Pima Association of Governments is the region’s federally designated metropolitan planning organization that coordinates cross-jurisdictional planning efforts with PAG members.  PAG has a nine-member Regional Council composed of chief elected officials or designees from the Cities of South Tucson and Tucson, the Towns of Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita, Pima County, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Governor-appointed Pima County representative of the Arizona State Transportation Board.

 

PAG oversees long-range transportation planning and serves as the region’s water quality management planning agency, lead air quality planning agency and solid waste planning agency. PAG’s programs and services support regional planning efforts to enhance mobility, sustainability and livability in all of our communities. PAG's activities and services also include human services planning, traffic data collection, mapping, development of population projections, promotion of travel demand management strategies, and promotion of clean fuels and solar energy use.

 

Jamie Brown, Transportation Planning Manager, will provide an overview of PAG’s role and its various regional programs with particular attention given to PAG’s transportation planning efforts and its increasing focus on supporting economic vitality.

 

Members are encouraged to participate in PAG’s Engage 2045 campaign to assist in the development of the region’s 30-year Regional Transportation Plan.

 

Pima Association of Governments (PAG) has developed the Engage 2045 campaign to assist in the development of our 30-year Regional Transportation Plan. Engage 2045 allows you to share your long-term transportation priorities and identify where you believe we should best invest our region’s available transportation dollars to improve local transportation infrastructure. Our region's population and transportation demands continue to grow while transportation funding resources continue to decline. Please share your voice to help PAG prioritize future investments and multimodal infrastructure options for our region.>>Share Your Voice

 

JACK PARRIS opened the meeting with a wonderful invocation during which he spoke about being “grateful”. It made me pause to reflect a little. I think we are all “grateful” around the Thanksgiving Holiday; after all, that is the spirit of the season. But I know I don’t often think about all the people and things in my life for which I am truly grateful. As I write this article, I can say I am grateful to have the time and flexibility in my life to be an active Tucson Rotarian and spend a little of my time each year involved in activities that benefit our local community!

My public service announcement for the day: Please don’t forget to drop a few dollars each week into the scholarship cup at your table. This money directly benefits the young men and women in our community and helps them achieve the dream of a college education.

 

Guests were announced by none other than ERNIE MINCHELLA. Buongiorno ERNIE! We had several guests this week, but I want to point out we had three future Rotarians in our midst, TED KIRACOFE’s two sons and JENNIFER HOFFMAN’s son. TED and JEN, thanks for introducing those young ones at such an early age!

 

Only two birthday celebrations this week:  Immediate past President MARY MARTIN joined us on stage for her happy day, along with BRUCE JACOBS. BRUCE thanked the many RCOT mentors he’s had along the way, thanking them all since he felt he needed as much help as he could get!

 

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to our newest member, PATTY CARNOVALE.  PATTY, this is a great time to become a member as your help will be needed for this year’s Car Show.

 

We had another interesting program this week, a presentation on the re-introduction of big horn sheep into the Catalina Mountains. I was surprised to learn that it is really not known why the sheep died-off or left the range to begin with. With so many research projects going on and so much information available at our fingertips, I naturally assumed this problem was solved. Well, I guess it really doesn’t matter provided we can keep the 50+ sheep that currently live on the mountain healthy and alive.

 

Have a great week and take a few moments to reflect on all the things in your life that you are grateful for.

Polio is a stubborn foe…and so can be some of our fellow human beings.

 

The Rotary International campaign to eliminate the polio virus from our world has been underway for decades now. Deadlines and completion projections have come and gone more often than we all had hoped. Over the years, we cheered the reducing number of cases, fully expecting to reach zero one day, never to be concerned again. It is the nature of the effort that you cannot stop at any point before elimination, or else all the ground gained would eventually be lost as polio became redistributed over the globe (and in short order given our mobility advances).

 

It is also the nature of this effort that the further reductions in number of cases come at ever-increasing cost per case. You eliminate the “low-hanging” portion of the threat early-on and move toward the tougher challenges down the road. Even acknowledging that, there are those who question the never-ending need for vast amounts of money to win the war. Isn’t the vaccine perfected? (It is) Don’t we have enough volunteers (who need money to do their jobs) to distribute that vaccine? (We do) Isn’t there less in the way of bureaucracy necessary to handle the remaining endemic areas? (Seems logical) Don’t the logistical costs go down as the geographic area we have to cover shrinks? (Generally, yes)

 

So why do we still need hundreds of millions of dollars to reach our goal?

 

Besides polio being a tough foe, the remaining locations where it is endemic are particularly tough to access. Not just by virtue of geography. Much tougher than that is the human factor. Specifically, there are people in polio’s last strongholds who are hostile to the vaccination teams trying to reach the population. Absent this sometimes-violent human resistance, it’s widely believed the eradication of polio would already have seen an anniversary.

 

We find we need to spend more, not on medical research, but on public relations, education campaigns, rescheduling team travel, identifying pockets of unvaccinated residents, and, quite possibly, paying for access or information. And there will, eventually, need to be continued monitoring and readiness for a period of time.

 

All that - plus so many more considerations - costs money.

 

Put aside, for the time being, the huge monetary consideration of tackling the next major disease. We can do that, using the lessons we have learned combating polio, AFTER we succeed in our current campaign; which we will do.

 

Many of you know, and all of you should, that Tucson’s Ride to End Polio accounts for a significant portion of the funds to be raised by Rotary in wiping out polio. The District 5500 goal is to reach $3.33 million this November. That’s before accounting for any matching contributions. That sum is nearly 10% of the worldwide 2015 goal. From our one District! (You are permitted a brief moment of proud reflection.)

 

As of July 24, 2015, it is a year since the last case of wild poliovirus has been found in Nigeria. And Nigeria is the last country in all of Africa where polio hasn’t been stopped. One year is a traditional measuring point for achieving permanent elimination in a region.

 

Dr. Hamid Jafari, Director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative for the World Health Organization, told the Sao Paulo RI Convention audience that world-wide eradication is only “months” away. That optimism is energizing! It will take the confluence of several vital factors to eventually eliminate polio. Like it or not, money is one of those factors.