Red-light cameras
were extortion racket
Re: the Sept. 17 letter “Red-light cameras made streets safer.”
As a permanent resident of Tucson and a sponsor of Proposition 201, I wish to set the record straight concerning substantially inaccurate statements regarding the now-defunct red-light-camera program in Tucson. Bureaucrats and lawyers played no part in ridding the city of photo radar.
Proposition 201 was a true grass-roots effort supported by thousands of hours of volunteer work and by over 26,000 residents who signed the petition. The people of Tucson, not the bureaucrats, spoke resoundingly in defeating citywide photo radar by a 2-1 ratio. The people declared decisively that a government-sponsored extortion racket has no place in this city. The issue is settled; the cameras are permanently deactivated.
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Rather than forcing drivers to come to a screeching halt at yellow lights and causing rear-end collisions, let us now focus our efforts on improving traffic safety through the implementation of proven engineering techniques, such as proper signal timing and road maintenance.
Kirk Wines
Southwest side
Bowers overestimates kids’ sophistication
Re: the Sept. 21 article “AZ House speaker says sex ed radicalizes children.”
There is so much to say, but I will limit my comments to Speaker Russell Bower’s response when asked if schools didn’t need to teach how to prevent pregnancy. “Oh, please!” responded the speaker. This on the heels of suggesting that kids learn what they need to know on their own.
Oh, please, Mr. Bowers! I am a retired high school principal, and I have story after story of how that turns out. I will never forget, for example, the 14-year-old student who came to me for help in telling her parents that she was pregnant. Her friends had convinced her that she could not get pregnant the first time she had sex. The lesson is often learned, all right ... nine months too late.
Barbara Wayne
Foothills
Diamondbacks
are back in season
It was great that a reader reminded us desert dwellers that our legless friends will soon be heading to their dens. The best advice I can give as a longtime (50-plus years) amateur herpetologist is to leave them alone if possible. The majority of snake bites occur when people try to move/catch/kill rattlesnakes. Calling the fire department if needed is still OK.
There are also private individuals that will relocate reptiles for a fee. I have seen literally thousands of western diamondbacks (mostly at night when they are active or in dens) and I don’t believe I have ever seen a 5-foot example let alone one at 6 feet. Length of snakes, like the size of fish, is often exaggerated. The BLM has no jurisdiction over snakes; that would be the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Moving them away from their immediate location probably would have little ill effect on the animals.
Kalvin Smith
Midtown
Environmental radicals, indeed
Re: the Sept. 22 article “Countering environmental ‘radicals’ is on property-rights group’s agenda.”
It’s the same sad story. A bunch of men, six to be exact, think their money and prestige can make things happen, even when they’re wrong. Now they’re calling the Center For Biological Diversity environmental radicals.
They are trying to paint a picture that sound environmental assessments are not needed for their projects. Here’s what we do know, thanks to the Star’s reporting. The man behind the Villages at Vigneto is a huge Trump supporter. So much so, that he feels he deserves to make back his support money, by pushing for this development.
The other men, who are ranchers and part of this group, are also Trump supporters. Just like the border wall is an environmental disaster, so is this development. Don’t be fooled by these projects, and the men who support them. They wouldn’t push their agendas so hard if we didn’t have an anti-environmental president. They would have to accept the defeat of their projects in court.
Mary Bradley
Midtown
Open season
on immigrants
Re: the Sept. 22 Tim Steller column “Tucson police see election as referendum on them.”
Tucson police and their union are opposing the Prop. 205 sanctuary initiative by reassuring us they don’t practice racial profiling anymore but have admitted to turning two people over to ICE this year. Let’s give the police the benefit of the doubt and assume those two were light-skinned. Arizona’s distinguished Legislature has worked long hours to pass draconian laws targeting immigrant residents in our state while holding hostage local governments and communities who fear losing state funding if they approve countermeasures like the sanctuary initiative. No city politician has dared to endorse Prop. 205.
Deportations, raids, and separating families is now as American as apple pie. Creating new ways to block asylum seekers has become a national political sport. The international community may continue to accuse the U.S. of using Nazi tactics against immigrants, but I guess that’s the price to pay to make America great again.
Richard Boren
Southeast side
Sex education
makes kids safer
Re: the Sept. 21 story “AZ House speaker says sex ed radicalizes children.”
I taught a human sexuality course at Pima Community College for many years, and included school sexuality education in my curriculum. Much research has demonstrated that comprehensive sexuality education does not sexualize students. Instead young people are actually more likely to postpone sexual activity if they have had an opportunity to learn about sexuality along with communication and decision-making skills.
If/when they eventually do decide to become sexually active with another person, they are more likely to use birth control, reducing the risk of unwanted pregnancies (and abortions). Conservative groups like Family Watch International use scare tactics and misinformation to needlessly frighten parents and legislators. We value education and information in most aspects of young people’s lives and comprehensive, accurate sexuality education should not be an exception.
Tim Wernette
Foothills
Old Republican Party has been vanquished
Trump’s greed, xenophobia, misogyny, mentally aberrant behavior on the one hand, and his intellectual emptiness and moral decay on the other are neither excusable nor acceptable. Yet we, the American electorate, continue to excuse, accept, and even laud his actions. We ensure his survival by not demanding that the Republican-controlled Senate, ruled by Mitch McConnell (equally amoral but not as intellectually challenged) block Trump’s attempts to throw the U.S. and the world under the bus to satisfy his own ego and avarice.
There was a time when the Republican Party represented its constituents with dignity and stood for conservative fiscal policy, and ethical and moral responsibility. That Republican Party no longer exists. As long as Martha McSally, one of the “new Republicans” who grovel in fear of Trump and McConnell, and others of her ilk, remain in office, it’s “vive le Roi, long live the king.”
Jack Graef
SaddleBrooke
Trump seems unaware
he’s in a fishbowl
Poor Donald, living in a fantasy of his own making, or ignorance, doesn’t seem to realize that the presidency is a glass bubble that he chose in which to live and work. Nothing ... but nothing he’s done, does or contemplates doing will escape public scrutiny.
He has me laughing anew because more and more Americans are getting wise to his machinations which, though not necessarily evil, are just plain dumb. I believe he has no concept of what life after impeachment might be like. Nixon did. This dumb schmuck of a president needs a lesson in U.S. history.
I have respect for the “office” of the president, but none for its present occupant.
Hal Bardach
Southwest side
