The Daily Agenda: New Year’s resolutions we’d like to see

Local elected officials have a long year ahead of them … The stakes are high, but we remain hopeful … Backlash at Gadsden Hotel.

It’s a brand new year and that means it’s time for resolutions.

Instead of telling you we’re finally going to get organized and stop procrastinating (which we probably won’t end up doing anyway), we came up with a list of resolutions for our local elected officials. After all, they’re the ones whose choices really matter. 

They have a tough year ahead of them. We have a lot of local elections coming up and the campaigns could turn dirty, especially with heated national elections also on the ballot. And, of course, homelessness, crime, and myriad other local issues are far from resolved.

While we likely won’t see any Tucson City Council members campaigning in 2024 (their elections aren’t until next year), several Pima County Supervisors are going to face challengers. The Pima County Republican Party’s November newsletter showcased five candidates who will be challenging Democratic supervisors for their seats.

Democratic Supervisor Dr. Matt Heinz already has an opponent on record with the county, with Republican Beatrice Cory Stephens filing papers back in June, but candidates John Backer and Rafael De La Rosa are both also pursuing Heinz’s District 2 seat. And Steve Spain, who lost Ally Miller’s vacant District 1 seat to Supervisor Rex Scott in 2020, has announced another run against Scott.

Janet Wittenbraker, who challenged Tucson Mayor Regina Romero for her office this past year, has also announced a run for supervisor, although which district she’ll be fighting to represent is yet to be determined.

The Republican Party also has a call out for candidates to challenge Adelita Grijalva for her District 5 seat and someone will be running to fill the District 3 seat to which Sylvia Lee was just appointed. If anybody decides to challenge Supervisor Steve Christy for his seat over in District 4, we could actually see every seat challenged.

While we understand that campaigning is part of the job, the county is grappling with serious issues, and we hope that our current supervisors continue to focus their efforts on creating and effecting change.

In November, supervisors adopted the Pima County Prosperity Initiative to help increase opportunity and generational wealth across the region. While the supervisors have committed to take action, the implementation of these policies hasn’t even begun, and they’ve got their work cut out for them if they want to move the needle on issues like equitable pay, affordable housing and economic opportunity for all.

And while we’re writing our wishlist, let’s just throw in a hope that our county candidates will stay classy and focus on the facts and issues, rather than resort to low-blows and name-calling, as we’ve seen in past elections and will surely see on the state and national stages.

On the city side of local government, Romero and council members Lane Santa Cruz and Nikki Lee are kicking off their second terms, on the heels of four years marked by the pandemic and its aftermath.

Over the holidays, Romero took to Facebook to tout the city’s achievements in 2023, in a lengthy list of accomplishments (Caitlin thought we were counting down the top 20, but on New Year’s Eve, Romero was up to number 32).

Her list included the creation of a 311 system to connect residents to city information and services, a $50 million Housing and Urban Development Grant to revitalize the public housing facility Tucson House, the approval of the city’s first-ever climate action plan and multiple actions related to the creation of affordable housing.

With no campaigning on the horizon and a big pay raise this year for both Romero and the council members, the council is free to focus on the work. We hope they continue to try to tackle big issues, like poverty, climate change and redefining public safety.

We’d also like to see more partnerships between the city and county when it comes to overlapping issues, like the joint management of The Craycroft, an expansion of the Emergency Eviction Legal Services Emergency Housing program

.We suspect we’ll see some of these partnerships when it comes to the implementation of policies presented in the prosperity initiative, but there are plenty of opportunities for our local governments to team up to address issues that affect the community at large, like climate change and education.

And while we’re at it, why not bring South Tucson, Oro Valley and Marana into more of these conversations, since these areas are all separated by just a matter of miles? The issues may look different depending on the zip code, but the reality is these problems affect us all to one degree or another.

But we don’t have to sit back and wait for the people we elect to do all this on their own. You can also participate in the process, and the beauty of local government is that it’s surprisingly easy to do.

You can write a letter to the editor (email curt@tucsonagenda.com) or contact your local elected officials. You might change their minds, you might not. But if they never hear from you at all, then you definitely won’t change their minds.

That wraps up our wish list of resolutions for local officials. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with our resolutions for state officials.

Weighing in: The Pima County Adult Detention Center Blue Ribbon Commission is seeking public input in on what the county should do about the jail, the Arizona Luminaria’s John Washington reports. The commission’s initial report released last month suggests the only options are to remodel or build a new jail, which could cost upwards of $380 million. The report cited several “critical areas of concern,” including the condition of housing units, overcrowding, staffing and lack of space for medical, mental health and detoxification services. The public survey closes Jan. 13.

Buyer beware: The Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller argues for Tucsonans and the city council to be skeptical of supporting a new RTA plan, dubbed RTA Next. The proposed plan would extend the countywide half-cent sales tax another 20 years, before the current one is set to expire in 2026. Steller points to the incomplete Grant Road project, a key piece of the original Regional Transportation Authority plan that voters approved in 2006, as one of the reasons we should be wary, saying that nearly 20 years later, most of the project remains undone.

Request denied: A three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals has agreed to withhold grand jury transcripts in the case of a former Tucson Police Officer who shot a man in a motorized scooter eight times in the back, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. The panel called the request from Ryan Remington’s lawyer a “fishing expedition,” saying that Remington’s desire to use the transcript to prepare a defense for potentially new charges is a “facially invalid reason” for their release.

Business backlash: The closure of two popular restaurants and firing of nearly two dozen employees of Douglas’ historic Gadsen Hotel a year after its purchase has caused outrage on social media, the Star’s Cathalena Burch writes. Bright Brain Hospitality partners, who also own Motel 6 in Willcox, say they’ve lost more than $200,000 on the Gadsen. They plan to start demolition on the property in mid-January, with Douglas Mayor Donald Huish saying that it’s “of great concern to the city” when a business “experiences a need to redefine their business model due to economic factors that negatively impact employees.”

Seeking answers: The Mexican Consulate is launching a program to help find the remains of migrants who died while crossing the border in Santa Cruz County, the Nogales International’s Daisy Zavala Magaña reports. The initiative stems from Mexico’s attempts to address the crisis of missing people, focusing on undocumented migrants traveling north who have gotten lost after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border through the desert. The area was recognized in 2022 by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration as the deadliest land migration route, with 686 deaths and disappearances.

Taking it to the top: The Arizona Board of Regents is seeking the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2017 Title IX lawsuit  filed against the University of Arizona by the ex-girlfriend of a former football player, Arizona Public Media’s Paola Rodriguez reports. In September, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said that the UA can be liable for its “deliberate indifference” to sexual harassment cases that take place on or off campus. ABOR wants the appellate court’s decision reversed, saying that the court made its ruling based on an argument posed by the judges who heard the case rather than the victim. The board has until Jan. 24 to file its petition.

$80 million: The amount of city funding allocated towards new and existing projects through the Tucson Resilient Together plan, an inclusive and community-driven Climate Action and Adaptation Plan approved by the mayor and council in March.