To recycle or not?
At Eastside City Hall there is a banner affixed to a light pole in the parking lot essentially saying that this recycling center could be closing due to illegal dumping. The city in its infinite wisdom is constantly closing recycling centers such as Udall Park and Booth-Fickett, moving centers farther away, placing more restrictions on what can be recycled and what cannot. They now are requiring folks to put their glass containers in a special red dumpster (which was absent at Eastside City Hall today). The regulations require items be washed out which wastes water, while there is a whole host of other rules that must be adhered to. It seems to me that the city is making recycling efforts for folks more time consuming and difficult. I’m quite sure there are citizens out there that have had enough and are just tossing recyclables into the trash.
Max LaPlante
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Southeast side
Inflation in the nation
Inflation is the highest in the last 40 years. Too much money chasing too few goods. Trump is not to blame. Biden is not to blame, The supply chain is not to blame. The Federal Reserve is to blame. They increased the M2 money supply by 42% from 2020 to 2021, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. And Biden can be blamed for nominating Jerome Powell to another term as the head of the Federal Reserve. This is freshman level college economics.
Randy Park
SaddleBrooke
Ukraine war
Re: the April 16 letter “Being Putin’s friend should hurt.”
What an excellent idea–placing financial sanctions on Putin’s friends.
The author didn’t cite Donald Trump as one of Putin’s friends, but I wonder if our former president isn’t the key to stopping the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. The Donald has claimed that only he can control Putin’s war crimes. Let him prove it — or be subject to severe financial sanctions.
Robert Mann
Northwest side
Old Pascua
Re: the April 17 article “New era for tiny Yaqui community.”
Thank you, Tim Steller, for the article on “Old Pascua Yaqui” village. Long forgotten by those that speed along I-10 and Grant Road, it is heartening to see hope of a better future. U.S. Senate, please approve the addition of the parcels to the reservation.
Barbra Kingman
Southwest side
Besieged and victimized
The Republican Party is using a political technique that creates a feeling of being besieged and victimized. According to them, the nation is under attack by immigrants, school boards, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, etc. This sense of being besieged creates fear, anger, victimhood and retaliation. Creating this sense of besiegement is a tool that weaponizes fear and division for political gain. This technique was used in the McCarthy Era with its Red Scare but more importantly, this technique was used in fascist nations to rally followers into their ranks. Besieged politics only drives a wedge between people in society and creates an “us vs. them” mentality. Those who are feared can easily be punished, as history shows. This technique is dangerous propaganda.
Steve Rasmussen
Foothills
Guns everywhere
Good morning, America! Another day, another mass shooting in this greatest country on earth where there’s no place to hide; schools, stores, churches, restaurants, subways, sitting in a car or waiting in line to see the Easter Bunny … bam, bam, pop, pop, shots fired. Thank NRA’s CEO, Wayne LaPierre, for his flagrant and relentless commandeering of the Second Amendment. Successful beyond their sickest dreams, they’ve bestowed a gift on our staunchest enemies who gleefully watch us shoot each other to death. With 400 million guns in America and spikes in sales after every mass shooting. We’re over the slippery slope the NRA talks about, but on the wrong side and from which there’s no conceivable recovery.
The space cadets in Phoenix nurture this insanity by suggesting we eliminate taxes on firearms, being as essential as bread and baby food, and condoning armed students on campus.
(I look back on my wild and crazy college days and think how much more fun we’d have had if we all packed 9 mm pistols.)
William Muto
SaddleBrooke
Pothole prevention
I hear that the governor has billions of dollars to play with, and yet we just can’t seem to educate our children. Locally, we can’t pave the roads correctly or fill in the thousands of potholes. I am not an educator, nor do I pave roads. But the potholes? I am so tired of busting up my tires and tearing up the suspension, not to mention having to dodge the people who are dodging the potholes, that I have started collecting rocks and filling them up. The city may not like it, maybe having to remove the big ones, but I welcome the consequences. I now have such a smooth ride down the street to my house that I just don’t care.
Robert Garr
South side
Things change
Re: the April 17 article “Historic Tucson barrio continues to transform.”
I know I’m not the only resident happy to have Exo Coffee in the neighborhood. It’s a clean, well-run coffee shop with owners that care about the community and how they run their business. It’s great to have them here.
Kudos to Pedro Gonzales for reminding us that bigotry comes in all shapes and sizes. His problem with people in the neighborhood who don’t look enough like him or speak like him pays homage to all the goobers back in the day that did their best to keep their communities exclusively white. Lester Maddox would be right there with you, Pedro.
Is the neighborhood changing? Undoubtedly. That’s how cities are. They change. Get over it.
TJ Colbert
Downtown
Uber needs to change gun policy
Last week, I was getting ready to begin driving for Uber. I noticed a police cordon ahead on East Broadway and I pulled into a CVS parking lot to turn around. Out of nowhere, a man saturated in blood appeared in front of me. I stopped to assess the situation, when he lifted a gun and began firing. There was no cover, and I couldn’t get down due to the armrest in my car. Despite having my gun permit, I left my weapon at home due to Uber’s anti-gun policy. Fortunately, police downed the suspect a few feet away from where he appeared. Transportation drivers are consistently listed as one of the most dangerous jobs in America for a reason, and it is time for Uber to stop hamstringing the safety of drivers with their anti-gun policy.
James Ticknor
East side
