks metallurgical engineering, chemistries of copper, the overburden, secondary crushing, exothermic reaction. If Ajo copper mining wasn’t bloodborne, it inhabited him: He and Helen were “hurting” after college. Like his old man, he landed inside the Phelps-Dodge respirator-and-hard-hat playbook, in tiny Playas, New Mexico, a map dot smaller than Ajo. The Phelps Dodge company town

adjusted to South American life in the seaside town of Ilo, where he and Helen raised their two children, and he worked 60-plus hour weeks. When he left Peru, after 17 years, he had risen to general manager of two of Peru’s largest copper operations, Toquepala and Cuajone, a boss to more than 3,000 employees. They’d had enough, and the family moved back to the simplicity of Tucson. His curiosity allowed a career shift to desert wildlife. Made sense because as a kid the desert was his backdoor. He opened a local franchise of Critter Control, and traveled to Kentucky for requisite classes. He read the appropriate books. Soon he was in business (doing the occasional mine consulting gig on the side). That was more than two decades ago. Critter Control lasted for several years before he went out on his own. Now he sub-contracts with Arizona Animal Experts.

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“I had everything to make copper work for me,” he says. “But if I had to do it over again I wouldn’t.” He missed too much of his son and daughter’s teen years; they went off to boarding school back in Arizona. It was the most difficult thing he and Helen ever had to endure. IVEY CLIMBS UNEVENLY down on the ladder from the attic entry inside the house. No poop or signs of life up there. To compound the riddle, Ivey was out at this house several days earlier, placed live caged traps (with sun protection for the animals) on one end of the yard, and the marshmallows he positioned in and around the traps were all eaten, but no animals caught. Ivey is literally scratching his head. He has no answers beyond a chuckle-shrug. He steps out to his truck and returns with his disco lights (“I was never one for disco”), a strobe for the attic, which will drive any animal away. He climbs the ladder again, sets the lights in place, and he’s done for now. No charge for the homeowner today; a revisit with nothing caught. We roll homeward and Ivey talks bobcats. “They will run from you too. And Coyotes. I’ve never heard of or seen a bobcat attack a person.” He shares one experience, a small bobcat with its head caught in an electric fence, its screams horrific as anything he’s ever heard. Several feet away its terrified mother watched and paced. They eventually secured the cub’s hind claws, and managed to cut it free and reunite it with its mother. This is the action of his work that rewards him. Rescuing animals caught in houses, how it frees minds of home owners, that rewards him. He could be retired, the Social Security, the pension. But why? Stuck home all day would drive him mad, a forced quarantine even more so. But there is something else, something blatant with need. Sure, if folks have animal emergencies during a pandemic, he’s there, keeping distance, wearing a mask when asked. I sense the animals or rodents he befriends are so known to him as to be inexpressible to another person. He tries to explain such connections to me— every fear in their eyes understood, every patterned fur recognizable from another, the particular personalities he ascribes to each little roaming and slithering creature. I can see now the dead zip-locked gopher in back weighs on him. ■

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

MAY 21, 2020

HIGH COURT ISSUES HARSH RULING

Arizona Supreme Court rejects effort to allow electronic signatures for Arizona initiative campaigns, including an effort to ask voters to legalize recreational cannabis use for adults By Austin Counts Austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE ARIZONA SUPREME COURT has denied an effort by initiative campaigns to collect online signatures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initiative campaigns such as Smart and Safe Arizona, Save our Schools Arizona, Invest In Education and Arizonans for

Second Chances filed a Petition for Special Attention with the Arizona Supreme Court on April 2. The groups wanted to utilize the state’s E-Qual electronic signature system in an attempt to help initiatives continue collecting signatures during the pandemic. But the court agreed with Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who argued that the Arizona Constitution requires that ev-

ery petition circulator personally witness every voter’s signature. “My job is to defend the law and I’m going to continue doing so as long as I’m attorney general,” Brnovich said after the ruling. “A health crisis is not an excuse to ignore the constitution.” But an attorney for the plaintiffs called the decision disturbing. “It is disappointing in Arizona to see the courts and the attorney general and legislature repeatedly prevent the options of choice to voters where their options are to forgo their constitutional rights or to risk their health and safety,” said Roopali

Medical Marijuana Desai, the lawyer representing the initiative campaigns. “It’s really unfortunate the court did not grant the relief under such extreme circumstances. It’s not only disappointing but it’s incredibly dishearting.” While the court has decided the case, they have not released a reason for their decision at this time, Desai said. “In terms of the reasoning for the court’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

MAY 21, 2020

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MAY 21, 2020

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

By Rob Brezsny. Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY HOROSCOPE 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 $1.99 per minute. 18 and over. Touchtone phone required.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Excellence does not require perfection,” wrote Aries author Henry James. Now I’m conveying this brilliant counsel to you—just in time for the season when it will make good sense to strive for shining excellence without getting bogged down in a debilitating quest for perfection. Have fun re-committing yourself to doing the best you can, Aries, even as you refuse to be tempted by the unprofitable lure of absolute purity and juvenile forms of idealism. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): To generate an ounce of pure cocaine, you must collect 52 pounds of raw coca leaf and work hard to transform it. But please don’t do that. Fate won’t be on your side if you do. However, I will suggest that you consider undertaking a metaphorically comparable process—by gathering a sizable amount of raw material or basic stuff that will be necessary to produce the small treasure or precious resource that you require. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for,” writes author Barbara Kingsolver. “And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” According to my analysis of the astrological omens, that is exactly the work you should be doing right now, Gemini. Everything good that can and should happen for you in the coming months depends on you defining what you hope for, and then doing whatever’s necessary to live inside that hope. CANCER (June 21-July 22): The periodic arrivals of “natural disruption” in our everyday routines has a divine purpose, writes Yoruba priest Awó Falokun Fatunmbi. It is “to shake consciousness loose from complacency and rigid thinking.” To be vital, he says, our perception of truth must be constantly evolving, and never stagnant. “Truth is a way of looking at self and World,” Fatunmbi declares. “It

is a state of being rather than an act of knowing.” Many Westerners find this hard to understand because they regard truth as a “fixed set of rules or dogma,” or as a body of “objective facts.” But here’s the good news: Right now, you Cancerians are especially receptive to Fatunmbi’s alternative understanding of truth—and likely to thrive by adopting it. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Novelist and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn departed this life in 1998, but she articulated a message that’s important for you to hear right now. She wrote, “People often say, with pride, ‘I’m not interested in politics.’ They might as well say, ‘I’m not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future.’” Gelhorn added, “If we mean to keep control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics.” In my opinion, her advice is always applicable to all of us, but it’s especially crucial for you to meditate on right now. You’ll be wise to upgrade your interest and involvement in the big cultural and political developments that are impacting your personal destiny. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): According to author and teacher Marianne Williamson, “Ego says, ‘Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace.’ Spirit says, ‘Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.’” I think the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to take Williamson’s advice seriously, Virgo. How? By giving control of your life to Spirit as you find your peace. In saying this, I’m not implying that Ego is bad or wrong. In fact, I think Ego is a crucial asset for you, and I’m hoping that in recent months you have been lifting your Ego to a higher, finer state of confidence and competence than ever before. But right now I think you should authorize Spirit to run the show for a while. If you do, it will bless you with good surprises.

SAVAGE LOVE POWER PLAYERS

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

Here’s a non-COVID question for you: I’m a queer white female in a monogamish marriage. I vote left, I abhor hatred and oppression, and I engage in activism when I can. I’m also turned on by power differentials: authority figures, uniforms, hot guys doing each other. Much to my horror this thing for power differentials plus too many WWII movies as a kid has always meant that for my brain (or for my pussy) Nazis are hot. Fuck me, right? Other maybe relevant bits of info: I’m not interested in roleplaying with actual partners, I’m fairly sure this proclivity is not reflective of any deeper issues, and I’m both sexually and emotionally fairly well sorted.

Not perfect, but fine working order and all that. And I get it: people like what they like, don’t judge yourself for your fetishes, just get off without being an asshole to anyone. The problem is that my usual way of getting off on/indulging my fantasies is to read erotic fiction on the Internet. I’d love your input on whether seeking out Nazi porn is problematic for some of the same reasons that porn depicting sex with kids is problematic. Am I normalizing and trivializing fascism? —Freaking About Search Histories Seeking out child porn—searching for it online, downloading it, collecting images of children being raped and sexually abused—

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.” Playwright Tennessee Williams said that, and now I’m conveying his insight to you—just in time for you to dramatically embody it. According to my astrological analysis, you now have more power than usual to accomplish this magic trick: to create something permanent in the midst of the transitory; to make an indelible mark on a process that has previously been characterized by restless permutations; to initiate a bold move that you will forever remember and be remembered for. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the course of his 73 years on the planet, Scorpio author Paul Valéry (1871–1945) wrote more than 20 books. But between the ages of 25 and 45, he passed through a phase he called the “great silence.” During that time, he quit writing and published nothing. Afterwards, he returned to his life’s work and was nominated 12 times for a Nobel Prize. Although your own version of a great silence is less extreme than his, I’m happy to announce that you will emerge from it sooner than you imagine. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I’m sad that my two favorite 19th-century poets were unfamiliar with each other’s poetry. Walt Whitman was 11 years older than Emily Dickinson, but didn’t know her work. Dickinson had heard of Whitman, but didn’t read his stuff. Their styles were indeed very different: hers intimate, elliptical, psychologically acute; his expansive, gregarious, earthy. But they were alike in being the most innovative American poets of their time, and equally transgressive in their disregard for standard poetic forms. If there were such a thing as time travel, I’d send one of you Sagittarians back to set up a meeting between them. Acts of innovative blending and creative unifying will be your specialties in the coming weeks. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The fictional character Sherlock Holmes (born January 6, and thus a Capricorn) is a brilliant logician and acute observer who has astonishing crime-solving skills. On the other hand, according to his friend Dr. Watson,

is problematic (and illegal) because it creates demand for more child porn, which results in more children being raped and sexually abused. The cause-and-effect is obvious, FASH, the victims are real, and the harm done is incalculable. But while it may discomfort someone to know a nice married lady who donates to all the right causes is furiously masturbating to dirty stories about hot guys in Nazi uniforms doing each other, FASH, no one ever has to know that. So you do no harm—not even the supposed harm of discomforting someone—when you privately enjoy the fucked up stories you enjoy. And while there are doubtless some actual Nazis who enjoy reading dirty stories about other Nazis, most people turned on by dirty stories about Nazis are turned on despite themselves and their politics. Transgressive

he “knows next to nothing” about “contemporary literature, philosophy, and politics.” So he’s not a well-rounded person. He’s smart in some ways, dumb in others. Most of us fit that description. We are both brilliant and ignorant; talented and inept; interesting and boring. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to hone and cultivate the less mature aspects of your own nature. I bet you’ll reap rich rewards by doing so. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “People become like what they love,” observed theologian St. Catherine of Siena. That’ll be an interesting truth for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. I suspect you will attract experiences that are clear reflections of the kind of love you have cultivated and expressed for quite some time. You’ll be blessed in ways similar to the ways you have blessed. You’ll be challenged to face questions about love that you have not been dealing with. And here’s a promise for the future: You’ll have the opportunity to refine and deepen your approach to love so as to transform yourself into more of the person you’d like to become. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Humanity is a mystery,” wrote author Fyodor Dostoevsky. “The mystery needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, you haven’t wasted your time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a complete human being.” I love this tender perspective on the preciousness of the Great Riddle we’re all immersed in. It’s especially useful and apropos for you to adopt right now, Pisces, because you are undergoing an unusually deep and intense communion with the mystery. As you marinate, you shouldn’t measure your success and good fortune by how much new understanding you have attained, but rather by how much reverence and gratitude you feel and how stirring your questions are. ■ Homework: Is there anything about your experience of the global pandemic that you enjoy? RealAstrology.com.

sexual fantasies don’t arouse us because they violate societal norms and expectations (in safe and controlled manner), FASH, but because they allow us violate our sense of ourselves too (ditto). Just as a feminist can have rape fantasies without actually wanting to be raped herself or for anyone else to be raped, a person can have sexual fantasies about hot guys in Nazis uniforms doing each other without wanting Nazis to come to power. I have to say it was a easier to give anti-Nazi Nazi fetishists like you a pass—to shrug and say “you do you” but please keep it to yourself—before racist demagogues, white supremacists, and anti-Semites started marching around waving Trump flags. But no one picks their kinks and being told “that shouldn’t turn you on” has never made a problematic or transgressive kink less

arousing. And when you consider the number of non-erotic novels, movies, and television shows the culture cranks out year after year—and how many actually trivialize fascism (I’m talking to you, Hunters)—it’s seems insane to draw a line and say, “Okay, this story about Nazis isn’t okay because that lady over there masturbated while reading it in private.” I’m an apartment-dweller in a dense urban area. Last night I overheard my neighbors having sex—no big deal, right? I consider myself a sex-positive person, and have always held and espoused the belief that if you can’t have loud sex in your own home, where can you have it? But the sex I overheard last night was fairly kinky. Someone I read as a cis man was dominating someone I read as a cis woman. They were in the apartment right across from mine—about 20 feet away—and my bedroom window faces theirs. There was a LOT of derogatory talk, hitting, name-calling, giving orders, and some crying. I could tell it was consensual—she was very clearly having a good time—and I eavesdropped long enough to witness the post-coital return to equilibrium. Everything seemed great. But physically I experienced this as overheard violence. I was shaking and had a hard time getting to sleep afterwards. I’m glad I stuck around until the end. It helped me feel better. I guess what I’m saying is that I needed some aftercare. I’m still thinking about it this morning, and I’m concerned that being triggered by my neighbor’s sex is going to become a regular part of my life. I’m wondering about the ethics of the situation: Do kinky folks have an obligation to muffle potentially triggering sounds? Or is any overheard sex potentially triggering to someone and am I therefore applying a double standard here? What do you think? —The Vanilla Neighbor You went from overhearing kinky sex to eavesdropping on it—meaning, you went from accidentally hearing your neighbors fucking to intently listening as your neighbors fucked. And you needed to do that. You heard something that sounded violent but hearing more led you to guess it was consensual sex and listening all the way to the end—all the way through the aftercare—confirmed your guess was correct. So for you own peace of mind, TVN, you needed to keep listening. But you don’t need to listen next time. If it triggers you to hear your neighbors fucking, don’t listen. Close the window and crank up some music or go for a walk and listen to

a podcast. That said, TVN, you raise an interesting ethical question: Are kinksters—particularly the kind of kinksters who enjoy verbal abuse and impact play—obligated to keep it down? While I think people should be considerate of their neighbors, people are allowed to have sex in their own homes, TVN, and it’s not like vanilla sex is always quiet. But if the sex a couple enjoys could easily be misinterpreted as abuse or violence by someone who accidentally overhears it, that couple might wanna close the window and turn up some music themselves—not only to avoid alarming the neighbors, but to spare themselves the hassle of explaining their kinks to a cop. For the record: I would tell person who enjoys a good single-tail whipping to find a soundproof dungeon to enjoy that in (because that shit is loud) but I wouldn’t tell a person who screams her head off during PIV intercourse to find a soundproof box (even though her shit is just as loud). Instead I would urge her fuck at 8 PM, when most people are awake, rather than 2 AM, when most people are asleep. (It can be annoying listening to someone screamfuck but it’s even more annoying to have your sleep ruined by a screamfucker.) Is this a double standard? Perhaps. But it’s one I’m willing to endorse. 1. Is it safe to hook up again? 2. Will it be safe to hook up again soon? 3. You’ll tell us when it’s safe to hook up again, right? —Getting Really Impatient. Need Dick. Really. • It isn’t. • At some point. • I will. Hey, Everybody: Me and Nancy and the tech-savvy/at-risk youth will be doing a special Savage Love Livestream on Thursday, June 4t, at 7 p.m. PST. You can send your questions to livestream@savagelovecast.com or ask them live during the event. I’ll answer as many as I can in one fun-filled Zoom meeting! Tickets are $10 and all proceeds from the Savage Love Livestream will be donated to Northwest Harvest, a non-profit that distributes food to more than 370 food banks in Washington State. Go to savagelovecast.com/ events to get tickets! ■ mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan Savage on Twitter @fakedansavage savagelovecast.com

MIKEL WEISSER, RIP

MAY 21, 2020

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 13

Dozens of others have shared their accounts of Weisser across the web, speaking to his dedication, inspiration and compassion. His political activity extended far beyond cannabis, and even included three runs for Arizona’s 4th Congressional District. Longtime legalization advocate dies at 61 Before that, he was a teacher, a passion he By Nick Meyers shared with his wife who is vice president of tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com the Kingman Unified School District board. Much of his time was dedicated to the Arizona ARIZONA LOST ONE OF ITS Education Association as well, where he advogreatest cannabis advocates when Mikel cated for LGBT rights and ethnic minorities. Weisser died May 13 at 61 years of age. In his He spent much of his life working manual official role as director for Arizona NORML, labor after growing up on the southern border Weisser helped shape the landscape of canna- of Texas. Working alongside undocumentbis we see today. ed immigrants showed him firsthand how While he’d most recently travelled the state they were exploited, seeding his passion for campaigning for the Safe and Smart Arizoadvocacy. na Act, he was crucial in passing last year’s I had the benefit of meeting Weisser soon testing bill, hemp legalization and endless after I began writing this column. It seems advocacy over the years. wherever cannabis appeared in public, so did If there’s any question to Weisser’s reach he. Over the years, we’ve spent dozens of hours and impact across Arizona, a quick look at any on the phone turning over every detail of of his social media pages will show you how cannabis law in Arizona. many lives he’s touched. He was enthusiastic about his work, eager to From heartfelt condolences from Senator spread the good word of cannabis to whoevKyrsten Sinema on Twitter, to pledged joints er would listen. He enthusiastically greeted and bowls from anonymous users on Reddit, anyone he met with a welcoming smile and a few in the community won’t feel the impact of firm handshake. Weisser’s death. No matter the gravity of a situation, no matWeisser’s wife, Beth, posted on Instagram ter how infuriating the actions of prohibitionlate the night he died, letting others know he’d ists in state government, Weisser always kept had a heart attack and died in the emergency his cool and never had a bad word to say about room parking lot. anyone. He was more interested in burning “I kept telling him I love him until I bud than bridges and built them wherever he couldn’t,” she wrote. could. Weisser was close friends with Marijuana Few seek to root out injustice in the world Industry Trade Association director Demitri with the endless optimism and kindness Downing, who has set up a GoFundMe for his Weisser had. wife, appropriately called “There Will Now Be If you haven’t yet, burn a bowl, smoke a Legal Marijuana in Heaven.” joint, hit a dab or pop an edible for Mikel Downing wrote that Weisser is “eternally Weisser this week. The fact that we can is in no among the 1% in his purity of heart and keensmall part due to his contribution. ness of mind.” Thank you, Mikel. ■

MMJ

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

decision, that will not come out in the form of a written opinion for some time,” Desai said. “They didn’t say when they would get it to us but they did say they were getting a detailed opinion out in due course.” Desai said this was a one-shot chance with the Supreme Court “hoping they would do the right thing” for initiatives and voters during the pandemic. “They failed us,” she said. Attorneys filed a similar lawsuit in federal court to gain access to the E-Qual system but struck out there. “There is no further legal action for the request that the initiatives be granted online

petitions signature gathering opportunities,” Desai said. “However the next step as far as we’re concerned from a campaign perspective is to continue collecting signatures in any way possible that’s safe and allows them to gather enough signatures to be on the ballot.” Despite the ruling, backers of the Smart and Safe Arizona initiative say they are on target to qualify for the Nov. 6 ballot. With just under two months left until the July 2 deadline, the campaign has collected more than 100,000 signatures over the minimum requirement of about 238,000 signatures for the proposed ballot proposition, which asks Arizona voters to approve recreational cannabis use for adults in the state. ■

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MAY 21, 2020

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Obituaries

Anne Mary Williams, 90, of Green Valley, AZ, formerly of Troy, MI, died peacefully on January 13, 2020 at La Posada at Park Centre. Anne was born on October 22, 1929 in Detroit, MI, the only child of Gustav and Edith (Rauh) Schubert. After graduating from high school, Anne entered a nursing program in Detroit and soon after met the love of her life on a blind date, Whalley Herbert Williams, son of Floyd Sr. and Lillian (Mihlader) Williams. Anne and Whalley were married on April 1, 1949. After their youngest child entered school, Anne earned her associate’s degree and worked as a medical technician. Anne and Whalley retired to Green Valley in 1987 where they enjoyed traveling and volunteering. Anne became an avid and expert quilter, winning numerous awards, and founded the Green Valley Quilt Sewciety in 1988. Anne will be remembered for her hospitality, love of music and gardening, amazing Scrabble skills, needle work, and numerous cherished quilts, many of which she made for friends and family, and many she generously donated to charity. Anne is survived by four children, Kathrine (Philip) Steel of Rochester, MI, Michael Williams of Tucson, AZ, Margaret Williams of Mt. Pleasant, MI, and Theodore (Karen) Williams of Bellingham, WA; her sister-in-law, Joyce Williams of Ferndale, MI, five grandchildren, Michael (Brian), Tracey, Alan (Sarah), David, and Aria, two great grandchildren, Matthew and Sarah, nephews and nieces, Larry (Nancy), Janet, John (Linda), Joanne (Rick), and special friends Christmas and Frank Wakefield and Kimberly Hubbard. Anne was predeceased by her husband of 64 years, Whalley, her parents and her parents-in-law, brothers-in-law, Floyd Jr., John, and John’s wife June, and nieces, Bonnie and Terry. A memorial service is being planned. Please visit annemwilliams.blogspot.com to view a celebration of Anne’s life and to share your memories.

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First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

*Any Questions Please Call

520-624-8695

342-4042

Mon - Fri 8:30am - 3:30pm

Tucson AZ 85705

58 63

$5 - $10

3818 N. Highway Dr.

WE BUY

We mov to a NEWed LOCATIO N

PROPANE TANKS!

Closed Sat & Sat

Clean. Not Destroyed. Not Contaminated.

Hours:

LB. Top $$ for Catalytic Converters #1 Beverage Plastics 25¢ LB. We match any LOCAL competitors price!

70¢ - 80¢

WASHERS: $5 - $30 (call for details) BATTERIES: 18¢ - 21¢ LB.

56 60

44 49

27 34

10 17

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Se Habla

W BUY WE NO OTIVE M AUTO EN OXYG S R SENSO

ACROSS 1 Ties to the Japanese? 5 Order 10 Some shells 15 Malodorous 16 Go ___ (be green, in a way) 17 Opposition bloc 18 “Well, well, well!” 19 “Don’t be a stranger!” 21 Starting points 23 Fading light 24 “Bel ___” (Guy de Maupassant novel) 25 Put down in words 27 Shade of red 31 Divine nourishment 33 & 35 Cole Porter musical 36 Undisturbed 38 ___ Na Na 41 Increase in size 42 & 44 “You can wait to show your gratitude” 46 Like 48 Repeated word in the Ten Commandments 51 Least polluted 54 & 56 Clothing item for the youngest in the family 58 It may fool you

740 E. Speedway (Corner of Euclid & Speedway)

www.firstchristianchurchtucson.org

e are an open and affirming Christian community, called to Seek God, Love like Jesus, and Serve the World.

Weekly Worship - Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Sunday School - all ages 9 a.m. Come worship with us! There is much we can do together.

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

MAY 21, 2020

Closed Memorial Day Monday 5/25/20

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4120 E Speedway Tucson, AZ 85712 NORTH PHOENIX (602) 607-5008 • 12202 N CAVE CREEK RD

MESA (480) 478-0420 • 3550 E BROADWAY RD

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