5 Tucson stories to know today: Rainfall was 'spectacularly average' in July
- Updated
Here's a look at the top 5 trending stories on  this morning.
- Mikayla Mace
- Updated
All right, Tucson, we’ve become spoiled.
July 2016 saw 3.32 inches of rain. Last July, more rain fell in two weeks than over the entirety of a typical monsoon.
July 2018 was “spectacularly average,†said Michael Crimmins, a University of ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ climatologist.
The airport reported 2.26 inches of rain, which is almost exactly the “normal†amount of 2.25 inches, according to the National Weather Service in Tucson, but somehow it still didn’t feel like enough.
In early July, winds from the east were able to push strong storms off the mountains and across town, Crimmins said. More than an inch of rain fell at the airport July 9, and a train derailed on the northwest side of town during heavy rainfall July 10.
But later parts of the month teased many in midtown with storms and dramatic lightning along the city fringes, only to fall apart as they moved in.
Rainfall patterns have shown that many storms hug the mountains because there hasn’t been enough upper level winds to move them off, Crimmins said, concentrating rainfall in Oro Valley, the Foothills and the far east side.
Such places have seen more than 3 inches of rain, while others — especially midtown — have yet to collect an inch of moisture, according to , a citizen science rainfall reporting project.
The monsoon, which officially runs from June 15 to Sept. 30, so far has brought 3.17 inches of rain to the airport.
Rain helped cool things off for a few days this month, but July’s average temperature was two degrees above the 87-degree norm.
July baked under 20 days of triple-digit heat.
Tucson reached a blistering 110 degrees or more on three days last month.
The temperature topped out at 112 degrees July 24.
For the weekend, expect about average temperatures, according to the Weather Service. Sunday is the best chance for rain this weekend, said meteorologist Rob Howlett.
“We have good moisture over the area, but it’s a hit-and-miss situation where some areas will get a lot, and others will miss out,†he said.
The Climate Prediction Center forecasts above-average rainfall for the rest of the season, Howlett said.
“The expectation is that more tropical activity (in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific) will help with moisture in ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥,†Howlett said.
- By Eddie Celaya For the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Daily Star
- Updated
- 2 min to read
A Kansas City-style barbecue restaurant is breathing life into the former Shari’s Drive-In on North First Avenue.
Smokey Mo, a smoked meats and barbecue concept that also serves burgers, opened in mid-July in the old building that had been boarded up since Shari’s closed in July 2008.
“It’s all about smoked meats,†said owner Telahoun Molla.
The restaurant’s name, which coincidentally is shared with a Texas-based barbecue chain, plays off the restaurant’s barbecue cuisine and Molla’s name. He said he came up with it after chatting with some of his cooks.
“We had several names we were playing around with,†Molla said. “And my last name is Molla. So they said, ‘Why don’t we call it Smokey Molla?â€
After explaining that he didn’t want to share his actual name with the restaurant, the staff settled on Molla’s nickname: Mo.
“I wanted it to be something simple that people can relate to and someone said ‘Smokey Mo.’ I said that sounds just right,†he said.
The menu is steeped in barbecue from housemade pastrami and pulled pork to beef ribs and smoked turkey, cooked over mesquite wood. The pit team is headed by pit master Terence Skinner, who recently relocated to Tucson from Kansas City, Missouri.
“During the day, we will have lunch sandwiches — delicious sandwiches made with smoked meats — and burgers. During dinnertime, we will serve traditional barbecue,†Molla said.
Molla, who also helped develop the building that now houses Five Points Market and Café Desta, said he and his staff have been using the last two weeks as a soft opening.
They have been passing out flyers and promoting the restaurant through word of mouth, he said.
Molla has no plans for a grand opening anytime soon.
“The way I look at it is, every day is a grand opening day,†Molla said. “We are going to do what we can to make people feel happy.â€
Ultimately, Molla said he hopes to further establish barbecue as a practical culinary option for Tucson diners.
“We are going to have amazing smoked meats, and Tucson doesn’t have very many barbecue places,†Molla said.
“It’s going to be a nice place to come and enjoy food. I have an amazing, happy staff. It will be a very nice, clean place where people can be happy.â€
Shari’s Drive-In had been an icon in Tucson for generations, first as an ice cream stand when it opened in 1955 and then as a burger joint when it added burgers to the menu in 1957.
It was christened Shari’s Drive-In in 1979 in honor of former owner Shari Bartol.
The restaurant endured decades of economic ups and downs, but it could not weather the recession of 2008, shuttering that year along with several other Tucson restaurants.
- Dominic Baciocco
- Updated
Get an up-close look at the official scholarship offers that colleges are sending 2019 recruits.
- David Wichner
- Updated
After emerging from bankruptcy a week ago, Green Valley Hospital has laid off about 60 employees and has undergone a name change.
Now Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital, the facility also is operating under a new CEO, Kelly Adams.
Adams, who started as the hospital’s chief executive Monday, said the employees were laid off this week in a “reduction in force†that leaves the hospital with about 250 employees.
The job cuts were needed to restructure the company as it reorganizes under its Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, he said.
“That’s part of our business plan, to right-size the company then grow the business,†Adams said.
Adams, a partner in Utah-based ERH Healthcare, said his firm was hired by the hospital’s owner, Lateral Investment Management, to manage and restructure the operations as it emerged from bankruptcy. ERH specializes in turning around community hospitals.
Adams said the hospital will look to add services and refine its marketing to persuade more residents in the Green Valley-Sahuarita area to use the local hospital instead of traveling to Tucson.
He said all of the layoffs were related to the hospital’s financial restructuring, adding that he met personally with every affected employee as they were notified Monday and Tuesday.
“It’s a sensitive time for the company,†he said. “Every one has been a valuable employee, and we look forward to the time we can rehire them, sooner rather than later.â€
Green Valley Hospital opened in June 2015 with 49 beds, providing full-service general acute care to the Santa Cruz Valley, including Green Valley, Sahuarita, Tubac, Nogales, Sonoita and Amado.
Lateral Investment Management, a private California-based credit and growth equity investment firm, provided interim financing for the hospital while it was in bankruptcy.
Green Valley Hospital announced the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in early 2017, saying the debt was the result of a number of factors, including “turmoil and financial mismanagement†in its early days. Additionally, officials said a hospital assessment imposed when the state expanded its Medicaid program in 2014 had been a financial burden.
Residents of Green Valley, home to many retirees, and its neighbors in the rapidly growing Sahuarita area, had for years wanted a hospital before the current one was built near Interstate 19, south of Continental Ranch Road and northeast of Canoa Ranch Drive.
Before the facility was built, the area did not have a hospital or emergency room, and residents had to travel about 30 minutes by car to get to an ER.
- Hank Stephenson
- Updated
Hundreds of students returned to school Thursday in hot classrooms, as a plethora of problems plagued air-conditioning units at schools across TUSD.
Classrooms of students at five Tucson Unified schools were shifted to unused rooms such as libraries and computer labs after classroom air conditioners broke down and temperatures rose above 78 degrees, the hottest allowed by district policy.
The district had to supply another seven schools with temporary portable air-conditioning units and swamp coolers for individual classrooms, as temperatures reached a muggy 102 degrees outside.
Each school had only one classroom without air conditioning, the district said. However, Tolson Elementary had a schoolwide failure before air conditioning was restored by 9:30 a.m.
That’s on top of several other schools that are undergoing scheduled fixes for air-conditioning units that weren’t completed by the start of the school year, forcing the district to utilize cooling processes involving running cold water through the buildings’ pipes or parking portable air-conditioning trucks outside that blow cool air through the existing ventilation system.
Schools with classrooms where students were relocated include Pistor Middle School, Maldonado Elementary, Ochoa Community School, Robins K-8 School, and Valencia Middle School.
Schools where portable air conditioning and swamp coolers were used include Cragin Elementary, Davis Bilingual Elementary Magnet, Grijalva Elementary, Miles Exploratory Learning Center, Dietz K-8, Sewell Elementary, and Bonillas Elementary. Cholla High School didn’t lose cooling, but had an air-conditioning truck hooked into its ventilation system.
At a hastily organized news conference Thursday, TUSD’s interim operations officer John Muir couldn’t say how many students, exactly, were forced to share another classroom or utilize other air-conditioned space, or were forced to use portable cooling systems. Nor could the district say how hot classrooms became, other than that if they reached above 78 degrees, a temporary solution was put in place.
There is also no indication of when the 12 affected schools would have their air-conditioning systems repaired.
“I can’t give you a timeline. The units are down. It varies on what broke,†Muir said.
He noted that in many cases, the HVAC units are decades old and have been repeatedly repaired. Parts for old air conditioners can be hard to come by, and the district is often forced to rely on used parts from scrapped air-conditioning systems.
And Muir warned with the poor state of air-conditioning systems districtwide, Thursday’s outages likely won’t be the last.
“I hate to say it, but I’m probably going to be back up to this podium saying Safford (K-8 school) is going to fail tomorrow. … We’re headed for imminent failure for a lot of these,†he said.
Muir added that TUSD needs a new funding source to get its schools up to a “minimum standard†noting state funding for capital projects has been slashed over the past decade.
“This isn’t just TUSD; this is a statewide problem,†he said.
Muir said that compared to past years, Thursday’s problems were minimal, the district responded quickly to any hot classrooms, and instruction was not seriously interrupted.
He noted that Wednesday’s storms and Thursday’s muggy weather contributed to the breakdowns.
The TUSD Governing Board this year decided to spend about $4 million of new “district additional assistance†funding, typically used for capital repairs, to provide support staff with raises after Gov. Doug Ducey’s teacher pay increase plan didn’t include funding for raises for staff other than classroom teachers.
At the time, TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo warned that spending every penny on raises left the district vulnerable without funding for repairs.
“I want to be very clear with the community: This leaves us with absolutely a zero balance to handle anything with deferred maintenance,†he said.
More like this...
- Mikayla Mace
All right, Tucson, we’ve become spoiled.
July 2016 saw 3.32 inches of rain. Last July, more rain fell in two weeks than over the entirety of a typical monsoon.
July 2018 was “spectacularly average,†said Michael Crimmins, a University of ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ climatologist.
The airport reported 2.26 inches of rain, which is almost exactly the “normal†amount of 2.25 inches, according to the National Weather Service in Tucson, but somehow it still didn’t feel like enough.
In early July, winds from the east were able to push strong storms off the mountains and across town, Crimmins said. More than an inch of rain fell at the airport July 9, and a train derailed on the northwest side of town during heavy rainfall July 10.
But later parts of the month teased many in midtown with storms and dramatic lightning along the city fringes, only to fall apart as they moved in.
Rainfall patterns have shown that many storms hug the mountains because there hasn’t been enough upper level winds to move them off, Crimmins said, concentrating rainfall in Oro Valley, the Foothills and the far east side.
Such places have seen more than 3 inches of rain, while others — especially midtown — have yet to collect an inch of moisture, according to , a citizen science rainfall reporting project.
The monsoon, which officially runs from June 15 to Sept. 30, so far has brought 3.17 inches of rain to the airport.
Rain helped cool things off for a few days this month, but July’s average temperature was two degrees above the 87-degree norm.
July baked under 20 days of triple-digit heat.
Tucson reached a blistering 110 degrees or more on three days last month.
The temperature topped out at 112 degrees July 24.
For the weekend, expect about average temperatures, according to the Weather Service. Sunday is the best chance for rain this weekend, said meteorologist Rob Howlett.
“We have good moisture over the area, but it’s a hit-and-miss situation where some areas will get a lot, and others will miss out,†he said.
The Climate Prediction Center forecasts above-average rainfall for the rest of the season, Howlett said.
“The expectation is that more tropical activity (in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific) will help with moisture in ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥,†Howlett said.
- By Eddie Celaya For the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Daily Star
- 2 min to read
A Kansas City-style barbecue restaurant is breathing life into the former Shari’s Drive-In on North First Avenue.
Smokey Mo, a smoked meats and barbecue concept that also serves burgers, opened in mid-July in the old building that had been boarded up since Shari’s closed in July 2008.
“It’s all about smoked meats,†said owner Telahoun Molla.
The restaurant’s name, which coincidentally is shared with a Texas-based barbecue chain, plays off the restaurant’s barbecue cuisine and Molla’s name. He said he came up with it after chatting with some of his cooks.
“We had several names we were playing around with,†Molla said. “And my last name is Molla. So they said, ‘Why don’t we call it Smokey Molla?â€
After explaining that he didn’t want to share his actual name with the restaurant, the staff settled on Molla’s nickname: Mo.
“I wanted it to be something simple that people can relate to and someone said ‘Smokey Mo.’ I said that sounds just right,†he said.
The menu is steeped in barbecue from housemade pastrami and pulled pork to beef ribs and smoked turkey, cooked over mesquite wood. The pit team is headed by pit master Terence Skinner, who recently relocated to Tucson from Kansas City, Missouri.
“During the day, we will have lunch sandwiches — delicious sandwiches made with smoked meats — and burgers. During dinnertime, we will serve traditional barbecue,†Molla said.
Molla, who also helped develop the building that now houses Five Points Market and Café Desta, said he and his staff have been using the last two weeks as a soft opening.
They have been passing out flyers and promoting the restaurant through word of mouth, he said.
Molla has no plans for a grand opening anytime soon.
“The way I look at it is, every day is a grand opening day,†Molla said. “We are going to do what we can to make people feel happy.â€
Ultimately, Molla said he hopes to further establish barbecue as a practical culinary option for Tucson diners.
“We are going to have amazing smoked meats, and Tucson doesn’t have very many barbecue places,†Molla said.
“It’s going to be a nice place to come and enjoy food. I have an amazing, happy staff. It will be a very nice, clean place where people can be happy.â€
Shari’s Drive-In had been an icon in Tucson for generations, first as an ice cream stand when it opened in 1955 and then as a burger joint when it added burgers to the menu in 1957.
It was christened Shari’s Drive-In in 1979 in honor of former owner Shari Bartol.
The restaurant endured decades of economic ups and downs, but it could not weather the recession of 2008, shuttering that year along with several other Tucson restaurants.
- Dominic Baciocco
Get an up-close look at the official scholarship offers that colleges are sending 2019 recruits.
- David Wichner
After emerging from bankruptcy a week ago, Green Valley Hospital has laid off about 60 employees and has undergone a name change.
Now Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital, the facility also is operating under a new CEO, Kelly Adams.
Adams, who started as the hospital’s chief executive Monday, said the employees were laid off this week in a “reduction in force†that leaves the hospital with about 250 employees.
The job cuts were needed to restructure the company as it reorganizes under its Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, he said.
“That’s part of our business plan, to right-size the company then grow the business,†Adams said.
Adams, a partner in Utah-based ERH Healthcare, said his firm was hired by the hospital’s owner, Lateral Investment Management, to manage and restructure the operations as it emerged from bankruptcy. ERH specializes in turning around community hospitals.
Adams said the hospital will look to add services and refine its marketing to persuade more residents in the Green Valley-Sahuarita area to use the local hospital instead of traveling to Tucson.
He said all of the layoffs were related to the hospital’s financial restructuring, adding that he met personally with every affected employee as they were notified Monday and Tuesday.
“It’s a sensitive time for the company,†he said. “Every one has been a valuable employee, and we look forward to the time we can rehire them, sooner rather than later.â€
Green Valley Hospital opened in June 2015 with 49 beds, providing full-service general acute care to the Santa Cruz Valley, including Green Valley, Sahuarita, Tubac, Nogales, Sonoita and Amado.
Lateral Investment Management, a private California-based credit and growth equity investment firm, provided interim financing for the hospital while it was in bankruptcy.
Green Valley Hospital announced the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in early 2017, saying the debt was the result of a number of factors, including “turmoil and financial mismanagement†in its early days. Additionally, officials said a hospital assessment imposed when the state expanded its Medicaid program in 2014 had been a financial burden.
Residents of Green Valley, home to many retirees, and its neighbors in the rapidly growing Sahuarita area, had for years wanted a hospital before the current one was built near Interstate 19, south of Continental Ranch Road and northeast of Canoa Ranch Drive.
Before the facility was built, the area did not have a hospital or emergency room, and residents had to travel about 30 minutes by car to get to an ER.
- Hank Stephenson
Hundreds of students returned to school Thursday in hot classrooms, as a plethora of problems plagued air-conditioning units at schools across TUSD.
Classrooms of students at five Tucson Unified schools were shifted to unused rooms such as libraries and computer labs after classroom air conditioners broke down and temperatures rose above 78 degrees, the hottest allowed by district policy.
The district had to supply another seven schools with temporary portable air-conditioning units and swamp coolers for individual classrooms, as temperatures reached a muggy 102 degrees outside.
Each school had only one classroom without air conditioning, the district said. However, Tolson Elementary had a schoolwide failure before air conditioning was restored by 9:30 a.m.
That’s on top of several other schools that are undergoing scheduled fixes for air-conditioning units that weren’t completed by the start of the school year, forcing the district to utilize cooling processes involving running cold water through the buildings’ pipes or parking portable air-conditioning trucks outside that blow cool air through the existing ventilation system.
Schools with classrooms where students were relocated include Pistor Middle School, Maldonado Elementary, Ochoa Community School, Robins K-8 School, and Valencia Middle School.
Schools where portable air conditioning and swamp coolers were used include Cragin Elementary, Davis Bilingual Elementary Magnet, Grijalva Elementary, Miles Exploratory Learning Center, Dietz K-8, Sewell Elementary, and Bonillas Elementary. Cholla High School didn’t lose cooling, but had an air-conditioning truck hooked into its ventilation system.
At a hastily organized news conference Thursday, TUSD’s interim operations officer John Muir couldn’t say how many students, exactly, were forced to share another classroom or utilize other air-conditioned space, or were forced to use portable cooling systems. Nor could the district say how hot classrooms became, other than that if they reached above 78 degrees, a temporary solution was put in place.
There is also no indication of when the 12 affected schools would have their air-conditioning systems repaired.
“I can’t give you a timeline. The units are down. It varies on what broke,†Muir said.
He noted that in many cases, the HVAC units are decades old and have been repeatedly repaired. Parts for old air conditioners can be hard to come by, and the district is often forced to rely on used parts from scrapped air-conditioning systems.
And Muir warned with the poor state of air-conditioning systems districtwide, Thursday’s outages likely won’t be the last.
“I hate to say it, but I’m probably going to be back up to this podium saying Safford (K-8 school) is going to fail tomorrow. … We’re headed for imminent failure for a lot of these,†he said.
Muir added that TUSD needs a new funding source to get its schools up to a “minimum standard†noting state funding for capital projects has been slashed over the past decade.
“This isn’t just TUSD; this is a statewide problem,†he said.
Muir said that compared to past years, Thursday’s problems were minimal, the district responded quickly to any hot classrooms, and instruction was not seriously interrupted.
He noted that Wednesday’s storms and Thursday’s muggy weather contributed to the breakdowns.
The TUSD Governing Board this year decided to spend about $4 million of new “district additional assistance†funding, typically used for capital repairs, to provide support staff with raises after Gov. Doug Ducey’s teacher pay increase plan didn’t include funding for raises for staff other than classroom teachers.
At the time, TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo warned that spending every penny on raises left the district vulnerable without funding for repairs.
“I want to be very clear with the community: This leaves us with absolutely a zero balance to handle anything with deferred maintenance,†he said.
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