Tucson Speaks Out: May 21 letters of the day

A community of compassion cares about all members of the community, human and animal alike, feels a responsibility to promote animal welfare, and does not permit the retail sale of animals from commercial breeders who are only in business to supply pet stores. Pets in these facilities often spend their entire lives in dirty, crowded cages for the sole purpose of producing as many animals as possible for the retail pet trade. These facilities also produce animals that are often sick and need expensive veterinary treatment. Pet stores that obtain animals from these facilities are not an asset to our community.

Instead, a community of compassion encourages pet consumers to adopt pets from shelters or rescue groups, thereby saving animals’ lives, reducing the cost to the public of sheltering animals, and reducing the risk of spreading disease.

More than 440 other cities, counties, and states have already passed laws to stop the retail sale of pets sourced from commercial breeding facilities. It’s time for Arizona to do the same.

Jeanette Baker

Oro Valley

Oppose legislation dictating zoning

The Arizona State Senate has passed legislation (HB2720 17-11) that would require Tucson and other communities to allow short-term rental units to be constructed where a single-family unit is allowed. This state requirement would override any community planning and increase groundwater usage outside of local control. This is not about discrimination or any such related concern, it is about eradicating community planning and essentially dictating increased growth and groundwater usage. The Arizona state government is essentially AWOL on groundwater management and now wants the authority to override any efforts by local communities to manage available water resources. Citizens are encouraged to contact Governor Hobbs to reject this legislation. Tucson does not need the Legislature’s assistance in managing our community.

Roger McManus

East side

Democracy is on the ballot

I hope to be able to vote in the 2028 election. If Trump is elected, that election might look a lot like Putin’s latest election. It’s ridiculous to believe that America can survive an authoritarian and all his supporting bad-faith actors.

The insurrection on Jan. 6 was about putting Trump back in office after he lost the election and lost 60 legal cases protesting the election. If he wins in 2024, with his minions filling all the appointed positions in America, and folks like Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs filling cabinet positions, you can bet that the America we know and love, will look like Hungary under Viktor Orbán or Russia under Putin. No Jan. 6 will be needed next time to keep Trump in office. A Trump VP will not certify the votes. Elections will be sent back to the red states, and in a NY minute, trump will be “re-elected” in 2028.

Take Trump literally and seriously. He admires dictators and wants to be one.

Patricia Hale

Northwest side

City pool schedule should prioritize children

Dear Editor:

The City of Tucson is forgetting its children. The city’s recently revealed pool schedule reduces hours for children’s summer swimming at many city pools. For instance, the popular, shaded Reid Park recreation pool will not be open at all on Fridays and Saturdays. Amphi pool will only be open a total of nine hours per week. Catalina pool — located midtown in an underserved area — will not be open to children this summer. (Yes, only adults will be swimming at Catalina pool.) Several city pools will be open for reduced hours only three days per week. In Tucson’s blistering heat, this will leave Tucson children — and most notably children from low-income families — with fewer opportunities for outside summer recreation. Before the City Council votes on its budget next week, I hope that it makes different and difficult decisions that prioritize Tucson children this summer.

Suzanne Rabe

Midtown

Which America do you want?

Biden is building investments in America:

His Infrastructure law has created millions of jobs for 56,000 projects in 4,500 communities across the nation.

Fixing 165,000 miles of roads and 9,400 bridges.

Improving 450 ports and 300 airport terminals.

Funding 1,400 drinking water and wastewater projects and replacing millions of toxic lead pipes.

Adding thousands of low and zero emission buses.

Funding to clean up contaminated sites.

Improving the electrical grid and funding 12,000 miles of high-speed internet infrastructure.

Trump’s plans of destruction for America:

“As dictator on day one I will throw out Biden’s infrastructure law and extend the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations,” knowing it will add $4 trillion to our deficit.

Republicans killed the badly needed bipartisan immigration bill on Trump’s say, then blamed the Democrats.

Now, they plan to create a database of pregnant women, allowing the government to track, intimidate, coerce, and prosecute women.

Building up America or destroying it?

I choose Biden’s America.

Rachel Rulmyr Ed.D. retired educator

Oro Valley

Trump and justice

Re: the May 17 letter “Democrats’ political prosecution of Trump.”

The author mentioned a litany of reasons she believed Trump was being unfairly treated by the justice system, blaming Democrats across the board for the current trial of Trump in New York. Interestingly, the letter failed to say anything about the bias of Republicans who have done just the opposite. For example, Judge Cannon, appointed by Trump and presiding over the case of Trump’s crime of hoarding classified documents at Mar-a Lago, first slow-walked the case and has now indefinitely postponed the trial, once scheduled for May 20. The author says nothing about the current Supreme Court, three members of which were appointed by Trump, moving to take the case of Trump’s desire to have total immunity from prosecution for any crimes he has committed in office, including the insurrection he fostered at the capital on Jan. 6, 2021, and then slow-walking that case so Trump cannot be tried before the November election. Fair Justice?

Gary Kordosky

West side

Kennedy for president

I am voting for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and urging all voters to do the same. I am doing this because I think both major political parties need a time-out to figure out what it is that each believes in. The four years of a Kennedy term will barely affect the country, but it will give the older generation of politicians time to move off the stage and a younger generation the opportunity to formulate a plan for the future. As Kennedy will not have a major party supporting him, the seat of power will be in Congress. Without a President to support or fear, those 435 men and women will either work together or fail. We have heard that some in Congress would prefer it to fail. But the majority will want to show the voters of 2026 and 2028 that their party can work for the American people. So, in November let’s give Joe and Donald gold watches and thanks for their service. Vote Kennedy!

Nathaniel Felton

East side

Class warfare

Bumper sticker: “It’s only called class warfare when we fight back.”

For me, fighting back means electing people who will work for solutions that equalize education, health care, job opportunities and tax laws, empowering working Americans to compete with the 1% of individuals and corporate powers growing richer every year.

It means supporting President Biden’s plan to raise taxes on ultra-rich and corporations so that people in my tax bracket aren’t carrying alone the weight of keeping our nation afloat.

It’s not following an autocrat who brags about never paying taxes; who ran up the national debt to record levels; who openly declares he wants to be a dictator.

We may never get another chance to vote. People waving their alternative flags and advocating revolution seem to believe that only those on the other side will lose. Wrong! In a dictatorship, everyone’s rights are taken.

For me, the war is in holding tight to our Democracy and defending it against domestic enemies like Trump.

E. Kathy Suagee

Benson

Should be Conover’s last term

Re: the May 19 article “Flip-flop on Taylor marks Conover’s term.”

I was a “former administration” prosecutor for 39 years. (150 jury trials; 2000 Grand Jurors advised; 0 bar complaints.)

Tim Steller writes that Laura Conover’s flip-flop over Taylor marked her first term. What really marks her first term: Conover is the only Pima County Attorney to face State Bar diversion for serious conflict violations.

From the beginning, Conover had a serious conflict: She believes that Taylor should be compensated and sought to exonerate him. This effort was to the detriment of Pima County, her client. She then backed off of exonerating Taylor because she feared a State Bar complaint. That decision was a clear ethics violation to the detriment of Louis Taylor. Faced with this obvious conflict, what should she have done? Stayed out of both the civil and criminal cases.

One of the real marks of her first term: We have a Pima County Attorney with questionable ethics. This should be her last term.

Paul Lauritzen

West side

Bechtol for Dist. 4 Supervisor

It is months before election day, but I have had the opportunity to meet with Vanessa Bechtol, candidate for Pima County Supervisor District 4, several times over the last few weeks. Here is a candidate who understands what’s important to her constituents, including water conservation, affordable housing, and workforce development. Her 20 years of non-profit leadership, including her current position with Visit Tucson, her participation in the Greater Tucson Leadership program, the Civic and Political Leadership Academy, and being a working mom, gives her a perspective that is far different from the current supervisor. He has voted twice to not certify election results and just recently voted against the approval of a prosperity initiative for the county, addressing a wide range of opportunities to make Pima County a better place for everyone. I urge voters in Dist. 4 to give Bechtol their strong consideration for Supervisor this fall.

Mark Hanna, retired TUSD counselor and former Pima Community College Governing Board member

Northeast side

Israel/Palestine solution

Re: the May 12 article “Campus protests now versus then.”

Brent Harold wrote a balanced, compelling article about campus protests now versus then. He ended by saying, “If not the oft-proposed and oft-defeated two-state solution, what?” The book “Beyond the Two-State Solution” by Jonathan Kuttab has an excellent answer to that most important question. He is a well-known international human rights attorney, having practiced in the U.S., Palestine, and Israel. In a mercifully concise 100 pages, he lays out practical solutions to all the inevitable questions regarding how a one-state solution can work for the benefit of all, including how a government can work without quashing the rights of whichever group happens to be in the minority. Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb writes on the cover, “Some are trapped by the past. This book opens the gate to the future.” I highly recommend this wonderful book to everyone!

Aston Bloom

East side

Left-turn problem

I have a suggestion about the left-turn light situation. Other cities use underground sensors similar to the cable used to count cars crossing over it. When the light turns green for the left-turn traffic, the sensor takes over and determines that no more cars are running over it, and turns the light back to red.

That way, all left-turn vehicles go through the light, and you have no red-light runners.

The sensor could be like these ring sensors that sense motion but in this case lack of motion. When it determines a lack of motion for a period of time it turns the light red.

I use the Craycroft and Grant left turn lanes and many times have to sit through three lights before I can turn left.

This should fix it and would not cost a lot of money, but should save lives.

Kosd Salgado

Northeast side

Catcalling during House committee session

Has it escaped anyone’s attention that some elected leaders have forgotten why they are in office? Further, have some of our elected leaders misplaced any knowledge about professional decorum? To wit — Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments (May 16) regarding Representative Jasmine Crockett’s eyelashes and insinuating that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not “have enough intelligence” to debate her. Unfortunately, there was enough lobbing of barbs to go around, with Crockett commenting on a “bleach blond bad built butch body” — clearly a veiled reference to Greene’s physique.

Perhaps it would do well to remind our elected leaders of why they are in office. But, better still, perhaps they need to hear these words by Bruce Lee: Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Mary Jo Swartzberg

SaddleBrooke