Letters to the Editor

I am a retired county employee and I am responding to a letter about lack of experience being not important for the job as county recorder. Just by comparison, we elected a man with no governmental experience as U.S. president. The result is a disaster.

The job of county recorder is so critical during these times of challenges to election security, and the public needs to be assured that our elections’ integrity can not be challenged.

Kim Challender presents an excellent choice for voters: She has five years’ experience in the county recorder’s office and has worked during congressional and other high-level elections to ensure they are secure and results are valid.

It is a critical time in our country to have public servants who have experience and knowledge on the office they seek. I encourage everyone to vote for the candidate who has the integrity and and experience for this office. Vote Kim Challender for county recorder.

Melanie Heavilon

West side

Cázares-Kelly for county recorder

This year, 2020, is the year we see things clearly. Our democracy needs revitalization, and that starts with expanding and protecting voter participation. Fortunately, in Pima County, we have a candidate with the vision, commitment and experience to achieve the reforms we need.

Gabriella Cázares-Kelly has been a leader in civic engagement initiatives and voter outreach in Pima County for many years. She has concrete ideas for improving voter participation, including protecting early voting and conducting outreach to communities that often have been excluded from voter education efforts. And she would be the first Native American ever elected to county-wide office here.

Gabriella Cázares-Kelly is the change we need in 2020.

Elizabeth Oglesby

Midtown

America needs police reform

Mayor Regina Romero was right to stop the painting of a blue line in front of a Tucson police station. That symbol has been co-opted by white supremacists who deploy it to justify oppression. Tucson should not flaunt symbols that are ambiguous at best, and racist at worst.

More importantly, symbolic gestures such as a line on a sidewalk protect no one. Sentimental displays make us complacent. They make us feel like we are doing something. They distract us from doing hard work of making change.

And change is what we need. Fewer than 5% of 911 calls concern violent crime, yet police departments are armed with military weaponry they routinely deploy against unarmed citizens in the racially tainted “war on drugs.” Communities of color are over-policed and subjected to disproportionate arrest, prosecution, imprisonment and murder. The problems with American policing are deep-seated and systemic. We don’t need murals. Our nation needs real and meaningful police reform.

Alison Jones, Chair of the Pima County Democratic Party

Midtown

‘Star-Spangled Banner’ still best anthem there is

Our national anthem is once again under attack.

Let’s face facts, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written by a slave owner, is focused on rockets and bombs, and is impossible to sing by normal patriots such as me.

In my early leftist days, we wanted Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is our Land.” Although a socialist, he was home-grown and sincere, and I could hum along without embarrassment.

We took a hard look at “American the Beautiful” by Irving Berlin, a Jew born in Russia who immigrated to the U.S. as a child. This uplifting song has found a niche in our American fabric since 9-11.

Leftists now want “Imagine” penned by John Lennon, a Brit with a Green Card who had a path to citizenship at his untimely death. His song is morally vapid, praising atheism and globalism. That’s not America.

I’m sticking with those broad stripes and bright stars. You sing and I will listen with hand over chest.

Jeffrey McConnell

West side

Where are the real Republicans?

I have been a registered Republican in the state of Arizona since I moved to Tucson more than 30 years ago. I need help.

Most importantly, our current president is obviously unfit for the position, but we are not even being allowed to exercise a vote. What happened to our right for a primary election?

I continue to mourn the loss of integrity from those like John McCain to represent us. Where are you?

Decisions (including if our children should attend school) are being based on the criterion of what path will be better for Donald Trump’s reelection possibilities, rather than educational and health concerns.

I’m sure I’m not alone in my dismay. What can we do?

Muriel Saville Troike

Foothills

Guess it’s the elderly that have to go

This is a message to all Arizona senior citizens. We no longer need an advance directive.

The medical community doesn’t have the capacity to care for us. I guess we just have to die in order to make space for the young people who killed us by not wearing masks and social distancing.

Morton Cederbaum

Green Valley

Conover the courageous pick for county attorney

If the criminal justice system were a boxing match, there would be an investigation, because it looks like we’re trying to lose. We turn addicts into criminals, and petty criminals into felons. Arizona’s jails and prisons are overfilled, and some inmates do not need to be there.

Prisons and jails are for offenders who pose a real risk to public safety. We need a county attorney with the courage to make sensible decisions about who really needs to be incarcerated. For many others, treatment and community supervision can lead them to a crime-free, productive life. It is equally important to address the systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

America is in turmoil because communities of poverty and color are disproportionately represented in jails and prisons. A smart, courageous county attorney can have an enormous impact on creating a system that works for all of us. Laura Conover has the knowledge, experience, courage and heart to make Pima County’s criminal justice system a national model.

Joel Dvoskin

Foothills

TUSD re-open plan a joke

Are you kidding me? Who is going to keep students 6 feet apart at the bus stop? Who is going to see that students sit 6 feet apart on the bus? Do students have to be wearing a mask to ride the bus?

Who is going to ensure students are practicing social distancing while in line to eat lunch or while eating? As a former principal and teacher I can think of many other concerns, but why go on about this stupid idea.

My advice to parents: Don’t send your kids to school!

Teachers and school employees: Call in sick.

John Harlan

Green Valley

The sick and dead can’t help the economy

Trump supporters, what is it that I am missing? It is a fact that wearing masks will reduce the spread of the virus and help get more people participating in the economy, yet you refuse to do so. Your president has to bribe states to force schools to open and must change current CDC guidelines that will cause schools to open less safely — and you are OK with this?

What is it that you have yet to figure out? Those who get sick from the virus do not spend as much money (unless you include health-care expenses) and are not able to work. Therefore, they cannot help the economy improve.

Again, it is a fact that many who get sick will die. If you haven’t figured this out yet, dead people cannot help the economy, because they are dead. Think about it, please!

Craig Whaley

Northwest side

Call it what it is: rationing of care

The Arizona Department of Health Services has instructed hospitals to institute “crisis health standards.” That is a nice name for rationing health care. If the government won’t call it what it is, the media certainly should.

Crisis health standards guide the allocation of scarce resources to patients based upon factors such as likelihood of survival. But what other factors are being taken into account and who is monitoring this health-care rationing system? Does ability to pay come into consideration in this rationing system?

How about race? Government mismanagement of this pandemic had brought us to the point of rationing life-saving care. Call it what it is.

Monitor the rationing to guard against abuses. Make certain that those who got us into this mess are held accountable.

Bob Schwartz

Foothills