Kudos to judge Kudos to Judge John Tuchi for making the lawyers who filed an unsubstantiated complaint for Kari Lake and Mark Finchem pay the costs for their wanton action. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remand them to 30 days in the hole where they could contemplate the kind of lawyers that they have become and, more importantly, the kind of people that they have become.
Rick Cohn
West side
Housing crisis
Re: the Dec. 4 article “How Hobbs plans to tackle Arizona housing crisis.”
Hobbs’ plan to tackle the housing crisis includes “a pilot program to provide legal aid for people facing eviction.”
Where do landlords fit into this picture? The landlord with a single-family rental property to subsidize his retirement, does he pay taxes, insurance, and mortgage on a property receiving no income? Pay his own legal fees while an eviction process drags on so he can invest more money and time cleaning up his destroyed investment?
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A family who needs to rent for various reasons, often wants a single-family home in a residential neighborhood. Hobbs’ plan will pull even more houses from this rental market.
Lyn Harris
South side
Supporting the unqualified
Congressional Republicans supporting the stunningly incompetent and unqualified Herschel Walker for Senate have proven once again they care nothing for country but only for their own political power. Sincere voters for Walker, in the name of partisan loyalty, show a willingness to ignore the facts of who he is and his total lack of ability to represent them. The propaganda they listen to leads them to vote against their own interest. Walker may vote the party line, but he will produce no tangible results for state issues relevant to Georgia.
William Garrity
Foothills
MAGA recalcitrance
The credulity of Trump’s base outstrips naiveté; it is a recalcitrance of truth, itself. After following an incorrigible liar down his rabbit hole, they emerged in an alternate reality, where facts are “fake news” and an investigative probe is a “witch hunt.” In the real world, crime detection follows the trail of evidence to arrive at the truth. Attempts to obscure that trail or interfere with the probe define obstruction of justice. Sadly, Trump zealots continue to cling to the delusional state of denial that allowed them to vote for a malignant malefactor in the first place.
John Balsbaugh
Midtown
Save our democracy
Re: the Dec. 2 article “Fire Cochise Supervisors Judd and Crosby.”
After reading the recent Tucson Opinion piece in which the Star’s Editorial Board calls for the firing of two Cochise County Supervisors for deliberately choosing to undermine democracy, I suggest Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy be added to the list. For the past two elections in 2020 and 2022, Supervisor Christy, without supporting evidence, has voted not to certify Pima County’s election results contributing to a dangerous loss of public trust. Playing to the discredited election deniers is a gutless action that merits his removal. We expect more courage and less pandering from our elected representatives.
Jack Siry
Northeast side
Colorado River water
Re: the Dec. 4 article “At Glen Canyon, receding waters reveal a cathedral — and shift debate.”
A very simple, but elegant, solution to the dispute regarding water delivery codified in the 1922 Colorado River Compact is for large and small users, politically savvy and not users, agriculture and domestic users, to all take immediately a 10% “haircut.” Then, for say the next five years each an additional 5% until we meet the “three-fourths of the 16.5 million acre-feet of water” that was awarded in 1922 that the river currently carries. Use science to match the supply with the delivery. Use engineering to figure out how to do more with less. Pay no attention to past, present, and future arguments that the lawyers will come up with. We all know how to do with 10% less. For the sake of the river and for our children and children’s children we must.
John (Jay) Van Echo, PE
West side
Glen Canyon before it disappeared
Re: the Dec. 4 article “At Glen Canyon, receding waters reveal a cathedral — and shift debate.”
This was a flashback to 1965. As a newbie, I was the first permanent park ranger assigned to Rainbow Bridge, three hours by patrol boat up Lake Powell, not yet “discovered.” I had the honor of seeing an unblemished Cathedral of the Desert and Gregory’s Arch, along with other towering cliffs and hidden alcoves. Even at 23, I appreciated these matchless natural wonders. I spent all winter on a tiny houseboat near Rainbow Bridge. My nearest neighbors were hours away in Page; this was one of the remotest spots in the Lower 48. I met with visitors and protected the resource. While on patrol, I was a “kid in a candy store:” exploring ruins and searching isolated canyons which narrowed down to a boat-width. And, on a busy day, talk to a group or two up fishing, always while surrounded by those incomparable red cliffs. I was truly privileged to see much of Glen Canyon before it disappeared.
Butch Farabee
Northwest side
