Cano gets the nod

Smooth sailing … The elite 11 roster … And don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.

It didn’t take long for Pima County supervisors to appoint their newest colleague.

Andrés Cano, a former legislator and House Democratic leader who works at the City of Tucson and used to work at the District 5 office, got the job.

Supervisor Jen Allen nominated him, Supervisor Matt Heinz seconded Allen’s nomination and Supervisor Rex Scott joined them.

With that, the process for replacing former Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, who is running for Congress, ended up being a no-fuss affair.

Supervisor Steve Christy didn’t attend Tuesday’s meeting, so that left just three supervisors to decide who would be their next colleague.¹

“I think right now, at this particular moment, we need somebody in the seat who can hit the ground running with experience around the Board of Supervisors, experience around the complexities of the budget and navigating difficult moments in difficult times," Allen said.

Now that Cano is a supervisor, he’s resigning from his post as the liaison between the Tucson City Council and the state and federal governments. As we understand it, he is taking a pay cut.

In other business

All four supervisors voted for Heinz to be the county’s face on the Pima Association of Governments Regional Council, instead of keeping Scott in that position.

PAG oversees the Regional Transportation Authority, which is in the middle of deciding whether to put a $2 billion plan on the ballot this year.

Scott made a play to stay on the RTA, but didn’t receive a second on his substitution motion — not even from Cano after Scott voted to appoint him.

Scott spent several years on the PAG Board.

Budget talks

As he often does, Heinz made a point of highlighting that the sheriff’s department budget is in the red, and called for an in-depth analysis.

That was just one of the budget issues Heinz brought up.

He wants the county to consider buying the Spanish Trail motel in South Tucson, which he called an eyesore and a hazard. County Administrator Jan Lesher said the county has looked at buying the motel for years.

The supervisors voted unanimously to set aside $1.5 million for the motel, calling it a public health hazard.

Heinz also wanted $1 million as a contingency fund for the health department. The department’s services are vital and could be “attacked” by federal officials like the DOGE crew, he said.

Lesher said the county already has $1 million set aside to offset federal funding cuts, but it’s not dedicated specifically to the health department.

Heinz tried to get his colleagues to approve about $500,000 in the health department’s supplemental request, but Scott said he first wanted to see Lesher’s recommendations for all the other departments’ requests.

A proposal by Heinz to raise property taxes for the next decade to build affordable housing was tabled, with the two-term Democrat agreeing to bring it back in May when they are formally discussing the next fiscal budget.

It’s worth mentioning that once again, county officials didn’t upload the materials they used for some of their presentations before the meeting.

It’s official. Five Democrats and three Republicans have turned in their signatures to qualify for their respective ballots in the special election for the Congressional District 7 seat.

Daniel Hernandez, Adelita Grijalva, Deja Foxx, Patrick Harris, and Jose Malvido will vie for the Democratic nomination in the July 15 primary. Jorge Rivas, Daniel Butirez, and Jimmy Rodriguez will ask voters for their support to be the Republican nominee in this Democratic stronghold district.

The write-in candidates are on their own timeline, provided they get the minimum number of votes in the primary. They include “No Labels” candidate Richard Grayson, Green Party candidate Gary Swing and Libertarian candidate Andy "Native Son of AZ" Fernandez Jr.

We hope for Fernandez’s sake that voters don’t have to write in the whole name to qualify for the special election general ballot in September.

The special election was triggered by the passing of Raúl Grijalva, who represented southern Arizona in Congress since 2002. He was 77.

Pima Community College announced on Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revoked the visa of one of its international students.

The college learned about the student — who they are not naming — during a standard review of its digital records, and found the student's record had been removed. Homeland Security informed the student of its decision, but it’s unclear whether the student is still in Tucson.

We’ve reached out to Homeland Security for comment.

The college put out the following statement:

“Pima Community College remains committed to supporting all students, including international students, by continuing to provide the resources they need to ensure their learning is not interrupted and their success remains a priority.”

PCC currently has 212 international students attending.

Border wall incoming: The Trump administration is planning to build about 25 miles of border wall across the San Rafael Valley near Sonoita, the Republic’s Brandon Loomis reported. During his first term, Trump built hundreds of miles of 30-foot-tall wall in Arizona. The San Rafael Valley was one of the few areas they didn’t get to. The valley is also a key crossing point for jaguars and ocelots and environmental advocates called the new wall plan “ecocide.”

Some things never change: Despite the deluge of new policies coming to Arizona’s border with Mexico, Arizonans are still heading to Nogales, Sonora, for dental care and shopping, the Tucson Sentinel’s Natalie Robbins reports. On a recent afternoon, the waiting room at one dental clinic in Nogales, Sonora, was full of people wearing University of Arizona hoodies and speaking English.

The alfalfa empire strikes back: The Saudi-owned alfalfa farm that has become symbolic of Arizona’s water debate told a judge that the farm is not a “nuisance,” as Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes alleged in a lawsuit, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer reports. State law says agricultural operations with good practices are “presumed to be reasonable,” the lawyers for the Saudi company Fondomonte argued.

Not-so-fun fungi: The popular television show “The Last of Us” is coming back on the air with tales of a fungus-ridden dystopia. The Washington Post spoke with UA Professor John Galgiani about one of the few fungi that can actually infect human brains: the one that causes Valley Fever.

Is news like a fungus trying to infect people’s brains? Maybe we’re too far gone to know. Either way, we’re going to keep churning out the best newsletter we can. So smash that button and subscribe today!

Grace under pressure: A dispatcher at the Santa Rita Fire District in Green Valley got a frantic 911 call, but stayed cool, KGUN’s Joel Foster reports. Darby Cech took the call from a couple heading to a Tucson hospital while the wife was in labor. Cech walked the husband through the delivery after they pulled to the side of the road. But it wasn’t over. The baby turned purple and Cech told the husband to pat the baby’s back and feet.

“When I heard the baby cry again and he said her face was turning pink, I knew she was okay,” Cech said.

We should have guessed asking an open-ended question about whether Tucson residents could identify wasteful/unnecessary spending was a bad idea.

We read all 4,038 responses and well, Tucsonans hate everything.

Residents complained about cops, climate resiliency, free transit, electric vehicles, programs to help unhoused individuals, and the (voter-approved) salaries for the mayor and council.

We’re fairly sure that there were organized attempts by certain groups to answer the survey in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale.

Dozens of answers, for example, included the #lesspolice #carenotcops hashtags.

There were plenty of angry comments that asked the city to stop buying tanks,² stop planting trees and stop paying for the mayor’s security detail.

Personally, we loved the smart-asses who simply answered the question about whether they could identify wasteful/unnecessary spending with a simple “Yes.”

A full report will be available in a few weeks.

1. Oddly enough, Cano would have gotten the nod even without Scott’s vote. County officials said that with a vacancy and an absence on the board, just two votes would have constituted a majority.

2. We now wonder how many tanks we have precisely.