Tucson Speaks Out: August 6

Party power

America faces one more test of its ability to be a democracy. Gerrymandering legislative districts with the intent of giving one political party an advantage over another political party, when legislative seats in Congress are up for a vote, is not a democratic process. It is a party power tactic. The drawing of legislative districts is supposed to give citizens in a geographic area of a state opportunity for electing representatives who will work to represent their interests in Washington. For the president to blatantly solicit a state to redraw voting district areas to favor his political party control is not how democracy is supposed to work. Cheating citizens out of fair representation to “fix” elections in favor of one political party is an authoritarian tactic. Trump doesn’t hesitate to violate the rights of American citizens, and the MAGA herd just follows him like lemmings off the cliff of tyranny.

Richard Bechtold

West side

Project Blue support

I am in full support of the Project Blue data centers that have been proposed to be built here in Southern Arizona. The developer, Pima County, Tucson Water, TEP and everyone else involved has done their due diligence to make this project happen. Now it’s up to the City of Tucson Council to realize that everything that they have put into place for developers to follow has been met or exceeded. This should be an easy yes on their part. A yes here will show everyone that if you follow what the City has laid out for development, then you can actually build here. Let’s see to it that the Council votes in favor of this project!

Christopher DeYoung

Marana

Data center policy

Many communities in the U.S. have adopted measures to discourage or set meaningful standards for data centers and their water use. In Arizona, Marana, Chandler and other jurisdictions discourage data centers because of the high use of water relative to the few permanent jobs they create. Tucson was caught flat-footed. City Council and the Pima County Board of Supervisors both need to study the impacts of data centers (thank you, Jen Allen) and do the hard work of setting standards for data centers before it embraces any.

Under the draft contract, the Project Blue developer gets a 30-year exemption from any new rules being adopted. This is outrageous. No to the annexation and provision of City water.

Call me another hydrologist against Project Blue.

Julia Fonseca

Midtown

Re: What would Donald do?

I’ve been silent on Project Blue since news and opinions get balanced coverage in the Star. Now, contributors Michael Chihak and Sheldon Clark address this question both satirically and seriously.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors has now ‘supervised’ in favor of Blue, leaving the decision to Mayor Regina Romero and her tribe, so it’s now “Project Romero.”

Regina, if Donald were in your shoes, he would demand that Amazon generate 150% of its energy needs on-site with small, clean, safe nuclear reactors and sell the excess to TEP at reduced rates to offset our 14% bill increase. If not, no deal.

Regina, call Donald and say that Arizona is landlocked, needing 10 times more water to flourish. Demand that his tariff negotiation with Mexico include sovereign rights to Puerto Peñasco’s salt water for nuclear power and desalination near Yuma, and get them to pay for it, offsetting the $63B that U.S. Mexicans send home each year.

This is what leadership looks like.

Jeffrey McConnell

West side

Schools and extreme heat days

Time for Tucson to protect students who walk or take the bus to and from school from overheating in the dangerous heat. Students walking or waiting outside in the morning’s hot sun can arrive at school or home feeling unwell because they are dehydrated and do not know it. Admin and teachers need to make sure all students hydrate regularly throughout the day, and that those walking have a cold water bottle to take with them. Schools must also educate parents and students about proper hydration during hot weather.

For the safety of their students, Tucson schools need to excuse students who are not driven to school on the extreme heat days, just as snow days are given elsewhere. Waiting outside for a bus or walking home in the Sonoran Desert’s hot sun can be very dangerous. Imagine the additional heat generated by the weight of the heavy backpacks pressing on their backs. Students can only hope that all of the buses have working air conditioning.

Cheryl Kelli

Downtown

What would founding fathers think?

Unfortunately, our constitution needs to be rewritten, considering the current political environment. Currently, there is a radical segment of our population that does not follow our constitution as written. “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” is no longer applicable. A suggestion might be, we the MAGA people of the United States, in order to force our beliefs on others, will establish what we consider to be justice, destroy tranquility and provide a defense against those who do not hold our beliefs. We will promote the welfare, liberty and posterity of billionaires. We should further eliminate the Legislature as they are not able to lead, only follow. We should eliminate the justice departments and the Supreme Court as well. After all, we have a stable genius as president who insists on making all those decisions himself. Resist.

Peter Morales

Midtown

Antisemitic bigotry by former Judge

The letter on Aug. 2 comparing the Jewish children at the Maccabi Games to Nazi Hitler youth during the Holocaust was an appalling example of bigotry and antisemitism. The Nazis murdered 1.5 million children during the Holocaust. This is personal because my grandparents were both in the Auschwitz concentration camp. My grandfather’s first wife and sons were brutally murdered by the Nazis.

Sabalos shows a fundamental historical ignorance. The Hitler Youth was created to mold German boys into ideal Aryan men, educated, trained, and imbued with Nazi principles. In contrast, the Maccabi Games are a non-political event that allows Jewish children to compete in sports events.

It is scary that Sabalos is a former Pima County Juvenile Court Judge. Sabalos says he finds it grotesque to see the “smiling faces of healthy JCC Maccabi participants.” He expects Jewish people to go into hiding and remain in the shadows. However, our Jewish children and community will continue to stand tall.

Stacy Zinman

Midtown

Project Blue

Let’s become a backwater, with the key part of that descriptor being water. But even if it were not, one of the greatest luxuries of modern living is elbow room. Isn’t Tucson intrinsically more desirable than Phoenix? If I lived around Benson, it would trouble me greatly to think of adding tens of thousands of new homes around there, drawing down the San Pedro River, each house almost inevitably coming with two cars. The I-10 is busy enough. Tucson should say no to Project Blue, and for that matter, HudBay, if possible.

Peter Harley

Midtown

The American Dream, then and now

The following is an American Dream story that may shock and upset you.

At age 11, Juan Ciscomani and his family arrive in Tucson from Hermosillo, Mexico, for a better education and better job opportunities. He attends Utterback Middle School, Rincon High, no questions asked, and with Pell grants graduates from Pima College and the University of Arizona. He works for two Democratic members of the United States Congress and becomes a Republican member himself. What an amazing country.

What does he do with this newly acquired power? He not only votes for the big, ugly, ICE deportation bill but also votes to throw millions off healthcare while getting a 75% taxpayer subsidy for healthcare for himself, his wife, and six children.

What are we to make of the American dream now? Ciscomani nailed shut the kind of path to citizenship we Americans afforded him while his policies instill cruelty and terror in what was once a warm, welcoming America.

Lois Postil

Northwest side

Project Blue is not for Tucson

As a Tucsonan of 50 years, I have done my part to promote sustainable living by conserving water, installing solar panels to my home, purchasing a plug-in hybrid vehicle, and adding extra insulation to my house.

I applaud the city of Tucson for its continued efforts at water conservation and promotion of renewable energy. But allowing the construction of a data center that does nothing to respect our unique environment and will potentially contribute to major problems for our city down the road is not responsible governance. It is like a slap in the face to me and so many other Tucsonans who are doing their part to make sure Tucson remains a great place to live far into the future.

This data center would benefit tech billionaires, not Tucsonans. Don’t sell us out so that they can profit at our expense.

Denise Webb

Midtown

Grant Road construction

I don’t think the City of Tucson or Granite Construction planned the Grant Road Project very well. If they plan on blocking off a street, they need to have an alternative route for pedestrians to get around safely. This should be in place ahead of time to eliminate a potential danger.

Because of the construction, I had been injured twice. The first time I tripped and fell and tore a ligament in my thumb and had to have surgery on it. I was trying to get around uneven mounds of dirt in order to get to the bus stop. I ended up tearing a tendon in my foot. Luckily, it healed on its own. People need to understand that others are being hurt by the poor planning of the Grant Road construction project. I want people to be aware of the potential dangers that it poses.

Jill Harman

Midtown

Guest Opinion questioning Project Blue

Self-described army brat Melinda Matson Spina’s Guest Opinion outing the two UA profs who opined that Project Blue would spin Tucson straw into gold did her army dad and this community a great service. Turns out those two were mouthpieces for the military and for tech oligarchs.

Now, that outing alone would have been enough, but her deft and skewering analysis gathered together somewhat disparate source materials to lay bare the audacity of the project’s perps and the real terror this project portends.

Find it online, read it and figure it out for yourself. Glad her skill set is on the side of justice.

Rick Rappaport

Oro Valley