Cheryl Colan
District 6 Resident

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Councilman Sal DiCiccio <council.district.6@phoenix.gov> wrote:

What do you get?

Ask yourself this question as you read this: “What do I get?”

A first-year city of Phoenix clerk gets 40 and a half days off, including vacation, holidays and sick time. That’s two months off — and an afternoon — in the first year of employment. And the days off keep going up as the years go by.  (Read an Ahwatukee Foothills News article regarding compensation HERE.)

If employees don’t use all their time off, they get to cash in the remaining days like casino chips, and guess who the bank is? You and your family.

You have heard me talk about Phoenix’s high cost of labor at $100,000 a year per employee. That’s just a part of the picture. It doesn’t account for back-filling all that time off.

To compensate for days when employees are out, you must either hire more people, pay more in overtime or reduce services to the public. You now can see why your taxes have gone up, services for seniors and children get cut and why you are getting less and paying more for the same service.

This can all change. There is hope on the horizon.

As you may know, I have been working with state leaders on Senate Bill 1322, which will change the culture here at City Hall. The bill will require Phoenix (and Tucson) to be more efficient, look for more strategic ways to deliver service and be more competitive. It pulls private sector knowlege and practices into city government. SB1322 passed the Senate on Monday and is headed for the House.  For an updated copy of the bill, click HERE.

I cannot get the city hall reforms needed without your help. I need you to write, email, call or fax the Representatives below and ask for their support on SB1322.

I made a commitment to you that I work for you and only you.  I don’t represent the civilian labor groups that walk our halls, and I don’t represent the management that wants more from your family. I represent you.

At times that puts me in a difficult situation because I enjoy and respect the people I work with.  But, you are not their first interest.  Staff’s first interest is to protect their way of life. Our goal is to build a city government that puts taxpayers first and protects your way of life.

Phoenix is a fantastic city and a place we all love. Help me help you stop this insanity, and let’s get this great city back on the right track and back to work again.

Respectfully,
Sal DiCiccio
Phoenix City Councilman – District 6
council.district.6@phoenix.gov
602-262-7491

 

	e-mail	phone number
Judy Burges	jburges@azleg.gov	602-926-5861
Tom Forese	tforese@azleg.gov	602-926-5168
David M. Gowan Sr.	dgowan@azleg.gov	602-926-3312
Steve Montenegro	smontenegro@azleg.gov	602-926-5955
Michelle Ugenti	mugenti@azleg.gov	602-926-4480
Steve Urie	surie@azleg.gov	602-926-4136

Click image to enlarge

If this is for real, and I don’t have reason to think it isn’t, nor any confirmation that it is, the mom of a soldier serving in Afghanistan is asking for slingshots or wrist rockets for her son’s batallion. Because they don’t want to shoot the teenagers insurgents are sending with bullets. And the U.S. government won’t provide rubber bullets. There are so many things wrong with this that I can’t even start, but somehow this message on Freecycle, where my neighbors are normally trading mattresses and moving boxes, renewed the nightmare horror of the business of war in my head.

At the same time my dark side thinks there should have been a “Slingshots for Soldiers” scene of some sort in War, Inc. Perhaps just before the Tamerlane’s prosthetics kickline.

What was wrong? What wasn’t?

First, the pub isn’t an acoustically great environment. Sound bounces around off the tile floor and stone fireplace and off walls and ceiling. So if more than one person is talking, you get a cacophony and it’s impossible to isolate and listen to any one particular voice. The only thing you can do is try to talk to the person next to you. And among this group, everyone was talking. Dougherty remained standing while everyone else sat. He tried briefly to engage the group as a whole and then evidently gave up. I got to hear what he had to say when he was at my end of the table. And he had some interesting things to say.

But the conversation, driven by one or two people, kept reverting back to SB1070, which, topical as it may be, is not an appropriate issue to fixate on when you have the opportunity to talk to a US Senate candidate. It’s a state law, not federal. If we were there to learn about Dougherty as a candidate, why weren’t people asking what he would do to reform immigration laws at the federal level? And why keep the whole conversation focused on this one issue, when we could be asking him his views on economic reform aimed at preventing big banks from causing another meltdown, or what he would do to end lobbyist influence in Washington, or his views on Iraq and Afghanistan, or what he wants to do regarding energy policy?

For about twenty minutes, I listened as closely as I could to what others were asking Dougherty, and to his responses. The same guy who bragged about the great turnout talked so loudly that I only made out about half of what was being said. An older gentleman next to me kept looking up information on Google using his Blackberry, since no one heard when he tried to ask clarifying questions. During this time, all but four people at my end of the table were completely ignoring Dougherty, and talking so loudly that those of us right next to him could barely manage to converse with him. So were they hear to support him, find out about him, or what?

When I finally got a chance to ask a question of my own, Dougherty either didn’t hear it correctly or was completely unprepared to discuss the topic, because his answer didn’t directly address the question and more, was a pretty weak answer. I wanted to know more about his views on the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and the issue of corporate money and its effect on our elections and our lawmaking process. Before I could clarify or follow up, someone had routed the talk back to SB1070.

I stayed as long as Dougherty stayed. I shook his hand and thanked him for coming. I signed his petition to get on the ballot, which, by the way, he nearly left behind at the pub when he left. But I don’t feel like I got to know much about his positions on anything he would be able to influence should he gain the Senate seat. And that’s a failure on the part of the group hosting the event, and on Dougherty himself. I mean, honestly, how are you going to lead in the Senate if you can’t lead or inspire a group of 18 people to focus for half an hour and hear you out on your campaign platform?

My husband’s one-line assessment: “No one in this room has any political or monetary clout.”

As for me, I’ll keep an open ear and open mind. Hopefully I’ll have another chance to hear Dougherty, and hopefully he’ll be able to more clearly articulate some sort of vision of himself as a Senator. But for now, I’m not wowed.

This video isn’t meant to defend my point of view or bash the other point of view so much as to present and question this general polarization as it’s playing out between friends and families all over the nation. I mean, we both think we’re right. We’re adamant. We won’t change each others’ minds. We’re just rubbing lime juice and salt in each others’ paper cuts at the moment, instead of more sensibly mixing margaritas and toasting each others’ health.

So I’m calling myself out on the insanity of the discussion. Repeating the same actions and expecting different results.

What can I learn here?

Meanwhile, what’s in YOUR nest egg?

Are you mad yet? What are you doing about it?

Join us (150 strong so far) for a Nest Egg Hunt demonstration on the sidewalks in front of the AIG building, Central Ave & Thomas Rd, Phoenix, AZ on April 11 at 11am local time / 2pm PDT. Demonstrate your desire for a new way forward to a more just economy. Showing up will empower our leaders in government to stand up to the banks.

TWITTER — http://twitter.com/phxwayfwd
FACEBOOK — http://bit.ly/I68D
RSVP: twitvite — http://twtvite.com/g9g9o2
RSVP: upcoming — http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2372257/

Want to help me get ready? Leave a comment here or in the demonstration forum and I’ll email you ASAP.

Not in Phoenix? Join a demonstration in your city: A New Way Forward.

Happy Videoblogging Week 2009 everybody!

About the actual story

Many people are familiar with the story of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworker’s Movement in California and around the nation. But because the movement was ultimately not very successful in Arizona, you rarely hear that part of the story. So we wanted to document the local farm labor law dispute, which culminated in an effort to recall then Arizona Governor Jack Williams. As part of this effort, Cesar Chavez conducted a 21-day fast here in Phoenix, and helped inspire the local community to take action to bring about social justice.

This should really be a half hour film. The events documented took place over a ten year period, and the political issues are somewhat complex. But those planning the exhibition relegated it to eight minutes, choosing to feature a film documenting the women’s movement in Arizona more prominently, so we did what we could with the time constraints. Which means there is an awful lot going on in the footage. And unfortunately, the local news reels contained more footage airing the point of view of those in power. Watch for contrasts between the voice you’re hearing and the footage you’re seeing – I had to resort to that kind of storytelling quite a bit. I even ended up narrating the piece, while the other project got professional voiceover talent, though this was partly because I could pronounce the surnames and Spanish words correctly, while the hired talent could not.

How we made this

With the exception of recording some voice over and scanning some old news articles, this piece is created entirely from 16mm film news reels from former Phoenix news station KOOL, which used to broadcast on local channel 10. KOOL donated all their film cans and log sheets to the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park. The museum has a big climate controlled room to store this stuff, and a makeshift film chain that channels the projected footage through an ancient but serviceable video camera and out to … any deck you can connect to the camera output.

Jean’s job directing this project was to do all the research, write the narrative and provide me with important dates on which newsworthy things probably happened. And just because I summarized her job in one sentence, don’t think it was light work.

My job was to check the news logs around the relevant dates in hopes of finding related news footage. Then, as part of the Exhibits Dept. agreement with the Archives Dept., I had to clean any reels I wanted to view. After cleaning, I would watch the entire reel and log it as best I could. If I saw anything related to our story, I’d record it to Beta-SP (best quality deck we had) and later transfer that to Mini-DV as well for a digital back-up.

Jean would review the collected footage, make notes, and often revise the script in order to work some of the best footage into the project. She would also do her best to identify people appearing on the reel, especially those on the MOS B-roll shots, sometimes bringing in people she’d interviewed for oral history to see if they recognized anyone.

The script was rewritten several times, and then I’d re-edit the project. We’d still be over budget on time, so we’d tighten it up some more, reorganize, figure out what to leave out – you editors out there know the drill. The look of the subtitles is inspired by Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA.

We were on a treasure hunt together. We were armed with facts. The actual events occurred before we were born to when we were kids (1968 – 1978). Some of the original footage noted in the logs had gone missing. Sometimes we found unlogged material. It was a trip seeing how Phoenix looked back then compared to now.

Even though the end result is imperfect (you’re never finished editing, right? you just stop at some point), I’m proud that this piece is on permanent exhibition as part of Arizona’s history.

If you have any questions I’ll happily answer in the comments.

Now, here’s what this is:

In 2002 and 2003 I worked with local historian Jean Reynolds on this project for the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park. It’s part of a permanent exhibition called Desert Cities, which chronicles the development of the Phoenix metro area from the end of World War II to the present.

In its final form, the project exists as two separate videos stored on a media server at the museum, and presented on a flat screen built into a section of the museum exhibition. This piece, the intro piece, repeats on a loop to attract museum visitors over, let them know there is a video available, and give them a reason to watch it. If interested, visitors can press a button to make the main video play.

I’ll tell you more about the project in tomorrow’s post, but in case you’re curious about the appearance of the introduction:

• it’s a way to present some facts that had to be left out of the video to bring the running time down
• the colors and fonts match surrounding exhibition graphics
• there is no “old film” effect in use – all the footage is from 16mm news reels