Fading support

Dim future for free bus rides ... Cruelty is the point ... And wacky ideas are always welcome.

The days of fare-free transit in the greater Tucson area are likely numbered. The only certainty is it won't go away for at least a few more months.

The council took the first step toward raising rates on Tuesday after having kept the fare-free program afloat since the early days of the pandemic.

It’s not the first occasion that they’ve debated whether the city can afford to keep fares free.

Yet, every time, they ended up keeping it going, often under intense pressure from progressive voices in the community who see fare-free transit as the city’s duty to low-income residents and a key way to fight climate change.

On Tuesday, a majority of the Council rang a warning bell that this popular program could close this summer.

But they haven’t decided exactly what they’re going to do yet. The Council could revert Sun Tran, Sun Link, and Sun Van to the fee structure that was in place before the city went fare-free in March 2020. Or they could raise rates. Or they could back off entirely, as they have before.

Whichever way they decide to go, the impact will ripple beyond just the cost of riding the bus or streetcar. Advocates believe getting rid of free fares will make it harder for unhoused people to seek resources and hurt countless businesses whose employees and customers rely on mass transit.

This week, Mayor Regina Romero lamented that the City of Tucson doesn’t have a funding mechanism in place to pay for public transportation.

“Valley cities like Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, and Glendale fund their systems with dedicated funding sources. So Phoenicians have taxed themselves to pay for transit services. Not for five years, not for 10 years, for 35 years,” she said.

But in the face of a $28 million budget shortfall, Romero reluctantly supported the decision to open a Title VI study under the Civil Rights Act, which requires transit agencies to do a fare equity analysis before making changes to its fee structure.

Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz, along with Councilman Kevin Dahl, voted against initiating the Title VI study, arguing the city needed to exhaust other options to increase revenue before waving the white flag and scrapping the fare-free transit program.

Santa Cruz suggested a more aggressive increase in the nightly hotel tax, among other fee increases, to pay for free transit.

“We should explore switching from a flat fee to a percentage-based hotel tax,” they said. “The percentage structure is more equitable so that people staying in luxury beds should contribute more than budget motels.”

An increase in the price to park downtown might also be warranted, Santa Cruz suggested, saying the additional revenue could help pay to keep fares free.

Councilman Paul Cunningham voted to allow the fare equity analysis to move forward, but warned his colleagues he wouldn’t support going back to the status quo, saying the city needed to find solutions to offer fare-free services at least along specific routes.

At least one route won’t be considered. The Council opted to start the process to wind down Route 5 in the coming months, slightly modifying Route 22 to go to the Pima Community College’s West Campus.

Outside the council chambers

Dozens of protesters spilled out of City Hall shortly after the Council’s study session, complaining that the Council was considering cutting back on mass transit – and seriously discussing raising fares.

At the call to the public, the proponents for fare-free transit squared off against a handful of fed-up city bus drivers.

Allienna Nezelek told the Council that the budget crisis surrounding free transit is a reflection of the Council prioritizing public safety over everything else.

“Tell me why we need more helicopter fuel and parts for the helicopters that I see increasing every single day over our city that accomplish nothing but increasing noise, wasting money and spewing fossil fuels. Tell me why that's important in our budget when a bus fare is not,” she said.

Joshua Kellogg, a city bus driver and Teamster, asked the Council to reinstate fares as a way to push out dangerous people riding mass transit.

“We're trying very hard as bus drivers to make sure that they get to their destination and stuff, but it's just more assaults, more fighting. And I feel like a lot of people that used to ride the buses, you know, to go to work, to go to school, things like that. They don't ride it anymore,” he told the Council.

The discussion is far from over. The Tucson City Council will formally take action in approximately two months.

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As we continue to dig into the City’s $2.4 billion budget, we’re going to spend several days talking about expenses that are mandated by state law.

While there is a lot of pressure to find savings to meet a projected $28 million budget shortfall next year, these are budget line items that can’t be touched.

Today we’re looking at those pesky state statutes requiring that we pay elected officials – or more precisely, that we help pay for their retirement plans.

While there are technically two plans – one for those who were elected before January 1, 2014, and one for those who were elected after that date – we’ll mostly be discussing the latter, as only Councilmen Paul Cunningham and Richard Fimbres are grandfathered into the older (better) retirement system.

The Elected Officials Defined Contribution Retirement System is basically a 401(k). Elected officials are required to make bi-weekly contributions to the fund, and the city must make a matching contribution to the 401K account.

Annually, elected officials' retirement plans cost the city half a million dollars – and that doesn’t include the cost of their salaries, their staff and related office costs.

Sure, it might seem like small potatoes, but tomorrow we’ll highlight another retirement system the city is pouring millions into annually.

Tough talk: The top border adviser in the Trump administration told Arizona lawmakers that if immigrants don’t have legal status, then “you should be looking over your shoulder,” the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports. Tom Homan was at the state Capitol on Tuesday to persuade lawmakers to support the administration’s mass deportation campaign, which includes invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and revoking the legal status of 900,000 people who entered the country legally. President Donald Trump even said on Sunday he would love to send U.S. citizens to prisons in El Salvador.

Looking over their shoulders: A Tucson family that has fought for immigrant and trans rights for years has fled the country, LOOKOUT’s Joseph Darius Jaafari reports. The Trujillo family said the Trump administration’s hostility to immigrants, Latinos and trans youth, including increased ICE activity in their neighborhood, drove them to make the difficult choice to flee. (Lizette Trujillo was featured in a story in our sister newsletter the Arizona Agenda.)

New rates incoming: The Tucson City Council is moving ahead with a plan to raise rates for Tucson Water customers who live outside the city limits, the Arizona Daily Star’s Charles Borla reports. The Council started the process of raising the rates at its Tuesday meeting. Customers who don’t like the idea can make their voices heard at the Council’s June 17 meeting.

Join the club: University of Arizona officials say they don’t know what the Trump administration will do next with federal grant funding as the “attack on higher education” continues, the Star’s Prerana Sannappanavar reports. UA Chief Financial Officer John Arnold said they’re dealing with “financial risks and uncertainty” as they put together next year’s budget – but one thing he’s sure of is that they will have to make cuts.

Sign of the times: The Tucson Mall is for sale. The 1.3 million-square foot mall on North Oracle Road houses 170 stores and services, including Dillard’s, Macy’s. JC Penney and REI, the commercial real estate firm CBRE announced. They didn’t list a price.

Help us make an offer on the Tucson Mall! Our made-up projections show we’ll need about 1 million new paid subscriptions to afford it. And if you upgrade today, you’ll get a very real discount!

Trouble in Ramsey Canyon: The Cochise County Attorney’s Office is fed up with an inn that hosts large weddings and events that have irritated nearby residents for months, the Herald/Review’s Lyda Longa reports. The county issued cease and desist orders to the owners of the Ramsey Canyon Inn, but the owners flouted those orders. Now the county is asking a judge to shut down the inn until the owners apply for permits. Meanwhile, the owners call the county’s actions “frivolous attacks” and launched an “I Support the Ramsey Canyon” petition.

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We admit $200,000 is not a big number in the grand scheme of things, but Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz is asking Ward 1 residents how they’d spend the six-figure sum on community projects.

The participatory budgeting process – which they refer to as Budget de la Gente – will allow westside city residents to weigh in on a number of proposed projects, as well as offer their own suggestions.

Like this idea.

We look forward to reading about the out-of-the-box suggestions from Ward 1 residents. They might even appear in a future Tucson Agenda.

West siders can vote here.