Mitman Neighborhood Association

by Sylvia Berman, Mitman Neighborhood Association president

Hi Neighbors!

In our last Update, I asked if anyone had knowledge of some shootings that took place on August 5, 2023. Several residents on 1^st Street responded that they were awakened at about 2am. Upon investigating, I found several police reports about this and a dispatch of a crime scene unit for a property on the 5800 block of Speedway. 

It turns out there was a shooting in the parking lot at Love Cabaret. Our Watch Commander, Gary Parish, said the following:

“Looks like under case number P2308050025, there was a shots fired call. No one was shot, some females fighting and another pulled a gun. The female that pulled the gun was transported to the jail and booked.” 

There was also a Facebook post and an eyewitness. I have more information, but I have to be careful because the owner of the sex club has quite a history of suing people and cities. However, this has been reported to Councilman Kozachik & City Attorney Shilpa Hunter-Patel. Love Cabaret is still operating on a temporary license … three years and counting. I filed a complaint with the Arizona Department of Liquor Control and sent a letter directly to the State Liquor Board. Also, I have written to Pima County Attorney Laura Conover. I am hoping someone will investigate and help us.

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Thunderbird Neighborhood has been experiencing extreme problems with the homeless population as it relates to Alamo Wash. Whenever I drive past Alamo Wash on Speedway, I see people climbing in like it’s the subway entrance on 42^nd Street in NYC!

Duffy Neighborhood Association President, Dawn Ferguson, has brought up their similar problems with Rosemont Wash. And I have seen similar activity at the entrance on Pima.

I would appreciate feedback from Mitman & Sewell residents. We don’t have a wash … but what are your experiences with people who seem out of place lately? It is very important that you keep me informed. Perhaps our boards can go to the east side police station and talk with the commander. Mitman has done that before.  

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The well site at Van Buren & Baker has been reported to Tucson Water for trash and weeds several times. As usual, it takes quite a while to get anything done in Tucson but we are working on it. This begs the question … if it were a pocket park … would we be better able to control this situation? It’s time to start talking about it again. 

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Reminder! The annual meeting is on October 14, and it will be held in a residential driveway. I have an application to block part of the street. It is a “meet & greet” but TPD and Councilman Kozachik will be invited. (I’m just waiting for confirmation of the street closing.) Steve will make a few comments and take questions. This is your big chance to speak with Steve directly. 

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As usual, attached is Councilman Kozachik’s weekly newsletter. You may need to paste the link in your browser.

https://www.tucsonaz.gov/Government/Mayor-Council-and-City-Manager/City-Council-Wards/Ward-6/Ward-6-News/Ward-6-Newsletter?article=36b6cf6

by Sylvia Berman, Mitman Neighborhood Association president

Hi Neighbors!

During one of the storms that knocked out the power recently, there was a massive pile up in front of Sewell School … right where the horrific accident took place earlier this year. Several of us went over to see if we could help. A couple of cars hit each other, some cars were stalled due to the flooding and a fire truck stopped to try to check the situation. (The usual!)

Everyone was ok … but I asked these people if they live in the neighborhood. As I suspected, none of them did. They just use our street to pass thru. Later, I got calls from neighbors who couldn’t get to their own homes because they couldn’t get thru the mess.

I spoke with Councilman Kozachik about it and he reiterated that the Road Diet, ie., converting the street from 4 lanes to 3 lanes, really is starting in the fall. We are hoping it will lower the amount of traffic.

It has been easy to drive 60 miles an hour from Craycroft to Wilmot … but not anymore! That hawk light is being replaced with a traffic light. I am not sure how that affects Chantilly.

Steve K. also said the TEP is currently working on the power sources in midtown to try to avoid more outages. It seemed to me that TEP did a great job during the power failure. They worked continuously thru the night. People were relieved to see their trucks out so quickly after the storms. They fixed our pole at 3am.

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The property that used to be the old Riteway bldg., was taken to court by the City of Tucson … thanx to the efforts of board member Jennifer Beard. That’s how we were able to put a stop to the homeless camps in the parking lot. Currently they are owned by Aguirre Property Management in Nogales. They are back in court on September 6 over a variety of additional issues. We have reported the weeds along the 1^st Street side of the property and the metal structure being built, as far as we can tell, without a permit.

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Did anyone hear shots fired on Speedway on Friday, August 5^th? I received several calls from residents and the police recorded 4 reports including a crime scene team. This was in the 5800 block. The same block as Love Cabaret and Club XS. Of course, it could be unrelated to both. But for our safety, we would like to know if it has any relevance to our neighborhood.

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Once again, Mitman Neighborhood Association is appealing to the community for help with our website. It needs to be updated and made useful. Does anyone have experience with WordPress? Just a few hours would be very helpful. Harold Hallikainen has done a wonderful job of resurrecting it after if fell into neglect because our former President, Lou Bright developed dementia. But it needs the old materials archived and new links inserted. We would like to know what you think of the website … how can it be useful to you? 

https://mitman.org/

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Last but not least is Councilman Kozachik’s weekly newsletter (the link doesn’t always work, may need to paste into browser or ctrl + click)

https://www.tucsonaz.gov/Government/Mayor-Council-and-City-Manager/City-Council-Wards/Ward-6/Ward-6-News/Ward-6-Newsletter?article=3697a2f

by Sylvia Berman, Mitman NA President

Hi Neighbors!

It’s the dog days of summer and way too hot!!! There are lots of suggestions for fun stuff to do on our Facebook page. 

https://www.facebook.com/MitmanNeighborhood

The board is organizing the annual newsletter and meeting. Tentatively it is set for Saturday morning, October 14, 2023, and it will be held in the neighborhood again … by popular demand! 

Councilman Kozachik … an officer from TPD … as well our neighboring associations, will be invited. 

Currently, we are in the process of applying for a permit to close a portion of Hawthorne Street to traffic. We are in need of a neighborhood map. Anyone have one? Or know where we can obtain one?

We would like to circulate a petition for speed bumps at McKinley & Rosewood. (We cannot apply for speed bumps on Jefferson because those traffic circles are waiting to be updated.) 

Also, we will request donations to the traffic circle art project. The picture and details will be published in the annual newsletter. 

We are thinking of developing a bit of a street fair theme. Would anyone like to set up a table to sell things? Perhaps used items … crafts … home baked goods … lemonade stand? 

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The Mitman board is constantly reporting strange vehicles parked in the avenues in the neighborhood to Code Enforcement and TPD (McKinley, Van Buren, Jefferson). There have been reports of parked vehicles being used for selling drugs and / or prostitution. Resident vehicles are normally parked in front of their home … not on the avenues. Also, large trucks tear up the neighborhood streets. Feel free to report as a code violation or directly to me.

We have been working with Code Enforcement to get the mess in the front yard at 5750 E. 1^st Street cleaned up. (Occupants were evicted but kept coming back.) 

The weed problem at the well site on Baker & Van Buren has been reported to Tucson Water for clean-up. 

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Steve K’s weekly newsletter (the link doesn’t always work, might have to paste in your browser):

https://www.tucsonaz.gov/ward-6/newsletter/release?article=366f0f2