Broadway widening keeps Tucson in limbo
The way the Broadway widening project has been handled has created a lot of controversy within the Tucson community.
I don’t believe this outcry has all to do with the road widening but more to do with the frustration on how our local elected officials have governed our city over the past 30 years. By following this project, you can understand why Tucson has become one of the poorest cities of its size in the United States.
The power of the neighborhood groups versus the business community has taken its toll. It is very difficult to get things done here. The future widening of East Broadway was approved by voters in 2006. Do you realize we are in the middle of 2016 without a set design? Only in Tucson would a project be dragged on like this.
I feel sorry for the business people who own or lease properties in the widening area. They have been on hold for years, waiting to see what will happen to their properties.
Pat Darcy
Midtown
Puppy-mill measure
suppresses citizen voices
Re: the April 7 article “Bill blocking local pet-shop rules advances.”
Dear House Republicans:
When you recently voted for SB 1248 you endorsed puppy mill cruelty and greased the path for this vile industry to continue exporting into this state helpless creatures from brutalized mothers living in squalor.
Please do not insult those who opposed SB 1248, either, by latching on to the fallacy that the USDA maintains adequate oversight of this industry.
With all but one House Republican voting in favor, it’s pretty safe to surmise that this was a special-interest vote with no regard for the welfare of animal pawns, including those killed in our pounds.
This was a vote to curry favor with the Koch-funded National Federation of Independent Business. This audacious move was an affront to the democratic process, a suppression of local voices and an insult to the citizens of this state.
Donald Scott
North side
Columnist used fallacies to elicit emotion
Re: the April 11 column “How should US curb companies from moving overseas?”
The Red-Blue America column on corporate inversions was also an excellent lesson in logical fallacies. Joel Mathis’s comment, “Republicans will tell you,” uses Ignoratio Elenchi (meaning ignorance of the refutation).
The fact that corporations can contribute to political campaigns does not give them the same rights as people. The Supreme Court never said that. The real argument was about free speech.
Just because Reuters analyzed six companies doesn’t make it an expert in corporate taxation. Mathis takes a fact and extends it to a preposterous false conclusion.
He also employs the false-choice fallacy in his last paragraph. It is not an either/or situation between paying taxes and being able to contribute to political activities. Everything these corporations have done is legal. These fallacies are designed to elicit emotional responses to a position unsupported by fact.
Raymond Trombino
Green Valley
No happy ending for Hart’s Dickensian saga
In an atmosphere of University of Arizona layoffs, job cuts, empty and unfilled positions, President Ann Weaver Hart received a raise, and tuition has been
increased for incoming students. In addition, she accepted a board position with the DeVry Education Group.
It reads like a bad Charles Dickens’ novel. Chapter Two features 22 Arizona legislators publicly chastising her, along with many Tucson residents. There is a growing chorus against her. This will give our dysfunctional Arizona legislators another reason to reduce and dismiss benefits to Southern Arizona, using her as an excuse and to validate a lack of university funding.
The Arizona Board of Regents share equally in her blame. Where was its leadership and vision when the issue arose?
Ultimately she will resign one position. Sadly, if it is the UA, we’ll lose her talents and her accomplishments. Her résumé is now clouded by the DeVry decision. In the final chapter of this novel, the community, students and UA teachers lose.
Keith McLeod
Northeast side
Prop. 123 ignores voter mandates
Vote yes on Prop. 123? Are you kidding me? How gullible do you think we are?
To vote yes is to let this greedy governor and his marauding legislative minions off the hook regarding the only leverage we have — the lawsuit and the court directive that the $300 million be paid now.
The previous administration and Legislature, as well as the current, have demonstrated their total disrespect for the overwhelming desires of the citizens.
If this proposition is approved, the suit goes away and it opens the floodgates on the land trust, and they’ll ignore the rest. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.
Instead, take the next opportunity to put forth a new constitutional amendment that says any governor and/or legislator who puts forth a budget or other legislation that ignores previously mandated propositions by the citizens will have committed a crime calling for jail time until they correct their violation.
My special interests are the kids and teachers.
John Swift
West side
