Tucson Speaks Out: June 5 letters of the day

True leadership is doing what is right — “The time is always right to do what is right” (MLK) — and being able to separate and delineate issues. UA Senate Chair Leila Hudson’s behavior has truly illustrated her lack of being able to do so. Not separating a proper and valid antisemitism resolution to be brought to the Faculty Senate, from a police action of those violating the curfew rules of the University, illustrates the lack of good judgment and the inability to separate issues. The removal of protesters breaking the rules has no bearing on presenting a valid anti-ethnicism resolution.

Real and effective leadership would have been for the Chair of the Faculty Senate to be at the protest site with President Robbins after the curfew hours, requesting the protesters to cease the protest until the following morning, and have brought the antisemitism resolution to the Faculty Senate.

May the UA always support protests within the rules and valid resolutions of anti-ethnicism.

Tom Warne

Downtown

Conover doesn’t care

I am the former Chief Criminal Deputy of the Pima County Attorney’s Office and the facts presented are based on public records. PCAO is down over 30 experienced criminal prosecutors since Laura Conover took office. Her communications director earns over $100,000 to make Conover’s Facebook — Web page look nice. Meanwhile, half her prosecutors are making far less. Conover pleads serious repetitive home burglars to potential misdemeanors, domestic violence offenders with priors to misdemeanors, and those with multiple DUI convictions to almost nothing. Her office did not try one vehicular crime as a felony last year. Tucson is inundated with drunk and reckless drivers victimizing innocent citizens and she either pled or dismissed every case. In addition, Conover has the disturbing record for number of cases dismissed on the day of trial; an injustice to victims, a disruption of the criminal justice system, and a sign of total mismanagement. Conover doesn’t seem to care. Hopefully, the citizens of Pima County care. I will be voting for Mike Jette.

David Berkman

Northwest side

Minority rules at PAG/RTA

Thank you Mayor Romero and Supervisor Scott for speaking out against misinformation, manipulation and untruths by the executive Director Farhad Moghimi of PAG/RTA at the May 30 meeting. Both elected officials showed a thorough understanding of the agenda items and challenged the misrepresentations by Mr. Moghimi. You can watch the meeting on YouTube.

As I have commented on in the past in this newspaper, PAG is misusing millions of dollars of federal funds intended to reduce carbon emissions from motor vehicles. Mr. Moghimi unilaterally decided to use those federal funds for unrelated planning and data collection, rather than actual emission reduction programs.

Mayor Romero has led the Another way in questioning the use of those monies and now Supervisor Scott has joined her. City of Tucson and Pima County ultimately lost the vote on the carbon reduction plan, which demonstrates the fundamental flaw in the structure of our metropolitan planning organization/RTA, the minority rules; less than 15% of the population got what they wanted and 85% didn’t.

Ruth Reiman

Midtown

AZ delegation should overturn EPA gas car ban

President Biden’s EPA recently finalized a regulation that will, in practice, ban most new gas cars and trucks by 2032. The end game is to force American drivers into electric vehicles by taking away most non-plug-in vehicle options. This policy is unlawful. It’s bad for consumers, our economy and national security.

To comply, automakers will have to stop producing most traditional gas vehicles in less than eight years, leaving Arizonans with vastly restricted access to new gas cars and trucks they can afford. EPA’s own regulatory compliance scenarios acknowledge as much. Gas cars will be limited down from 84% of sales today to no more than 30% by 2032, regardless of whether those targets outpace consumers.

Senators Kelly and Sinema and Congressman Gallego will have an opportunity to overturn this regulation in upcoming Congressional Review Act votes. With 61% of Arizona’s likely voters opposed to gas car bans and EV mandates, voting to overturn EPA’s ban should be the obvious choice.

Chet Thompson, President and CEO American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, Washington, D.C.

Washington D.C.

Law and order

America must fight legally for law and order if it doesn’t want to become a third-world country. If you believe a situation is rigged than check out the facts. If it really is, then fight to change the laws or situation in a legal way. Attacking others verbally and physically is turning us into a Banana Republic. Fight for our democracy by supporting and voting for people who support the will of the people, and not those who are trying to take away our freedoms. We have been guided by our constitution, which is now in the process of a faction trying to discredit and destroy the values in which it was created. The dark money has gotten all the way up to the Supreme Court, making it necessary for us to be more proactive.

Elain Geary

East side

Biden wasn’t prosecuted, unfit to stand trial

Democrats are joyous that Trump is now a “convicted felon.” But Joe Biden could be the same by now, a convicted felon, related to his “willful mishandling of classified materials”, but Special Counsel Hur deemed him unfit to indict and stand trial due to his senility. No such mitigating determinations for Trump by Democrat prosecutors across the country. Biden kept classified documents all over the place and revealed classified information to his ghost book writer, who deliberately deleted evidence from his computer. No obstruction charges were brought for that. Hunter Biden’s criminal trial for illegally purchasing a firearm begins June 3, in Delaware, a Democrat controlled state and Biden’s home. I fully expect a jury of all Democrats, as in the New York trial of Trump, to acquit Biden or result in a hung jury. An important piece of evidence to be used by the prosecution are emails from Hunter’s laptop, the same that 50 “intelligence experts” deemed as Russian “disinformation” to help Joe Biden before the 2020 election.

Ivan Stanski

Marana

Was it rigged?

The former president complains that he was brought into court only for political reasons, despite the fact that the attorney general of New York does not consult with the president in such matters. President Biden has had nothing to do with any of the cases against Trump.

The only political motivation in the Trump case is Trump’s. In both the 2016 and the 2020 elections, he tried to manipulate the system to assure that he won. Collecting evidence to prosecute such actions takes time, and the New York Attorney brought the case as soon as he could. For political reasons, Trump’s team delayed the trial. A jury selected by both prosecution and defense attorneys found Trump guilty, based on evidence presented. How is this rigged? Abetted by those who worked for him, Trump did the crimes. He should do the time. Politically motivated crimes are still crimes.

Ella Suagee

Benson

No one is above the law

I realize that the Star, and most newspapers in the country are controlled by liberal Democrats. Almost on a daily basis there is someone making derogatory remarks about Trump. One of the most common phrases repeated over and over is “Nobody is above the law”. Now a real felon, that being Hunter Biden is going on trial. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for a well-deserved conviction.

Dennis Jacobsen

Northwest side

Above the rule of law

We live under independent institutions long familiar to us. Trump has already told us he will use them to get even for the treatment he believes he received. They will most likely no longer be recognizable by us.

We have just seen a jury of his peers find Trump guilty. He is now a convicted felon, as are many others who naively followed him, representative of those he selects to mindlessly do his bidding.

Here is what this man would be doing to us:

One found guilty of dishonest business practices directing our country’s national and foreign financial affairs.

One unable to communicate without lying deciding what is important to our lives.

One found mishandling our country’s secrets using them for personal gain.

One found manipulating elections having no interest in our freedom to vote.... or for doing anything else!

One admiring dictators choosing our allies.

Accountability ... gone. Individual freedom ... gone. Trust by us and other countries ... gone. A future for our children ... gone.

Is this really what you want?

Frank Parsons

Northeast side

Restitution not a fine

Re: the June 3 article “Former felons should now be allowed to vote.”

As the director of the Civil Rights Restoration Clinic at the Rogers College of Law since 2006, I read with keen interest the guest opinion by Kellie Wallenciak concerning the right of former felons to vote. I completely agree with Ms. Wallenciak. However, I would like to offer a couple corrections. She is correct that civil rights are automatically restored in Arizona for people with one felony conviction, but she indicated that the person needs to pay any “fine” they owe. It is not a fine that needs to be paid but restitution owed to a victim. She also mentioned that repeat offenders need to petition the court for restoration “after a waiting period.” After a person completes their sentence, there is no waiting period in Arizona to apply to have one’s civil rights restored which includes voting rights. Ms. Wallenciak is right that there is no better time to change the law and allow all ex-felons to vote.

Andy Silverman

Midtown

Mort Rosenblum’s column on Copper World

Re: the June 2 article “Devil is in the details for Copper World.”

The Star introduces native journalist Mort Rosenblum with great fanfare and prints his initial June 2 column. It’s a bomb, and it is nothing but a long, twisted and subtle hit-job on Copper World that ends with a typical doomsday “Details vary, but the upshot is constant. Nothing survives without water.”

Rosenblum needs to explain this from Tucson Water’s report to its customers the very next day on June 3. Quote: “The two questions we are most frequently asked at Tucson Water are: Does Tucson have enough water for the future? Is Tucson’s water safe to drink? The answer to both questions is yes.”

So my question to Rosenblum and ALL anti-mining southern Arizonans is this. How does modern civilization exist without copper? Let me save all of you and Rosenblum the trouble from answering. It doesn’t.

Steve Sollenberger

Foothills