Larry is an intelligent, articulate, and insightful commentator whose views are shaped by a combination of journalism, entrepreneurship, law practice, and leadership.
✍ He is an experienced leader, having served as Chair of the LD18 Democrats, and President of the Democrats of Greater Tucson, a teacher at the UA Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and Video Manager for Iskashitaa Refugee Network,
✍ A common-sense business leader, he operated a successful marketing consultancy for 20 years. He is skilled in fundraising, artificial intelligence, and online communications.
✍He considers multiple viewpoints before forming an opinion. His ethos is the Boy Scout Law.
✍ Larry is a lifelong writer, having worked as a seven-time award-winning journalist for the New York Daily News and as the author of 600 articles for the Blog for Arizona.
✍He is a graduate of Amherst College and Seton Hall Law School and has also attended the University of Munich in Germany.
✍He is not all work and no play. Larry enjoys singing and playing the guitar, hiking Tucson's beautiful trails, going on outings with his Portuguese Water Dog, weight training, and meeting his many friends for breakfast.
** Scroll down to see my articles below. **
Arizona’s charter schools are overleveraged, holding $2.56 billion in debt while property and assets are valued at $1.4 billion, according to a new policy paper.
Meanwhile, 33 charter sites are losing at least $1,000 per student per school year, three-quarters of which also have significant negative net assets—owing more than they are worth, according to the non-partisan think tank the Grand Canyon Institute (GCI). Financial failure is inevitable for charters in this financial position, according to GCI’s research.
Broadcaster John C. Scott of KVOI radio 1030 AM talks with Blog for Arizona blogger Larry Bodine. Listen to hear about: Grassroots organizations have taken over the Pima County Democratic Party. Alison Jones’ 5-vote victory is not a mandate, but it is a call for a new direction. Finding a new executive director to replace incumbent … Read more
Chair Alison Jones emphasized her #1 campaign goal “to bring in and coordinate with grassroots groups. A lot of credit goes to these groups. We have plenty of opportunities for us to work together.”
Only 50 hours after being elected Pima County Democratic Chair, Alison Jones vowed to embrace community groups that helped elect Democrats, and to hold an outreach summit among the County’s six Legislative District leaders.
One of her first projects is to find a replacement for outgoing Executive Director Heath Butrum. “I want someone with budgeting and personnel skills, who is very organized with logistics. We need someone who will create a welcoming tone at headquarters, and someone who is excited about spreading our message of inclusivity,” Jones said. Butrum’s departure date is flexible.
Coordinate with grassroots groups
She emphasized her #1 campaign goal “to bring in and coordinate with grassroots groups. A lot of credit goes to these groups. We have plenty of opportunities for us to work together.”
She specifically cited the Arizona Ground Game, which “mobilized hundreds of people knocking on doors for Democrats,” and AZBlue2020, which is working on PC development and training. “We are going to need all the help we can get,” she said. “2020 will be on a scale we’ve never seen before. It’ going to be gigantic.”
Jones is a career hydrogeologist who has been president, secretary, and treasurer of the Arizona Geological Society. “All these skills are directly applicable to the chair position,” she said. She has been in Tucson since 2006, arriving from Maine. In her work, she consults for Tucson Water designing wells and assisting mining companies with permits.
Alison Jones addresses the precinct committee people of Pima County
In a surprise upset, precinct committee person and Democratic activist Alison Jones won election as the Pima County Democratic Chair, ousting Jo Holt.
Jones got 156 votes and Holt got 151.
A total of 307 of Pima County’s 427 Democratic precinct committeemen arrived at the ENR2 Building on the UA campus for the vote.
“I am ready to make the party more efficient, inclusive and more powerful,” Jones said. “We need to reach out the Arizona Ground Game, Indivisible, AZBlue2020, and organized labor. They are entitled to claim some credit for our election victories, and there are hundreds more who could be and should be in this room.” She is a precinct committee person from LD9.
Fifteen years ago, the Saudi government told its farmers to grow wheat and paid them 5 times the market price to do so. In a county without a single lake or river, they told farmers to drill as deep as they wanted for water.
Flash forward to 2011: the aquifers were sucked dry. Totally depleted. Bone dry in a country with scant rainfall. What did they do next? The Saudi dairy Almarai came to western Arizona and bought 15 square miles of farmland. They are sucking our aquifers dry by planting alfalfa for export, which requires 4 times more irrigation than wheat.
