Awaiting a police chief

Hopefully we will have a new police chief in the next week. This drama has played out way to long and has been brutal for the candidates involved in the process. You may recall that the Tucson City Council was unable to agree on a candidate after ending a nationwide search in March. I have been told privately that the reason for their indecision was that they were presented with too many candidates by the city manager (I think there were 6 finalists). With this council too many choices is like taking your grandkid to Baskin-Robbins. It is easier to get a decision when it is chocolate or strawberry and not 31 flavors.

The council then directed a new search limited to TPD employees. This I have heard was precipitated after one of the out of state finalists told them that they had very qualified, excellent candidates within TPD, why look elsewhere? Also in the mix is the requirement that the new chief live in the city of Tucson or agrees to relocate within the cities boundaries. None of the 21 Captains and assistant chiefs that applied for round 2 lives in the city of Tucson. That speaks volumes about their confidence in those that govern our city. It is a shame that we would need to require people to live in Tucson to be employed by the city; shouldn’t you want to live in Tucson? That would be like requiring employees of a restaurant to have to eat the food after finding out that none of them eat it. Check please!

This also speaks to the difficulty that Tucson has had annexing the unincorporated areas of Tucson. You may know that 35% of Pima County is unincorporated; this reduces the return of dollars from the state and affects services. Yet the majority of people in the areas that aren’t incorporated don’t want to be a part of Tucson. Since the city likes using a stick instead of a carrot perhaps they will figure a way to punish the areas that aren’t incorporated. But I digress.

We now have 3 finalists. Assistant Chief Villasenor is an excellent candidate. I have spent time with him and consider him a friend. He is eminently qualified, a good leader and has a real heart for the community. I think he would also put a “face” on law enforcement that would build confidence within our community. John Leavitt is also a great candidate. He is very smart and capable. He is a strong leader and understands how to run things within budget. I don’t know Captain Klein, but he is also probably an excellent candidate. There are strong arguments for each of these men, I don’t think we could go wrong with either of them, we just need a decision. The agony that these candidates and the others have gone through during this process is unimaginable. Both Klein and Leavitt were in the first failed round (Villasenor did not apply at that time, he has since been encouraged to do so), and they were finalists. Now they are going through another agonizing round.
Perhaps with fewer choices they can make a decision.

The frog in the water

If you take a frog and drop it into boiling water, it will jump out. But, if you take the same frog and stick him in tepid water and slowly heat the water to a boil, he will boil to death. Because the water temperature slowly rises he is unable to detect the danger that is about to take his life. I have heard that story many times over the years as an analogy for our culture. It has been used to illustrate the entertainment industry (movies, records, television etc.).

I remember the uproar when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Older people were appalled at their haircuts, (remember the Beatle cuts) which were nothing more than long bangs. If you watch that appearance in 1964 it will probably strike you as somewhat harmless, even laughable. Yeah they had shaggy hair, but they weren’t lasciviously moving their hips like Elvis. Yet the girls were screaming, fainting and swooning. But, there was a small seed of something there that began to grow incrementally over time; the seed of rebellion. Their haircuts represented a sharp departure from crew cuts or neat and trim cuts favored by the older generation. But, I guess Elvis also broke that taboo. There was something growing slowly that would over time strip away every moral restriction in our society.

Next would come the Rolling Stones with their provocative hit “Let’s Spend The Night Together” (changed to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together” for their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show). Then (back to the frog analogy), the heat continued to rise with The Doors getting their Mojo Rising and the Beatles began to heat up with ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ (LSD). Illicit sex and drugs stewed in the mix of the music that carried the rallying cry “sex, drugs and rock and roll”. The heat continued to rise over the years as MTV displayed graphic sexual imagery to compliment the songs. And this year there was a hit song by Kate Perry “I kissed a girl”, which has fueled a surge in homosexual experimentation in our youth.

Looking back to 1964 the change in moral values in our culture (fueled by the entertainment industry) is very radical, yet over time the change was almost imperceptible. Imagine in 1964 if the Governor of any state in the union appeared on TV and declared that prohibiting same sex marriage was akin to racial discrimination and that those that want to prohibit homosexual couples from marrying are bigots. Governor David Paterson of New York did just that this week. The interesting thing is that many, if not a majority of Americans agree with him. Do you think the folks back in 1964 would have been ready to accept homosexual marriage? I think our frog is just about cooked.

What's missing in downtown Tucson?

I had an opportunity to speak to the remaining faithful at First Baptist Church (FBC). You may have seen the venerable old building on the corner of 5th street and 6th avenue. Next door to the magnificent marble columned structure lies the remnants of the old education wing that was sold recently to a developer building lofts. In the early nineties FBC sold the Beal Center on the University of Arizona. The 8,000 square foot building was sold to shore up declining membership (and consequential diminished giving) to keep FBC alive. Gathered on the Sunday morning were 10 people that have refused to let the church die. One lady, who kept adjusting her hearing aid so she could hear me, had been a member of the church since 1958. One of the “newcomers” had been attending since 1964. He was a rancher that left his old church because they had departed from the teaching of the Bible. He told me even though he had been attending FBC since 1964 he wasn’t a member. “I was baptized once as an infant and received Christ as my savior as a teen, so I wasn’t about to do it again”, (referring to baptism)!

The tale of FBC is relevant not just for its’ historical implications but is also illustrative of the current state of demise in downtown Tucson. FBC stood like an eagle over the decadent downtown and the socially liberal University of Arizona since the late 1800’s. Many people forget that the Wild West was truly very wild. Tucson was known for gambling and prostitution. In fact one of our sheriff’s ran the bordello, and nearly anything could be had for a price. Tucson was the antithesis of a “haven” for the cattlemen, copper miners and cotton growers for their weekend wild romps. The eagle of FBC proclaimed liberty for the captives and Gods’ grace and mercy for sinners.

One of the first president’s of the U of A was the pastor of First Baptist Church. In the 1940’s over 3,000 people were members of FBC when our city was nipping at the heals of 50,000! Dr. Beal (namesake of the Beal Center on the U of A campus) pastored FBC for 50 years. He was legendary for his pursuit of sinners for salvation. He would venture into bars on Saturday nights and bring to church drunks and derelicts on Sunday morning complete with a black eye for his troubles. He would preach the Gospel on the U of A campus and win students bent on destruction to life everlasting.

So what happened at FBC? The decay process resembles what happened to downtown Tucson. Just like our downtown never seemed to recover from the Pioneer Hotel fire and the move of Seinfeld’s and Jacome’s to the suburbs. FBC never recovered from the retirement of Dr. Beal and the 11 churches that they launched with their members in the suburbs. When churches flee downtown for the more prosperous suburbs it doesn’t just leave a vacancy it leaves blight. Every seamy big city downtown in America is characterized by the absence of churches. The darkness is very dark in the absence of light. As we look at rebuilding our downtown let us not lose site of a critical component to a vital, vibrant downtown; churches. Otherwise we will have shiny structures, the lights will be on, but nobody will be home.