Tucson can’t cut its way out of its financial hole, a tax is needed
The Tucson City Council last week sat through about three hours of financial reports from city staff, getting both good news and bad news. The good news is that the city’s economy continues to recover...
View ArticleTucson should get out of the golf business
It’s time for the city of Tucson to get out of the golf business. The city has struggled with what to do with its money-losing golf courses for several years. Last year it decided to close the...
View ArticleTucson’s utopian quest for plastic bag blight solution pointless
There is no utopia. Yet that doesn’t seem to be reason enough to prevent politicians from trying to legislate one. Both conservatives and liberals have an ideal vision of the way the world aught to be,...
View ArticleArizona Legislature should vote for Medicaid expansion (fingers crossed)
There are as many reasons for Arizona’s Republican legislators to vote against expanding Medicaid as there are for voting for it. But they should hold their noses, cross their fingers and vote yes...
View ArticleArizona Legislature can put last stake in Clean Elections’ heart with HB2593
Is Clean Elections dead in Arizona? Not yet, but if a bill, HB2593, currently hung up in the Legislature passes, Clean Elections will be as good as dead. And good riddance. Voter-approved Clean...
View ArticleProperly funding Arizona’s universities is part of a social contract
Have you been to the doctor lately? Called your lawyer? Driven on a road? Walked into a multistory building? Used a cell phone? Read a blog online? Certainly you have. Nearly all of the people and...
View ArticleMarana’s Pyrrhic sewer victory will cost everyone in the county
If there is a lesson to be learned from Pima County Sewer War III it is that Marana is not interested in the benefits of regionalism. The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a settlement with the...
View ArticleIf we want to reduce gun violence, we have to change our culture
In her epic shaming of the U.S. Senate in a column this week in the New York Times, former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords vowed to continue her struggle to change the nation’s gun laws. It’s...
View ArticleBoston bombing again proves PATRIOT Act useless
Whenever we Americans feel threatened we often react with a knee jerk and take our anger out on “others” while shrugging our shoulders at erosions and infringements on our Constitutionally protected...
View ArticleStop using property taxes to pay for road maintenance, raise the state gas tax
In 2007, a span of the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge collapse was an example of what happens when tax-averse...
View ArticleTucson City Council and city staff need to finally get on the same page
Is there something fundamentally broken in the relationship between the Tucson City Council and the city’s top staff? Last week the council found out that the $5 million in raises it approved for all...
View ArticleStop calling minor scandals ‘Worse than Watergate’
Stop calling minor political scandals “worse than Watergate.” It doesn’t matter what the scandal is, it likely isn’t worse than Watergate. Hyperbole is a well-used arrow in the rhetorical quiver of...
View ArticleBibi Jones’ (almost) bare bottom sends Google’s Ad Sense to the fainting couch
From the apropos of nothing files: The Arizona Daily Star IT department (which provides technical support to TucsonCitizen.com) got a nastygram today from Google Ad Sense saying that a blog post at...
View ArticleNo water taxation without representation (I’m talking to you, Tucson)
The Tucson City Council unanimously raised water rates this week to little opposition. The council chose the smallest raise of the three options city water staff presented to it. The city bumped up the...
View ArticleThe problem with GMO bill is Congressional corruption, not GMOs
Only one American industry is provided protection from government interference in the U.S. Constitution – the free press. Yet that doesn’t relieve news organizations from all kinds of government...
View ArticleAn F1 racetrack in Tucson will cost hundreds of millions of public dollars
The story in today’s Arizona Daily Star about Pima County’s economic development team seeking permission from the county Board of Supervisors to prepare a plan to find a developer who may be interested...
View ArticleThe streetcar is key to downtown Tucson development; so is paying for its...
It’s been a Tucson pastime for nearly a decade to beat on downtown revitalization like it was an ugly piñata. There have been many scandal sticks used to beat on downtown – squandered Rio Nuevo money,...
View ArticleArizona HB 2305 election law reforms common sense and necessary
Since 1845, elections for President and Congress have occurred on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Most states, including Arizona, also hold their statewide elections at the same time....
View ArticleEffect of Supreme Court’s Voting Act ruling on Arizona will come later rather...
The Supreme Court telegraphed four years ago that parts of the Voting Rights Act that allows for some federal oversight of state and local elections might be in trouble. Today, the other shoe dropped....
View ArticleVail, if incorporated, needs a tax to succeed
Lost in the hullabaloo this week of Supreme Court decisions and cool cats prowling near proposed mines was the announcement that the attempt to incorporate the town of Vail will be on the November...
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