Call to the public kerfuffle

Local GOP not happy with Supervisor Adelita Grijalva's social media post ... She pushes right back ... Nanos asked to answer questions.

A social media post last week landed Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva in hot water, at least with local Republican voters.

Grijalva posted a photo of a political sign that read “Chinga tu MAGA” and “No mas naranja,” which roughly translates to “Screw/F**k your MAGA” and “No more orange.” She wrote “Welcome to Tucson!!” above the photo.

She was one of several people who shared the photo around the time former President Donald Trump held a rally in Tucson.

The local Republican Party went to work drumming up a campaign to demand an apology from Grijalva at Tuesday’s supervisors’ meeting. About a dozen speakers showed up to berate Grijalva at call to the public, saying she was promoting “hate speech.”

John Backer, the Republican candidate for supervisor in District 2, said county supervisors should not post “vulgarity” and “hateful comments” on social media. (He also took a moment to wish Grijalva’s father, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, well as he battles cancer)

Cory Stephens, the Republican candidate who lost to Backer in the primary, said Grijalva was guilty of the “dissemination of hate speech and divisive rhetoric” that pushes people on the fringe of society toward violence.

She said Grijalva’s “hypocrisy in this matter cannot be overlooked,” pointing to Grijalva drawing a hard line on maintaining civility at public meetings, an issue that came to a head last year when speakers repeatedly made unfounded accusations against Supervisor Matt Heinz.

Stephens ended her remarks with “Viva MAGA! Viva MAGA! Viva MAGA!” one of the plays on Spanish-language phrases the speakers came up with, including “No más Grijalva.”

Dave Smith, chair of the Pima County Republican Party, said he was “stunned to see” Grijalva posted a photo that used a Spanish expletive he understood as fighting words. He called for voters to elect Republican candidates to replace the current supervisors.

Anastasia Tsatsakis, who ran for the Vail School District governing board in 2022, said it was “completely inappropriate” for Grijalva to mock the beliefs of others and demanded an apology for inciting violence and “hate messaging.”

Daniel Butierez, the Republican candidate running against Rep. Raúl Grijalva in Congressional District 7, didn’t bring up the photo. He focused instead on an agenda item that would provide $19 million to support asylum seekers, or a “bunch of criminals” as he called them.

But Butierez’s wife, Paula, brought up the photo, saying “How dare you put a target on 50% of Pima County.”

Paula Butierez offered her sympathy for Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s illness, but also demanded that he appear more on the campaign trail, saying “if he’s fit now, he should be able to come out and prove it.”

When it came time for Grijalva to respond, she appeared thoroughly unfazed by the barrage of criticism and demands for an apology.

“I find it completely hypocritical that you would demand of me what you don’t of your candidate for president,” Grijalva said.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll acknowledge wrongdoing when Trump apologizes for the racist, misogynistic, sexist, inflammatory comments he’s made about women, people of color, LGBTQ, immigrants and frankly anyone who disagrees with him or isn’t one of his fans.”

At that point, most of the people who berated her got up and walked out of the meeting.

“The next 49 days are going to be very trying for our community and we’ll have a lot of healing to do after the election,” Grijalva said.

“In the future, I’ll commit to pausing before sharing posts that might incite the kind of harassment and threatening comments and messages from people, mostly outside of my district and outside of the state of Arizona.”

If you’d like to watch it for yourself, the video of the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting is on the county’s YouTube channel (and we put it in our Other News section below).

Speeding saga: State Sen. Justine Wadsack is going to trial next month over a speeding citation, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. The Republican firebrand claimed “political persecution” after she was cited for driving 71 mph (more than twice the speed limit) on Speedway. Wadsack pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at Tucson City Court and went on social media to complain about “lawfare” being used against her.

Calling on the sheriff: After a lengthy back-and-forth, the Pima County supervisors voted 3-2 to ask Sheriff Chris Nanos to answer questions about his department’s handling of a sexual assault case, KOLD’s Bud Foster reports. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office said command staff may have violated department policies in their review of an accusation that a sergeant sexually assaulted a female deputy at a holiday party.

The work continues: Tucsonans are still finding and removing racist housing restrictions that targeted Black residents, most recently in the Vista del Monte neighborhood, KGUN’s Andrew Christiansen reports. Thanks to a new state law, neighborhood associations and homeowners associations now have the authority to get rid of the restrictions on their own.

End of an era: The last squadron of A-10 “Warthogs” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base was retired last week, the Arizona Daily Star’s David Wichner reports. The aircraft first arrived at the base in 1976. In their place, the Air Force plans to open a Special Forces Operations Command at Davis-Monthan in the next few years.

61: The high temperature on Mt. Lemmon today, more than 30 degrees lower than the expected high temperature for Tucson.