Larry Bodine

Voters should approve Prop. 463 this November, which will give Pima County the authority to sell bonds to repair many of the county’s 2,200 miles of beat-up, worn-out roads.

That is according to Brian Bickel, president of Democrats of Greater Tucson, speaking at a recent meeting of the group. “One of the biggest problems we have is that once you get off the major arterial roads and into neighborhood streets, that’s where the biggest need is. These streets are 50-60 years old and there hasn’t been any significant maintenance,” he says.

Importantly, approving the bond issue will not increase taxes, because the county will only issue a new bond when an older existing bond is paid off. “People who live on crappy roads are going to vote for it,” Bickel says. “This bond will not come close to fixing every road in Pima County, but the focus will be on residential streets.”

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In an effort to restore fairness and transparency in Arizona elections, the Outlaw Dirty Money campaign has created a Posse to identify dark money political ads and report them on the ODM website, where people will be able to look them up by race or by sponsor.

“We will maintain a list of dark money sources that are already registered with the Secretary of State so people can look at a mailed piece, see who paid for it, and determine if it is a dark money group or not,” says organizer Merrill Eisenberg.

The group is working toward three goals:

• Evaluate the sources of state and local political ads to decide if they are paid for with dirty money,
• Provide information about the sources of state and local political ads to the voters, and
• Educate voters and raise awareness about the dirty money issue.

“We need Posse members to help identify political advertising in any format and report suspected “dirty” money ads to ODM. We will research the ad and classify it as 1) not dirty money, 2) dirty money but the organization supports disclosure, or 3) dirty money intended to anonymously impact our election,” Eisenberg says.

At the recent showing of the film “Dark Money” at the Loft, the campaign set up a table and signed up 49 new posse members in one night.

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By Jill Richardson. Cross-posted from Other Words.

When Christine Blasey Ford came forward to report that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, sexually assaulted her in 1982, you could cue the response: Why didn’t she speak out then? Why didn’t she go to the police?

There’s a long, long list of reasons why a woman wouldn’t speak out even now, and no doubt it was even more difficult in the pre-Anita Hill world of 1982.

I can’t speak for everyone who has faced sexual assault, but I can speak for myself.

1. At first, I didn’t know that what happened to me was a crime.

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