Downtown maven and virtual walking Wikipedia of people, projects, places, politics and policy; Donovan Durband, was brought on staff of the newly elected Ward 6 Councilman; Steve Kozachik, who will be installed on December 7th, 2009.

Durband; the former Executive Director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance, and its birthed Tucson Downtown Partnership, comes to the table with a wealth of knowledge about the activity in Ward 6 and a ton of associates who will afford the new Councilman a bit of a shorter learning curve.

The announcement of Durband’s addition to the Ward 6 staff is exciting for the veteran community, as he always worked hard at including our local veterans in many of the downtown events in the capacity of volunteers and trained ambassadors for the Central Business District.

Both the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars had their roots in the downtown. The Legion Post 7 has been operating the Veterans Day Parade for nearly 90 years! The VFW once occupied the building that Access TV now calls home. Both of these organizations along with a handful of Disabled Veterans would supply personnel “on call” for a variety of events like Downtown Saturday Night and Dillinger Days and First Night.

Durband’s successor disbanded the volunteer program in a rather perfunctory way, sprinkled with a bit of perfidy, leaving some third and fourth generation Arizona families feeling a bit disenfranchised from their own roots.

It is refreshing to see that our Midtown Council Office will be staffed with veteran friendly persons and open to hosting some of our events.

The probability is pretty high that a few platoons of Vets helped push Steve K. over the top in the election.

Welcome aboard ship First Mate Durband! We hope to be seeing more of you.