Tucson Speaks Out: Jan. 24 letters of the day

Lack of Phoenix Suns TV availability

It is extremely frustrating that the Suns do not have a contract with Comcast. I used to enjoy watching the Suns play but now there are blackouts, restrictions and no contract with Comcast. Come on guys. Work things out, alright?

William Carter

Northeast side

UA presidential residence

I remember daily walks on Third Street to Campbell Ave. A few years ago I witnessed the remodel of UA President Robbins’ Third Street home using UA labor and material.

The process looked like it cost several hundred thousand dollars. Upon completion, I remember reading that President Robbins “graciously” offered to rescind his $70,000.00 annual housing allowance in exchange for his sole ownership of the home on Third Street.

This seemed like a strange transaction? The home is probably worth more than two million.

Daniel Nelson

Midtown

It’s on us

I’m amazed by the number of people who are complaining about the apparent repeat of a Biden-Trump slate. WE alone are responsible. Caucus and primary voters choose the candidates.

Susan Dabbs

East side

Billion-dollar disasters a wakeup call

The Daily Star’s recent well-graphed and mapped article, along with this past week’s severe US weather conditions in most of the country, should give Americans great pause.

How is our government going to continue paying for future climate disasters’ related destruction, having extensively documented 28 “Billion Dollar Disasters” in 2023 alone?

Based on the maps provided, we desert dwellers are residing in a relatively moderate to high risk area, right here in southern Arizona. Insurance companies are already refusing to cover homeowners in disaster-prone regions.

Besides the “significant economic effects on the areas impacted”, untimely deaths from each of these increasing weather events are inevitable and multiplying.

Long term drought increases the heat effect, reduces water supply and places stress on our utilities’ power supply, needed to cool us during temperature extremes.

Our global climate emergency is undeniable. We in Arizona will be forced to choose sooner or later: roast, flee, or ACT.

Barb Reuter

Southeast side

UnBiden America

We can no longer abide Biden. He is feeble, frail and fuzzy. But even worse his policies are failures.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a deadly disaster. He essentially invited Putin to invade Ukraine and then supported Ukraine too little and too late. You win a war, not support it.

He sided with the barbaric Hamas and Palestinians. He tripled the price of gas and increased inflation even more. His policy on our southern border spawned a humane disaster and very real security risk. We must unBiden America.

Wiliam Wolfe

Northeast side

New casino will cause additional traffic jams

Re: the Jan. 20 article “Tucson land to be tribal site for casino”

It’s nice that the Pascua Yaqui nation here in Tucson has an opportunity for economic growth in terms of a new casino planned at the Grant Road/I-10 area. However, this intersection already has major traffic jams in both directions, especially during morning and afternoon rush hours.

I’ve witnessed traffic back-ups as far back as half a mile in both directions. And this is before adding casino traffic. Attention: City and transportation planners: you need to resolve the issue of additional traffic before the casino is built.

Karen McKee

West side

Make Elections Fair Act

The proposed Make Elections Fair Act initiative currently gathering signatures seeks, among other things, to restore local control and political power to the people of Arizona and should be supported by all Arizonans.

But more work needs to be done to insure that elected officials are more beholden to their constituents than to broader special interests or national political parties.

Campaign finance laws need to change so that the source of funds to finance electoral campaigns is restricted to eligible voter constituents of the elected official or candidate.

Contributions should be limited to a proscribed amount per person and extend throughout the elected official’s term in office. Contribution restrictions should include funding sources of all types made on behalf of the candidate or elected official even if not directly associated with the campaign itself.

This would take big money out of local and state politics, reduce campaign costs, and truly restore local control and power to the people.

Richard Cate

Green Valley

Using markets to balance groundwater usage

Thank you for your continued coverage of water in Arizona.

An idea I have not seen discussed is to balance groundwater supply and demand through a feedback system using market pricing. It would be something like this:

1. Form a district of all land owners over an aquifer.

2. Determine the desired elevation of the water table.

3. Charge well owners for the volume of water they pump from the aquifer.

4. Divide the collected funds amongst the property owners based on the area of land they own (assuming groundwater recharge volume is proportional to surface area).

5. Periodically adjust the price per unit volume as required to maintain the desired water table elevation. When it is low, increase the price. When it is high, decrease the price.

A small portion of the collected funds would be used to administer the district. Price adjustments could use classic control system proportional-integral-derivative (PID) algorithms. Pricing would encourage water users to be more efficient, choose less thirsty crops to plant, etc.

Harold Hallikainen

East side

Good riddance to Safari Club’s museum

To fuel grotesque trophy hunting contests, SCI litigates to eliminate species protections. Killing over 320 species is required for top honors, including rare and threatened in categories like “African Big 5”.

SCI’s museum hosted “Predator Masters” — club for competitive killing of coyotes, bobcat, fox, racoon, coatimundi. Prompted by wildlife advocates and media, Tucson city council prohibited their return.

Reviewing SCI’s destructive agenda, animal advocate Councilman Steve Kozachik removed Wildlife Museum’s “Visit Tucson” tourism listing.

With public abhorrence of gloating trophy hunters’ wildlife slaughter and SCI member’s killing iconic “Cecil the Lion”, SCI manufactured “we have to kill them to save them” faux conservation. Ethical hunters of common game for consumption consider trophy hunting decadent. The public’s 95% non-hunters support LIVE wildlife in natural habitat. Attracting impressionable children, the museum normalized killing wildlife for display and sanitized the senseless brutality of trophy hunting.

Moving to Texas where SCI’s Dallas chapter’s wealthy travel the world competitively killing rhinos and charismatic species is good riddance for Tucson!

Candace Charvoz Frank

West side

Border coverage

In response to a recent letter stating that the liberal media rarely covers the influx of migrants at the border: the New York Times and Washington Post have routinely covered the issue, along with its history, causes, and politics.

Actions taken or proposed by the administration and Congress to address the situation are discussed in detail.

Bipartisan negotiations to change the asylum and parole systems have been ongoing in the Senate. According to reports, the proposed changes are considered to be the most conservative taken in decades, ie. they contain much that Republicans have supported.

The major impediment is hard right members of the Republican party, primarily in the House, who reject any solution but theirs, and particularly a bipartisan one.

Once again, the “my way or the highway” group continues to stall progress on an issue facing this country and vies for title of least productive Congress in history.

Barbara Hall

Midtown

Prevailing wages

Mayor Romero tells us that a prevailing wage law will give construction workers good wages.

What she hasn’t told you is that nationwide, prevailing wage laws on average raise the costs of construction projects by 26%.

That means of course that taxpayers will be paying much more than is necessary. Another problem is that such laws have a chilling effect on minority employment since unions still remain white-dominated.

A third problem is that such laws tend to freeze out minority businesses who can only compete on price. And fourth, such laws make construction of low-cost housing unaffordable.

But Mayor Romero already knows this because she is exempting low-cost housing from the law. If prevailing wage laws are so good, why isn’t she willing to pay all the workers the same?

Al Westerfield

Southwest side

Twisted words, untwisted

Re: the Jan. 21 letter “Twisted words”

The letter writer provides examples of “dictatorship courtesy of our current president.” However, these examples are missing some important information. For instance:

Billions of dollars supposedly sent to Iran were actually Iran’s own assets frozen by the U.S. They are currently being held in Qatar, and have not been released to Iran.

President Biden has a goal that 50% of new vehicle sales be electric by 2030. This is not a mandate.

The president has authority to decide how to enforce immigration law. Immigration reform is necessary, but this issue has been a sticking point since well before the current president.

Both U.S. oil production and U.S. natural gas production have been increasing since Biden took office, and are currently at their highest level in more than a decade.

Thank you to the letter writer for expressing your opinion. But even regarding your bullet points not addressed here, President Biden’s leadership does not resemble that of a dictator.

Sally Lee

Foothills

Thank You Jedd Fisch

I would like to thank Ex-Coach Jedd Fisch for leaving the Wildcat Football program better than he found it.

We are indeed better due to him stressing to rectuts the idea of “Team”, “Family “, and “Loyalty”. He recruited some of the finest athletes to set foot on the field at Arizona Stadium in years.

Even more impressive however is the moral commitment that these young men have made to their family, their teammates and to the entire Wildcat community.

Unfortunately, these are qualities that Coach Fisch does not possess. Clearly, he took the term “It’s Personal” to mean it was personal for him, and him alone.

I see his actions as disrespectful to the young men he recruited. I hope to see him struggle in the Big 10. Playing Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska regularly is going to be a grind.

To those young men who followed Coach Fisch to Washington, I wish them the best. I hope they put up great numbers, but on a mediocre team.

Todd Brown

Midtown

Hamas/Israel — the obvious solution

The Gaza Strip conflict is in its fourth month with human casualties mounting and no end in sight.

The UN, the EU, the Arab countries, the American president, and every politician running for U.S. office have a plan to cease the hostilities.

The obvious solution is never proposed, that Hamas should simply surrender. They mistakenly believed that they could commit the unthinkable atrocities of October 7 and only receive another slap on the wrist from Israel.

Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Japan surrendered to MacArthur on the USS Missouri. Their armies had been crushed by overwhelming force and continuation would mean senseless deaths.

Hamas is defeated and if they continue resisting, the blood of every civilian death is on their hands. When they’re gone, the peace process can begin.

Jeffrey McConnell

West side

Palestinian dreams

A recent letter asked what do Palestinians want?

I lived in the Middle East for six years in the 1980s and the answer then was they wanted a Palestine as it was before 1948, meaning no declaration of a Jewish state.

They encouraged their children and grandchildren to believe that someday they could go back to the Palestine they once knew, reclaiming their properties.

Those of us from the Western world wondered why the sheiks and kings of the oil-rich Gulf States did not accept immigrants from Palestine in great numbers. We were told that they wanted the Palestinians to stay in opposition and fight for their country.

In those pre-internet days, it was easy to control censorship by simply blacking out Israel from world maps, magazines and newspapers. The broadcasters on Arab TV channels referred to “Occupied Palestine”. They are a proud people and deserve better from their leaders who consistently turned down the two-state solution.

Elizabeth Furrer

East side