Man Vs. Food, Meet Lindy’s on Fourth

Posted by Adam Borowitz on Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:29 PM

Lindy’s on Fourth, a burger joint at 431 N. Fourth Ave. that is co-owned by and named after former Che’s Lounge doorman Lindy Reilly, will be the focus of an upcoming episode of the Travel Network’s Man Vs. Food.

The taping is scheduled to take place Friday, Sept. 25.

“I almost cried,” Reilly said about the news. “I have busted my ass for so long, so this kind of validation means so much. I’ve sacrificed my health, my marriage, so much. … It’s kind of like watching your kid graduate, you know?”

The show’s star, Adam Richman, will attempt to eat the O.M.F.G.—a three-pound monstrosity made up of 12 patties, 12 slices of cheese and all the fixings.

Reilly said anyone who eats the O.M.F.G in less than 20 minutes gets it for free. He said about one out of every 20 attempts is successful: “There’s a high failure rate,” he said, chuckling.

This whole thing is great news for several reasons: First off, Lindy is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, and although he’s one of the place’s owners, it’s common to find him flipping burgers right alongside the other cooks. Down-to-earth dedication like that deserves notice, which he’ll get plenty of, thanks to this development.

Second of all, this will put one of our hometown eateries on the national map, which is good for Lindy’s—and good for our city as a whole.

Reilly, who was trying out a new burger topped with a green chile tamale when we called, said he’ll be spending the next two weeks getting ready for the hordes that will descend on the tiny burger joint once the news gets out.

The show is scheduled to air on Wednesday, Dec. 2.

By Joe Higgins, and Chris DeSimone - Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, September 25, 2009

You’ve quietly mumbled under your breath while watching the evening news. You’ve commiserated with colleagues at lunch. You may have even taken the time to write an e-mail or call the office of one of our elected officials. A handful of you may have even showed up at a city council meeting, taken your three minutes of fame at the podium delivering a speech that would make Jimmy Stewart proud. Or maybe you rationalized that you’re too busy. That someone else will carry the load. You wrote a check to a business association or chamber of commerce so your work is done. 

What have your efforts accomplished?

Try higher property taxes, increased bed taxes, taxes on tanning salons, ballooning utility costs, more regulations and red tape, a rotting city core, larger pot holes, scarier streets, more graffiti, less baseball and a whole lot more vacancies. As business people, we want to believe Tucson welcomes our entrepreneurial spirit. We tuck in each night dreaming of a community that wants us to succeed. They appreciate the hard work and risks we take. After all small business is the economic engine the politicians all love to brag about. Dream’s over - time to wake up!

Our current flock of elected officials seem to have little interest in supporting you or making your road to riches any easier. You’re in this community to be taxed, regulated and demonized. If you’ve made a business career here you’ve really done something special. 

Want to know how we got here? Take a look around. How many of our local politicos have ever owned their own business? How many have built a successful career in the private sector? How many have spent their careers in nonprofit or government jobs? Most have risen from the ranks of the progressive party machines. Are there exceptions?  We guess so.

Let us share the real problem the business community has in our region. Our politicians don’t get us. They don’t respect us. And they certainly don’t fear us.

Since the dawn of the democracy, when elections come around politicians count votes. Environmental lobbies, neighborhood associations, unions and university and government employees vote. When a politician’s primary goal is to get re-elected or move to a higher office, catering to the groups that walk the streets, pick up the phones and show up at rallies is perceived as essential to future success.

What are we as a business community to do? For starters, we need to identify strong pro-business candidates then truly support them. The heat will get turned up on you or your business but you must take a stand. A trite chamber of commerce endorsement isn’t going to cut it.

We must ensure that our elected officials are true friends of business. If they aren’t we must take them out of office in a strong and swift show of force. When we do win a seat, the business community needs to remind the other sitting officials that we have the power to influence an election. Once they fear us, they will respect us. Once they fear us, they will listen to us. Once they fear us, things will change.

Don’t fall back on your indifference. Don’t go back to watching “Dancing With The Stars” or “The Biggest Loser.” Sure, we can continue to wait and hope someone else will carry the load but how’s that worked out for us so far?

Wake up business community. Wake up Tucson.

Early ballots will be arriving in mailboxes Oct. 8. If you haven’t requested an early ballot, call (520) 740-4330. Any registered voter in the city of Tucson can vote for any of the six council candidates running. This is a partisan race — for now — and it’s not limited to individual ward-only voting. Inform your employees, family and friends of what is at stake in this election. Research the candidates and measure results.

Vote.

Contact Joe Higgins at joe@joehigginsinc.com or Chris DiSimone at provenpartners@comcast.net. They’re the hosts of “Wake Up Tucson,” which airs 6 a.m. - 7 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM. Information about the show is online at WakeUpTucson.net

Is a dramatic OV council hearing, David Andrews was terminated tonight by a 4-3 vote. After motions, open meeting law violation accusations, recesses and a dramatic call to the audience the Mayor Loomis had the votes to oust the long time town manager David Andrews.  Andrews rose from the finance department to steward the town through 18 years of balanced growth and a high quality of life. Mayor Paul Loomis, KC Carter, Paula Abbott and Al Kunisch voted to terminate and Bill Garner, Salette Latas and Barry Gillaspie voted to retain the town manager.  Abbot strangely eluded to “reasons that shouldn’t be made public” as grounds for termination.

The entire process was highly questionable and not very forthcoming by the majority. I’ve personally had an opportunity to work with and spend considerable time with Andrews and found him to be a true champion for Oro Valley. He’s invested in the community and after 18 years in town management I think the results judge for themselves. 

Here’s one guy that’s happy with tonights vote:

Dr. Hiremath is a candidate for Mayor Loomis’ job as Mayor of Oro Valley.  This termination may be the end of Loomis and those on the wrong side of the vote.  Keep and eye on Let Oro Valley Excel which is listed in the blog rolls on Tucson Choices.

Tune in to Wake Up Tucson tomorrow morning at 6am on 1030 am. You’re going to get an earful.

Got a note for Mayor Loomis? Here’s his contact info (520) 229-4700 or ploomis@orovalley.net
 

We ran a blog post here a couple days ago from Oscar Martinez, a tenured professor from the UofA. The gist of the story was the UofA is declining, class sizes have ballooned beyond control and the ship isn’t being steered correctly. He singled out UofA provost, Meredith Hay in particular. As a tenured professor I guess he’s got some job security or at least a lot of confidence in what he’s doing. Here’s the money quote from last weeks editorial:

Provost Meredith Hay, in particular, has become a lightning rod and legions of faculty and administrators would like to see her vacate her post.

Today another opinion comes out in the Star from UofA President, Robert Shelton and none other than - Meredith Hay.  It’s a great cover your tail piece about tough budget times, openness is decision processes and all kinds of fun stuff. Read the article HERE.

We’ve commented on this blog before on the UofA’s ineffectiveness on creating jobs for our local community. They graduate 4000 plus eager young minds per year and we watch them leave our community because of a lack of jobs or economic opportunity.  A university in your town can do a lot more than support a few college bars and wreck havoc with neighborhood infill developments. Take a look at Univ of Texas - Austin or the research triangle with North Carolina and Duke and you can see how powerful a force a good university can be in your local community.

I guess Shelton and Hay tried to make the leap that they are going their part to make Arizona a better place:

• Second, which units have the greatest outreach and impact on the citizens of our state? Our mission to serve the entire state and support its citizens is of the utmost importance during the financial crisis.

• And third, which units will most likely have a positive economic impact on the state, with an emphasis on job creation and growth? If the state of Arizona is to recover and stabilize its own revenues, then the university has a duty to protect and invest in those areas where the university has the greatest impact on job and business growth.

As an economic development professional with a college education in Criminal Justice, the causal link between crime and jobs is almost an instinctive reality for me. However, every once in awhile an example of the relationship comes along that is so clear it should cause every single citizen to pause.

Last week’s Arizona Daily Star featured a story about a local company which, after 25 years in business, is considering leaving the city or closing down completely because of violent attacks on their staff. Readers should know that this business is not located in an area that anyone would consider a “high risk” section of Tucson.

The same morning that the article appeared in the paper I visited the business to offer what little help I could. Two things stood out in my conversation with a representative of the business. First; other than the police, no official of the City of Tucson had contacted the business with a similar offer of assistance – not City Council members, not economic development officials nor neighborhood association representatives. Second; this businessperson suggested that I should also speak with another business across the street. And upon meeting with them, I was directed to two additional businesses in the area that have been plagued by crime.

One of these business owners estimated that the direct costs of specific crimes against their business totaled well into the five-figure range. How much of these monies could that business owner have reinvested in pay raises for employees or donated to local charitable causes if they did not have to expend them on simply protecting themselves?

I recently spoke with another business that now has a policy of leaving the rear doors to all their service trucks open when they are left in the company yard each evening. Their hopeful strategy is that this will reduce the significant costs of having to replace or repair doors pried open by criminals seeking tools to steal.

There are volumes of research and reports by sociologists, psychologists, criminologists and economic development professionals of the link between the economic opportunity and crime. If you have doubts, try an Internet search of the phrase “crime and economic development”. And so a vicious cycle begins; the less opportunity people have to achieve their goals through gainful employment, the higher the likelihood of resorting to crime. The higher the crime rate, the less likely a businessperson is to locate their company in that area.

What implications does that have for a city like Tucson, consistently ranked as both one of the most dangerous cities in America AND one of the least business friendly?

Elected officials must show the courage to set proper priorities and then see them through. Tucsonans should expect nothing less.

Please take a moment to read Jerry Sullivan’s excellent piece at the New Geography website Tucsonans should particularly take note of Mr. Sullivan’s admonishment;

“Now is the time for elected officials to trade across-the-board mentalities on budget cuts for a sharpened sense of priorities. They should heed the vicious cycle and find money for more cops to help keep the cynics and criminals at bay while the rest of us make an honest effort to slug our way through tough times.”

To say “ Well, we didn’t cut the police and fire budget as much as other agencies” is akin to agreeing that we must travel to Phoenix and then claiming success because sufficient fuel was provided to travel to Casa Grande instead of just Marana. We still didn’t get to Phoenix.

If you think that is proper governance, try explaining it to the employees of a local business who may soon be the double victims of crime and the loss of their jobs.

Ben Buehler-Garcia is a candidate for Tucson City Council. He is a thirty-year resident of Ward III and has over twenty years of professional experience in economic & community development.

 Back in 2006 TPD put together a proposal to Mayor and Council regarding police staffing and funding levels. Check out the report on the City of Tucson’s web site. Guess what the target of officers per 1000?

We are currently hoovering at 1.9 per 1000 with a goal by 2011 of 2.4 per 1000.  Slides number 7 and 8 tell the whole story.

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It looks like there is some dissent ion in the ranks at the UofA. A recent opinion from a UofA Regents Professor takes a swipe at the administration, the poor moral and the questionable education your son or daughter may be getting at the University of Arizona.

He forgot to mention a pretty crummy community partner that’s really good at taking and not so good at giving back.

Guest opinion by Oscar Martínez, Regents Professor of History: Poor leadership, funding is bringing down the UA

By Oscar J. Martínez

Special to the Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.10.2009

During my my 21 years at the University of Arizona, I have witnessed a steady decline in the quality of the institution, with the most rapid and worst plunge taking place over the last two years. Following are examples of recent subsidence:

• Drop in ranking in U.S. News & World Report from 96 in 2008 to 102 in 2009.

• Embarrassing low ranking in the 2009 Forbes survey at No. 339, behind institutions like the University of Texas at Dallas (114), Utah (174), New Mexico State (193), University of Texas-Pan American (218), New Mexico (239), Idaho (312) and University of Texas at El Paso (333).

Drop in national rankings of top-rated schools and departments; examples include pharmacy (down from four to nine) and sociology (down from nine to 20).

• Permanent loss of faculty in key fields; examples include history (down seven positions), English (down 10) and political science (down 14).

Protracted underfunding by the state is the major cause of the overall decline of the UA. But persistently bad university leadership has played an important part as well.

While it is difficult to resolve the state funding problem, there is no excuse for putting up with administrators who do a poor job of leading and implementing needed change.

There is overwhelming dissatisfaction among UA faculty and administrators with the policies and practices of the upper administration. This is tragic because the UA has never needed the strong, positive decision-making that it requires now; yet it is getting mostly ineffective and polarizing leadership.

Provost Meredith Hay, in particular, has become a lightning rod and legions of faculty and administrators would like to see her vacate her post.

The feeling is widespread on campus that the university administrative system has been rendered dysfunctional by the recently implemented structural “transformation.” And the restructuring has left untouched important areas that have the potential to achieve significant savings while at the same time expanding the teaching capacity of the university.

Most obvious is the failure of the administration to implement differential workloads that consider research productivity; this has deprived students of greater class possibilities.

Decline in the quality of teaching is evidenced first and foremost by ever-increasing class sizes. This year classes of 600 to 1,500 students have made their debut in gargantuan Centennial Hall. Ask any professor if she would like to see her child taking such a class and you will elicit a horrified look accompanied by an emphatic “No!”

You will get a similar reaction if you mention online classes, which are on the increase at the UA because the administration wants to boost enrollment. Web classes sacrifice direct contact with students and do little to teach critical thinking skills. And the failure of the UA to monitor Web classes carefully is spawning questionable practices, as in the case of one tenured senior professor on the high end of the pay scale currently teaching small Web-based courses while residing 1,200 miles from Tucson. Such an arrangement is certainly not cost-effective.

Write to Oscar J. Martínez at martineo@email.arizona.edu

The real issue is whether the UA can really reform itself in the right way without outside pressure. After many years of seeing how the system works, I seriously doubt it.