Gosar and Biggs
As information about the Jan. 6 insurrection becomes clearer, it's obvious Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, Republicans, encouraged participation in the riot.
The Republican Party is responsible for the insurrection on Jan. 6! To show they're not totally corrupt, Gosar and Biggs must be removed from office!
Jim Dreis
East side
Golf course water use
Re: the Oct. 31 article "Local people solving local problems."
The story about the Oro Valley golf course being restored to natural habitat reminded me of an article I read about the amount of water used by California golf courses. I was amazed to learn these courses use up to 1 million gallons of water a night. I checked it out, it is nightly and it is 1 million. I would be interested to know if our Tucson courses use the same amount of water. If we are to a point of rationing water, I reluctantly feel that one of the first places to look are our fairways and greens.
Daniel McDonnell
Foothills
What's off-limits at hospitals
Re: the Oct. 25 article "Put hospitals off-limits to unvaccinated adults."
What other bad behaviors would merit denial to hospitals — gluttony, smoking, avoiding exercise, poor driving, excessive alcohol consumption?
Clyde Cabot
East side
Appreciation for Rep. Gallego
Re: the Oct. 26 article "UN says that greenhouse gas levels hit record."
I am a co-leader of the Tucson chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of thousands of citizens worldwide. A U.N. analysis reports we are not moving quickly enough to reduce greenhouse gases. We must quickly accelerate away from fossil fuels and carbon emissions. The best way to do that is to make carbon emissions more expensive by placing a fee on carbon, rebating that fee to the citizenry, requiring importers to pay a comparable fee and exempting farmers, who use enormous amounts of fossil fuel to produce food, from the fee. It is a fair, effective, and durable way to avert environmental disaster and is the essence of HR 2307, a resolution that now has 86 co-sponsors in the House.
Ruben Gallego is the first Arizona representative to become one of them. My deepest thanks to him for supporting this House resolution which has the backing of economists, corporations, faith leaders, environmentalists and ordinary citizens. Gallego needs to be joined by Reps. Raúl Grijalva, Ann Kirkpatrick and Tom O’Halleran.
Mike Carran
Oro Valley
Vote GOP if you like climate crisis
It seems remarkable to me that Arizonans keep voting for and supporting Republican office holders. The majority of people in this state know that climate change is real. Like all of us, they complain about the rising temperatures and fret about the drought, and the wildfires they cause. Yet they continue to put people in office who ignore this issue.
We need to switch to renewable sources of power. We need to stop giving our precious water away to large agribusinesses that turn around and export their products overseas. In short, we need to elect representatives who can see beyond today and who care about something beyond their own stock portfolios.
Rick Bramhall
South Tucson
COVID-19 failure in Arizona
The world has been fighting the awful battle with COVID-19 for almost two years. The medical professionals have been trying hard to guide us toward health safety but Arizona is not listening and is ignoring their advice. The tools like readily available vaccines and indoor mask wearing have not been adopted by enough citizens. The positivity rate should be lower than it is. Other states and countries have successfully lowered their infection rate. Why can’t Arizona do the same?
Vera Luey
Green Valley
Can you say gerrymander?
Re: the Oct. 27 article "Pima GOP looks for a bigger say at Capitol."
What is the point of having an independent redistricting commission in Arizona if its members are allowed to be influenced by a partisan interest group?
As stated in the article, the current commission is trending toward favoring maps that will ”help ensure that there will be more Republicans from Pima County in the Legislature after the 2022 election.”
The five-member Independent Redistricting Commission met again Thursday morning to draw a draft map in preparation for the final map approval in late December. If this special interest group is allowed to push through its partisan agenda, I predict it will create a road map for partisan groups in the future to corrupt the IRC mapping process. This partisan gambit could effectively put an end to independent redistricting in Arizona.
Susan Bickel
Foothills
More traffic cops needed
Cases of road rage are increasing, and in my opinion, these are caused by a severe lack of traffic cops out on the roads to reduce speeders and monitor driving behaviors. I have called the Pima County Sheriff's Department many times to request traffic cops on Moore Road, without any response that I have seen. Traffic cops can help reduce speeding and erratic driving, and can keep our roads safer. There’s too many crazy drivers out there now, without any police to slow them down. Our tax dollars should be used for this protection.
Deb Childers
Northwest side
