"Animal Teachings From Hayley's Angels": A book to make the world a better place for animals and people.

Please share this link with your networks, such as Facebook, or other social networks that would appreciate it.  Thank you kindly!  Please see the accompanying video below.  This video depicts the 2011 "Caring For All Animals" event hosted by Hayley's Angels, as well as an overview of the work of Dr. Joanne Lefebvre, DVM.

How can we live in greater harmony with ourselves, our animals, and the world around us? How can we communicate better with our animals and improve the quality of life for all? What happens to people and animals when when we die, and how can we focus on the quality of the death experience as well as the quality of life experience? These are some of the questions Joanne asked in her book Animal Teachings from Hayley's Angels Methods.

When it comes to communicating with animals, I offer this example from my own life: My dog Velvet recently came barging into the bedroom, lay on the floor, and refused to leave. Velvet has free reign of the most the house and the backyard but not the bedroom. If it were up to me Velvet would also have free reign of the bedroom too, but relationships always require agreements that meet the needs of everyone. So with this in mind, not only did Velvet barge into the bedroom, but she refused to leave without me leading her out by the collar. While Beth was asking why this was happening, I realized it was because Velvet was telling me that she badly wanted for us to take her on a run. She had not been on one for a couple weeks and the weather that day was ideal for it. We were short on time, but I agreed with Velvet to take her on her walk. In exchange, I wanted from her a quick bath first because she spent some time rolling in the dust and was covered in dust and dirty. She wanted to run out in the Rillito riverbed but because of time constraints, we took her to a nearby area where she and Jane Doe, my other dog, could be let off the leash for a bit. After letting off some steam, the dogs were happy and good, and they didn't try to come and occupy the bedroom. The kind of animal communication that Joan speaks of in her book is along these lines.

She also speaks of controversial issues such as birth control for animals and people, medicine, living for a better world, and many other fascinating subjects. She advises people to know the personalities of the animals in their lives and recognize that many pets' behavioral problems are actually caused by humans. She even touches on the idea that people and their pets often show striking similarities in their ailments.

Joanne also seems to blend humanism with animal rights, two concepts that are too often more like and oil and water when in fact, both are necessary. She believes that taking good care of our animals is a major ingredient in the improvement of society. It is good to love both humans and animals. I can say that I've seen animals teach people lessons of compassion, caretaking, and other valuable living skills. I've also seen communities judged by how they treat their animals—some serious food for thought.

Hayleysangels.com hosts fundraisers for worthy causes, as well as helps the community in humanitarian, environmental, and animal causes. That is why I am asking you to share this link with your friends, as you will be helping Hayley's Angels help your community. Hayley's Angels does this in a well-rounded enough way that some part of it will seem worth your while. So, help get the word out and take a look at this video we put together for her. Joanne is definitely on to something that deserves our attention.  You can find her at the following contact information:

Dr. Joanne Lefebvre, DVM

hayleysangels@yahoo.com OR hayleysangels@hotmail.com

www.hayleysangels.com

West University neighborhood is getting stepped on and your neighborhood is probably next.

 Please pass the link to this blog entry around Facebook or other media because Tucsonans want to be able to build their own city without outside developers or the city government displacing them without their input!

As it turned out, once the petitions were submitted to the City for review, more than half of them had to be rejected due to a small technicality.  It was only long after the City reviewed the language and format of the petition, then accepted it, that it finally told WUNA about this technicality.  What happened was that some fine print had been omitted from the documents: 1) The right of a signer to look through the text of the entire petition before signing.  2) It is illegal for a person to sign more than once.  Petitioners knew enough to say these things to signers, but they needed to be in print to be legally binding.  Now, once WUNA found out about this, they made certain to correct these problems and then continued circulating the petition.  It didn't help those signatures that were rejected, though, and they had to be thrown out.  When I was at City Hall for the review, I observed that the officials who did the reviewing and made the announcement came across as rather sympathetic to the neighborhood's situation.  They apologized and acted as though they didn't want to have to reject the effort.  Interesting ... I hear nowadays that as time passes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for petition efforts to be successful because our elected officials seem to be increasingly opposed to grassroots political efforts from their constituents.  How anti-democratic!  This particular situation in West University isn't just limited to the one geographic location, either.  Other historic neighborhoods are and should be concerned because it opens them up to possible rezoning and veritable destruction, and the people will have no autonomy over their own living space.  The good news is that I'm also hearing that City Council has been receiving a good number of disgruntled phone calls about the results of the petition effort.  So, if you are inclined, I ask you to please assist with this call effort by contacting your respective city council member.  Follow this link to see a list of council members and click on your respective council member to get their contact information. Also, to see this event in action please watch the video below.

Thanks for reading my blog and supporting grassroots democracy.  We can expect to see more action taken by WUNA in some way and I'll be sure to update the blog as I find out more and continue to help.

Repeal the Main Gate Overlay: What's Next

The West University Neighborhood Association, along with a few other adjacent historic neighborhoods, ended up collecting almost 12,000 signatures for their petition.  The total amount of labor involved came to about 2,000 man-hours distributed among over 100 volunteers, most of whom turned down offers of payment for their legwork.  These data were announced on Thursday, March 29th at El Presidio Park next to City Hall in the presence of members of WUNA, other neighborhood associations, and other concerned citizens.  Someone also suggested that a coalition of neighborhoods be formed to give more of a voice to residents.  After all, if the City Council thinks it can just ruin a perfectly good historic neighborhood, evicting residents from their own houses, what's to say that the other neighborhoods like Iron Horse, Pie Allen, or Dunbar Spring would be any more immune?

I'd say that it was a victorious moment for WUNA!

As I promised, I helped to gather some signatures myself and promoted it however I could through my usual media channels.  So far, it's been an educational experience and I'm looking forward to more opportunities to help out.

Update on the Rottweiler (see entry "Good cop.").

I called Pima Animal Care Center last week to ask if they had received a Rottweiler from the police.  I've been told previously that when the police find stray house pets, they turn them in to PACC.  They said that none had been turned in that night or the next day by the police or anyone else.  The good news is that apparently, the dog did not end up at PACC.  Perhaps someone took on his case and tried to find his owner.  That's all I have and I wish the dog luck.

Petition-signing opportunities for Repeal the Main Gate Overlay at the 4th Ave. Street Fair!

(If you like what you read here, please post it on your wall complete with the link that leads to our blog so your friends can see it and remember to sign the petition at the fair.)

Hello, everyone, I just wanted to remind you and encourage you to let the citizens of Tucson know that petitioners for “Repeal the Main Gate Overlay” will be at the 4th Avenue Street Fair this weekend. I want to give you some insight into what it is all about. Yesterday, I was able to attend a petitioner training session, so you might see me at the fair as well because I will be there.

First of all, I am impressed with the stance the neighborhood has taken. It is not about whether or not the students get more housing, it is more about what kind of building will they be housed in and how detrimental that building could be to the surrounding neighborhood. The neighborhood wants the students to get the housing they need. They just want citizens to have a chance to vote on it, since it will be a fourteen-story building that encroaches on historical homes, makes the residents unhappy, requires a zone change that flies in the face of Tucson's culture, and is basically being dictated by someone in Chicago who does not understand Tucson.

One of the things that I noticed about the neighborhood's proposed plan (which was turned down) was that it looked a lot like the developer's plan--just with some very important changes. It spared historical buildings, it was not fourteen stories high but was still several stories, the building would staggers up in height as it gets closer to existing buildings, and it would not put a permanent shadow on some people's houses like the City of Tucson's version does. Residents do not necessarily want to stop the building, they just want it to be available for a vote and for it to be built according the the proper and zoning laws and with respect to the community.

The plan as it exists currently does not comply with the Department of the Interior's standards for development in a historic preservation zone.  It overrides national, state, and local historic preservation standards, and is even missing many standards.  To view the details, visit http://westuniversityneighborhood.org, scroll to the bottom, and click on the WUNA final document. Below are some illustrations of each plan so you can see for yourself what I just mentioned.

I decided to add the next section of material from the neighborhood association to this post for your edification. Please read it and if it matters to you, come down to the fair, have some fun, and sign the petition.

Talking Points for Repeal the Main Gate Overlay

ARE YOU A CITY of TUCSON REGISTERED VOTER? Do you know your Ward number?

DO YOU CARE ABOUT PRESERVING HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS IN TUCSON?

Mayor & council passed an overlay/rezoning in West University that affects all historic neighborhoods in the city. It does not comply with Department of the Interior standards for development in an historic preservation zone. It overrides national, state and local historic preservation standards. This overlay zoning allows for fourteen buildings up to fourteen stories high (159' or 50' higher than the Marriott). It imperils more than a dozen historic structures by creating incentives for demolition of historic properties, replacing them with buildings up to 84 feet high. COT has created high hurdles for historic demolition for a regular citizen but made it doable for a developer. Mayor and council’s overlay (rezoning) has given a developer the green light to build a fourteen-story high-rise near the corner of Park Avenue and Speedway Boulevard. There have been no major impact studies completed for this rezoning. Who will pay for the infrastructure costs? The public?

One developer paid for a minor traffic study and has funded the urban overlay design and the lawyer who wrote it. Speedway is already rated as a “failing” street and there have been no sewer or water studies. The City of Tucson, developers, and the West University NA were in discussion for the past eight months AND the plan was just developed in the last three months after mayor and council voted in the Plan Amendment at the December meeting.  Heights and historic properties were included after the Call to the Audience was over and the recommendation went to M&C.

We do not want to stop development. We do want the public to have an opportunity to vote on it and to have proper impact studies done prior to starting. We ask mayor and council to consider the West University alternative area plan which allows for heights (up to ten stories) near Park Ave. and change of use and preservation for historic properties. We do want the city to develop a winning plan with proper studies and relativity to neighboring areas.

“Repeal the Main Gate Overlay”:  As you may have heard, the folks from West University are in the middle of trying to repeal the rezoning of the Main Gate District. Previously most of this the area was height-limited to forty feet. The current zoning now allows buildings of up to 159 feet. While not all of the buildings will be that tall, eventually we will see at least one fourteen-story building a half-block away from existing historic owner-occupied residential. Several others are proposed for the area along Park Ave. where Posner’s Art Store is currently, and also along Tyndall Ave. from Speedway on south.

Why are we going to all this effort and expense to fight the rezoning? We have three basic objections to the rezoning as it was passed by Mayor and Council.

Number one is the process: This project was fast-tracked to meet the time frame of an out-of-town developer trying to meet a construction schedule that has his building open for business in the fall of 2013. Unfortunately the rezoning isn’t just for this one project. It encompasses a twelve-block area from Park Ave. west to Euclid Ave. Much of what was rezoned won’t be built for years. What’s troubling about this is that zoning hearings are one of the few places neighborhoods can voice concerns and guide projects. Sure, we’ve been able to speak out now, but nobody knows what will get built in the future—and once a project does go forward, there will not be any public discussion. Let’s put a number on “fast-tracked”:  From a City Council study session in June 2011 to a rezoning on February 28, 2012. The actual rezoning process was much shorter, initiated by Mayor and Council in mid-December 2011, finalized February 28, 2012.

Objection two:  Scale and context. What that means is, “How does what gets built work with what is already there?” Buildings have to relate to their surroundings. Remembering that this is a rezoning intended to support the Modern Streetcar project, so it’s important to create community in a larger context, not destroy it to replace it with another.

The final objection is that large portions of the area rezoned are in a City of Tucson Historic Protection Zone, or HPZ. There are five HPZs in the city of Tucson: Armory Park, El Presidio, Barrio Viejo, Fort Lowell, and West University. An HPZ is a cohesive area with large numbers of historic structures. It’s an area that we as a city have identified as being worth preserving, and because of this we have adopted protections that encourage the preservation of the buildings in an HPZ. The Main Gate District creates an economic incentive for demolition of historic properties within the HPZ by allowing a historic building that is demolished to be replaced by a building of significantly higher density and therefore higher economic value to the property owner. Why pit the interests of historic preservation and development against each other? Why not craft an ordinance that encourages adaptive re-use and encourages a collaborative process between developers and preservationists?

Find me on Facebook!

Hey blog readers, I'm just reminding you with some shameless self-promotion: If you like what you read here, please log into Facebook and search for me there under "Carl Fiske Exist Kind Tucson" (those are search terms, not my URL).  Thanks!

If you keep reading the blog for long enough, you'll get to see me look like this again :)  (I plant to cut my hair short again and grow it long all over again in approximately two-year cycles.  It's fun and provides me with a variety of looks that help me connect to a wider range of people.)

Good cop.

Tonight, we spent the evening helping another Access Tucson producer and preparing some more of our flyers for distribution, so we were out around town for a few hours.  While we were out, I saw a stray dog loose in the street at a major intersection.  He wasn't paying any attention to the traffic and just managing to avoid it.  He was black and tan in color, so he really blended in with the nighttime street lit by sodium-vapor lights.  He was moving quickly and none of the traffic was stopping for him, unlike Chewy, the last dog I rescued.  He made his way to a parking lot on the corner, so I followed him there to see if he had a tag so I could call his owner.  He turned out to be a large male Rottweiler.  By then, he seemed a little tired and maybe thirsty.  A lot of people in the parking lot were concerned for him and one person even gave me some bread to give to him.  I couldn't really get near him, though, since he was pretty skittish.  Another man and I were able keep him in between us so that he wouldn't escape, but the man was probably about twenty years older than I, so I was doing most of the fast footwork.

I saw the dog sniff around and snap up a couple of food items from the ground (I didn't see what they were), and eventually he took up the bread I tossed to him.  Someone had called 911, so we waited for the police to arrive.  I ended up calling the police as well to get them to come more quickly, since it was hard to keep the dog in place.  An officer arrived shortly after my call and he turned out to be tall, lean, and strong, but I think he was still at risk because the dog could have gotten him with his teeth (he was a Rottweiler, after all).  The dog tried to run away once the officer appeared on the scene, so I had to block him again.  He seemed to have more energy this time and was moving with a greater sense of urgency.  I had to think twice about trying to block him, but I decided that he was more afraid than dangerous.  The officer and I kept him between us and the officer tried to lasso him with some kind of short leash.

At this point, keeping the dog between us started to resemble a soccer game and became even more difficult.  I had to repeatedly dart one way and then the other--like a cutting horse in a rodeo, actually.  The dog seemed to gravitate towards the officer, who was calling to him and trying to be friendly.  Being friendly didn't work, though, and he had to start issuing commands (like "sit", "down", and "stay").  The dog was able to sit and stay, fortunately, and the officer put the leash on him.  It looked like it was going smoothly until the dog really got wild and started pulling on the leash and wildly trying to escape.  He had no intention of giving up and I was afraid for the officer's safety.  The officer looked like he was getting either a taser or a gun ready, so I was pretty worried for the dog's safety, too.  Thankfully, the officer kept it controlled enough and tried to calm the dog as well as he could while still issuing commands.  The leash seemed to be some kind of choking device that didn't release when the dog pulled on it.  He cut off his own air supply and fell to the ground--not a pretty sight.  The officer maintained his cool and as soon as the dog was in kind of a twilight state, he risked putting his hand right near the dog's mouth in order to release the collar and restore the dog's normal breathing.

After all of that, the dog was calm and even friendly, and the officer was able to calmly bring him into his cruiser.  I was impressed by both the officer's sense of restraint and his bravery in risking injury to get the job done.  I told him as much, that he was brave, and that I was glad he was able to round up the dog without injury to either of them.  He said that it was better than the dog getting hit by a car.

I hated to see the dog captured in this way because he's likely to end up at Pima Animal Care Center.  Nonetheless, I'm glad that he was contained so that he couldn't get hurt or killed, or cause injury to a motorist.  He was so determined to run around on six-lane Broadway that he would most likely have gotten killed.  I'd like to give a hearty thumbs-up to the police officer for being brave enough to risk injury for the sake of the safety of the dog and others.  It was important for him to show the restraint that he did, too.  Another dog rescue well done!  Here's hoping that his ultimate fate is a good one.  I'll be alerting my dog rescue network to try to influence this.