Time to beat that drum

Our request for the next batch of county officials ... Simplify, simplify ... What to wear when you protest.

Only a few days remain before the election, and this is a rare moment when most people (or at least a lot more people than usual) are paying close attention to politics.

So now’s a good time to talk about what we’d like to see from the winners of Pima County races — whoever they may be.

If we could make one overriding request — demand, even — of our next batch of local officials it would be this: Explain what you’re doing to a high school social studies class. If they have a hard time understanding what you’re saying, then simplify it.

What do we mean by that? Make government transparency a top priority every day. And not just for people with law degrees or technical backgrounds. Keep those high school students in mind as you prepare to speak at county supervisor meetings, write an agenda item, or compile a report.

For example, when we were looking into new dark money rules for state candidates, we set up a test. If we couldn’t find the info we needed in 10 minutes, then the new rules failed.

We think one overriding goal of any public official should be to do that with basically every government data set.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard two county officials touch on the attitude we’re talking about here.

Treasurer Chris Ackerley, a Republican, said he wants to take some of the county’s financial reports and “make them understandable to the public.” He was talking about steps his office planned to take to ward off the kind of embezzlement that officials in Santa Cruz County are dealing with now.

Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, a Democrat, talked about “demystifying” the elections process so regular people could understand it. Her comment came as she was explaining how her staff tried to counter misinformation over the past few years.

Here are a few more places where the next batch of county officials could adopt that attitude, even before a scandal or widespread criticism forces their hand.

Costly contracts

County officials spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on contracts and grants. But it’s a colossal pain to keep track of it all.

The county could learn a thing or two from the Rio Nuevo board, at least in terms of presentation to the public. The Rio Nuevo website is clean. It shows the dollar value of each project. And it shows what that money paid for.

Now look at what you come up against if you were to ask yourself “I wonder how much the county spent on that project?” and tried to look up the contract.

It’s not designed for the general public. It looks like it’s meant for contractors, which is necessary and fine, as long as the general public also has an easy, visually appealing way to see where all the money went.

RTA Next

The county supervisors and other local officials are going to ask voters to spend $2 billion on transportation, funded by a sales tax, next year.

The Regional Transportation Authority is about to roll out its public outreach program to get voters on board with the sales tax, and county officials are going to be right there trying to convince voters to give the green light in the November 2025 election.

Right now, it’s extraordinarily difficult to keep track of all the boards and committees that pumped out proposals and compromises over the last year for what officials call RTA Next.

If the process stays that confusing over the next year, we’re going to end up with a tangled mess of projects, endless recriminations among local officials, and voters who have to work way too hard to figure out what exactly a “yes” or “no” vote means.

Let’s not do that.

Instead, officials in Pima County and other local governments could simplify the process for the public. Put together some good visuals that explain what they want to spend the money on (and what they spent the previous 20 years’ worth of sales tax money on). Be clear about which projects are the highest priority.

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We know how hard it can be to take complex information and make it clear to the public. It’s what we try to do every day!

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Meeting agendas

These agendas are the main way the public can see what county officials are doing from week to week.

But they feel like a wedding invitation that arrives two days before the ceremony. Sure, you’re invited, but we don’t really want you to be able to make it.

Meeting agendas are a headache to read, and not just at the county. Pretty much every local government body does it.

We laid out our complaints with meeting agendas, and solutions we’d like to see, during Sunshine Week in March. They all still hold true today.

The budget

The Mt. Everest of local government reporting. How to really understand a complex government budget and make it interesting to readers.

County officials make all sorts of information available during the months-long budget process. And every once in a while they come up with a graphic or chart that illuminates what’s at stake. But for the most part, the discussions are full of technical information and acronyms.

The next batch of county supervisors will discuss the budget over and over again from now until they approve the budget next summer.

It would be great if they did it as if they were standing in a classroom full of high school students.

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New rules: The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has a new policy on what employees are allowed to wear while protesting, the Arizona Luminaria’s Yana Kunichoff reports. The policy change came during a legal kerfuffle with a sergeant who wore clothes while holding a sign saying deputies didn’t want Sheriff Chris Nanos to get re-elected. Nanos felt the clothing too closely resembled official law enforcement attire and suspended the sergeant. The new rules include not wearing green or khaki combat pants, tan colored boots, and a tactical belt at the same time.

Snowball effect: Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller points to missteps by Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly as she handles her first presidential election, and the “self-indulgent communication” she sometimes uses to respond to critics. Most recently, the Recorder’s Office closed the online portal for early ballots, which made it that much harder for some people to get their ballots.

“So there was a group of around 1,123 voters who had requested an early ballot online, who may have been eligible to receive one, and who did not fulfill their online request by later calling the office,” Steller writes.

Not just a GOP issue anymore: Democratic legislative candidates in Southern Arizona, including Kevin Volk and John McLean in Legislative District 17, are making border security part of their pitch to voters, the Arizona Republic’s Ray Stern reports. They’re following the lead of national politicians like Vice President Kamala Harris who pivoted to immigration this year.

Housing worries: Patagonia residents are worried workers from the South32 Hermosa Mine are going to set off a housing crisis in the town of 900 residents, Joseph Treviño reports for the Nogales International. The mine workers with big salaries could snatch up the few houses that remain available and drive up rental prices.

244,334: Ballots returned by Pima County voters as of October 28.