The next Tucson Council

Filling those seats … Looking to the horizon … And dogs are lucky.

Tucsonans made their first big political choice of the year on Tuesday, setting the stage for even bigger decisions in November and next spring.

When city voters rejected Proposition 414 by a wide margin, they dealt a blow to the Tucson City Council’s plans for the police and fire departments, as well as projects like the Somos Uno cultural campaign.

The wholesale defeat of the half-cent sales tax will put pressure on the Council to revisit its budget, pitting core services that are required under the city charter against other popular city programs.

The defeat also raises the stakes for the next big political decision Tucson voters will make: Who should sit in three Council seats that are up for grabs this year?

Now that Prop 414 is dead, the choices that the winners of those races will have to make about the city’s budget, and the city’s values, will be that much harder.

The races so far

There’s no shortage of candidates for the races in Wards 3, 5 and 6.

The Ward 3 race is the least complicated. TUSD Governing Board member Sadie Shaw is challenging Kevin Dahl, the incumbent, in the Democratic primary for the north central ward.

In the Ward 5 race to replace retiring Councilman Richard Fimbres, six Democrats are seeking to take over the southside ward. Selina Barajas, Christopher Elsner, Fabian Danobeytia, Manon Getsi, Jesse Lugo and Richard Hernandez have all submitted paperwork to run for office.

Ward 6 is a little more complicated. Four Democrats — Miranda Schubert, Leighton Rockafellow, Theresa Riel and James Sinex — all formally announced they are running for the seat in the midtown ward. That race also includes a Republican candidate, Jay Tolkoff.

The candidates have until April 7 to turn in their signatures to officially qualify for the ballot. So far, Schubert is the only candidate who’s turned in their signatures.

Practically speaking, the Democratic primary in August will decide two of the three Council races. No Republicans are running in Ward 3 or Ward 5, so the winner of the primary will be seated on the Council next January.

In the deep blue Ward 6, Republican Tolkoff is set to face the winner of the Democratic primary in November.

Republicans generally have a hard time getting elected to the Council. The last time a GOP candidate pulled it off was 16 years ago. But they did it in Ward 6.

The November election could also have two items not tied to the Council races.

It looks like city voters will be asked to renew the Tucson Electric Power franchise agreement, likely ending a year-long community debate about whether to establish a municipal-owned electric utility.

Locals also will be asked to weigh in on Plan Tucson, a 20-year planning document that outlines the city’s priorities related to land-use decisions, programs, policies, and investments.

Hot potatoes

Next year will be a busy one in Tucson politics. When the new Council is seated in January, they’ll inherit a number of political hot potatoes from their predecessors.

• RTA Next: While the RTA Board has a May deadline to place the renewal of the 20-year regional transportation plan on the ballot for November, we’re guessing that it is more likely that RTA Next will be on the spring 2026 ballot instead. It would be a big lift to resolve all the issues tied up in the RTA Next proposal in the next two months.

• Proposition 415: There is no Proposition 415 - yet. On Tuesday, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero made it clear after the defeat of Proposition 414 that the Council would go back to the drawing board and start work on a new proposal. Just like the RTA Next proposal, we’re skeptical a new proposal could be hammered out with the community to be ready for the November ballot.

• Fare-free transit: Finding a long-term mechanism to keep funding free bus rides is still a looming challenge, but a decision doesn’t have to be made right now. The city already set aside funding through next summer. A decision could wait until 2026, as the city works with community groups and other local governments on a regional solution.

Coming up soon

The current Council has a number of choices to make over the next few months.

As we mentioned above, both the RTA Next and Proposition 415 could be referred to the ballot by the current Council. But those elections - if our predictions are correct - will happen within the first few months of the new Council’s term.

It will be, to some extent, about whether the community trusts the new Council with massive, decades-long programs that will spend tens of millions of dollars annually.

On Tuesday night, Romero made it clear that painful decisions are ahead for the city, amid renewed calls for elected officials to focus on core services.

“We are ready to go back to the drawing board and put something together that the voters will approve. It will be hard. Let's not kid ourselves. It will hurt,” she said.

Romero invited critics of Prop 414 to come to next week’s Council meeting and bring their solutions to Tucson’s biggest problems.

This invitation comes as the Council simultaneously builds the budget for next fiscal year, while dealing with uncertainty about the future of federal grant funding.

City staff already started revising the budget for next year, noting that some of the preliminary budget documents were based on the premise that Prop 414 would pass, Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure confirmed on Wednesday.

Prop 414 revenues were supposed to fund resources for firefighters, additional Community Service officers, some funding for the city’s 311 system and some neighborhood improvements related to the Violence Interruption and Vitalization Actions (VIVA) program.

But, he said, the city can’t afford to delay this funding to another fiscal cycle.

Staff will start reviewing supplemental budget requests, which were submitted by department directors earlier this year, for places to cut funding without impacting core services.

Serious discussion about at least one of those issues is coming up soon. Free transit will go before the Council again next month, Thomure confirmed.

Three separate Councilmembers told the Tucson Agenda yesterday that they were specifically concerned there might not be room in future city budgets to continue to make Sun Tran buses and the modern streetcar free to ride.

---

The city budget deserves close attention. After all, $2 billion in taxpayer dollars, along with the values that define Tucson, are up for discussion. But guess what? That’s exactly what we do here at the Agenda. So smash that button and subscribe today!

Pay bump: Lawmakers are debating whether to ask voters to give them a big pay raise, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer reports. Republican Sen. John Kavanagh’s SCR1003 would make lawmakers’ salaries keep pace with inflation, dating back to their last pay raise in 1998. If they end up agreeing to send it to voters, and if voters give the green light, lawmakers’ annual salaries would jump from $24,000 to at least $48,000.

Not done yet: Tucson Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez tried to get $3.8 million into the state budget for free lunches at public schools. Her bill, HB2213, passed several committees with bipartisan support, but she was told Wednesday that the bill was dead. But she’s not done with it. Gutierrez announced that she’ll launch a formal protest on the House floor and highlight that Republican-backed bills for border security require more than $50 million.

Full 180: The app that federal immigration officials offered to asylum seekers as a way to encourage them to cross the border lawfully was revamped to get them to “self-deport,” the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. The CBP One app helped thousands of people schedule appointments at legal ports of entry on the border under the Biden administration. Trump officials canceled every one of those appointments on January 20. The renamed CBP Home app can now be used to declare your intention to leave the country, before facing harsher consequences.

New faces: The shakeup at the top of the University of Arizona continues, as a search committee announced they had narrowed the list of candidates to be the new provost down to four, Arizona Public Media’s Hannah Cree reports. UA officials will start interviewing the final four on March 17. Since the financial crisis that dominated local headlines a year ago, the UA has a new president and a new vice president for research and innovation.

We dipped into the “adorable” pile again today. We can’t help it. We’re dog lovers.

Can a new, medium or large dog change your luck?

The Pima Animal Care Center is offering a $50 credit at its own pet supplies store with every adoption this weekend, specifically dogs 40 pounds or larger. The credit can be used to buy collars, leashes, harnesses, toys, food, bowls, and more for their newly adopted dog.

All adoptions are free this weekend.

The St. Patrick’s Day-themed “Change their luck” event seeks to help empty the shelter, which currently houses over 600 animals, including 470 dogs to choose from.