A memo, a tower, and fireworks
Supes opt for transparency … Can you hear me now? … And milestones deserve celebration.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors decided to release a memo Tuesday that lays out how county officials should deal with immigration officials during the Trump administration’s crackdown.
County Attorney Laura Conover wrote the memo last week, but it was just circulated to staff. The County was one of the last local government bodies to make public how they intended to deal with a wide-ranging deportation program that could lead to federal officials detaining people at public buildings, schools, churches, and who knows where else.
Before the Supervisors voted unanimously to release the memo, the four Democrats and one Republican on the board spent roughly an hour talking behind closed doors in executive session about the memo and two other items requiring legal review.
The memo instructed staff to take a copy of the warrant being brandished by immigration officials directly to the Pima County Attorney’s Office to be evaluated for its legality. Immigration officials would be asked to wait until the PCAO reviews the warrant.
The question remains whether the discussion held in executive session will lead the Supervisors to make more documents public, rather than sending confidential memos, when the Trump administration’s executive orders put county officials in difficult situations.
Shortly after the Supervisors voted to release the memo, Conover’s office posted it on Twitter.
Debate fireworks fizzle out. We weren’t expecting a heated, explosive discussion on a few routine permits to use fireworks (one for Caterpillar and another for the Tucson Country Club) next month, but it inadvertently lit a fuse.
Several businesses came to the meeting with concerns about a possible new policy that would limit aerial fireworks to just New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July.
Responding to their concerns, Supervisor Adelita Grijalva said she doesn’t support a wholesale change in the county’s system for permit requests (one-time use, no specific restrictions on day or time.)
However, it is pretty clear that the Chair of the Board, Rex Scott, has something in mind.
Scott has been caught in the middle of District 1 residents and businesses on the subject in the past. Last August, he was the lone vote against giving a permit to Westin La Paloma. At the time, Scott said the resort “persists” in doing firework shows for commercial groups, and “our office gets complaints every time they have one of these fireworks shows.”
On Tuesday, he refused to address any possible change in the policies related to fireworks, noting it wasn’t part of the agenda and would run afoul of state public transparency rules.
Tower stays down, for now: In true local government fashion, the biggest draw for the public wasn’t a confidential memo. It was a proposed cell phone tower.
The meeting chamber was pretty full, and most of the people in attendance were there to talk about an 80-foot tall cell tower that could go up in Picture Rocks. The proposed site is in Supervisor Jennifer Allen’s district, and she went on the record last week publicly opposing the tower.
A representative of the developer building the tower said it would provide coverage for 2,000 residents in the area, but opponents noted that all of T-Mobile’s own maps show the area has cell coverage.
But the devil is in the details, as a representative for the developer told the Pima County Board of Supervisors (twice!) that those maps are only good for outside coverage - not necessarily inside your house.
That would make for a weird slogan: T-Mobile - we swear it works if you just go outside.
The Supervisors decided to reject the permit for the tower on Tuesday. But that might not be the end of the fight. Deputy Pima County Attorney Sam Brown said during the meeting that the developers could challenge the decision by the board - making it a federal case.
Pushing back on DEI: During the call to the public, Grijalva didn’t take kindly to a speaker who criticized DEI hires (among other things) under the Biden administration.
Later in the meeting, Grijalva said it was important for her to re-affirm that Pima County is dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion in its county workforce.
Earlier this week, we asked Tucson Agenda subscribers to weigh in on what they’d like to see the Pima County Board of Supervisors address.
So far, the top five issues readers cited were:
Affordable housing
Homelessness
Environmental updates
Historic preservation
The Regional Transportation Authority
We’ll take your responses into consideration when we put together our previews and stories about the twice-monthly Board of Supervisors meetings.
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Let’s take a quick look at what our other publications have been up to this week:
The Education Agenda dug into a tangled web of school district finances in Arizona, where one troubled district is bailing out another. And Arizona’s students are having trouble making up what they lost during the pandemic.
The A.I. Agenda tackled a topic you’ve probably heard about, but can’t quite figure out: Cryptocurrency. Now that President Donald Trump and his wife launched their own cryptocurrencies, the wild world of made-up currencies is at the heart of campaign finance, and an online gold rush.
Over at the Arizona Agenda, they dove into the election for leadership of the Latino Caucus at the Legislature, which has brought to the forefront the question of what it means to be a Latino politician in today’s political environment.
Knowing your rights: Some University of Arizona faculty members are going to be walking around campus with a “know your rights” card in their pockets. Leila Hudson, the faculty chair at the UA, sent out an email with a card that explains their rights in case they’re questioned by law enforcement about their immigration status, the Arizona Daily Star’s Prerana Sannappanavar reports.
“I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution,” reads the card. “I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment right.”
Not stepping up: Arizona’s federal lawmakers have shown bravery in the past, but they’re not doing it now that Elon Musk and his crowd are taking control of various aspects of the federal government, Star columnist Tim Steller writes.
“If Musk and Trump can unilaterally decide which agencies deserve to exist and which congressionally approved payments ought to go out, what’s the point of an appropriations committee? What’s the point of a Congress?” Steller writes.
Any which way but loose: Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby, who was accused of interfering with the 2022 election, wants the Arizona Supreme Court to dismiss the criminal charges against him, the Arizona Republic’s Sasha Hupka reports. An appeals court already threw out his request to dismiss the charges, saying his argument that he had legislative immunity to delay the certification of election results didn’t hold water.
Everyone who’s anyone: One of the newest candidates for a seat on the Tucson City Council has all sorts of big names backing her, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel reports. Selina Barajas was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Mayor Regina Romero, Ward 1 Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz, Supervisors Adelita Grijalva, Jennifer Allen and Matt Heinz, and South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela. Barajas also has support from former Pima County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom, former Tucson Police chief and city manager Richard Miranda, affordable housing advocate Corky Poster and REA Media Group CEO Raul Aguirre.
5,000: We are proud to say we’ve reached a new milestone this week, with more than 5,000 subscribers to the Tucson Agenda. Thank you for your support!