Expecting change with no changes
Re: the June 19 article “Tucsonans want more from city.”
I was both frustrated and amused as I read Tim Steller’s column. Why would anyone expect any change to occur to alter Tucson’s sorry condition when year after year the same people are elected to the same or new positions to run it? It brought to mind the movie “Evita” where the generals merely swapped chairs.
Patricia Ridinger
Northwest side
Trump guilty on Jan. 6
I think Trump is guilty. Trump orchestrated the Jan. 6 terrorist attack on our country. Only Trump had the power to stop his own lies, to condemn the gullibility of his followers, and to order their arrest.
What should be done? Answer: Trump, and his top 1,000 enablers — in government, industry, media, “religion,” as well as his corrupt band of lawyers — should be imprisoned for life. They are Mafia gangsters. Criminals.
Furthermore, those dishonorable Americans who still can’t see this, who still support Trump and want to send this perverse human being and his accomplices back into the White House, you are lost souls. You need to recuse yourself from ever voting again. You have failed the responsibility of citizenship.
Finally, Pence is no hero. He merely on that day (finally), unlike a majority of his conservative colleagues, honored his oath of office.
Ron Rude
West side
Do not get rid of OpEd pages
So Gannett doesn’t want to run OpEd pages anymore because too many people are discontinuing their subscriptions because they don’t like what they read? How are they going to feel when people discontinue their newspapers because they no longer serve as an avenue to hear other people’s opinions and ideas?
I want to know what my neighbors are thinking, and I want to hear what the opinion columnists are saying from both sides of the issues. I may not agree, but I always want to hear both sides before I judge. My neighbor across town may provide an aspect I hadn’t thought of. As far as I go to support the extravagance of a daily newspaper, don’t push me too far!
Bonnie Brunotte
Midtown
EV chargers help Tucson’s economy
When EV owners (or renters) plan a trip, we look to stop where we can both charge, and eat, sleep and/or shop. Increasingly, Teslas are not the only EVs on the road. Other types of chargers are also needed. If Tucson wants these travelers to plan a route through our fair city, chargers should be installed at our parks, hotels and eateries, whenever possible. As some people think only rich people buy electric cars, don’t we want some of that money for local tourism?
Debbi Golden-Davis
East side
Change Marana Town Council
Why do people seek out Marana as their new home? Most are attracted to the open space and natural beauty of the biodiverse desert that uniquely exists here. And for good reason, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife has even recognized part of Marana as “critical habitat.”
Unfortunately, the rampant population growth of 48.5% in just 10 years (2010-2020) has not boded well for Marana’s desert or its people. As the density of housing communities continues to rise and unstoppably be built, Marana’s citizens have raised numerous concerns.
Sadly, Marana Town Council fails at every turn to recognize those concerns. Why? Perhaps, power given from wealthy influential builders can be intoxicating, creating an identity of being a big fish in a small pond. Several of the incumbents have been enjoying their big fish status for decades. Luckily, this small pond has three new opportunities to address the destabilizing forces of Marana’s rampant growth: Mark Johnson, Patrick Cavanaugh and Tim Kosse are running for Marana Town Council!
Dr. Jill Kismet
Marana
My thoughts on abortion issue
Abortion rights were not spelled out when the Constitution was made the law of the land. In 1777, no thought was given to women. It was a man’s world. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920.
I assume all pregnancies were completed with birth unless a miscarriage occurred. Large families were needed to farm the land. Abortion rights would not have been a concern when writing the document.
In America, life is different today. Most live in cities. Children are a huge expense. Many couples have decided to delay or not have children at all. With both working full time in order to make ends meet, the children, if they have them, spend their days in child care facilities with only the evenings and weekends to bond.
The Congress should enact legislation allowing families to make the choice that makes the most sense to them. Everyone else should find something better to do with their time.
Jack Walters
Northeast side
Our rights
Our rights have gone down the tube. The Catholic Church just won big; next is birth control and who we can marry and our tax dollars going to support the Catholic schools. I think we will be a nation controlled by the man in Italy.
What happens to my rights to pursue my life without some church telling me my rights do not count. I have no say in who I want to pray to, live and marry who I want without the Catholic Church telling me what they think is best for me?
It is OK with them that I can walk into a store and be shot by someone, but I have no rights to live my life as I see fit.
We need to find a way to get Clarence Thomas and the last three judges out of our court. They are no longer giving unbiased decisions.
Patrick Allen
West side
Gannett: Save the opinions
The Opinion section is one of the most valuable sections of the Arizona Daily Star. The opinions from various viewpoints expand well beyond the sound bites we see on television. The majority are well thought out and presented. Although I probably do not agree with about half of the viewpoints, I do not view that as negative decisiveness.
Frequently, it opens my mind to the differing views and helps me form my own opinions. Why not cut some of the endless coverage of UA sports instead? How much do we possibly need to know about every game and every wrong prediction of the next season’s success? By definition of winners and losers, sports are the most decisive of all your sections!
Gerald Lavallee
Southeast side
Minority rules at the RTA
Re: the June 26 article “Minority rule reaches full bloom.”
Thanks, Tim Steller, for your column on minority rule in Arizona and the U.S. I agree that recent legislative and court decisions do not reflect the will of the majority.
I was disappointed, however, that you missed a perfect example of minority rule here in local government. The PAG Regional Council and the RTA Board, which control the vast majority of federal, state and local funds designated for transportation infrastructure and operations, are minority rule as well.
There are nine votes on the RC and RTA Board, seven votes represent 15% of the population in Pima County, and two votes (Tucson and Pima County) represent 85% of the population. Tucson alone represents close to 55% of the population, but is allowed only one vote. How’s that for unbalanced and unfair representation?
The city of Tucson also stands to lose the most RTA funding as the money runs out and costs rise. I hope you’ll keep this in mind when you are asked to vote for RTA next.
Ruth Reiman
Midtown
Alito’s fatal flaw in Dobbs?
Justice Alito’s decision in Dobbs engages in a lengthy discussion of whether the Founders and subsequent lawmakers deemed abortion legal. He states that such consideration is necessary to discern whether our nation’s “history and tradition” predating Roe is consonant with recognizing abortion as a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Thus, Alito devotes page after page of his analysis to establishing that abortion was criminalized throughout much of the 1700s and 1800s. But this analysis is meaningless unless one considers who these lawmakers were and whether, during most of the period that Alito studies, women had an equal voice in the establishment of laws that affected them most directly. The short answer is that they did not as the Nineteenth Amendment (women’s suffrage) wasn’t enacted until 1920.
Justice Alito, his colleagues, and their clerks are exquisite writers. We’d expect no less from these mostly Ivy League law grads. But Dobbs suffers from a glaring (perhaps fatal) omission that begs the question of whether Alito was merely sloppy or purposefully disingenuous.
Bruce Skolnik
Northeast side
10th grader knows this is wrong
I am 15 years old and a proud, native Tucsonan. Last week, I represented Arizona at an engineering camp at the United States Military Academy at West Point. I met high-achieving students from all over the country, including several from Colorado — a state currently considering a ban on mountain lion hunting. Many states have already outlawed all forms of mountain lion hunting — and that is my wish for Arizona.
In Arizona, hundreds of mountain lions are killed every year for “recreational purposes” — in other words, for fun. Arizona’s lax hunting laws support bloodsport tourism. Trophy hunters come to Arizona to kill lions in much the same way as they go to Tanzania, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
At a minimum, Arizona must protect its lions from out-of-state trophy hunters. Hunting outfitters and Arizona Game and Fish should not profit from the slaughter of our big cats. This is wrong — even a 10th grader can tell you that.
Travis Cooper, 10th grader and future Arizona voter/taxpayer
Northwest side
COVID-19 cases increasing
COVID-19 cases in Pima County over the past two months are more than twice the same general time period in 2021.
In the United States, there has been an upward trend in the daily average of the number of new COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalization admissions from May of this year thru June.
Those of us who are concerned about contracting COVID-19 should still be taking precautions.
Bill Kendall
Downtown
Reckless spending
I find it amazing that Republican candidates have the audacity to criticize Joe Biden for reckless spending, after such wonderful Republican fiascos as Ninja auditing for election fraud to make Arizona the laughing stock of America, the numerous Benghazi Senate inquiries to demonize Hillary Clinton and all the Whitewater garbage that proved nothing. All Republicans do is waste money in an attempt to defile people. How much will they now waste trying to show Hunter Biden is worse than any Trump kid? Economics is not a Republican strong suit. Maybe they can build more walls to create bad feelings with neighbors. Another great use of money.
Carl Olson
West side
Catholic Supreme Court
How about the extreme Catholics on the Supreme Court worry about the thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of children raped by priests and the coverup by church hierarchy before they weigh in on whether a woman who has been raped should be denied the option of abortion. Get your own house in order, bunch of sanctimonious people who committed perjury to get approved.
Craig Miller
Northwest side
SCOTUS reasoning is incorrect
The conservative Supreme Court majority in reversing the 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade stated that abortion is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, and therefore, the decision should be left up to the states. This is illogical, but if one follows that logic then most modern federal legislation is also unconstitutional. Women are not mentioned in the Constitution and did not receive the vote until 1920. For 138 years, their vote was prohibited and has only been possible for the last 102 years. Slavery was present in all 13 colonies in 1789, had been allowed since 1619 and was not reversed until 1865. By the conservatives logic, then both slavery and women’s suffrage would not have been overturned by the court.
It is apparent they do not fully believe in their illogical position as in their ruling on the New York state open carry opinion shows. Now what will become of contraception and many other modern concerns not mentioned in the Constitution or issues that were not apparent in 1789?
Michael Hamant, MD
East side
