Tucson Speaks Out: Oct. 4

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, 93 years old and still in office? It is past time for a mandatory retirement age for Congress, as well as the Senate and the President!

Eugene Corral

North side

The new normal

Did we start a war because we changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War? Brilliant!

We build another wall to slow down the people that got over the first wall. Maybe a moat?

We need all the energy we can get, so we tear down the windmills already in place?

We build a $400 million ballroom so the presidents can dance to YMCA. Perfect!

If you cut education spending, will you increase the prison population? Is it easier to teach children for seven hours a day or house inmates 24 hours a day?

Shuffle as many legislative districts as you can before the midterms. Choose your voters.

Build an arch so we can store lots of sniper bullets. Again, perfect!

Ed LeGendre

East side

No data centers

Like the majority of residents of Pima County, I say absolutely no to data centers.

— Water use alone should stop these projects.

— Electricity use alone should stop these projects.

— Noise pollution alone should stop these projects.

— Heat creation alone should stop these projects.

Very few jobs will be created by these environmentally destructive projects.

The icing on the cake: a lot of the massive corporations that will benefit from these data centers have asked for tax breaks.

The city council and the board of supervisors can put all the restrictions they want on data centers, but we all know from decades of experience with mining and chemical plant operations that powerful corporations have a way of ignoring or sidestepping regulations and even court orders.

Local elected officials need to just say no. The people will back them.

Maggy Zanger

Midtown

Variety: The spice of life

Am I the only reader who has grown tired of the same "Theme of the Day" for the letters to the editor, played on repeat every single day for months on end?

I too find that our president can be an extremely unlikeable human being. He is, after all, a politician; as such, these qualities are not exclusive to him and his party.

If we're all being honest, this President, like all others before him, has done positive things worthy of note. If Trump has a 30% approval rating, then give us three out of 10 letters that prove it. Most staunch Republicans I know are not afraid to share their views; let's see more of them.

Richard Peddy

East side

Removal of the roadless rule and Arizona Trail

I’m pleased to learn that many of our national forests could possibly open to off-road vehicles. We recently hiked sections of the Arizona National Trail in Southern Arizona and the John Muir Trail in California. As I get older, it's getting harder to carry my gear, food and water. I look forward to the day when I can take our luxury high-clearance SUV on or near these trails with the comforts of our sleeping mattress, Coleman stove, fresh food, Starlink dish, fridge, two golden doodles, and the perfect wine and beer to pair with the views.

Hopefully soon, Four Seasons opens a resort overlooking the Grand Canyon, and the Ritz-Carlton puts their panoramic cocktail lounge atop the Sierras. Thank you, Trump voters, for supporting this administration’s sensitivity to the needs of those who crave the outdoors but don’t have the willingness or ability to hike these areas. Everyone should have access to do what they want, how they want — no matter the cost.

Roy Vanduivenbode

Foothills

Ciscomani lies about his opponent

I am writing to express my disgust at Juan Ciscomani for trying to convince voters to support him by blatantly lying about his opponent. Big yellow signs have popped up attacking JoAnna Mendoza. If you get close enough to read the fine print, you will see they are funded by his campaign. And they lie.

One lie is "Mendoza is endorsed by Defund the Police.” There is no such entity as "Defund the Police" to endorse anyone. Mendoza’s actual comments in 2020 support more funding for police and for social services the police do not provide.

Moreover, Ciscomani's lies were debunked in American Vanguard’s March article “Right- Wing Media Misrepresents JoAnna Mendoza’s Stance on Police Funding.”

Ciscomani cannot run on his terrible record, so he has resorted to making things up about his opponent. We cannot let him keep conning voters.

Kenneth Minkoff

Vail

Prison company a bad deal for Marana

Evidence has come to light that the prison in Marana run by MTC reportedly had numerous sexual assaults that it didn’t report to federal regulators.

When community members brought concerns about MTC reopening the prison as a detention center to the Marana Town Council, we were told that the Town had a wonderful working relationship with MTC and could assure the facility would be run humanely.

The residents of Marana need their elected leaders to do everything possible to ensure the safety of the staff, the detainees, and the broader community.

Town Council should do a full background investigation into MTC, then add an agenda item to an upcoming meeting so that the public can have a say in what companies are allowed to do business in Marana.

Caroline Isaacs

East side

Lift the moratorium

Mayor and Council called a "moratorium" on naming parks for people five minutes after naming a park for a person. That's the height of disingenuous hypocrisy at its most obvious. Parks need to be named, and they need to be named for local people.

Sal Baldenegro is not a rags-to-riches story. It's a rags-to-organizing story. He made people believe in themselves and take pride in who they are. The City has recognized his efforts. He organized his home neighborhood, Barrio Hollywood, to take El Rio Golf Course from private to public. The City established its first Neighborhood Center and built a full-sized park on the vacant land adjacent to the golf course. The El Rio Coalition was behind all that, and Sal Baldenegro organized the coalition.

Here's the core of Sal's skills. He taught people how to take pride in themselves, and believe that things are possible through organizing to express your best interests.

John Yoakum

Midtown

Speeding on Tucson streets

A few days ago, an article in the Star told of a study to determine if and why people drive faster than the speed limits. Save yourself some time; no study needed. Drive from 22nd Street north on Kolb to Broadway and use the speed limit (40), seven out of 10 cars will flash by you — and many in a reckless manner. The reason is simple. People look at the 40 mph speed limit not as the maximum they can drive but as the minimum. I don't know why; it just is.

I contend that were the city to raise the limit to 50 mph, drivers would soon learn that is the minimum and disregard it, approaching 60. As silly as it sounds, the only way to achieve anything near the 40 mph wanted is to reduce the limit to 30 mph. Most would approach 40, which apparently is the objective in the first place.

Philip Reinecker

East side

Prop 421: One voice, bought in bulk

Open the Official Voter Information Booklet and Prop. 421 looks popular: 69 arguments in favor. Look closer. Fifty-nine were paid for by TEP for Tucson, a PAC funded solely by TEP. More than two dozen were submitted by TEP employees. Nearly all repeat the same talking points; "reliable" appears more than 100 times.

At $240 per argument, those 59 cost $14,160. Sounds like real money. Now set it beside the $437 million in profit Fortis collected from TEP's parent company last year: TEP earns back the entire campaign in about 16 minutes.

Meanwhile, TEP is asking regulators for a 13% rate increase, roughly $172 million more each year from our pockets: paid for in 42 minutes of increased rates.

Strip out the scripted arguments and only 12 independent voices remain. Those are the odds Tucson voters face. Vote no on Prop 421.

Howard Weiss

Midtown

Deportation to third-world countries

How much more cruel and barbaric can the Trump government be when they send poor, desperate refugees, asylum seekers, or simply immigrants to a third country? By all categories of a democratic country subscribed to the principle of justice for all, how can US officials even think of committing this crime against humanity? Reflect on the reality for those miserable victims. Having barely escaped from violence and poverty ravaging their country, speaking only Spanish, e.g., they find themselves suddenly in Kosovo, Moldova (Europe), Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini (Africa), or Palau, Uzbekistan (Asia). How can they even survive there ? They have no social network, no linguistic abilities, no economic support system. This is the most shameful act of our government ever, so vote those truly un-American guys out of office!

Albrecht Classen

Midtown

Pima County and Tucson street maintenance

The question of why our local streets are in worse condition than most areas of the US has become a lively topic. As a veteran of the departments of transportation of both Pima County and Tucson, I can provide the clear, if unsatisfying, answer. Between 1980 and 2005, ours was the second fastest-growing population area in the U.S. Increased population and traffic congestion overwhelmed our street system. To avoid raising taxes, both Pima County and Tucson took out loans against the street maintenance funding they were due to receive from the state of Arizona in the future and used the money to add lanes to local streets to relieve the traffic congestion crisis. The loans took the form of two types of government bonds.

The consequence of this short-sighted approach was that both Pima County and Tucson were left with severely reduced street maintenance funds for the couple of decades it took to repay the bonds.

Brooks Keenan

Oro Valley