Happy Labor Day!; Challenges ahead for the coming Fall and Winter 2023/2024
HAPPY LABOR DAY!
Labor Day is a time to celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
TCFC hopes you are spending time with your family and friends for this unofficial date of the end of Summer!
The Coming Challenges Ahead for Fall/Winter 2023/2024; Unchecked Drug Addiction; Lack of Enforcement of our Laws and Failing Policies of Incumbent Candidates Including Mayor Romero and City Council
Nearly a year ago, the Tucson Crime Free Coalition (https://tucsoncrimefree.com) was founded by Kevin Daily, Monica Carlson and Josh Jacobsen. We are citizens, school and community leaders as well as business owners. Due to the very visible decline of Tucson, we saw a need to create solutions, and shine a spotlight on the consistent failures of public policy and lack of enforcement by our elected officials in Pima County and the City of Tucson.
Over that time we have grown from 3 to over 4500 concerned citizens including business owners who have highlighted the danger created by failing policies and lack of enforcement by the City of Tucson. Substance abuse, (specifically fentanyl and methamphetamine) and unchecked crime is deeply impacting the lives and livelihoods of the citizens in our community. We communicate weekly with our members on solutions as well as highlight the failures of policies, elected leadership is making us feel unsafe in our own community.
We originally thought that if we engaged directly and highlighted the issues, our elected officials would seize the day. They did not, but instead, some of them have doubled down on their failed policies. The only ones that stepped up were Supervisor Sharon Bronson, Supervisor Steve Christy, Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher and Deputy Administrator Steve Holmes. We are working collaboratively with Pima County Administration and solutions are being put in-place but the progress is slowed by our electeds who still won't acknowledge that drug addiction and crime are making us unsafe, and that Tucsonan's across all walks of life are paying the price.
With YOUR HELP and the help of our partners (we work with many people behind the scenes) at the city, county, state and federal levels, that we have formed relationships with over the last year, we will be stepping up our effort to new levels to influence change and redirect these proven public policy failures.
We will need your help and we will provide ways to "move-the-needle" with simple engagement.
Let's keep moving forward. We are not limited by what others are doing elsewhere. In Pima County, we can decide how we are going to solve this problem and what steps to take!
It is heartbreaking to see the many drug addicted people along 1st Avenue from Ft. Lowell to River Rd. Also sad to see the lack of maintenance on our roads, street signs, medians PLUS the store closures due to lack of consequences of stealing merchandise. Thank you TCFC for your efforts! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Back east, until the early 20th century ,there were poor farms for the destitute until they could work there way back to self sufficiency. Pima county citizens already own a ranch south of tucson that bears the name of our senator. Due to its location, that venue would limit daily recidivism of our addicted homeless. Lets go back to common sense.
To Denise Meeks: a quick google search found the city of Tucson claims that 90 percent of our drinking water in the city is CAP and 10 percent from our own city aquifers. Another source states – “Water is pumped from the Colorado River and delivered to Tucson via the Central Arizona Project. This water is used to “recharge” the groundwater in the aquifer. River water is pumped into large settling basins in Avra Valley, some of which can be seen from the Desert Museum.” Another source says – “The majority of Tucson’s water comes from the Tucson Aquifer and the Colorado River, although it is difficult to untangle these two supplies since large scale infiltration facilities pump excess Colorado River water into the aquifer.”
Ms. Meeks you have trolled on this site before. Fact is our drug addicted homeless communities use drugs in our washes, use our washes as a toilet and live there causing huge amount of pollution and biowaste. Walk these wash encampments, you will never see them bag up their waste and properly dispose of it.
Jim: Judges here are selected,not elected. And they are not selected by the citizenry. They are selected by their peers. And you can read some recent articles about what is coming out of the the law school here.
So being selected by their peers, your concerns, my concerns, our concerns are NOT their concerns. the idea of protecting you and I are the furthest things from their mind.
Every couple years they have a popularity contest where voters, unfortunately some people think their vote counts, say they approve or not of the judge. How many voters do you think actually know anything about any judge. For victims of criminals, they might. Because the criminal justice system is such that you are victimized first by a criminal and then by the judicial system. That is why you might see some negative votes. But many people give the judge their “aye” and walk out of the ballot box thinking they have accomplished something.
As I pointed out, no one knows who these people are. We don’t know if they have trial experience, know the Rules of Evidence, ever handled a criminal case at all. Yet, these are people who then are entrusted with making rulings in criminal cases, even release decisions, that affect you and I.
I believe there are counties in AZ where they elect judges for a specific term. And while this is no guarantee that you will get a functioning, competent judge, it is better than the current process where they are not responsible to the public demands.
As far as release conditions, as noted previously, in 1978 AZ adopted mandatory sentencing because judges couldn’t find it in themselves to sentence hard core criminals to time. We need the same thing now. We need a list of crimes and mandatory release conditions for each crime. That way, everyone, including the arrestee will know what he’s looking at.
Gospel Rescue Mission representatives will tell you that Tucson does not have a homeless problem. It has a drug problem. 80% of the people out there are drug addicts. The legitimate homeless can find shelter. The druggies refuse it. So, hey, Tucson, let’s open up some more of those wonderful head shops that attract only the best to your neighborhood. Let’s take every step we can to help those druggies get that high. A head shop on every corner, right? Sure, maybe even delivery service to encampment.
To the person who wrote that our drinking water is coming from our washes. It isn’t. Our drinking water is CAP and recycled, purified groundwater. Please do not post disinformation and educate yourself about our residential and industrial water supplies.
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