The city of Tucson is looking into potential funding options to cover the $11 million it would take to keep public transit free every year from here on out.
Prior to this year, the city used federal COVID-19 relief funds to keep public transit fare-free. When the city first announced free busing back in March 2020, the city claimed that the purpose was to avoid crowding at the farebox in addition to providing fiscal relief to riders.
Bus fares were scheduled to resume on January 1 of this year; however, the city managed to source funding for these past six months.
City officials have also sourced enough funding for the next six months. For this upcoming round of subsidies, $2 million came from new hotel and motel taxes, $790,000 came from Tucson Medical Center revenue, and $600,000 came from Visit Tucson revenue. That totals just under $3.4 million.
However, community members are saying the three-year experiment in free public transit has proven much more of a burden than a help. Many have complained that the free transit essentially aids criminal behavior and facilitates public nuisances.
Bus driver union leaders expressed concern about quality control with fully-subsidized bus fare, particularly pointing out the homeless that ride the bus nonstop during the summers to avoid the heat. Teamsters Union 104 Business Manager Kevin Hampton told13 News that free busing threatened passenger and public safety.
“We don’t want our drivers to become the transit police,” said Hampton. “We’re more interested in finding long-term solutions to combat the reasons why people want to ride the bus all day.”
Passengers have complained to local outlets that the free busing allows “too many troublemakers” to board the buses.
Public safety activists like Josh Jacobsen with Tucson Crime Free Coalition allege that free busing has facilitated drug sales, trafficking, and even usage. Jacobsen also toldKVOA that the buses also serve as convenient getaways for robbers and thieves.
“The free buses are contributing to a lot of the movement of narcotics, specifically fentanyl around our community,” said Jacobsen. “There are a lot of reports of individuals using drugs on the free buses. And the free buses also play a large role in the organized retail theft of businesses around our community.”
In December, AZ Free News reported that the council felt they would have to shift the cost burden to taxpayers to cover bus fare. At the time, Mayor Regina Romero suggested additional parking garage fees, Councilwoman Lane Santa Cruz proposed an additional property tax.
The city also secured a financial partner for bus subsidization: defense manufacturing giant Raytheon. The city council noted that they were attempting to convince the University of Arizona and Tucson Unified School District to also join as funding partners.
Cost estimates for taxpayers to subsidize busing permanently ranged around $1 million a month.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) parents and educators say they’d rather have stricter punishments for students who issue verbal threats, not students who fight.
This preference was outlined in a recent survey conducted by TUSD. The district issued the survey to gather parental input on code of conduct revisions.
About 80 percent of parents expressed support for long-term suspensions (11-30 days), longer term suspensions (11-180 days), or expulsions (over 180 days) for students who issue verbal threats. That broke down to 53 percent for long-term suspension, and 27 percent for longer term suspension or expulsion.
However, only 20 percent of parents expressed support for stricter punishments in the case of physical altercations. That broke down to 13 percent for long-term suspension, and five percent for longer term suspension or expulsion.
Likewise, 78 percent of school staff expressed support for long-term suspensions, long-term suspensions, or expulsions for verbal threats. That broke down to 55 percent believing in long term suspension, with 23 percent believing in longer term suspension or expulsion.
Yet, 25 percent of staff said they would issue stricter punishments in the case of physical altercations. 20 percent would award long-term suspension, and only five percent would issue either a longer term suspension or expulsion.
Only 10 percent of parents believed that verbal threats warranted short-term suspension. Six percent of parents believed it warranted in-school suspension; seven percent of parents believed it warranted an in-school contract or plan.
Comparatively, 63 percent of parents believed that physical altercations warranted short-term suspension. 14 percent believed it warranted in-school suspension, and five percent believed it warranted an in-school contract or plan.
Survey respondents, identified as stakeholders, asserted that elementary, middle, and high schools should have separate codes of conduct. There were nearly 6,300 stakeholders: over 800 students, over 2,800 staff, and over 2,600 parents.
Of note, students reported that classes about drug use weren’t actually helping students who used drugs. Students also reported that there shouldn’t be a dress code in the new code of conduct, and if there were to be one, it shouldn’t be “gender-biased.”
According to the survey results, commonalities among student, staff, and parent stakeholders included the determinations that both fights and drug use should incur short-term suspensions, not lengthier suspensions or expulsions. The stakeholders added that students should have the option of an in-school- or out-of-school suspension, or a combination of the two.
The majority of stakeholders also concurred that dress codes should remain at a lower tier for code of conduct violations, and that students shouldn’t be suspended for truancy.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The city of Tucson is eyeing plans to subsidize bus fare for $10 million for the next six months, with the ultimate goal of making free public transit permanent. However, Tuesday’s council discussions indicated that “free” may eventually become additional cost burdens elsewhere for Tucson taxpayers.
During Tuesday’s study session, the council proposed several ideas for offsetting the cost to the city to provide fare-free transit forever, after establishing funding partners. Mayor Regina Romero suggested establishing more parking garage fees. Councilwoman Lane Santa Cruz said that the pandemic afforded a unique opportunity in establishing a “new normal” for transit. Santa Cruz said that long-term financing might have to include an additional property tax.
City staff reported that the entire bus system costs around $105-106 million, with $53 million coming from the city. That includes the Sun Tran, Sun Van, and Sun Link transit systems. Advertising revenue brings in about $1.7 million annually, intergovernmental agreements with regional partners including the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) makes up $19.2 million ($11.7 million from RTA plan), and federal grants total $20 million.
The council reported that Raytheon, a major defense contractor, has signed on as a partner already. The city is attempting to bring on other partners, specifically naming University of Arizona (UArizona) and the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). City Manager Mike Ortega disclosed that the city hasn’t reached out to other school districts, and indicated that they wouldn’t.
Romero shared that TUSD was interested in providing fare-free transit for its students, but that UArizona wasn’t. Romero said that she tried to sell the transit initiative by reminding UArizona President Robert Robbins that staff and faculty, in addition to students, used public transit; that it would look good as a climate change initiative; and that it would save Robbins from having to build more parking.
Romero also agreed that city employees should ride the bus for free.
Due to federal pandemic relief funding, the city hasn’t charged for public transit in well over two years. Fares are scheduled to resume on Jan. 1.
Ortega first recommended the city take on the expense. In a memo submitted to the council on Monday, Ortega cited its Built Environment Goals and Policies focus as the rationale for shifting to fare-free transit.
Tuesday’s meeting was the fourth time that city staff brought this agenda item before the mayor and council. Romero asked for a continuance to allow city staff to further conversations with potential funding partners. Ortega indicated in Tuesday’s meeting that these partners were hesitant to advance further in this initiative without further data.
Watch Tuesday’s council meeting here:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The COVID-19 pandemic expedited the political battleground shift to schools, alerting parents to the presence and impact of controversial concepts like Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social Emotional Learning (SEL), and leading to the launch of grassroots organizations to navigate the new territory: Courage Is A Habit (CIAH) is one of the latest.
CIAH publishes resources focused on defining and identifying hot-button topics prevailing in K-12 classrooms in Arizona and across the country: diversity, equity, inclusion, and their presence in a variety of controversial educational practices like CRT and SEL.
In one of their more recent initiatives, CIAH issued a guide to facilitate communication between parents and educators: “10 Questions Every Parent Should Ask.”
In May, CIAH put together an informational video explaining the ideological progress from Marxism to communism and its relation to controversial ideologies in schools like CRT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVXSP8dXfHk
Additionally, CIAH collects videos published by teachers discussing controversial social justice topics under a filing series labeled “Classroom Exposed.”
As AZ Free News reported previously, Collaborative Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL) helped bring SEL into mainstream practice.
CIAH also offered a sample parental opt-out form for educational materials from or concerning the National Sexuality Education Standards, Future of Sex Education (FSE) Initiative, Sex Etc., Advocates for Youth, Answer, Sexuality Information and Education Council U.S. (SIECUS), Planned Parenthood, the Kinsey Institute, any and all “Pride” vendors and/or third parties like Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), CASEL Competencies or any evidence-based SEL programs, Black Lives Matter (BLM), CRT, the 1619 Project, and the COVID-19 vaccine.
The opt-out form also revoked parental consent for discussions on abortion, birth control or contraceptives, sexual activity, sexual orientation, and gender ideologies or theories.
For parents and community members navigating the increasingly heated landscape of open records requests — which, as AZ Free News reported, led to Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) to publicizing the names of records requesters and redacting all staff names in records responses — CIAH compiled resources on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
FOIA is the federal law that requires governmental transparency.
The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) approved an increase in school safety staff a week before experiencing an active shooter threat last Tuesday.
TUSD Governing Board member Sadie Shaw pointed to that threat as justification for supporting the increase, which some community members opposed. TUSD will hire five more school safety supervisors, two dispatchers, and one field lieutenant, adding to the 34 existing school safety department members. Only board members Leila Counts and Ravi Shah opposed the increase.
The TUSD community and South Tucson Police Department (STPD) presented different accounts of last Tuesday’s threat, the nature of the 911 calls, and the department’s response times.
In their version of the events to KGUN 9, STPD claimed that they received one call about the potential gunman at 7:05 am last Tuesday. They said that several men were reportedly arguing over a possible stolen car across from Mission View Elementary School, part of TUSD. Half an hour later, STPD claimed that a school monitor reported in a second call that one of the men may have been armed.
STPD didn’t respond until 9:05 am, a response time of about two hours in a city of just over one square mile. STPD reported that they didn’t find a gun.
However, Shaw and others offered a different account of events last Wednesday. Shaw stated that STPD didn’t respond for over three hours, that the alleged gunman was directly threatening the school, and that the school principal placed the calls to police. The board member thanked the TUSD safety team for protecting the students when police failed to arrive.
Shaw said that the experience was significant enough for her to vote to hire more school safety officers.
“I wasn’t on the governing board when they voted to arm school safety but in general I support this decision because these employees are sometimes tasked to respond to dangerous situations that happen at any TUSD site — 24/7,” wrote Shaw. “[Y]ou know what? I have a child that goes to school in this district and so do many of you. I don’t think we can afford to make idealistic decisions that ignore reality. This is America.”
In a subsequent petition to end school gun violence, which Shaw shared, the group “Protect Our South Tucson School” claimed that STPD didn’t respond for three and a half hours, and that the two calls were about, first, a “gun yielding [sic] angry gunman” standing outside the school and, second, an electronic threat sent to the school. Additionally, the group echoed Shaw’s claim that the second call came from the elementary school principal — not a school resource officer.
The entirety of the group’s account of event is reproduced below:
On Tuesday, June 21st at 7:15 am, 15 minutes before a summer school day started a gun yielding angry gunman stood outside of Mission View Elementary in South Tucson, a one square mile enclave of the much larger city of Tucson.
About an hour after the first call to 911 the school received a threat electronically.
The principal called 911 and pleaded again for law enforcement officers to come to protect the school while students participated in their summer school classes. Nobody showed up. Instead, the school district’s school safety team showed up in a heroic fashion and was able to secure the school.
It wasn’t until 3 and a half hours after the incident did South Tucson Police showed [sic] up to the mass shooting threat.
Every day in the United States a mass shooting occurs, just a few weeks ago in Uvalde Texas, a mass shooter ended the lives of many children and teachers. The lack of urgency in South Tucson PD’s response is unacceptable. We understand that South Tucson PD is understaffed, but when it comes to the potential threat of a mass shooting occurring it should be their number one priority. In the one square mile city, families and schools can only receive services first from South Tucson police. Tucson Police Department should be responding jointly to potential threats of gun violence to our schools regardless if the threat is in South Tucson.
We are calling on South Tucson, Tucson Unified School District and the City of Tucson to address this issue immediately and develop policies that improve lines of communication, and improve collaboration when it comes to protecting our students from gun violence.
AZ Free News reached out to STPD just before noon on Tuesday. We were referred to STPD Chief Danny Denogean; he didn’t respond by press time.
STPD admitted that their response time was too slow, which they asserted was around two hours. Denogean apologized on Monday in a statement to KGUN 9.
“We own this. We should have had a better response to that call. There’s no debating that. We needed to get there quicker.”
The neighboring Tucson Police Department (TPD) has also had slower response times, due to staffing shortages. Assistant Chief Kevin Hall toldKOLD in January that the issue has been plaguing them for about two years. Chief Chris Magnus reported that their fastest response time for foremost emergencies averages 4 minutes and 47 seconds, whereas lowest-level calls average about one hour and 37 minutes.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
