Tucson Speaks Out: May 4 letters of the day

A warm body with minimal preparation is not enough to be a teacher. Even knowledge in a specific skill is not enough. You want teachers to have a college degree in education with the training and educational exposure that goes with it. Arizona should want them to pass tenure, and keep updated.

This state can make a commitment to public education for a solid future preparation for its students by supporting teacher compensation including benefits that are at least commensurate with the rest of the better committed states. That way we can attract teachers from this and other states to fill the needed vacancies with vetted desirable individuals. Principals should be held accountable to guide and monitor teachers as well.

Teaching is an art requiring a myriad of skills. Public education is a U.S. institution that shouldn't be weakened. This legislature bypassed that and went against the will of the people.

Strong public education is a good investment … having taught 30 years I know.

Rozanne Plotnik

Green Valley

Easy availability of guns

Violent video games, rap music, TV violence, mental illness, guns. The difference between the U.S. and most other countries is guns. I’m tired of hearing that those other factors lead to the senseless loss of lives here when they don’t in other countries. Yes, we have a gun culture problem, but it is unique to our country and it caused by the easy availability of gun ownership.

Marc Goldfeder

Foothills

Gun laws patterned after car/driving laws

Gun laws could be patterned after automobile/diver laws.

• Must be a certain age (most states 16 years of age for driving) Must be a certain age (21, more mature) and waiting period (three to seven days to think rationally) before getting a permit to buy a gun
• Must take lessons about the laws on using and responsibility of ownership and using
• Cars must pass safety tests to be used so must guns
• A driver must pass a test written and driving to get a driver's license, there should be lessons in use of whatever type of gun bought
• Have insurance to cover any damage, injury or death caused
• The gun is registered 
• Background check for all purchases
• Understand that the main purpose of guns is for killing things 
• Lessons in use of whatever type of gun they buy 
• Laws limiting type of gun bought/owned

Donald Plummer

Northwest side

Thomure knows water, not electricity

Re: the April 30 article "Tucson to study creating city-run electric utility; TEP opposed."

Tucson is facing a water shortage, a growing homeless situation, and an upcoming influx of immigrants, yet Deputy City Manager, Tim Thomure is delving into creating a city-run electric utility. How much will the study cost? Who is paying for the study?

If Thomure and the city are concerned about decarbonizing our energy source, then work with solar and wind energy companies to provide residents with off grid clean energy. There would not be a need for a city-run electric utility or TEP. Thomure came from Tucson Water, so he should stick with a utility he knows and help find solutions to our current water woes.

Max LaPlante

Southeast side

Tucson's theaters

Tucson has an incredible number of fine theaters, especially for its size. The current production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Rogue Theatre is a great example of what these theaters mount on a regular basis. Playing through May 14, the production is superb in every category of drama: the acting, the agility of the actors, the costumes, the music and dancing. And then, of course, there's the wonderful humor and poetry of Shakespeare.

Denice Blake

Midtown

Sales of home cooked foods

As a retired chef and culinary educator, I appreciate the need to maintain the safety and wholesomeness of our food. However, I believe the sentiment the Governor implied recently in vetoing HB2509 demonizes home kitchens and is a heavy-handed solution seeking a problem that doesn’t exist.

It is possible to have a responsible “cottage foods” program combining food safety training and informational labeling that will adequately protect the public. Correspondingly, I agree with Representative Alma Hernandez that Arizona should have a provision in our food safety laws that will allow for the sale of “cottage foods” prepared in largely unregulated home kitchens. After all, most foods we all consume fall into the “cottage foods” category prepared in our kitchens, and from what I understand, HB2509 contained adequate safety provisions.

I also urge that any licenses, classes and/or labels in a balanced “cottage foods” program be priced so as not to deter low-income citizen participation.

Harry J. Crane

Foothills

It's actually easy

I have never been privy to a meeting of the people setting up the Republican Party platforms. If I was, I expect it would go something like this.

“OK guys we got Global Warming and it’s a tough one. Got any ideas?” (a long pause) “I know I know. We push to ban drag shows. That’s easy and a no-brainer.” “Great plan. We would only have a problem with the die-hard environmentalists.” “I got that; we ban the books that don’t agree with us. Mission Accomplished!” “Anything else?” “Noooo. OK then, Oh! Hold on, there is one more thing we need to consider. Why don’t we go pick a fight with Mickey Mouse.”

James Galvin

Sahuarita

Nightmare on the West end of downtown

The traffic engineers must have been delirious when they devised their plans for the west side of downtown, near Stone and Sixth Street. You can no longer drive to the Interstate from there, or only with great difficulties. Coming from Granada, trying to go east, you are forced to drive south toward Toole and then take the underpass on Stone.

In the meantime, a new highway, Barraza Aviation, allegedly a convenient passageway from downtown to Golf Link and I-10, has become a monstrous divide cutting the city apart. Instead of developing true city life, these engineers have developed a horrible blueprint for an inconvenient motorcity from the 1960s with no idea of mitigating traffic and working out true living spaces and reasonable arteries for people and drivers.

West and east of the I-10 are almost cut off from each other, and instead, the current state of affairs supports only through traffic, a possible death knell for a city like Tucson. A disaster for the future of downtown.

Albrecht Classen

Midtown

Same side of Prop 412 for different reasons

Two letters in Sunday's paper concluded "No" on Prop 412 but for different reasons. Burying the TEP lines helps keep our city from looking like a third world country with multiple poles and wires taking up our view and benefits us all.

The other letter spoke to burying lines only benefiting the wealthy neighborhoods. The writer's own neighborhood had gotten holes, poles, and wires they didn't ask for.

When my neighborhood found out we would be getting new poles, and in some of our neighbor's front yards, we fought back with letters and help from our councilman. Instead, they replaced existing poles with massive poles along a street with less impact on neighbors. Undergrounding all new poles and wires is for us all. Bigger, taller is still an imposition, an eyesore and the easy way out.

The ugly impact is evident in every neighborhood. That should have been stopped long ago. We are in this fight together. You have a voice and a vote. The UofA and neighborhood used theirs.

Christie Cummins

Midtown

2nd amendment

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" should not kill children.

Terry Louck

East side