Month: May 2018

City Council, Stop allowing City Maintenance to Poison Tucson

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It’s no secret my fondness for edible weeds or my complete disdain for Round Up. I hung a sign in the alleyway, “No Poison, Please. Edible Weeds Grow Here.” I’ve done my best to educate the poor, misguided landscapers and maintenance workers who spray Round Up on every little weed and even baby palm trees. (Won’t kill ’em anyway…) Sometimes I’m more successful than others. At a recent city council meeting, a woman took advantage of the public hearing period to urge the council to stop weeds from coming up this monsoon season by spraying pre-emergent herbicide all over town. Right then and there I decided to use my time to speak up about it. But Mayor Rothschild, in his great wisdom, had me speak on my other issue instead. That was just the nudge I needed to share my concerns with him and all the city council members in great detail… including links. lol

Feel free to write your Council Member too!

Find your ward here.

Contact info for Council Members here

Following the city’s example

Dear Mayor Jonathon Rothschild and Council Members:

I’ve been meaning to speak up at a city council meeting about the transportation department’s overuse of herbicides for some time. After my mom got a severe headache from breathing in the Round Up sprayed in a right of way on our street, I spoke to the landscaper about it. He replied, “The city sprays it everywhere, so can we.”

Since then I have been very aware of herbicides sprayed on city property. The other day I was stunned to see an entire lot covered with it. Recently I walked by the County Public Service Center building. In the catchment basins – that should be an example of the best water-harvesting practices – there were turquoise patches of weed killer. Right where the rainwater sinks in to restore our aquifer! I brought this up to t
Department of Environmental Quality just to be told that was the work of the city maintenance department.

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Wear Orange for National Gun Violence Awareness Day

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Tucsonans know about mass shootings ever since January 8, 2011 when then CD 8 Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot, along with her District Director/later CD 2 Congressman Ron Barber,  Congressional aide Gabe Zimmerman and Federal  District Judge John Roll. 6 innocent people died that day and 13 were wounded, some of whom are now disabled … Read more

Retired Air Force Colonel Hollace Lyon Offers a Consensus-Building Vision as a State Representative In LD11

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❌ Do you think anyone regardless of credentials can teach special education children?
❌ Do you think taxpayer money should be used to help upper-income earners apply for tax credits to send their children to private religious schools?
❌ Do you think it is okay for the state to tell cities and towns the voices of their residents do not matter when they decide by a 90 percent margin to require the names of campaign donors to be publicized?
❌ Do you think people should be charged with a felony if they help senior citizens who cannot walk to their mailboxes to mail in their ballots?
❌ Do you think the process of getting citizen-sponsored initiatives on the ballot should be made harder?
❌ Do you think it is okay for people to carry concealed weapons near or on school and college campuses?
❌ Do you think people can buy weapons without a background check?
❌ Do you think tax credits for the coal industry are the best long-term energy investment strategies for the state?
❌ Do you think it is anyone’s business why a woman exercises her right to choose?
❌ Do you think there were once I.S.I.S. training camps in the northern Mexico deserts?

If you answered no to most or all of the questions above, Arizona LD 11 State Representative Mark Finchem may not be the choice voters should be making this November because he subscribes to all the views listed above.

There is, however, another candidate that voters in LD 11 may should vote for:  Colonel Hollace Lyon, who is running on a platform consensus-building and fiscal responsibility that emphasizes, “Investing in Our Future, Protecting and Preserving our Communities, and Securing our Liberties.”

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When will Trump Supporters Learn from History?

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Our current President routinely lies and lies and lies. Just yesterday, he accused the New York Times of making up a source. That was a lie because there were 11 other news organizations in the room with the “made up source.” Earlier in the week, he lied about a spy implanted by the intelligence community in his campaign. He disputes facts like climate change in justifying his support for the coal industry. The Washington Post revealed that the President lies on average six times a day.

  • Our current President riles up his base by partially blaming our problems on illegal immigrants coming en mass across the border and launching crime waves with their gangs. This is another falsehood.
  • Our current President professes to be a patriot by criticizing football players for kneeling during the national anthem.
  • Our current President likes and praises authoritarian leaders like the ones in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Egypt, and the Philipines.
  • Our current President, emboldened by his third National Security Advisor, the Prime Minister of Israel, and leaders of Saudi Arabia, appears to be laying the false propaganda narrative of justifying a military action against Iran.

Why does a significant portion of people who belong to the Party of Lincoln believe all the fecal matter coming from this President? This is astounding because the President is not the first demagogue to exhibit these behaviors or attempt these measures.

When will we ever learn from history? When will the people ever learn to recognize a power grab or a con job or a real witch hunt when it is happening. History offers us lots of lessons so we can recognize these attempts when they happen.

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AZ’s Worst Legislator: Vince Leach, not a Servant of the People in LD 11

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State Representative Leach favors dark money and subsidizing the rich.
State Representative Leach favors dark money and subsidizing the rich.

State Representative Vincent Leach of Legislative District 11 and other reactionary zealots like him sure act like big government promoters when it comes to their anti-democratic agenda.

Leach has sponsored ideas such as:

  • Protecting Dark Money contributors.
  • Overruling local election results and ballot initiatives, such as whether local towns can prohibit plastic bags in stores.
  • Opposing a woman’s right to choose.
  • Allowing taxpayer money to help students choose private religious schools.

LD11 spans from Maricopa in the north to the tip of Tucson in the south.

A self-described conservative, Leach has an A rating from both the Oliver North led National Rifle Association and the American Conservative Union, yet poor marks with the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, and the Children’s Action Alliance. A SaddleBrooke resident, Representative Leach has been in the Arizona State House since 2015. He is now the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety, Infrastructure, and Resources and Vice Chairman of the House and Ways Committee.

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