The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
I am Cara Bissell and I am running against Nikki Lee and Michael Hicks for the Ward 4 seat on the Tucson City Council. The Arizona Daily Star’s endorsement in this race did not include the following issues:
The Green Party is for Proposition 205. Lee is not. The Green Party is for the Green New Deal, defined throughout the campaign by Mike Cease, a mayoral candidate, in several interviews on radio and TV.
I have not heard Lee state an opinion on a massive, systemic-level retrofitting of Tucson houses with solar electric production and water harvesting techniques. I have supported this and still do.
The Green Party platform has Tucson residents benefiting from large-scale community-run businesses by blacks, Native Americans, caucasians and people of other races.
I, like Lee, will work together with the new Tucson City Council. I have met in a variety of circumstances with four of the council members and Mayor Jonathan Rothschild.
My background includes an Ohio upbringing. I played in seasonal sports throughout high school and I rode my single-speed bicycle 14 miles daily in my seventh-grade summer, to and from a 10-hour-a-day job making 50 cents an hour, five and six days a week.
Between college years, I worked at Lubrizol Chemical Corp. After an honorable discharge from the Army, I worked for Whites Mines as a junior accountant instead of taking unemployment.
I received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in technological systems management at Stony Brook University. In the last 30 years, I have taught computer programming, trigonometry and precalculus.
In the last 10 years, I volunteered with Frontera de Cristo in Douglas/Agua Prieta and worked with Access Wisdom in Green Valley as a certified nurse’s assistant.
Currently, I am a Green Party of Pima County Steering Committee member, gender outreach liaison and captain of Precinct 156. I am also the president of the Veterans For Peace in Tucson, Chapter 13.
I have the life experiences not only to understand but to relate to all Tucsonans.
I humbly request the readers of the Arizona Daily Star to consider my candidacy in light of the Arizona Daily Star’s endorsement of Lee.
I am for Proposition 205 — for Tucson Families Free & Together. I am for the Green New Deal.
Tucson needs tremendous increases in education, on-the-job training, employment and implementation of green technologies.
Thank you!
