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One of the ongoing challenges faced by proponents of the Rio Nuevo project is developing citywide recognition of the Downtown area and its potential.

However, if you go to the Multiple Listing Service of the Tucson Association of Realtors, you cannot specify "Downtown" in a search for residential or commercial properties among the 12-plus geographic areas listed. All such properties are clustered under "central."

The same situation occurs with Tucson Newspapers. If you want to sell or rent property, or even have a yard sale, the only category available for Downtown residents to advertise in the classifieds is "central."

Until people can physically identify the Downtown area and find integrated resources about housing, commercial properties, business opportunities, and so forth, there is no Downtown. It's easy to describe museums and cultural events, but now it's time to place a virtual velvet rope around the Downtown area and make it stand out from all perspectives.

Re: the May 3 article "CPS staff to see pay cuts if goal is unmet."

Pay for performance; it sounds like such a good idea. We'll reward those workers who do their work best, and "best" is defined as keeping children with their families. I would have guessed that "best" would be defined as whatever it takes to protect the child, but it seems that CPS believes otherwise.

Hire enough caseworkers to do what is needed. Give them training and support and pay them fairly for their difficult work. Reward those who show the most initiative and creativity in protecting the children in their care, and forget about pay for performance.

Re: the May 3 article "CPS staff to see pay cuts if goal is unmet."

Contrary to the claim of Rep. Jonathan Paton, giving workers 30-cents-an-hour more for achieving goals which might include safely keeping more children with their families is not "tipping the scale with performance pay." Rather, it is a tiny effort to restore some balance to those scales.

Child welfare is filled with perverse incentives to tear families apart. Private agencies warehousing children in group homes, institutions and shelters are paid for every day they keep them there. Every caseworker knows she'll never be fired, suspended, demoted or suffer any other penalty for taking away too many children. All of those things can happen to a worker who leaves a child in a dangerous home.

It's time our state legislators made investing in our future a top priority. Our state legislators must invest in Arizona today so we can be ready for the challenges of tomorrow.

They should support our kids by providing them with affordable health care, quality teachers and good schools that aren't overcrowded. They should invest in our infrastructure by providing funding for more roads and supporting mass transportation options such as light rail. They should support a budget that shares these current costs with future users, and does not allow frivolous tax cuts.

These are the investments that will prepare Arizona for the future. Now it's up to our legislators to get us there.

Re: the May 2 article "County OKs green tech regardless of cost."

The Star forgot to add the word "savings." Pima County is not solely interested in the initial costs of its facilities. It owns and operates buildings for many years, even generations, on our behalf. Any nominal increase in building construction cost is returned in full measure by reduced energy, water and operational costs.

U.S. Green Building Council LEED-certified buildings provide a significant reduction in natural resource consumption and, as recent studies have shown, increased productivity of employees due to healthier interior environments.

A giant saguaro flower to the Pima County Board of Supervisors for its foresight and leadership and a prickly pear to the Star for its poorly worded headline and incomplete story. I urge readers to visit www.usgbc.org to learn more about green buildings.

Re: the April 28 article "Giffords seeks 'Solar-con' Valley."

I was very pleased to read that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wants to make Arizona the "Silicon Valley of solar energy." When I visited the "Street of Dreams" here in Oro Valley, I was disappointed not to see lots of energy-type technology, architecture or devices directed to saving water and energy. Instead, I felt I was experiencing a very opulent lifestyle with little care or thought to using our resources wisely.

I would hope that those architects, builders and designers would take the opportunity to lead the public, by their work, to an awareness of the importance of using our natural resources wisely through our advances in technology. I hope that when the "Street of Dreams" returns to our city, it truly will be a street of dreams emphasizing preserving our natural resources. Solar is just the beginning.

Re: the May 4 article "Fatality followed a night of plaudits."

The death of the 14-year-old at Kolb Road and Speedway again illustrates the need for leading left turns, on the green arrow only. Sabrina Babers' death could have been prevented had the turn-on-green arrow been in place at that intersection.

Has the city ever done a count of how many serious accidents have been caused by drivers turning into oncoming traffic because you can? I doubt it, because they claim the way it is set up now moves more traffic.

We need to be the same as the rest of the country, and not this "different" city, as far as the way traffic lights operate.

Re: the May 3 letter to the editor "The problem with women in combat."

Unless I misread the statutes, rape is a crime. It is a crime in Tucson. It is a crime in Iraq or Afghanistan. If a man commits rape while serving in the military, at home or abroad, he is a rapist. He has committed a crime.

"Raging hormones" is not a legal defense for rape. A soldier may fear his life could end tomorrow, as the letter writer says. But so could yours. So could mine. So could his victim's. Fear of death is not a legal defense for rape.

"Feminists groups" and "the politically correct" did not create our modern army. Women join the military for the same reasons men do; a chance to build better lives for themselves, and to do some good in the world. Women in the military are entitled to respect and the full protection of the law.