Reid Park Zoo a friend
to children and families
If the news hasn’t reached all corners of the city, all Tucson families can enjoy Reid Park Zoo. Anyone with a Pima County library card can get a Culture Pass for free admission (with a limited number per week).
Parents and children in SNAP-WIC programs (EBT card holders) get $4 off ticket prices and regular admission for a child, $6.50, is the cost of a Happy Meal at McDonald’s.
A Family Membership for two adults and four children costs $80 a year (with the zoo being open 363 days), which is around the same cost of one trip to a movie theater.
Pre-COVID, schools brought more than 20,000 students, teachers, and parent-chaperones annually, for free. With COVID, classroom visits are virtual and free.
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Zoo cams and virtual animal encounters are free. Dreamnight, an event close to my heart, is held annually and provides free admission to families and children with special needs.
The zoo also offers deeply discounted Community Memberships to nonprofit agencies serving children/families, mental health, and homeless guests. The zoo truly is for everyone.
Terrie Thompson
East side
Please don’t disregard my vote
I have been a voter in Tucson for over 30 years and take the job very seriously, always doing my homework on candidates and propositions.
I voted “yes” on the two propositions regarding the zoo because the zoo is a valuable asset to the community and should be supported and improved.
The Barnum Hill supporters have my sympathy, but the hill can be re-created and made even better. Change can be good!
I am concerned that my vote will be nullified. We have experienced enough craziness with regard to voting since the presidential election. It is time to respect the vote and get on with the zoo expansion.
Carol Korich
Midtown
Want to vote? Stop these bills
Despite President Biden’s new executive order strengthening voter access and House Resolution 1, the House’s sweeping ethics and election package aimed at protecting voting rights, Arizona Republicans are working to limit our most sacred constitutional prerogative, our right to vote.
There’s the thinly disguised poll tax of Senate Bill 1713, which requires you to include proof of identification in your mail-in ballot.
There’s the shrinking voting window in SB 1593, which reduces the time when you get your early ballot and when you can send it in.
There’s SB 1485, which would remove you from voting rolls for not voting in the previous two elections.
And there’s over a dozen bills of the same ilk that are moving through the Legislature. Call your local senator and representative to stop voter suppression.
Jean Meconi
Oro Valley
Zoo expansion would help Reid Park overall
I moved to Tucson in 2017. I have not made connections to Barnum Hill, but I have made connections to Reid Park Zoo and its mission.
I worked at two other Association of Zoos and Aquariums institutions and have firsthand experience on how zoos change lives by connecting people to wildlife conservation.
Change is always hard, but there is a fantastic offer to create a new nature area. Barnum Hill and the pond are under-maintained. Creating a clean, updated nature area will be more beneficial because the public will have the chance to design an area that is safe and benefits the whole community.
Children will still learn fine and gross motor skills, transplanted native trees will provide shade and wildlife habitat, an updated pond with filtration will provide quality water to the animals living in Reid Park, and new memories will be made.
Continuing with the current Pathway to Asia expansion and adding a nature area is truly a win-win situation.
Sierra Horsey
East side
No more sociopaths
in White House, please
The GOP’s embracing of Donald Trump has historical corollaries. There has been a connection between many far-right dictators and the mental condition known as sociopathy (antisocial personality disorder).
Augusto Pinochet was a sociopath and led Chile to a far-right dictatorship that had many fascist characteristics. Benito Mussolini was also a sociopath and ended up ruining Italy with his fascism and imperialism.
Sociopaths are attracted to power positions and seem to favor fascism as a political tool.
The GOP’s choosing of Trump, a sociopath, as the leader of the party, shows a dangerous drift toward a more fascist-leaning party.
Millions voted for Trump not knowing the historical significance and danger of doing so, nor that he was a sociopath. History is filled with lessons, if we only take the time to learn from them. Not doing so has consequences.
Steve Rasmussen
Foothills
Biden’s Cabinet
looks like America
President Biden has pledged to serve all Americans.
Nowhere is that pledge more clearly reflected than in his Cabinet and Cabinet-level appointments, which include 12 men and 10 women of various ethnicities and persuasions: 10 white, five Black, four Hispanic/Latin, two Asian, one Native American, and two who identify as LGBTQ+, who are well-educated, experienced in their appointed fields, and well-prepared to lead.
Their efforts promise to lead us toward a better, stronger, and safer nation with a renewed respect for science, the rule of law, social justice, and human rights.
Biden has demonstrated his willingness to consult his advisers and his ability to effectively respond to the crises that beset us.
He has the knowledge, integrity and compassion to guide our nation and the tact and experience in world affairs to represent us on the international stage.
His administration gives us hope that we can right our course and sail toward a brighter future. With Biden at the helm, our “Ship of State” is once again in steady hands.
Jacolyn Marshall
Oro Valley
Front-line grocers
remain at risk every day
I wept with joy when my beloved parents received their vaccinations, and I look forward to safely hugging them soon. However, as a front-line grocer, I am still not yet eligible to register for my shot in Pima County.
For a solid year now, essential front-line workers, grocers, transportation workers, postal workers and others have been and continue to be exposed all day, every day, to hundreds of potentially contagious customers and are still not essential enough to register.
Please, my beloved Tucson, please remain vigilant. Wear a mask properly and be considerate while out getting your groceries. We’re all still in this together.
Maggie Carrillo
Midtown
$15 minimum wage won’t wreck economy
The same people complaining that raising welfare, unemployment or pandemic benefits will discourage people from looking for work are the same people who want to keep the minimum wage as low as possible.
They espouse the value of work yet put as little monetary value to it as possible. They are creating the lack of motivation to find work that they are criticizing people for.
A Purdue University study showed that $15 per hour would raise a Big Mac from $3.99 to $4.16, not likely to result in a fast-food-industry collapse. We are all part of the same macro-economy, but only the lowest-paid must keep it running?
Ironically, those people benefiting from our gross income disparities help create the social behaviors of which they are so critical. It would appear to be a double-blind that is not healthy for the people or the economy .
Bill Baker
West side
Texts of Props. 202 and 203 misled voters
I believe that the 2017 ballot did not treat Tucson voters fairly, since the texts of Propositions 202 and 203 did not mention an expansion of the zoo to encompass Barnum Hill and the south pond.
The two ponds and hill form a unit connected by a waterfall and streams. Dozens of turtles and birds can easily go from the water to the rocks surrounding the south pond. They can also swim from one pond to the other. There are no rocks around the north pond.
I am a member of the Reid Park Zoo and Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and cannot fathom how the zoo, with its educational focus, can agree to destroy a natural habitat of so many free desert creatures in order to provide a controlled home for exotic animals in a habitat alien to them.
How much of the “millions of dollars” in planning came from taxpayers who voted on propositions that did not reflect the zoo’s expansion intent?
Jean Rabura
Midtown
Why did Roberts sit out
2nd impeachment trial?
I’m a lifelong Republican. I voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. But due to his despicable behavior since the November election, I was hoping the Senate could convict him and then he would be disqualified from holding any future federal office.
Nevertheless, there was one matter of importance in the Senate trial that was barely reported. The U.S. Constitution states: “When the President of the U.S. is tried the Chief Justice shall preside.”
However, Justice Roberts declined to preside. He didn’t give a reason. It could have been due to the reasoning of “How can you remove a president who is no longer the president?”
It also could have been he perceived the trial would be a political circus and he wanted no part of it. In any event, his declination was unprecedented.
Douglas R. Holm
East side
Turn Dell Urich
over to the zoo
I have lived in Tucson since 1968. I think the city of Tucson should give the Randolph Dell Urich (South) golf course to the Reid Park Zoo. Yes, move the zoo from a cramped 24 acres to 130 acres.
Give the zoo a remodel to give the animals much needed space with better design for human observation and some privacy for the animals.
Secondly, the cold-weather animals should be transferred to cold-climate zoos. The future Dell Urich Zoo could be a beautiful place.
Dan Nelson
Midtown