One long meeting
Another 10-hour day at City Hall … Remember Dream Pods? … And how many fingers am I holding up?
For the wonks who love to watch the Tucson City Council meetings live, we’ve got some great news. You can sleep in.
Today’s meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m., but practically speaking, it isn’t going to start until at least 2 p.m. as the Council set aside an estimated four hours of meeting time for an executive session.
Behind closed doors, the Council will talk about City Manager Tim Thomure’s job performance, revisit a decades-long fight with local developer Mike Goodman, discuss potential liability to existing and future firefighter cancer claims and host a closed-door session on who should be Tucson’s next city attorney.
There is something very meta about going into executive session with the city attorney to talk about a new city attorney.
Once they break from their marathon executive session, the Council will tackle some fairly meaty topics during their study session, including:
Making changes to the city’s non-disclosure agreement (NDA) policies in an effort to be more transparent with the public in the aftermath of Project Blue. (Like Pima County did last week.) To be honest, even we are not sure who knew what when over at the city when it came to the now-reviled data centers. Thomure said he has known since 2022, but it is unclear who else knew. Thanks, NDAs!
The city’s annual budget might be locked in place, but staff continues to look at changing fee structures and modifying other revenue sources. These potential new taxes range from modifying the Airbnb tax to increasing the Pawn Shop transaction fees. The meeting is only informational, with a vote expected in a few months.
The Council will also be briefed on the Colorado River negotiations as well as plans to address PFAS contamination in the city’s water supply.
The city manager’s office put on this vague item, reading: “matters that are pending in front of the Pima County Board of Supervisors and other regional jurisdictions.” Our money is on Project Blue, but other topics could include the RTA, a future County bond item, or other county-wide sales taxes.
On Friday, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos floated an idea of a jail tax to pay for a new facility.
The Council is also hosting an evening meeting — expected to start at 5:30 p.m. — but the agenda is fairly unremarkable, filled with liquor license applications, minor rezoning requests, lease agreements for cell phone towers, a non-binding resolution related to Ironwood Forest National Monument and the Council’s support of reducing mining inside the national monument.
Still, it is going to be a long day for the Tucson City Council.
The fun starts at 10 a.m., but we’re still betting on a 2 p.m. start time as far as the public is concerned.
The City of Tucson plans to open an outdoor “safe sleep center” for women and non-binary individuals on Grant Road in the coming weeks. It will be called STAR Village.
The one-year pilot program, launched in collaboration with Old Pueblo Services and the Primavera Foundation, will provide services for up to 25 people at a time. Organizers estimate the site could serve as many as 150 people over the year, since the average stay will be about 60 days before moving into more stable housing.
Or at least, that’s the goal.
There is already organized opposition, including a Change.org petition with about 350 signatures as of Monday night.
And this isn’t the first attempt at starting a sanctioned camping site inside city limits.
However, any mention of sanctioned camping — despite thousands of people sleeping on Tucson’s streets — has been a poison pill for proposals in the city.
Here is an informal list of proposals that never had a chance: allowing camping in church parking lots, building tiny home villages and letting families use some city parks as safe places to sleep in their cars.
Former Councilmember Steve Kozachik once suggested creating a monitored campground at the Hundred Acre Wood site, but his colleagues rejected it.
Joe recalls another proposal at least six years ago that would have allowed camping on private property, but it was tabled indefinitely.
Quietly, city officials say opposition has been a mix of NIMBYism, practical concerns (like church parking lots not having camper hookups), and lingering resistance in the years after the “dream pods” briefly lined downtown Tucson sidewalks.
Now, the city is moving forward with STAR Village, a program modeled on a similar effort in metro Phoenix.
Advocates hope the pilot will spark more “safe sleep centers” in other wards across the city.
If you want to weigh in, the Ward 3 office will hold a special meeting on Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. at the Donna R. Liggins Recreation Center. RSVPs are requested at Ward3@tucsonaz.gov.
If you’d like to support the camp, the Primavera Foundation is accepting donations ranging from tents to food.
Asking the voters for help: Tucson City Councilman Kevin Dahl says he’ll propose two ballot measures to address homelessness and drug use on the November 2026 ballot. The first ballot measure would ask voters to approve a quarter-cent sales tax for transit and housing. A second, separate measure would seek a quarter-cent increase for public safety, Dahl wrote in an op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star.
Clearing the air: In the wake of voters rejecting Prop 414, partly due to questions about how the city uses technology and data in public safety, Tucson City Councilwoman Nikki Lee plans to put an item on a meeting agenda in October to discuss how the city uses technology to provide services and what data the city collects, she wrote in her newsletter.
“My goal is to make sure our community not only understands what we are doing, but also has a seat at the table to help oversee it,” Lee wrote. “The community deserves a clear picture of what is being done and how it is being done, and the Mayor and Council should be advised not only by city staff and subject matter experts, but also by the people we serve.”
Fun fact: We have a very similar goal!
Politicians need your votes to achieve their goals.
We just need you to click this button.
Preemptive filing: A week after a harrowing race to make sure Guatemalan children weren’t deported against their wishes, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project is adding Honduran children to their lawsuit against the Trump administration (we wrote about this situation last week). The local legal aid group said in a press release on Friday that they received “credible information" that the government is planning to illegally remove unaccompanied Honduran children. The Associated Press used filings in the lawsuit to piece together the timeline of events that nearly led to more than 300 children being sent back to Guatemala.
A lot more to come: The Trump administration’s border czar says sending National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and potentially Chicago, is just the beginning, the Washington Post reports. On Sunday, Tom Homan said, “You can expect action in sanctuary cities across the country.” By Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court had lifted a lower court’s order that banned ICE from making indiscriminate stops in the Los Angeles area, which amounted to racial profiling. So far, Phoenix and Tucson haven’t been named as targets by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Christians in Chicago who want to practice their religion freely are now forced to do so at home to avoid being arrested by masked federal agents, Reuters reports.
A reader noticed something was a little off in this image for Tucson Local Media’s Fall Arts Preview.
Can you spot it?
Look closely at the fingers.
This violinist has six.
Perhaps the Tucson Local Media crew scoured Tucson but couldn’t actually find a real local musician. It’s not like this town is known for its artists or music or anything.
In that case, it makes sense why they’d use a lifelike AI mockup.
Or — hear us out — maybe it’s a real image and that sixth finger is her superpower.
Border Czar Tom Homan, by stating that we should expect ICE raids in sanctuary cities, is telling us that Trump's war on migrants, refugees and asylum seekers is focused on friends and supporters of immigrants and not the "worst of the worst." Let's keep in mind that Homan and his fellow "Hate Monger," Stephen Miller's goal is to remove from our country as many brown skinned people as they can. White supremacy, not sanctuary, must finally come to an end in the United States of America.
It seems pretty smart of Kevin to put up the two sales tax increases.