Pamela Powers Hannley

Long-time blogger and political activist, Pamela Powers Hannley holds a masters’ degree in public health from the University of Arizona and a bachelors’ degree in journalism from the Ohio State University. She has worked for many years in communications and public relations. Powers Hannley stepped down from her position as the managing editor of the American Journal of Medicine to serve Legislative District 9 in the Arizona House. Powers Hannley won her seat in November 2016 and won her re-election bid in 2018. She continues to work part-time social media editor for the journal. In addition to Blog for Arizona, she writes her own blog, The The Tucson Progressive and has contributed political stories to the Huffington Post. Powers Hannley is co-director of Arizonans for a New Economy, Arizona’s public banking initiative. Political website: PowersForThePeople.net Facebook Page: Pamela Powers Hannley for House Tucson Progressive on Facebook: Tucson Progressive Twitter handle: @p2hannley Instagram: p2hannley

Questions about employment and MAS purity: Will the real Kristel Foster please stand up?

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

Activist and educator Kristel Foster began campaigning for a seat on the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Governing Board not long after the board voted 4-1 to shut down the embattled Mexican American Studies (MAS) program– rather than lose $15 million over a program that had been declared illegal by the state of Arizona.

From the get-go, Foster made it clear that she was running as a "save MAS" candidate. In fact, when Foster and fellow "save MAS" candidate Ralph Ellinwood spoke at Drinking Liberally (DL) in June, the audience was twice the normal size, due to a strong showing of MAS stalwarts who came to cheer them on– including ThreeSonorans blogger Abie Morales and Tucson Weekly reporter Mari Herreras.

Unfortunately for Foster, since the August 8 Drinking Liberally kibitz fest, Morales has started attacking her for being an MAS turncoat. (He's even calling for MAS supporters to suggest possible write-in candidates.)

The special guest for the August 8 meeting was supposed to be Cam Juarez (also a "save MAS" candidate). Unfortunately, it poured down rain that night, and the DL turnout was very low. As a result, Drinking Liberally reverted to DL Classic Mode (ie, everyone sits around and endulges in free-form political discussion, with no official speaker). On that fateful night, four TUSD board candidates were present– Foster, Juarez, Betts Puttnam-Hildalgo, and incumbent Mark Stegeman. 

Stegeman asked the others the $15 million question: Would they have voted to shut down MAS in order to avoid the $15 million fine from the state? Puttman-Hildalgo and Juarez said, No. They said they would have defied the state ruling and voted with board member Adeltia Grijalva to retain the program– regardless of the cost to the district. (This is the MAS true believer stance.) Foster said she would have voted with the majority to shut down MAS, hence the attack from the ThreeSonorans blog. This looks like a giant flip-flop from a long-time, in-the-trenches MAS supporter.

After the jump is her Facebook explanation. Also, the plot thickens with the question: Should a Sunnyside School District employee vote on the next superintendent of TUSD?

Peace activist Medea Benjamin on drone warfare (video)

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

Traditionally, war is a messy business– all that blood, sweat, and tears– not to mention danger, death, destruction, dismembered bodies, human suffering, nightmares, guilt, wasted taxpayer dollars, mounting deficit spending… you know the drill. (Pun intended.)

In recent years, the US military-industrial complex has made war less messy and less dangerous, at least for a select group of American soldiers. Drone pilots sit in secure bunkers and, armed with banks of sophisticated computer hardware, “fly” unmanned killing machines.

Drones– killing machines aimed at faceless targets– AKA fellow human beings– thousands of miles away.

No-muss, no-fuss drone warfare is no less deadly, destructive, or perverse than traditional war. It’s just easier and cleaner– just like playing the same violent video game day after day.

Although you hear about drones in the news, there is never any real analysis or detailed reporting of what the US is doing. Recently, Code Pink co-founder and author of the book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control Medea Benjamin gave an eye-opening talk to an audience of about 60 Tucson activists. Personally, I was shocked how deeply entrenched in drone warfare Tucson already is. Davis-Monthan, The University of Arizona, Raytheon, and Fort Huachuca all have ties to the drone business. According to Benjamin, Fort Huachuca trains more drone pilots than any other facility in the world.

Last winter, Mayor Rothschild, then Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' office, and the  Davis-Monthan 50 held a press conference promoting Tucson and DM as a drone warfare center. (You can see the Tucson Sentinel’s raw raw footage here above and in KVOA’s edited news footage here.) We already have a dearth of good-paying jobs in Tucson that are not connected to the military industrial complex. Why court more

 Videos of the Benjamin talk after the jump.

The saga of South Bisbee continues

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

South Bisbee is under seige by Freeport-McMoRan. The international mining giant is evacuating South Bisbee in order to do land reclamation.

Renters are being ousted. Home owners are being offered $50/square foot for their homes. Everyone who settles with the company must agree that neither they nor their relatives will seek any future damages against the company.

Last week, I posted a story and two videos about the goings on in this tiny border enclave, but the story continues to evolve. 

Only one woman– featured in the video entitled "A Hero in South Bisbee"— has refused to settle with the company. In this video– available after the jump– you can hear Our Hero's reasons why she doesn't want to settle, but you can see a bird's eye view of tiny, green South Bisbee, surrounded by industrial mining waste. (Southern Arizona residents who may be living near the proposed Rosemont Mine, take note.) Outside of Our Hero's back window, there used to be a view of the desert; now she sees a mountain of tailings. No wonder the mining company wants South Bisbee residents to sign off on all future litigation. Living in houses surrounded by mining waste can't be good for your health.

Last night, the Bisbee City Council voted to support South Bisbee in their request for more time before they have to leave their houses.

Today, KGUN 9 on Your Side ventured to South Bisbee to do a story. Ironically, Freeport-McMoRan security showed up at the same time.

Check out two new LoneProtestor videos from South Bisbee after the jump.

The Tucson Progressive is covering Democratic Convention for Huffington Post!

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

Back in February, the Huffington Post launced a contest to send a group of citizen journalists to the upcoming Democratic and Republican Conventions. 

The winners were announced this morning. Eight people were selected– four for each convention.

AND I'M ONE OF THE WINNERS!!!!! Yipee! 

Here is the announcement from Arianna Huffington. 

After the jump is my video submission. Besides touting my qualifications in the two-minute video, I made a sentimental appeal. As a journalism student at Ohio State, I covered the 1972 McGovern-Shriver race for the Ohio State Lantern. My j-school partner and I  traveled in the press bus with the national media– which was a trip because we were the only women on that bus except for a reporter from Time Magazine. Anyway, although Brigid and I wrote about the campaign, we never got to go to the convention that year. Forty years later, I'm going to the convention. :D So excited.

Code enforcement crackdown past due: Slumlord millionaires, part deux

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3500 BL CAMDE N SIDE 7-22-12

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Exactly one month ago, I wrote a blog post trying to shame lazy landlords and trashy tenants and trying to push the City of Tucson into holding property owners accountable for illegal dumping. Apparently, slumlords are shameless bunch… but I perservere.

Instead of uploading another collection of trashy photos, I decided to focus on a case study– the midtown property owned by Alice Reynolds-Jordan and Gregory Jordan, 4160 Old York Rd., Monkton, MD. Why the Jordans? Because their collection of duplexes in midtown were in my July 2 code violation article (photo below), and a month later, the trash pile not only still sits in the curb lawn, it’s gotten bigger.

Alghough there have been several complaints to the city about this property, the original mattress is not only still there, but a couch and other pieces of furniture are now piled on top of and around the original couch (photo above). Also, often than not, there is junk furniture or just junk dumped illegally in the curb lawn in front of this property. My question to the city is: Why does it take SOOOOO LOOOONG to crackdown on repeat offenders like this?

The city has a graffiti reporting app to aid in rapid the reporting, clean-up, and tracking of graffiti. Why not a code enforcement app to report, clean-up and track illegal dumping? It could work the same way: concerned citizen snaps a digital photo and poof sends it to the city with the address and complaint.

Why don’t we have this app? The only reason I can think of is that the graffiti app potentially catches “criminals” while the code enforcement app would catch businessmen who are relying on the inefficiency and glacial speed of the city to aid them in breaking the law. (The plot thickens.)

More after the jump.