Building Permits by E-mail

I have previously posted here (October 9, 2007) about the importance of checking for building permits when you are buying or selling a house. Most agents don't bother with this, either because they don't know the consequences of buying or selling a home with an unpermitted addition (which is a huge proportion of the houses in Central Tucson), or they figure what their client doesn't know won't hinder the house sale.

Some agents are aware of the need to check permits to the extent that they go to the City of Tucson's Development Services web site and look there. If they don't find anything, they conclude no permits exist. The problem with this is the City has only put permits on their web site for the past few years. Most of the carport and porch enclosures occurred decades ago.

Friday I went to the Development Services office at 201 North Stone Avenue to look up the permits for a house I have in escrow. I was dismayed to find that I can no longer request the microfiche of the permits and have a paper copy made on the spot. Now I have to submit my request, and the staff will e-mail the permits to me in a day or so.

This had to happen eventually. I was always amazed that the City let people get their hands on these microfiche, the only records of the building permits. Because the City will only make 10 copies per customer per day, a lot of the microfiche were stolen. More were probably misfiled and lost forever. Until a few years ago, people could take the microfiche without even giving their name. Then a form with name, address and phone number was required, but no one verified the contact information, so I doubt this had much effect on the disappearance of microfiche.

Now that I know the drill, it will be a pleasure to request permits online at dsd_records@tucsonaz.gov. I will not miss the drive downtown, paying $2 to park in the garage, and impairing my vision and sanity while trying to use the ancient microfiche reader.

Farmer John Meats

On the north side of Grant Road, just east of the I-10 underpass, is a former meat packing plant, Farmer John Meats.

The exterior walls are covered with murals celebrating the cowboy myth of happy cattle and Marlboro Man ranchers.
As mesquite hugger and pesco-lacto-ovo-vegetarian (that's a joke, son), I am of course cynical about the whole How the West was Won legend, but I like these murals.

According the the New York Times, these murals were painted in the 1960s by Leslie Allen Grimes, a Hollywood set designer. He also painted murals for Farmer John Meats in Vernon and Fresno, California and Phoenix. Amusing comments about the murals at the Farmer John slaughter house in Vernon can be found here.
Mr. Grimes died in 1968 in a fall from a scaffolding while painting one of his murals. Arno Jordan restored and added to the murals from 1968 to 1998.

I'm not sure whether anyone is still maintaining the murals. I also wonder what is going to happen to Tucson's defunct Farmer John plant. I think I remember hearing years ago that it may become a nightclub or something.

June Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors just released the Residential Sales Statistics for June.

The market continues to slowly stabilize. Changes from May 2008 to June 2008 were as follows: Average sale price up 2.65%, median sale price down 0.5%. Housing units sold up 0.88% and active listings down 4.54%. With 8,140 properties on the market, and 1,034 sales in June, we have a 7.9 month supply of listings. A six month supply is considered a balanced market. We're heading in the right direction.

Bats

A couple of nights ago Steve and I decided to go see the bats emerge from under the Campbell Avenue bridge over the mighty Rillito River.

While we waited for them to wake up, we enjoyed the usual postcard pretty Tucson sunset.



We were surprised to see that a couple dozen other people had the same idea. Some were sitting down in the dry (for now!) river bed. Everyone seemed to know the bats would fly to the west.

We could hear the bats twittering to each other as they woke up. They had been sleeping in the one inch space between pairs of joists. I read somewhere that some buildings and bridges are now designed as bat houses. I don't know whether that happened here, or whether it was just a lucky accident.

After the sun went down, the bats started coming out a few at a time. Eventually we could see hundreds fly away for a night of insect consumption. Eat lots of mosquitoes, guys!

We stood under the bridge with bats flying within inches of us, but none ever hit us. It was really fun.




Although the air was filled with bats, I could only get a picture of one of them. You'll just have to go see the spectacle for yourself.

Update: The Arizona Daily Star just did an article today about the Campbell Avenue bats. It says the bats are Mexican free-tailed bats. They've also got a photo of a cloud of bats.

Solstice Celebration

Flam Chen burning the memorial urn at the All Soul's Procession last November.



Anytime you can see creatures on stilts playing with fire while listening to a kilt-clad bagpipe marching band, you know something fun has got to happen.

Saturday the Arizona State Museum on the U of A campus near Park and University will celebrate the Solstice in fine style. Starting at 2:30, you can cool off inside the Museum and learn about the astronomical achievements of the Anasazis at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Multicultural events will occur throughout the day, including Japanese and African drumming, henna tatoos, opportunities to grind corn, make a paper flower and play a Yaqui instrument. The Aztec sun blessing will be at 4:30. Molehill Orkestrah performs gypsy music at 7:30.

At 9:00 Tucson's own Flam Chen, a performance group famous for their costumes, stilts, percussion music and fun with fire and helium, join forces with the Seven Pipers Scottish Society for the Grand Finale. This is so perfectly Tucson, and not to be missed.

Mourning Dove

This mourning dove is nesting in the jasmine vine next to the drain pipe on our back porch. He is on his third brood this summer! He's as devoted as my Dad was, and it's nice to think of both of them on Father's Day.

Nesting mourning doves are so brave. They often choose nest sites like this where there's a lot of human traffic, but they will sit as low and still as possible, even when a human gets way too close. If the dove does decide he has to leave the nest, he will engage in that broken wing act to distract the predator from the nest.

How do I know this bird is a he? According to "Western Birds' Nests" by Hal Harrison, the female incubates from dusk to dawn, then the male takes the day shift.

The New Monsoon Season

I am outraged to read that the National Weather Service has decided to mess with our sacred monsoon season again.

Our dramatic summer thunder and lightning storms are one of the best reasons to live in the Sonoran Desert. Desert rats endure the ever-increasing humidity and heat (it was 111 today!) until one magical summer afternoon, the air gets cool, the wind blows hard and we all happily get drenched by the rain goddess who pours water from her ancient clay jug. If we're lucky, we'll also get some hail. The flashes of lightning over the Catalina Mountains are better than fireworks. Flooded streets are to be expected. It's just a matter of time before some clown drives his car around the road closure barriers into six feet of water in the Sixth Avenue underpass and gets cited under the "Stupid Motorist Law".

Those who inexplicably don't appreciate all this excitement go to San Diego.

Until last year, the start date for the monsoon season was determined by watching the dew point. On the first of three days on which the average dew point was 54 degrees or above, the monsoon season was said to start, according to those persickity people at the National Weather Service. No rain is required by this method, and we never knew the glorious monsoon season had begun until three days later. By this reckoning, the earliest recorded monsoon season started on June 17, 2000, and the latest started July 25, 1987. Through the 1990s, the average start date was July 3 and in the aughts, it has been July 7.

Obviously, this method has a lot of problems, the biggest one being its lack of correlation to actual rainfall. Most desert rats think this methodology is a joke, and rely on their own definitions of monsoon.

Steve says the monsoon starts when the first drop of rain falls in our yard. I say it starts when I personally witness a down pour with street flooding somewhere in Tucson, regardless of what the weather is doing at our house, which very likely is nothing.

What these definitions lack in the scientific method, they make up in the satisfaction of knowing with conviction that the monsoons have arrived.

Believe it or not, according to those meddlers at the NWS, today is the first day of the monsoon season. Henceforth, or until the NWS comes to its senses, the monsoon season will be from June 15 to September 30, every year! Have you ever heard anything so lame?