City of Tucson

Must be a change in the water at the Star. Brodesky explains the ‘RULES’ of the game. Could Chicago learn a thing or two from Tucson? You decide. In the Dec 15, 2011 edition of the Star he tells a little story about how you get things done in Tucson.

Josh Brodesky: We do things differently around here (wink, wink) – AZ Star
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Jerry Dixon. Threatened with default on his west-side project, his partner accusing him of improperly tapping an escrow account and missing a key construction deadline, Dixon squirmed his way to an explanation.
You see, his business partners at Senior Housing Group are “very strict Chicago attorneys who are very legalistic about everything,” he explained.
“Here, we do things a little bit differently, and that is not their way,” he said. “We’ve been in a battle with them about the way things are done here.”
Dixon certainly is an expert on how things are done here. He and his partner at Gadsden Co., son-in-law Adam Weinstein, have a reputation for berating city staffers and working the City Council to get their way.
After all, we sold Gadsden a prime piece of real estate on West Congress Street for $250,000 so he could flip it for $1.43 million that same day. We let Gadsden use that money – our money, since it was city land – to pay for infrastructure improvements the company was always supposed to make itself.
And still he was late to pay the bill, forcing contractor KE&G to threaten a lien of $195,000 for work it did installing a reclaimed-water line in April. Now we have Gadsden improperly tapping an escrow account that was set up with the proceeds from the land flip to pay for infrastructure like … the waterline.
Both Senior Housing and Gadsden were supposed to approve any draws on that escrow account, but somehow that did not happen.
The draws on the escrow account surprised those Chicago attorneys.
All of this raises the question: If Dixon didn’t tap the escrow account to pay KE&G, what did he do with that money? Dixon has said he paid for change orders and the bill for another contractor, Ashton.
“We didn’t take the money and go to China,” he told me. “We kept the money and paid the contractors, or are in the process of paying the contractors, for the work that they have done.”
In the process?
The whole point of the flip was to help Gadsden pay for these improvements.
Many readers are familiar with Gadsden’s saga, but here’s a quick refresher: In 2008, Gadsden entered into a complex development agreement with the city for 14 acres on Congress Street just west of I-10. The development agreement was split over four phases. If Gadsden hit performance requirements by putting in infrastructure and development on the site, it could stake claim to the next phase. By putting in infrastructure, Gadsden received a discounted purchase price.
Gadsden had big plans: a boutique hotel, more than 400 homes, retail and so on. But the dust bowl at the site tells you what happened.
The failure to develop isn’t all on Gadsden. The city promised things it didn’t deliver. The economy tanked.
But instead of scrapping the agreement, the city gave Gadsden new life – a cash transfusion – through the land flip with Chicago-based Senior Housing. Through tax credits, Senior Housing is building a six-story affordable-housing project.
About $611,000 from the land flip went into that escrow account to pay for the infrastructure improvements – the one Gadsden accessed improperly.
This is all troubling because Gadsden is supposed to pay roughly $3 million toward the modern streetcar.
Given these recent developments as well as past financial issues – it’s fair to wonder if that $3 million is funny money. Dixon says he can pay it but, as we all know, he has said a lot of things.
“I’m not clear where the hell that is,” Gary Hayes, executive director of the Regional Transportation Authority, told me. “Is the Gadsden money real? Is it on the table?”
What we do know is that at one point Gadsden was delinquent on taxes earlier this year, owing $53,000. Another Dixon company, Rio Development, which built the neighboring Mercado District of Menlo Park on the west side, owed $37,000. We know the Mercado is also facing foreclosure after Rio Development defaulted on a $1 million loan.
Even City Councilwoman Regina Romero, Gadsden’s biggest supporter, is hedging publicly.
She said she doesn’t know the details of the dispute between Senior Housing and Gadsden, but she expects the development to be finished.
“I don’t know what he is talking about,” she said of Dixon’s comment about Chicago attorneys and those pesky legal details. “What I do know is that there is legal language that Senior Housing and Gadsden got themselves into. They signed on the dotted line. They agreed to it. And whatever the legal language says they have to do, they have to do.”
Jerry Dixon says we do business differently here. The city has yet another chance to show him otherwise.
Contact columnist Josh Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com
Copyright 2011 Arizona Daily Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Tucson has a new Mayor with a similar platform….being business friendly. Let’s remember this statement…..

KOLD News Asked what his top priority is he says “jobs and making sure small business can do business and help entrepreneurs get going.”

Have we killed the entrepreneurial spirit?

Posted: Friday, December 2, 2011 7:00 am
by   Joe Higgins

It’s hard to pick up a newspaper or watch TV news and not see what America is going through right now. People are frustrated and political solutions seem hollow. The uncertainty coming from government has the entire U.S. economy on hold.

Despite what economic experts say, the Great Recession continues. We are in for a long-haul; a new normal.

We see this malaise in shuttered business, home foreclosures and employee layoffs. Like downturns in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we thought “here we go again.” Before long business will come back to normal.

But as we turn the corner into our fourth year of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, it’s settling in that this one is different.

We can break down the causes of the Great Recession from multiple angles but they are topics that will be debated for years and ultimately determined by historians decades after the chips have fallen.

This opinion is about the fallout and the future of Tucson, Arizona and America.

Being an entrepreneur is the most gratifying, hardest thing I’ve ever done. As a serial business start-up person, I’ve rolled the dice more than a dozen times. Each time I start a new business, I research, study, plan and ultimately go all-in on an idea I think is better than anyone else in my market.

As others like me know, sometimes you get it right, others times you miss the mark.

Having mortgaged my home, maxed out credit cards and risked my family’s future on ideas more than once, I’m here to tell you that it has been worth it.

Up until now.

Early on, this Great Recession cleaned out those who who were over-leveraged and bought investments such as houses on interest-only deals that made no sense. Restaurants that went out of business already were teetering on the brink. Businesses that closed in 2008 and 2009 were too leveraged, too concentrated in crowded industries or were run by poor managers. That’s what the capitalist system does.

But now we are seeing a different kind of business failures. Entrepreneurs who played it safe are now watching their lifetime idea slowly slip away.

I’ve lived this journey myself and I’ve talked with my small business friends who are in the same rudderless boat. Many of us have had to close stores. We’ve laid off long-time employees who helped us from the very beginning. These people are more than employees, they’re family.

Most small business owners are wondering two things: How am I going to make payroll next Friday? And will this ever end? Start-ups have notoriously high failure rates but now we are starting to see established businesses buckling under financial pressures. Second-generation businesses handed down from father to son or daughter may not be left to hand down to a third generation.

Last week, I had two high school kids from different schools search me out as part of their career research. They wanted to be entrepreneurs. When I asked why, they responded that they each had a great idea, believed in their abilities, dreamed of potential riches and fame and they loved the variety of skills and duties that come with launching and running a business.

It was difficult for me to be upbeat and positive. It was hard not to tell them what it’s really like. I wanted to explain the dozens of agencies that will be regulating their every move. I wanted to explain how fierce competition can be when you’re up against a Fortune 500 company that has a fleet of lobbyists that can get waivers from federal healthcare mandates or build in a new regulation that is going to wipe out any margin you’ve been able to build.

I didn’t want to tell them the process of going through a local zoning review or the joy of having conflicting opinions come from two different city inspectors and that your only recourse it to say “thank you sir, may I have another.”

I held back on telling these future entrepreneurs about the headaches that come to your life when you hire an employee – from workers compensation claims, to equal employment complaints, to unemployment insurance, to layers of laws to protect employee rights but nothing about who pays the bills.

What I decided to share with the future capitalists was about the days when I didn’t know better and just got up every morning and worked through it.

My formative years came while Ronald Reagan was president, coming in to lead the nation out of the Jimmy Carter mailaise. Reagan won his election in 1980 and reinstated hope in the future with his “It’s Morning Again In America” and tapped into the American ideal of hard work, personal responsibility, patriotism and limited government.

Reagan knew the importance of the small business owner and he understood the power of the free market in getting this country back on track.

I can only imagine most people were wondering in 1979 – as they are today – are America’s best days behind us?

As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve come to the point where my local and federal governments don’t appreciate me and couldn’t care less if I practice my skill at all. As an entrepreneur, I don’t want to be stimulated or bailed out. Until my governments’ attitudes change, I’m going to sit on the sidelines and watch.

Joe Higgins, who is a regular contributor, wrote this column to express his personal feelings. His Tucson business start-ups include Talking Trash Waste Removal, Sports Buzz Haircuts and Gotta Go Wireless. Contact Higgins at wakeuptucson@gmail.com. He and Chris DeSimone host “Wake Up Tucson,” 6 to 8 a.m. weekdays on The Voice KVOI 1030-AM.

Now this is funny…and sad. Sort of sums it up for ya Tucson.

Walkup would’ve made a terrible weatherman. He only has one forecast: Sunny days ahead. It could be hailing and his forecast would be: Sunny days ahead. Tornados and flooding expected: Sunny days ahead.

The man described as the “the mayor straight out of central casting” is straight out of plain-speaking Iowa, where the state tree is nonexistent and the state word is “earnest.” You’d think the man was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around an “I heart Tucson” pennant. After the Jan. 8 shootings the voice of civility asserted Tucson is not the Wild West loud and clear. Our Tucson is a unified compassionate community.

Walkup was head coach when Rio Nuevo stumbled onto the field and the ball was fumbled. His natural disdain for micromanaging got the better of him here.

And now he’s the Moses of downtown. Beyond the legal and financial carnage he can see the Promised Land. He won’t be the one, rod and staff alight, crossing over into it.

With the ASU making the top list of largest Universities in the US it’s time to step back and ask is that a good thing? We see the impacts big bloated State university budgets on the Arizona economy but what’s the point?

How many of these students that we subsidies to educate actually stay and return their investment to the taxpayers of Arizona?

What about the quality of an ASU degree? How many students start at ASU and the UofA only to fail out of classes filled with 600 students and little or no one on one support?

What types of degrees are we pushing out of these State Universities?
Here’s a list of the most popular degrees at the UofA?

For Bachelor’s Degrees
Business/Marketing: 16%
Social Sciences: 10%
Biology: 9%
Psychology: 7%
Communications/Journalism: 6%
Education: 6%
Health Professions: 5%
Visual and Performing Arts: 5%

The list of largest University’s and their enrollment numbers:
1. Arizona State University–Tempe, Arizona: 58,371 students
2. University of Central Florida–Orlando, Florida: 56,235 students
3. Ohio State University–Columbus, Ohio: 56,064
4. University of Minnesota–Minneapolis, Minnesota: 51,721 students
5. University of Texas at Austin–Austin, Texas: 51,195 students

By: Taylor Davidson

The Importance Of Our Thinkers

I will start by saying I do not know Phil Lopes. 

However, he made a series of statements this last week (unusual in their clarity as examples)  that I would like to address due to their implications regarding the level of discourse and understanding in our fair Pueblo.

In case you are not familiar, Mr. Lopes is a long time Arizona activist, a founding staff member of Pima Community College, a former senior manager at the AZ Dept. of Health, a state legislator and the current coordinator of the Tucson Chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America a “group of left-leaning Democrats, Independents, and Greens who work… for progressive change.” (PDA Tucson website, pdatucson.blogspot.com). 

Those roles have placed Mr. Lopes in the group of what, in our city, passes for “Public Intellectuals”.  This group primarily includes other political party leaders as well as any number of media personalities, but also has some members of the university and a few participants from the business, religious, non-profit communities and others.

“Public Intellectuals”, as a vocation, can be defined as the entrepreneurial class within any community’s market of ideas.  And as with all entrepreneurs they are constantly competing for customers.  However, unlike those in the business world aiming for dollars or other measures of growth, entrepreneurs in the political and thought arenas are competing for ears and minds.  They count their success not in financial terms but in how many people they can get parroting their beliefs and the level of influence of those who echo their thinking.

So in this vein,  on or around Monday an email came out to some compatriots from Mr. Lopes detailing a new idea.  Let’s call it “Bank Local!”  The basic idea was that he was encouraging friends and neighbors to move their money from their current financial institutions into local credit unions and community banks.

Then lo and behold, what do I hear Wednesday morning?  Well it was Tucson City Council member Regina Romero on the radio stating that not only does she want to change the rules of our city parks to allow Occupiers to make campgrounds out of community property but oh, by the way, she’s also proposing the city government, as well as people in general, withdraw their bank accounts from Bank of America and Chase and move to credit unions.

Mr. Lopes, as an entrepreneurial Thinker, had just picked up a client.  He had earned his way in the market by moving his opinion into the mouth of an elected representative, a person with political influence and regular public audiences.

We can argue this, but I believe it is axiomatic that this is how the political process works.  Thinkers want to be leaders of electorate opinion and politicians can generally be nothing but followers of electorate opinion.  This is due to the simple fact that, at election time, they need 50% plus one vote to keep their jobs.  They can’t stray too far from the center and make that happen. Thus you are dealing with two separate but symbiotic entities: One with ideas but a need for some political power, the other with some political power but a need for ideas.

This revelation leads to an interesting conclusion.  That the public intellectuals in our city, state, nation and world are actually surprisingly more important than we would normally wish to admit. 

When we decide on an opinion we generally say to ourselves and others that is well considered and based in the facts, but if we were honest this is really a vain conceit.  Most people (particularly our elected officials) just don’t have the time or inclination to formulate fully realized philosophical positions on the extremely wide spectrum of topics we are presented with throughout the weeks and years of our lives.  Thus we all operate utilizing a vast number of assumptions and many times we base those assumptions on the position of someone we have chosen as trustworthy.  Those Thinkers in our lives about whom we say, “Well I trust Dave.  He’s very well read.”

The point of this is not an exhortation for us all to run out and get PhD’s in economics, sociology, ecology, etc. etc. so we are the perfect experts on everything that might confront us.  Personally I don’t have time for that and I don’t think anyone really does.  I certainly don’t want the people at TEP to take time off from keeping my lights on to finish term papers or the guys at Nimbus to have to slow down production of their Oatmeal Stout while the brewmeister is in class.

Instead we should recognize the futility of that idea and thus the critical importance of those in our lives who serve to fill in where our personal experience and understanding fails us.  And thus if these Thinkers are this influential in our personal choices and particularly to the political decision making process (a la Mr. Lopes and Councilwoman Romero), then we should make it a top priority that Tucson has the highest quality of public intellectuals that we can achieve.

So where does Mr. Lopes fall out for our community when we measure his suggestions against this level of importance? 

On this example, not well at all.

Our local bank branches (whether a credit union or multi-national)  employ local people, our local branches spend money with local vendors who employ other local people, our local branches lend money for other businesses to start and expand, our local branches help bring capital and other resources from around the country and the world to our city to be used in our city.

Instigating a strategy of targeting larger banks for financial damage, if successful, can only shrink the pool of money available for investment in our community and put thousands of local jobs in jeopardy.  It is simply foolish and ill-conceived.

But this idea came from the same person who, while on The Buckmaster Show last week describing the panel he had assembled to discuss job creation at a Progressive Democrats membership meeting, touted that they had made sure there was one panelist out of five who had “actually created jobs.”  How about 5 out of 5 next time Phil?

Who also in the same segment stated his main push for resurrecting Tucson’s job market revolved around making sure we keep our dollars and spending local.  Phil, are you aware that the level of trade with groups outside of a community is a primary determinant of economic prosperity?  If keeping everything local is so good, why don’t you do business within ONLY the Lopes household (grow your own food, make your own clothes, generate your own power, etc.)?  That would certainly be the pinnacle of the economic strategy you are espousing.

And to come full circle, isn’t it a little ironic to hold a Job Creation Panel one week only to come out the next week supporting a plan to purposefully harm a set of large local employers?

I don’t mean to pick on Representative Lopes, he is just the example at hand and I certainly ask his understanding for anything he may feel I am mistaken about.  He is only one of many local talking heads I could have pulled out to start making this point. 

The important issue is not in the positional details of one or another pundit.  The important issue is when we, as a community, are going to start holding these public Talkers and Idea Peddlers to a higher level, a higher standard, of intellectual integrity and understanding? 

When the professional Thinkers of Tucson know that they will be held to account for the objective results and consequences of their ideas we will finally be started on the path to getting Truth in the places where we now just find Ideology.

East Valley Tribune
By Mark Scarp, contributing columnist | 4 comments

Snooty? Not Mesa. Well, hardly ever, anyway.

Snooty communities’ residents are often seen insisting that their local governments enforce zoning laws as weapons against People Who Don’t Do As We Do or Say What We Say. And snooty city councils, composed of people who cater to snooty people as an assurance of their re-election, often go along.

And when they complain, they often turn to euphemisms such as “incompatible use” when they really mean “a place I’m afraid of (or disagree with).” Some even point to these places as serious threats to property values, even when no property values could have suffered anywhere near as much from a tattoo shop down the street as from dozens of bad loans to buyers of nearby parcels that should never have been made.

I’m talking about Scottsdale, right? Not today.

In one zoning case, six Mesa City Council members chose the easy path to support snootiness rather than make the tougher choice to uphold the Constitution.

On Wednesday the Arizona Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision, found in favor of Angel Tattoo, which sought to open in Dobson Ranch after the Mesa City Council rejected that location in 2009.

It was a slam-dunk decision, as the court found for shop owners Ryan and Laetitia Coleman on all three of their constitutional causes of action: their rights of free speech, of equal protection under law and of due process.

The court’s ruling doesn’t mean to say that cities can’t properly apply what are known as “time, place and manner” restrictions on speech. It’s that courts can’t dismiss complaints from people like the Colemans without facts justifying such restrictions.

According to the decision, the Mesa zoning board had voted 3-2 to recommend the Council deny their application for a use permit as not “appropriate” for the neighborhood.

About a month later, the Council agreed. Members voted 6-1 to deny their application (only Mayor Scott Smith voted in favor) after hearing from opponents, who, according to the ruling, “presented no evidence but articulated concerns that a tattoo parlor in the suggested location might draw crime to the area and reduce property values.”

Of course, the thing about tattoo places is that these complaints are about 20 years too late. For whatever reason, tattoos have gone mainstream, just as backwards baseball caps, once the exclusive province of those who play catcher, today top the heads of millions of young men.

But because enough people don’t get out much and thus have a greater-than-even chance of fearing the unknown, again, as the court pointed out, without evidence, old fears move into the present. And so there will always be sympathetic politicians eager to be Defenders of the Neighborhood.

I don’t have a tattoo, don’t plan on getting one, and think that, depending on their location and design, they can hinder someone’s chances in a job interview far more than they are worth as personal adornment. But my view on tattoos stops at the other person’s epidermis.

And, as the state Court of Appeals — and a federal appellate court last year — affirmed, tattoos are forms of expression protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. And part of that protection means that telling tattoo shops they can’t open is tantamount to telling a publication it can’t publish. Or can hand out copies only in the middle of the unoccupied desert, away from decent people.

Mesa didn’t ban tattoo shops entirely, as Hermosa Beach, Calif., did, only to have the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals strike that ban down in 2010 as an abridgement of the right of free speech. It has approved other tattoo businesses.

In fact, the court also found that the city zoning board staff, “in recommending issuance of the permit, found that the proposed tattoo parlor conformed with Mesa’s general plan and policies, would be compatible with and not detrimental to the neighborhood, and would not damage property values.

“Staff additionally related that the police department had reported no increase in crimes attributable to a similarly situated tattoo parlor.”

As the Tribune’s coverage of the Mesa decision stated, Council members at that 2009 meeting were concerned about an aggregation of uses they questioned, that is, whether there is such a thing as “too many” tattoo shops, or too much of one tattoo shop, one massage business and one payday loan store.

But the Arizona Court of Appeals ruling is a warning to city officials about too much reliance on the aggregation theory. As the court wrote: “(I)f Mesa is able to deny a permit application based solely on negative perceptions about tattoo parlors, or Mesa’s discretion in determining neighborhood compatibility is unguided, the Colemans cannot practically determine where to properly locate within Mesa.”

And if you are given no clue as to where you can legally speak, then you’re not speaking. That isn’t freedom.

• Read Tribune contributing columnist Mark J. Scarp’s (mscarp1@cox.net) opinions here on Sundays. Watch his video commentaries on evtnow.com/scarp

This little tidbit popped on my radar from San Francisco.  Just wait until Tucson gets their 4 mile light rail project rolling.

Visitors to San Francisco’s main shopping district, Union Square, can’t help but see, smell and hear the massive construction project that could end with a visionary subway, or, as some critics are calling it, “a train to nowhere.”

Known as the Central Subway, it’s a rail extension less than two miles long, connecting outlying neighborhoods to Union Square and Chinatown.

Voters approved the project in 2003, to replace a freeway damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Back then, the cost was $647 million. Today, the price tag is $1.6 billion, with the lion’s share of the funding still to come from the federal government.

In July, San Francisco’s Civil Grand Jury concluded the project was poorly designed, won’t meet projected ridership levels, and, as the scathing title of its report says, costs “too much money for too little benefit.”

At about $1 billion per mile, the Central Subway has become a driving force in Tuesday’s mayoral election. Leading contenders like San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi have withdrawn their initial support, calling it “a political hot potato. In these difficult times, the question is, can we afford it?”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/07/city-feds-dispute-spiraling-cost-san-francisco-subway-project/?test=latestnews#ixzz1d4lf98YW

Green candidate for mayor based in Occupy Tucson tent

By Brad Poole

TUCSON, Ariz | Sat Nov 5, 2011 9:53am EDT

(Reuters) – There is no bank of telephones at Mary DeCamp’s campaign headquarters, no volunteers eager to bring her message to the masses.

The Green Party candidate for mayor of Tucson, who is days away from losing her home to foreclosure, is flanked by fellow Occupy Tucson activists as she directs her long shot bid for public office from a borrowed tent in a local park.

“November 10th is my eviction date,” the aptly named candidate said cheerfully on Friday, while unpacking signs after police had pushed Occupy Tucson campers from one park to another a night earlier.

DeCamp could have saved her house, she said, and could have taken handouts from friends and family to keep her mortgage current. But she said she gave up after months of phone calls from the bank hounding her about late payments as she fell further behind.

“I just shut down,” she said.

Instead, she chose to go it alone and walk away from the home she bought for $172,000 at the height of the real estate boom, a home now worth far less than the amount she borrowed.

Although she acknowledges she has little real chance of winning election, DeCamp prides herself as a politician who can give voice to a constituency that lacks one. She ran for City Council two years ago and lost.

While local Republicans and Democrats bicker over downtown redevelopment and budget woes in the southeastern Arizona city, she said she focuses on broader issues.

“I’m advancing a much-needed message that isn’t being advanced by the two major parties,” she said. “I think globally and act locally.”

A friend has given DeCamp a new handmade placard for each of the 21 days she stayed with Occupy Tucson. Her campsite facing a busy downtown street is adorned with banners — one in foot-tall letters asking passers-by to vote. Glittery, colorful signs lean nearby on a borrowed table.

“Democracy is Green,” proclaims one sign decorated with a symbolic marijuana leaf.

RUNNING FROM A TENT

DeCamp kept her distance from Occupy Tucson at first, thinking that her presence might politicize an anti-Wall Street movement aligned with groups around the country protesting economic inequality, high unemployment and corporate greed.

Ultimately she decided politics needed to play a part, and that Green Party ideals aimed at protecting the little guy dove-tailed with Occupy Wall Street goals of speaking out for the so-called “99 percent.”

DeCamp now counts herself among a couple of dozen hard core Occupiers who have remained camped night after night, amassing citations for staying in the park past its 10:30 p.m. closing time. “Oh, it’s about 14 by now, I think,” she said of the citations. “I slept through a few of them.”

Her campaign office consists of two stackable, plastic storage bins outside a borrowed Coleman tent. She takes calls from a cell phone and answers her email at a public library.

The Democratic candidate, attorney Jonathan Rothschild, appears to be running away with the race in the liberal-leaning city. He led his nearest competitor, Republican mining company lobbyist Rick Grinnell, by 17 percentage points in a recent poll of likely voters.

DeCamp, a former adjunct college instructor in communications and math who grew up poor in Nebraska, said she was quickly taken with Occupy Wall Street movement.

“I immediately said, ‘That’s where I need to be. That’s what we need to be doing,’” she said.

A 17-year resident of Tucson, DeCamp said she is in the Occupy movement for the duration and will decide later where to go when it ends, whenever that might be.

“I’ve had offers from six people to come live with them. I always give more than I take, so everyone knows they’ll get a good deal if I come live with them.”

(Editing by Steve Gorman, Peter Bohan and Greg McCune)