The City of Tucson does not have any Flock surveillance cameras — but activists are still very concerned that it might someday.
Given the political makeup of the current council, it seems unlikely that the liberal Democrats would sign off on Flock-style mass surveillance.
But that didn’t stop a potential collaboration between the Tucson Police Department and the Arizona Vehicle Theft Task Force related to automated license plate readers (ALPRs) from showing up on the consent agenda on Tuesday.1
Under the agreement, Tucson would get two additional cops’ salaries funded 75% with state money in exchange for participating in the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Vehicle Theft Task Force.
The council voted to postpone a formal discussion on the agreement for 60 days after Councilwoman Miranda Schubert removed the item from the consent calendar.
The University of Arizona has a ton of Flock cameras, more than any other agency/municipality in the greater Tucson area, according to the crowd-sourced deflock.org. This map of Flock cameras around the UA shows that you don’t have to be a Wildcat to get caught on camera.
Schubert noted that one of her concerns with the agreement is that the Arizona Department of Public Safety, under former Gov. Doug Ducey, placed the already-existing Vehicle Theft Task Force inside the Border Strike Force Bureau, which has an “explicit mandate to coordinate with (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) and other federal agencies.”
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about who would have access to the camera data if the city entered into the agreement, she noted.
“While I trust that TPD is not collaborating or sharing information with ICE or other federal agencies, once data is shared in statewide and/or national databases, we don’t know who can access it. That concerns me,” she said.
We should note that the Tucson Police Department has about 88 ALPRs already operating around the city.
Flock is a brand of ALPRs that has come under fire for the scope of its surveillance network and its data-sharing agreements, which allow police to search across different cities and states — and, as reporting has shown, has given federal immigration agents access to that national network of cameras through local departments that are willing to run searches for them.
Across Arizona and the nation, cities are currently rethinking and canceling their contracts with Flock.
For the record, TPD uses ALPRs provided by Axon, not Flock.
And while no one has asked us, this seems like a great opportunity to hold a town hall on mass surveillance in Tucson before the vote.
Housing the homeless
The council got some good news on Tuesday night, when staff announced they’ve seen encouraging numbers when it comes to long-term outcomes for unhoused people.
In the past few years, the city has been able to offer housing to 1,800 people.
Some of those 1,800 people only received temporary solutions, including emergency shelters like the Wildcat Inn and hotel vouchers.
STAR Village is a pilot program that offers supervised tent shelter and on-site case management for 25 unhoused women and non-binary people.
Since 2022, the city has seen:
The number of people who become homeless again after leaving city-run supportive housing programs decrease by 28%.
48% of households exiting emergency shelter and other short-term housing solutions now move directly into permanent housing, which is higher than the national average.
And about 96% of households who are moving out of permanent supportive housing — often referred to as Section 8 housing — are transitioning into permanent housing, rather than ending up on the streets.
One concern in the report is that the city received “unprecedented federal investments” in recent years provided by the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan.
Unfortunately, most of that funding has dried up.
Hotel gets a tax break
The council has signed off on a multiyear tax break for the Tucson Inn & Marketplace, a 125-room hotel being built at 75 East Broadway.
Here is what the Tucson Inn & Marketplace is expected to look like, at least at night.
For the last decade, the parcel has been empty and undeveloped.
The tax break is capped at $2 million over the next five years, but city officials told the council that the new development will generate $16.4 million in taxes (and leases) over five years.
The developer said the hotel and ground-floor retail will create an estimated 125 new full-time jobs and 75 part-time jobs.
Two terms and out: Councilwoman Nikki Lee announced in her newsletter that she won’t seek a third term representing Tucson’s southeast side. Lee didn’t give a specific reason for leaving, nor did she throw any shade on Tucson politics in her newsletter, but her announcement will launch several political campaigns to take her seat next year.
“I thought deeply about what another term would require me to say yes to and, maybe more importantly, what it would require me to continue saying no to,” Lee wrote.
And then there were two: Somebody on the Mexico side of the border joined the tree-sit that’s already unfolding near Lochiel as activists try to protect ancient cottonwoods from being destroyed to make way for more border wall, per the Patagonia Regional Times. The unidentified person is sitting in a cottonwood a few feet south of the border, which might mark the first binational tree-sit along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The race to the middle: In the politically split Congressional District 6, both candidates tried to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum this week. After a Sierra Vista event for veterans, Democratic nominee JoAnna Mendoza trotted out the line that “it’s not about red or blue, it is about the red, white and blue” as she spoke to the Herald/Review about Democrats making inroads with veterans, who historically have been more associated with the Republican base. Meanwhile, her Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, hit a similar note when he touted Bridge Grades naming him the “most collaborative member of Arizona’s congressional delegation.” Ciscomani said on Twitter he’d “work with anyone — Republican, Democrat, or Independent — who is serious about delivering RESULTS for #AZ06.”
The sky’s (not) the limit: Sierra Vista officials are applying for a license to operate a commercial space reentry site, ABC15's Kaley O’Kelley reports. Approval from the Federal Aviation Administration could come as soon as early next year. A group calling itself Space Rising — made up of economic development organizations in Sierra Vista and Yuma (where a spaceport might also be built) — is doing the prep work, with an eye on federal legislation that could cover most of the costs of the spaceport.
We’re still waiting on Congress to set aside a boatload of money for independent local news. Until then, how about giving us a hand?
The path not taken: Tucsonans were up in arms about Project Blue last year, which led to new ordinances at the City of Tucson and potentially at Pima County. But one county in Virginia took a more welcoming approach to data centers. Loudoun County is reaping the benefits of 250 data centers, including an expected $1.3 billion in tax revenue next year, per the New York Times. But, as opponents of Project Blue worried last year, the data centers are bringing incessant noise and stressing the power grid in Loudoun County, which spurred two county supervisors to push for stricter reviews of any new data center projects, Loudoun Now reports.
A series of tiny political signs is cropping up around Tucson with the weirdest campaign slogan we’ve ever seen.
What is an “Evil Torta,” you ask?
Well, we read the entire eviltorta.com website so that we could answer that question for you.
But we still have no idea.
After insisting that “not all tortas are evil” the group describes themselves as this:
A political advocacy campaign encouraging voters to oppose ballot measures and candidates that promote unconstitutional or excessive government policies that only attempt to substitute common sense, our individual rights as privileges granted by people in power instead of God, who is our Creator and Savior.
They get their funding from Tucson-based Citizens 4 Liberty, a 501(c)(4) that also … makes music? The AI-enhanced band has put out eight albums this year.
Here is their AI-powered front page of that website, complete with a button and an armband with AI slop.
If eviltorta.com isn’t your bag, they also link out to CommunistHag.com and Stealsmoney.com.
1 Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure said on Tuesday night that staff will review the process for how items end up on the consent agenda after several council members complained that the ALPRs and the Raytheon land deal should never have been buried on the consent calendar.