Happy with Conover’s l
eadership
I am the database administrator for the Pima County Attorney’s Office and I served under Barbara LaWall and Laura Conover. I found Rick Unklesbay’s opinion piece to be based more on allegory than fact.
Yes, people left PCAO because they didn’t share Laura’s vision, but that isn’t proof her vision is defective. I manage the data. I produce the reports. With each passing month I see the progress and improvement. I’m glad that I wasn’t judged on the first two years I worked as a Database Administrator. Finding one’s footing takes time and it is my opinion that Laura has found her footing faster than most. I am not a person who loves change so getting a new boss was uncomfortable to me, but I couldn’t be happier with Laura Conover’s leadership and I’d bet good money I’m not the only person who feels that way.
Danny Lesandrini
Northeast side
Tucson water and PFAs
After reading the article about the Feds sending Tucson 30 million dollars to help cleanup our growing PFAS problem.
What I would like to know is if Tucson is really going to cleanup the problem or are they going to use the money to study the problem as they have done in the past? It time to do something about the problem instead of kicking the can down the road as our water executives have been doing for years. Maybe they will stop the use of PFAS in products. Just maybe.
Wouldn’t that be novel.
One more thing about water.
The new Tucson staff members are clamping down on businesses for not using reclaimed water for their irrigation. What have the old staff members been doing City Manager Michael Ortega?
Jose Salgado
Northeast side
Antique wartime drawing
Just a short note to say how much I enjoyed Henry Brean’s Veterans Day story.
Quality reporting like that keeps me as a subscriber to the Star.
Thanks again.
Michael Bolchalk
Northeast side
Michael Gary Allen
Inspiration, hope thanks to bicyclist, 88
With so much unsettling news to absorb every day, what a relief it was to read about the inspiring life of Michael Gary Allen. What’s not to appreciate about a retired history professor, and former Olympian, who conducts imaginary conversations with Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan as he rides (and rides!) his bike?
If the 88-year old Mr. Allen can make plans to participate in the Tour for another three years, surely I can withstand and fight against all the news about persistent threats to democracy, freedom, and peace. As the remarkable professor knows, we need to look to both the future as well as the past.
We are lucky Mr. Allen now calls Tucson home, just as we are lucky Tucson hosts such an inspiring and exciting event, and for 40 years, no less!
Leslie Kanberg
Downtown
Biden’s fossil-fuel folly
For those of you that ignore what is contrary to your opinion, when Biden took office gas was around $2.00 per gallon and, thanks to his decisions, the price doubled over the next six months. The resulting inflation from the increase in fuel has slowed down but still kills the wallet of every shopper.
Hoping that Biden had seen the impact of his decisions and learned was too much to ask, he has decided to conspire with China to shut down fossil fuel production. It is apparent that Biden does not understand gas can’t come from green energy unless every driver buys an electric Chinese auto.
Does this sound like a conspiracy that pushes his agenda to the detriment of every citizen? The claim is that this will reduce CO2 but there are significant problems with green energy that the administration ignores. Notice how Biden ignores the utter failure of China to reduce their CO2 output? We, the citizens, deserve better.
Loran Hancock
Northwest side
Trump and fascism
I’m sorry I can no longer excuse people who support Trump as merely being misguided, especially after Trump’s recent harangue about what he is going to do to all those who oppose him. If he is re-elected his own statements show that he wants to end democracy as we know it. However, I am a bit perplexed by one of his statements, namely that he wants to remove fascists from our country. Does he even know what fascists are? Apparently not, as his behaviors come right out of the fascist’s playbook.
Gerry Maggiora
Foothills
UA budget shortfall
A big reason why the Arizona athletic department can’t repay its loan is the $13.5 million in buyouts paid to its previous football coaches. Rich Rodriquez received $6 million. Kevin Sumlin collected $7.5 million. The NCAA needs to follow the NFL example — you get cut and your salary comes to an end. Either that, or make Nike pay the buyouts as part of its sponsorship deals.
Walter Ramsley
East side
Israel/Palestine Heartache
My heart bleeds for both. Been to Israel, China, Russia, and a Vietnam return. Most peoples want to live their lives, work, raise families and don’t care about “ideologies”.
The “tough” talk in the US from both parties is lame since most don’t have any “skin in the game” like in the draft days. A lifetime ago, I had experience with guerilla fighters who blended in. With the tunnels of Cu Chi, we bombed, fired artillery, and used Agent Orange with limited results and disastrous consequences for our soldiers and innocent Vietnamese. The Israeli strategy is only going to recruit more Hamas fighters as bombs and tanks aren’t going to “defeat” Hamas. Tunnel warfare needs flame throwers and CS gas. “Winning the hearts & minds of the people” requires Palestine to have a country, i.e. West Bank. This is the only hope for Israeli peace & security. God weeps! Hate has no place in this world and don’t talk “tough” unless you or your kid are going!
Jim Bellotty
Green Valley
The Carters — what a legacy
Jimmy Carter, 2002 Nobel peace prize recipient, along with his wife Rosalynn, spent their post-White House years selflessly doing good for others. Building affordable housing for those in need, establishing the Carter Center to expand human rights, engaging in peace negotiations across the globe, and working to eradicate infectious diseases. What a couple. What a legacy! Compare to the last president to leave the Oval Office.
Deb Klumpp
Oro Valley
UNICEF, Amnesty International materials
In response to a letter from Betty Richards, I want to make clear that I have absolutely no problem with people advocating for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
My problem was with materials, prepared by UNICEF and Amnesty International, which were distributed at a high school, which made zero mention of the horrors perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, and made false and inflammatory statements about Jewish people in Israel. Jewish students at the school felt unsafe because impressionable young people developed antisemitic views from this one-sided presentation. I attached this antisemitic literature to my press release. Hamas does not advocate a two-state solution, but opposes it, making it clear that its goal is not a two-state solution, but the complete destruction of the people of Israel, “from the river to the sea.” This qualifies as antisemitic. I object to students for justice in Palestine, which issued a statement that “we are not supporters of Hamas, we are part of Hamas” and generate antisemitism.
Tom Horne
Downtown
Will’s Green bossiness nonsense
Standing ovation for Doug Pickrell’s point-by-point refutation of George Will’s column. Will should take a bow too as he cleverly performed the literary equivalent of spinning straw into gold — zero facts, just homespun trickle-down crap to say the sky isn’t falling.
Problem is that point-by-point refutations are mostly a waste of time if the intention is to change mindsets of Will and his ilk. In Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking Fast and Slow,” he shows much to the reader’s supreme dismay that once beliefs reach that point where your community supports them, factual refutations only serve to heighten the resolve of the believer to find anything anywhere that supports the belief regardless of credibility.
People, the sky really is falling. You may not want to acknowledge it, but this is truly an all-hands-on-deck moment. Join Citizens Climate Lobby and support carbon fee and dividend legislation. Take a stand. Paper or plastic won’t cut it. You cannot do it alone.
Rick Rappaport
Oro Valley
Bossy scientists can tell the temperature
Thanks, Doug Pickrell, for responding to George Will’s complaint about bossy scientists. Same day it was announced that Earth temporarily reached more than 2.06 deg. C above pre-industrial levels — the don’t-cross level scientists warned us about, the hottest since humans have been on Earth.
So, it wasn’t just Tucson that was hot this summer, it was the entire planet. Burning all those fossil fuels has been fun but the party is clearly over when rivers on every continent are threatened, land that was arable for millennia is barren, and ancient aquifers from India to Arizona are being pumped dry. Our inheritance that includes wildlife, forests, and plants, are all at risk.
A Carbon Fee and Dividend Act was introduced by Sen. Flake in the Senate in 2018 and sponsored in the House by Rep. Ruben Gallego in 2021. Cutting carbon emissions fast, it would help keep Arizona livable and our economy vibrant. Tell Senators Sinema and Kelly it’s time to tax carbon.
Jane Conlin
Oro Valley
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