Déjà vu all over again

These headlines sound so familiar … Open mouth, insert foot … And time is running out.

We won’t write about Donald Trump every day.

But news about Trump just keeps coming, especially in these early days of his presidency.

So news readers everywhere have a task before them: Acclimate ourselves to an endless stream of bizarre news stories, policy changes announced via social media, and a relentless effort to overwhelm the public conversation.

Luckily (at least in terms of media literacy), we’ve seen this all before.

When we scoured the headlines over the last week, the national conversation looked a lot like what we saw during Trump’s first, first week on the job back in 2017.

To be candid, it was a little disorienting. We kept wondering: Haven’t we seen this headline before? Didn’t he do this last time? Are we going crazy?

We’re not sure!

So we made a quiz about it.

The quiz contains a dozen headlines – some from this week, some from eight years ago – to see if you can tell the difference between 2025 and 2017.

We took the quiz ourselves. It wasn’t easy.

We’ll post the correct answers on Wednesday. If you ace this quiz, we’ll have an amazing Tucson Agenda sticker to send you.

Good luck!

Somewhere in the basement of Tucson City Hall is a slightly longer version of the video recording for last week's Council meeting, presumably on a flash drive gathering dust.

An edited version of the Council meeting is still on the city’s Youtube page, just a few seconds shorter.

If you’re wondering who said one of the seven words that George Carlin made famous for not being able to say on TV, you are out of luck. Plus, former Mayor Jonathan Rothschild already broke that mold several years ago when he accidentally dropped a few f-bombs during a meeting.

So what is missing from last week’s tape? Councilmember Kevin Dahl briefly advocated for Proposition 414 during the meeting. And that’s a major no-no for politicians.

It’s illegal for them to endorse a proposition going before the voters (or any other kind of political endorsement) while they’re on the job, essentially using city resources to promote a political agenda.

City Attorney Mike Rankin ordered staff to take down the Youtube video shortly after the meeting ended on Wednesday.

“While individual elected officials are authorized to voice their opinions on ballot measures, the City cannot then use its resources to publish advocacy relating to that ballot measure,” Rankin wrote in an email to reporters.

Dahl apologized for his mistake, saying he was excited about the topic they were discussing at the time of the Council meeting.

The city hasn’t destroyed the original recording from last week or Rothschild’s f-bombs, so they haven’t violated the state’s public records law.

But Dahl may have violated ARS 9-500.14 - which carries a maximum fine of $5,000 per offense.

But it is up to the Pima County Attorney or the Arizona Attorney General to pursue formal charges against Dahl. As of Monday afternoon, there haven’t been any formal complaints about Dahl’s statement.

If you know of other hot mic moments that are also probably in the city records, send an email to Joe@TucsonAgenda.com. We’re keeping a list.

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A few new faces entered the upcoming Tucson City Council ward races this week, with two Democrats throwing their hats into the ring.

In Ward 3, Democrat Alma Gordon is setting up a run against Councilman Kevin Dahl - who is seeking a second term. Both Gordon and Dahl, the only declared candidates in the race so far, will have to get a minimum of 391 signatures from Democrats and independents living in the ward by April 7 to qualify for the primary ballot.

Democrat Christopher Elsner joined the Ward 5 race to replace Councilman Richard Fimbres, who is retiring this year. He will be one of four Democrats seeking to take over the southside ward - joining Democrats Richard Hernandez, Jesse Lugo and Selina Barajas.

As the race for the three seats on the Tucson City Council begins to take shape, several Democratic candidates have announced their campaign team as they begin to collect qualifying signatures, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel reported.

In the Ward 5 race, Lugo asked former firefighter Fred Fitzpatrick to helm his campaign. While still early in the race, Barajas and Hernandez have not filed paperwork for their campaign committees.

And in the Ward 6 race, Miranda Schubert tapped Carolyn Campbell and architect Corky Poster. Fellow Democratic candidates Theresa Riel, Leighton Rockafellow, and Charlie Verdin have filed paperwork for their campaign committees with the city but each lists themselves as their campaign chair.

Time to make a choice: The clock is ticking for Congressman Raúl Grijalva to retire, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller argues. Grijalva has been battling cancer and he missed all but a few votes in Congress last year. Last summer, Grijalva advised former President Joe Biden to get out of the race. Steller argues it’s time for Grijalva to heed his own advice.

Bought a lemon: The estimated cost of repairing the Tucson Unified School District’s headquarters more than doubled, the Star’s Jessica Votipka reports. TUSD officials previously thought repairs to the building would cost about $3.3 million, but unexpected repairs put the new price tag at $7.2 million. District officials said the University of Arizona, which sold the building to TUSD last year, “did not do their due diligence” on maintaining the building.

Still waiting for the deets: Gov. Katie Hobbs says she found out about the Trump administration’s plan to send troops to the U.S. - Mexico border at the same time as the public did, and she still doesn’t know any of the details, Arizona Public Media’s Danyelle Khmara reports.

Deportations in motion: Details on troops at the border might be scarce, but the federal government is publicizing deportation flights on military aircraft leaving from Tucson and headed to Guatemala, ABC15 reports. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said those flights will be a “daily occurrence.” On the ground, buses were coming and going from a migrant processing facility on Los Reales Road, KGUN’s Joel Foster reports.

It’s a federal issue: When it comes to enforcing federal immigration laws, the City of Tucson has no plans to change its policies. City officials will continue to use the same guidelines that were established 15 years ago during the SB1070 era, basically that state enforcement of federal immigration laws are not part of the Tucson Police Department's mission, the city said in a memo Monday.

3: You have three more days to weigh in on the Regional Transportation Authority's draft version of their $2.46 billion regional transportation plan. The survey to give feedback on the “final” 20-year plan is open through Jan. 31.