AZ GOVERNOR SEEKS MEETING WITH FED HEALTH SECRETARY

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

Gov. Jan Brewer wrote to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday asking for a meeting to discuss her requested waiver for Arizona regarding its Medicaid standards.

It's the second letter Brewer has sent to Sebelius in a week, the first one being the actual request for the waiver.

This time, the governor said she was encouraged that Sebelius has told the nation's governors that she wants to work with them to create a sustainable Medicaid system. At the same time, Brewer expressed worry that Sebelius might be thinking that she doesn't have the authority to waive a state's Medicaid benefits requirements.

" ... you appear uncertain whether you have authority to waive maintenance of effort requirements under the law," Brewer wrote in Thursday's letter. "I believe strongly that you do."

Brewer has asked the federal government to waive Arizona's voter-imposed benefit for health care for the poor, a move that would save the state $541.5 million and be the biggest step toward a balanced budget for 2011-12.

Such a move, though, would knock 280,000 poor Arizonans off of state-supported health care and would cause the state to lose $1 billion in federal matching money. That loss would cost the state 46,700 jobs, mostly in the private sector, an Arizona State University economist has estimated.

TUCSON CAN OVERCOME SPRING TRAINING LOSS, TOURISM OFFICIAL SAYS

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

Tucson will be without spring training baseball this year for the first time in more than six decades.

Local economists estimated that when the city had three teams, just two years ago, their presence helped pump $30 million into the economy.

All three teams are gone now, lost to bigger, better and newer ballparks and other incentives in the Phoenix area.

Sherry Henry, executive director of the Arizona Office of Tourism, said this week she believes Tucson officials will use their creativity to replace the economic impact. She mentioned talks with professional baseball organizations in Japan and Korea and an alliance with the San Diego Padres AAA minor league team, to be known at least this coming season as the Tucson Padres.

No announcements have been made about foreign teams coming to Tucson, and the Padres are scheduled to be here for just this year, awaiting the construction of a new facility in suburban San Diego.

The $30 million in losses to the economy is a small amount, about one-tenth of 1 percent of Pima County's GDP.

But because the save baseball movement involved a cadre of recognizable Tucson business and civic leaders, from elected officials to leaders of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, it's a blow to the collective ego that their efforts fell short.

QUESTIONS FOR TOURISM, HOSPITALITY OFFICIALS

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

Here are some of the questions we will ask in our interviews today:

Is the 2011 tourism season in Arizona expected to rebound from the downturn of the last three years?

The Tucson Gem and Mineral shows and the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament are going on this week. How do they look for drawing visitors to get the season off to a good start?

Tucson will be without spring training baseball for the first time in more than 60 years. It's estimated to be a $30 million loss to the local economy. Will other attractions take up the slack, or is that a loss to Tucson?

And the Phoenix area has all the Major League teams in the state for this spring. Will there be a boost from that?

Is this week's cold weather having an impact? What about all the cold weather in other parts of the country -- is that chasing people to Arizona?

How important is the winter visitor season for Arizona's restaurants?

Are there pockets of the state doing better or worse than others when it comes to restaurant business?

'WE'RE JUST NOT LOOKING GOOD TO PEOPLE'

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

An Arizona tourist industry rebound from the recession-driven malaise of the last three years may rest with what outsiders think of the state, a prominent Tucson restaurateur suggests.

Arizona's passage of Senate Bill 1070, which many call the nation's strongest law against illegal immigrants, and a subsequent call for a boycott of the state, which U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, endorsed, had a negative effect on the state's image, El Charro Cafe's Carlotta Flores said in an interview today.

"The Grijalva boycott put an arrow through us," Flores said. "SB1070 had the same effect. We're just not looking good to people."

Flores and her family operate El Charro Cafe in downtown Tucson, which at 89 years is the city's oldest continuously operated restaurant. They also run four other Mexican restaurants and related food operations in the Tucson metropolitan area.

She said the poor year that the tourism industry had in 2010 "is lapping over into 2011. We can see it in all that is happening."

She said she hopes the start of the Tucson Gem and Mineral shows last weekend will be a boost for local restaurants and tourism-related businesses, and there are early signs that it is busier this year than last.

At the same time, Flores said, Tucson must absorb the loss of spring training baseball, which some economists estimated made a $30 million contribution to the local economy each year. This is the first year since 1947 that Tucson hasn't had a Major League baseball team for spring training.

"Everything is different now," Flores said. "It used to be the season was five months. But now, you're hoping that February, March and April are good enough to get you through the long, hot summer."

'CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC' FOR AZ TOURISM REBOUND

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

Arizona's desert tourism season is approaching its peak. The gem shows are under way in Tucson, the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament is this week, and spring training is just around the corner.

Restaurants are jammed, and lots of out-of-state vehicles are populating parking lots all over Phoenix and Tucson as snowbirds flee the cold confines of the East and Midwest for the more favorable climes of the desert.

Sherry Henry, executive director of the Arizona Office of Tourism, says the industry is "cautiously optimistic" that it will be a good season. Certainly, she said, it should exceed last year and perhaps even 2008, which were both down years because of the recession.

The tourism industry employed 172,000 Arizonans at its peak in 2006, state tourism statistics showed. That fell to 157,200 in 2009, the lowest total since the last recession, in 2002. Arizona tourism spending was a record $19.1 billion in 2007, according to figures supplied by the Arizona Office of Tourism from a study done by Dean Runyan Associates. It fell off to $18.5 billion in 2008 and to $16.6 billion in 2009. Figures for 2010 are as yet unavailable.

Henry and other officials from the industry will speak about its prospects on Friday's Arizona Week airing at 8:30 p.m. MST on KUAT-TV. Journalists who cover the industry will offer commentary and analysis on how this important part of the state's economy is doing.

COLOR BLIND

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Last night, at a party with some theater friends, conversation turned to upcoming local productions. Somebody mentioned that one company with a good reputation will be doing The Member of the Wedding, with a white actress rumored to be cast as the main adult character, a black maid. General reaction: surprise and consternation.

I found this ironic, because one of the people at the table (who expressed no opinion on the matter) was a talented young African-American actor who had spent the past three weeks portraying a Medieval French king. Needless to say, that historical figure was not black; the actor was hired because he had the right age and bearing and acting skills, in an example of color-blind casting.

Gone are the days when African-American actors were limited to stage appearances as servants, or in all-black productions like Porgy and Bess or special treatments of classics, like Orson Welles’ so-called “Voodoo Macbeth” in 1936, or in singular lead roles, like Othello (to whose skin Shakespeare refers as “black,” even though the character is also identified as a “Moor,” which would logically look more Moroccan than Ethiopian).

Today, not only are more black characters being written into new plays, but black actors are invited to portray not-necessarily-black characters under a number of circumstances. Most interestingly, recasting a traditionally white character as black can make an old play seem more relevant if it shifts old-fashioned class conflicts to issues of race. Iin Tucson, remember recent productions of The Pajama Game and Picnic. More commonly, a black actor can be cast in a role that, in the world of the play, really ought to be white, like a Medieval king of France, but accepting him as such a character merely requires a slight extension of the suspension of disbelief required in any theatrical production. That’s when the casting is truly color-blind.

So why can’t it work in the other direction? Practically, it should. There are so few actors of color residing in Tucson (why that’s true is a topic for another time) that some good plays are avoided simply for the lack of a race-appropriate performer. So why not hire a white actor for a black role? I can think of a couple of reasons, but I’d like to see if they show up in the comments section of this blog.

Aside from that, I’m not so sure casting an Anglo woman in the role of the black maid in Member of the Wedding is a good idea simply because I can think of two African-American actresses in Tucson who could handle the role and aren’t given very many acting opportunities in town. Of course, that assumes they’re still in town and haven’t moved on to better opportunities elsewhere, and that they’re available for the show during its rehearsal period and performance run, and don’t have other issues that would interfere with their participation.

To say the least, it will be interesting to see how things develop with Member of the Wedding.