Local opinion: Silence and acceptance are not leadership

For generations, Tucson was a city people believed in. Imperfect? Of course. But there was a shared understanding that leadership mattered. That elected officials were responsible for keeping people safe, maintaining order, and making sure the City and the County worked.

That sense of confidence is slipping.

The number of troubling incidents unfolding across Tucson in recent months has made it increasingly difficult to dismiss the sense that deeper structural problems are emerging.

There have been a hatchet attack and a sexual assault at a bus stop; a series of bus-rider attacks on our transit system and cyclist attacks on The Loop; and the tragic death of a 3-year-old in a midday street racing crash. These moments should jolt a city into action. Instead, they landed like so many others — a shock that fades without much change. For a lot of residents, it now feels like part of a pattern: reckless driving, open drug use at bus stops, panhandling at intersections, theft and shoplifting, and homeless encampments encroaching on public spaces and making them feel unsafe.

Then came the spectacle of “protesters” entering a private law office in an effort to intimidate and harass employees. Regardless of political ideology, we cannot tolerate mob tactics targeting private businesses and citizens. Yet once again, the City, as well as the County, has seemed hesitant, muted, or absent altogether. Only three elected officials — Supervisors Scott and Heinz and Councilmember Lee — spoke out about the incident and the lines crossed in such actions.

And people notice the silence.

At some point, leadership must take ownership. These problems can no longer be blamed on the state Legislature or whoever occupies the White House. Leadership means responsibility, not only for the problems you create, but for the problems you fail to solve. Local issues require local action and local solutions.

Instead, many citizens feel dismissed, lectured, or treated as adversaries. Constructive criticism about public safety, homelessness, or the City’s fare-free transit system is often brushed aside rather than seriously considered. Drivers and riders who complain about crime and disorder on buses are treated as political nuisances instead of operational realities that deserve attention and adjustment.

Businesses feel it too. Employers feel less like partners in growth and instead have been cast as villains. That matters, because a region cannot grow while alienating the very people who create jobs and sustain investment.

Meanwhile, elected leaders continue advancing fee increases without demonstrating meaningful improvements in the services those fees are supposed to support. Citizens are paying more while feeling less safe, less heard, and less confident in the direction of their local government.

Even more bewildering are discussions about expanding municipal control into services local government is unprepared to manage financially and responsibly, such as municipal power. These proposals seem less like serious governance and more like ideological shifts ignoring the visible decline people experience every day.

And that decline is no longer just physical. It is something deeper.

When leadership is absent, trust breaks down. People stop believing problems will be solved and start assuming they won’t be. Instead of uniting City and County residents around shared priorities, too many decisions are framed in ways that divide people and turn practical concerns into political ones.

Longtime residents describe the same feeling: exhaustion. They feel the place they love is being allowed to drift, deteriorate, and lose confidence in itself.

Silence, acceptance, and inaction serve as encouragement. Beyond debates about data centers, does society believe open drug use is acceptable? Should we let blatant shoplifting and robbery go unaddressed? Public protest and using our collective voices is our right. Marching into private homes and businesses to intimidate and demand is not. Silence on these cumulative concerns can be perceived as an endorsement.

Tucson doesn’t need perfection. It needs leadership willing to rise to this moment, see reality as it is, and respond to it directly. Which leaves a simple question now being asked across this region: Does this mayor and council still believe Tucson can do better? Does the County believe our region can be better? If they do, it is time to act, time to speak up, time to lead.