Understaffed pharmacies
Re: the Jan. 14 article “Drugstore chains make slow headway on staffing problems.”
This article was interesting, but my experience tells me it’s not the pharmacy itself that is the problem. Patronizing the chain pharmacy near my home (oh, how I wish I had a local pharmacy instead), I see the people in the actual pharmacy doing a great job, and yes, they are overworked. The rest of the store is the problem. On a recent visit, I was in a long line, watching the lone cashier under a great deal of strain as I saw three other employees not asking us if they could help us, not offering to help the poor lone cashier, but stocking shelves and taking inventory. When it was my turn to check out I asked the cashier where the store manager was. She pointed to one of the people stocking the candy shelf and told me he was the manager. He saw the long line but just kept loading candy on the shelf without a care. That’s the problem!
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Bob Feinman
Foothills
Desalination dream
Our municipal water facility is vulnerable and strategic and therefore, it needs security. Despite that, our leaders are investigating desalination to solve our water issues. Incredulously, they have chosen the most complex possible solution that is fraught with security impossibilities. The pipeline would have to traverse part of a foreign country and that means that abject security would be impossible to obtain. Our water supply would be an easy target for adversaries who wish to destabilize our economy and our community. By themselves, those possibilities should end the thought of any pipeline plans.
Instead, they should be looking to recycle the water that is already here. That, combined with composting toilets, rain harvesting, vertical farming, and other technologies, makes far more sense in a desert environment and won’t involve impossible security hurdles.
I hope that our leaders are reconsidering this ill-advised figurative and literal pipe dream.
Rick Cohn
West side
House electing a speaker
I really cannot believe what I have been seeing and trying to understand what has been happening. This was like the Jan. 6 insurrection. The same insurrection players who wanted to create chaos and overthrow our government are the players. I am extremely upset about this direction. Our wonderful democracy. What is really happening to the followers of our love of the truth? I pray to our “higher power” to help America. It’s a shame the people who we have elected to represent us, in the very sacred House of Representatives don’t share the love of the union of the United States of America we love.
Mary Beth Schneider
East side
How low can you go?
The Republican Party is like a limbo contest: As it lowers the bar, its candidates must be increasingly slippery to slide underneath. Vice President Dan Quayle lowered the bar to “can’t spell potato;’’ Sarah Palin to “I can see Russia from my house.’’ Donald Trump, a tax-cheating, war-hero-trashing, serial adulterer pushed the “party of family values” bar to the floor. QAnon queen Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul “my siblings call me a traitor’’ Gosar, and Matt “not a child sex trafficker’’ Gaetz, kicked it to the curb. But with New York Rep. George Santos, the “party of personal responsibility’’ has fed the bar into a wood chipper. Santos, a suspected thief in two countries, lied about his education, religion, family background and career. The New York Republican Party wants him to resign. Not Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Integrity and qualifications vs. a reliable GOP vote? No contest!
Elinor Brecher
Foothills
Terrible experience
I’m writing to express my outrage at the incompetence of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona. In 2021, I signed up for their insurance and went through a year of problems. In 2022, I switched to a different provider called Bright Health, which was much better, but unfortunately, that policy is no longer available in the exchange so I had to get BCBS again.
As of today, I still cannot use my insurance because it doesn’t connect to their system when I try to use it. I’m tired of sending my money, and the government’s money, directly to the trash with these insurance companies.
I should be able to use my insurance, but it seems Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona doesn’t want you to use it. We really need health care for everybody — one single payer, one group of benefits. This is insanity. I am spending hours online, hours on the phone, all for nothing.
Stephanie Watson
South side
Refill Lake Mead
California already has a pipeline in place to draw water from Lake Mead. At times like this when their rivers are overflowing and you know it’s going to happen again, why can’t they reverse the flow and pump water back into Lake Mead?
Joseph Paradiso
West side
Myth of personal responsibility
Congress recently passed the largest-ever increase in IRS funding and now repeal of that funding has become the first legislative priority of the Republican majority in the House.
First priority, they say. Higher than border security? National defense? Law enforcement and public safety? Then how do these priorities get funded?
Republicans always talk about personal responsibility. It seems a fair and equitable tax system would be a top priority for citizens and corporate taxpayers sincerely striving to meet their obligations in a democracy. Or maybe assuming personal responsibility is just a convenient spin for programs benefiting only the most privileged of Americans.
Fran McNeely
Northeast side
Education for all is top priority
Re: the Jan. 14 article “Hobbs’ first budget heavy on schools.”
Finally, education for all is back, with Gov. Katie Hobbs proposing to invest differently from her predecessor. Doug Ducey’s school voucher program consists of taxes to go to “private or parochial schools,” which undermines the constitutional mandate of separating church and state. Of course, the Republicans just mock this proposal, and they will shoot it down because they want state money to go to the rich while pretending that those vouchers would also help the poor to send their kids to the schools of their choice. But let’s face it, our future as a state depends on good schools across all levels, and to have good schools, you need good teachers. Those deserve to be paid to the fullest since they are crucial for the well-being of our society at large, today and tomorrow. Good teachers ensure that their students become critical and independent thinkers, but neither the voucher supporters nor the Republicans (almost the same) really want that. Good luck, Gov. Hobbs!
Albrecht Classen
Midtown
Tucson water rates
Why are residential customers paying more for water usage than commercial? Why did Tucson Water and the City not notify customers of rate increases in their billing statements? Why were the Tucson Water Open Houses poorly advertised? I cannot answer these questions, only provide a little clarity and a way for you all to find out more detailed information.
Tucson residential users are on an increasing block (tiered) rate usage and commercial users pay less on a seasonal rate usage and remain less in the new rate proposals.
Review the Oct. 18, 2022, M&C Regular Meeting Agenda materials, Item 10, Exhibit 2, the two Tucson Water Proposed Rates FY2023-2027: Smoothing Model with Reclaimed Increase tables, which list the water rate increases for both residential and commercial users along with other rate component increases for each of the five years from 2023-27, not just the average residential increase of 5.5% every year for the next five years. Happy New Year.
Abreeza Zegeer
Southwest side
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