Benson mayor right to support Vigneto
The Arizona Daily Star’s recent column questioned the legitimacy of Benson Mayor Tony King’s support for the Villages at Vigneto. Anybody who has met Mayor King knows that he wouldn’t support anything he didn’t truly believe in, and there are good reasons for his support.
First, the Arizona Department of Water Resources certified that Benson will have an “adequate water supply” to serve the Villages for the next 100 years. Second, major landscaping, golf courses and irrigation reservoirs are planned in ways that will utilize and maximize recycled water to limit net water usage. Third, the Villages are projected to create 16,000 new jobs and $23.8 billion in economic benefits. None of these facts, highlighted in my op-ed, have ever been contradicted.
I have been a progressive Democrat and environmentalist all my life. That is why I find it embarrassing when I see fellow “environmentalists” simply file, withdraw, and refile litigation to stop sustainable development rather than engage in real environmentalism.
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Lanny Davis
Washington, D.C.
Arizona should keep mail-in voting
Re: the Feb. 11 letter “Elections should be decided on Election Day.”
As an Arizona native, I’m not familiar with Connecticut, but I know my home state well. We do at least two things right: avoiding daylight saving time and allowing early mail-in voting.
People who enjoy voting in person can do so. I very much prefer taking time at home to carefully study my ballot and finalize my decisions. I’ll take responsibility for returning my ballot before the deadline.
If we need to set a specific postmark deadline to ensure ballots arrive before election day, set it. But mail-in voting is a wonderful convenience. It needs to remain in place.
Cynthia Lancaster
West side
Federal debt no longer a talking point for GOP
The president boasts about the great economy he created. A few points come to mind. First, the economy started to improve greatly after President Barack Obama was handed the worst recession in history when he walked into the White House. Bottom line, Obama saved us from a depression and created the economic recovery we have now, not Trump.
Second, Republicans bashed Obama about the national debt, demanding a balanced budget. One could find different numbers but, Trump has added about $2.5 trillion to the debt. Where are the Republicans on the debt now? In summary, Trump cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy which created more jobs and profit for the wealthy.
The wage increase for the average American went up a little but was consumed by higher expenses for rent, food, medicine and other living expenses. Now we have the rich getting richer, higher expenses for the average American, and a huge increase in the national debt. It makes no sense to have a “great economy” that gives the rich tax cuts to increase their profits while the average American income is stagnant against higher living costs and the debt goes up $2.5 trillion. Americans need to pay attention and do the math.
Richard Bechtold
West side
Holder called himself Obama’s ‘wingman’
Re: the Feb. 13 letter “DOJ now Trump’s personal lawyers.”
This letter criticized Donald Trump’s comment about the the proposed sentence for Roger Stone and how it influenced the Justice Department to review it. The writer said it has never happened in our history where the executive branch has such influence over the judicial. Once again, those on the left have convenient amnesia. Remember Eric Holder, attorney general under Barack Obama?
Holder publicly commented that he was Obama’s “wingman.” Obama and Holder jointly reacted to the instances of police shootings of blacks. Comments from both disparaged the police as overreacting. After intense investigations the police were exonerated.
How about Lorreta Lynch, second attorney general for Obama? She had a meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac while there were investigations going on about Hillary’s server and e-mails. We have three branches of government, executive, legislative and judicial. There should be checks and balances to keep them separate. Sometimes the lines are blurred.
Bill Dowdall
Foothills
LaWall’s opinion piece pleased this conservative
Re: the Feb. 13 guest opinion “LaWall: Weigh my record and see if ‘figurehead’ fits.”
As a lifelong conservative, I appreciated the words from Barbara LaWall’s recent op-ed. It has always perplexed my mind that Democrats would give us someone like that from their side of the aisle for all these years. Putting criminals to death and locking kids up for smoking pot? This is music to my Republican, Donald Trump-supporting ears! Southern Arizona isn’t as blue as you thought!
Dominic Price
Vail
Outsourcing my vote
to the next generation
Most people are familiar with outsourcing. If a company determines that their human resources department is too expensive or isn’t working well, then they could outsource that work to a third party outside of their company.
I’m outsourcing my vote for president of the United States to my grown sons. They and my grandsons will have to cope with climate change, immigration and our evolving economy; I will not.
My sons are solidly, enthusiastically supporting Bernie Sanders for president. My political contributions and vote will go to Bernie Sanders.
Thomas Hefley
East side
Second Amendment bad excuse for poor aim
Re: the Feb. 13 letter “Dems coming for our guns.”
As a lifetime non-gun owner and a military veteran, I wonder about the need for ownership of semi-automatic rifles or 10-round capacity magazines for pistols or rifles as mentioned in the recent Star letter. I respect everyone’s right to bear arms as detailed in our Constitution, but unless someone is indeed a very poor marksman and needs 10 shots to bring a deer down, or is attacked by a swarm of midnight burglars at their residence, or is carjacked at a Broadway and Kolb stoplight by a murderous horde of robbers, then I fail to see why anyone would need to dispatch such a large hail of bullets all at once.
Even William Tell and Robin Hood, expert shots, could shoot but one arrow at a time, and I assume they had to reload their bows after each deadly arrow was dispatched. That gave them precious time to catch their breath, reconsider their actions and focus on their target.
John E. Irby
Southeast side
Lunch-shaming
still with us, sadly
Re: the Feb. 13 article “TUSD caps meal charges to avoid debt that could reach $1M.”
As a citizen of one of the wealthiest countries on this planet, I am shocked and dismayed by many things these days. But the idea that we could possibly deny schoolchildren free and nutritious lunches is shameful. We then go on to publicly shame them with an inferior lunch and a debt that follows them through their school years. It is clear that our children are not our priority. We should be better than this, we can be better than this. But will we?
Gail George
East side
Border wall
a blight
Re: the Feb. 13 article “Border wall quickly changing look of desert in SW Arizona.”
As I looked at the front page photo of the wall, a range of emotions and thoughts went through my brain. I was enraged that something as consequential as the wall was nothing more than a mnemonic device devised to keep the scatterbrained candidate Donald Trump on track to talk about the “horrors of immigration.” From mnemonic device to idée fixe, we now have this medieval monstrosity in our beautiful desert wilderness, which may stop a few migrants, while destroying the integrity of this unique habitat. I am saddened because this wall symbolizes not strength, but fear and I have never thought of Americans as a fearful people. Apparently, I was wrong.
And finally, I am still astounded that our much-vaunted technology that can pinpoint a gnat from space and kill it, wasn’t deployed to protect the border. We are only as smart as the person leading the government.
Katharine Donahue
Foothills
