The U.S. Air Force has plans that are expected to further devastate Tucson’s economy.
The Air Force plans to divest the entire fleet of A-10 aircraft within the next three to five years. Pilots and maintainers at Davis-Monthan will move onto the extraordinarily expensive F-35 aircraft due to the divestment, the Arizona Daily Independent reported.
The Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where the A-10 “Warthog” ground-attack jets are stationed, hosts more than 10,000 airmen and civilian employees and contributes nearly $1 billion to the Tucson-area economy annually.
Fans of the A-10 will have one of their last opportunities to see the Warthog up close at the Luke Days 2024 airshow March 23-24.
The Air Force announced that after nearly 50 years at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the 355th Wing had begun divesting its fleet of A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft in February of this year.
Some say the Air Force has sought divestment of the A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft for years because it is an economical and effective aircraft and does not benefit defense contractors.
Arizona representatives sought to save the aircraft in May 2021 after a Biden administration budget plan called for the retirement of the Warthogs. Six Arizona Democrats — Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, and Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Ruben Gallego, Tom O’Halleran and Greg Stanton — and Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko vowed to oppose the A-10 retirement plans. They cited its unique role in close air support of ground troops and lack of any near-term replacement for that mission.
“Removing A-10s from the fleet when there is not another aircraft capable of performing this mission takes a vital tool away from our military and is the wrong step for our national security,” said Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The A-10C Demonstration Team has performed for more than 40 years with dozens of pilots and teams at hundreds of air shows across multiple countries.
Pima County Board of Supervisors candidate John Backer served as an A-10 electrician in the 1980s.
“Having been blessed with first-hand experience of working on the airplane, I understand completely what a unique air frame the A-10 remains to this day,” he said. “Through the years, countless Marines and Army soldiers have shared their love, respect, and gratitude for the A-10 – a majority feel the A-10 directly saved their lives.”
Though the base is reportedly bringing in additional missions, Backer said the Warthogs will be hard to replace due to their Close Air Support capabilities and financial impact for Pima County.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
The city of Tucson’s experiment with free transit (subsidized using a combination of local and federal funding) appears to be coming to an end.
In a memo for Tuesday’s council study session meeting, the city manager recommended the reinstatement of transit fare for Sun Link and Sun Express services. After much debate, Mayor Regina Romero tabled any action on reinstating transit fare for their next study session on March 19. The council nearly approved a motion to undertake the first step for reinstating transit fare: conducting the federally required Title VI Fare Equity Analysis.
In order to reinstate fares, the city estimated a timeline of six months and cost of just over $419,000, about 70 percent of which would be for the hire and training of five staffers. That estimated restoration cost pales in comparison to the expenditures the city has already issued on the subject: Mayor Regina Romero remarked that the city has spent “millions” on consultants to problem-solve transit fares.
The council entertained the possibility of creating more taxes, such as bed taxes or a car rental tax, or leaning into the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) emission reductions program. Romero directed the city manager to use these next several weeks before their next study session to find any possible funding streams.
Tucson suspended transit fares in March 2020 in response to the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city began covering the costs of free transit with the receipt of $43 million from the Federal Transportation Authority in pandemic relief. As the federal funds dwindled, the city attempted to tap their academic partners — Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), University of Arizona (UArizona), and Pima Community College (PCC) — to cover the estimated $10 to $15 million annual cost for transit, but all have declined.
UArizona, whose students and faculty make up about 70 percent of streetcar ridership according to Councilman Steve Kozachik, isn’t in a position to subsidize free transit with its ongoing financial crisis. On Tuesday, UArizona President Robert Robbins voluntarily took a $350,000 pay cut.
Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz said that the city should find a way to cover the cost of fare, reiterating that it makes up 8-10 percent of the overall cost to operate the transit system. She asked whether there were other funding streams that could be tapped in the short term, referencing American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) emissions reduction funding. Santa Cruz disclosed that the council found it “frustrating” that none of their educational partners had stepped up to cover transit costs.
“I will continue to make the case that our public transportation system should be a core service, that our taxpayers are paying for this public good, the way that we pay taxes for our parks, our police and fire,” said Santa Cruz.
Romero opined that the effort to source funding partners was too great a cost for the benefit of securing fare-free transit. The mayor also lamented the unwillingness of their academic partners to help.
“I don’t personally think that bringing in $1.4, $2.1 million is worth the exhaustive worth we need to do to reinstate these fares,” said Romero.
In an effort to source funding last May, the city formed a stakeholder group consisting of TUSD, UArizona, PCC, Pima County, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), and members of the business community. That group was unable to reach a consensus on addressing the budget shortfall during its five meetings last year.
During Tuesday’s study session, Santa Cruz expressed her regret that the council had created the stakeholder group.
“[T]hey were more interested in talking long-term vision for what our transit system should look like and not really this short term,” said Santa Cruz.
The city has partnered with Raytheon, Amazon, Rio Nuevo, and the downtown Tucson partnership to cover some of the routes.
According to Sun Tran data, annual ridership has been in a slight decline since 2012. Ridership did recover consistently during the pandemic to slightly above the 2019 fiscal year level in this past fiscal year, though it didn’t recover completely from its initial drop-off around the 2016 to 2018 fiscal years. The recovery in ridership may be attributed to the elimination of transit fare.
The high cost alone isn’t the only major reason the city hasn’t been able to fund the transit itself. The border crisis has cost the city millions to house, feed, and transport the illegal immigrants.
Watch the council’s study session discussion on restoring transit fare here:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero played host to President Joe Biden’s senior advisor last week to discuss public infrastructure.
Tom Perez, senior advisor and assistant to the President and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, visited the city of Tucson on Tuesday. Perez, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, visited as part of the Investing in America tour highlighting initiatives funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
In a press conference, Perez said that the Biden administration prioritizes giving awards to those projects rooted in equity.
“There has never been in our lifetime a more robust investment in building America, building out our infrastructure, making sure in that process that we view everything through that equity lens, understanding that zip code will no longer determine destiny,” said Perez. “We have this opportunity folks, and we are not going to squander this opportunity to build an Arizona, and to build an America where everybody has access to good middle-class jobs, where high speed, affordable internet is a reality so that if you have a behavioral or mental health issue, you can do telemedicine.”
Among the initiatives for which Tucson received millions in federal funding under IRA and BIL was the 22nd Street Bridge revitalization, TARP Facility, Tucson Million Trees (TMT), and relinquishment of their water rights.
The Biden administration gave Tucson $25.9 million to build the 22nd Street Bridge. According to the Department of Transportation (DOT), it was the city’s focus on equity for the project that secured the funds.
Tucson also received a $5 million grant from the USDA last September for TMT. Despite the funding, TMT has fallen far short of its goal to plant one million trees by 2030. Only about 100,000 trees were planted as of last year.
However, Romero claimed in a one-on-one meeting with President Joe Biden earlier this month that TMT was on track.
Tucson also traded its water rights for $44 million in federal infrastructure funds last summer: over 110,000 acre-feet through 2025.
Perez also made a stop with another major Arizona city that has received millions in BIL and IRA funds.
Last Monday, Perez visited with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego to discuss the availability of funds to both public and private entities for “clean” energy initiatives, such as electric buses for schools or solar panels for churches.
Our partnership with local leaders like @MayorGallego is crucial to ensuring communities take advantage of the unprecedented opportunity in the Investing in America agenda. https://t.co/3yEZbTpOMY
— White House Intergovernmental Affairs (@WhiteHouseIGA46) February 20, 2024
Earlier this month, Perez and National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard met with county elected officials through the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference to discuss Biden’s Investing in America agenda. Santa Cruz County Supervisor Manuel Ruiz was among those elected officials to attend.
Per White House data on federal awards, the Biden administration has issued over 1,800 BIL discretionary and formula grants in Arizona. USDA data reflects that Arizona has requested over $2.1 billion in clean energy funding.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
This ranking is particularly notable with fatal car accidents increasing across the country, with the number of deadly crashes climbing by nearly 10% from 2020 to 2022, according to Forbes.
In honor of Aggressive Driving Awareness Month, Forbes Advisor compared the 50 most populated cities across five key metrics, including the number of fatal car accidents involving drunk drivers, distracted drivers, and speeding, to determine which cities have the worst drivers.
Tucson has the fourth highest total number of fatal car accidents, with 16.21 per 100,000 city residents, and the fourth highest number of people killed in fatal crashes — 17.02 per 100,000 city residents.
Phoenix has the 10th highest number of fatal car accidents involving speeding, with 3.86 per 100,000 city residents, and the 11th highest total number of fatal car accidents — 13.85 per 100,000 city residents.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, is first on the list of cities with the worst drivers, followed by Memphis, Tennessee; Detroit, Michigan; Tucson, Arizona; and Kansas City, Missouri.
Three of the top 15 cities with the worst drivers are in Texas, including Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. Additionally, three of the top 10 cities with the best drivers can be found in California, including San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego.
More dangerous driving leads to increased risk and higher insurance rates, according to Forbes.
“Getting speeding tickets, running red lights, texting while driving and other reckless behaviors all raise your chances of accidents and damage claims,” the finance advice site wrote. “This makes you a greater liability in the eyes of insurers.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
The woman who gained international notoriety nearly a decade ago for faking her race, Rachel Dolezal (now Nkechi Amare Diallo), was fired from her job teaching elementary school children in Tucson shortly after news broke of her publicly advertising her porn on OnlyFans.
Diallo worked as an after-school educator in the Community Schools program within the Catalina Foothills School District. The district hired her for $19 an hour. She ran a gardening club for those students.
On Tuesday, Libs of TikTok posted one of Diallo’s provactive images on X (formerly Twitter) along side some of her racy posts. (Warning: You can view the post here, but it is not safe for work or if you’re around children.
Diallo launched her OnlyFans in 2021, initially as a lifestyle page dedicated mainly to workouts based on initial media coverage and her own social media posts on the subject. About a year later in 2022, Diallo began to transition the page into its current state of straight-porn content with risque postings of her wearing lingerie — a move that was widely reported on and trending on social media.
Diallo charged about $10 a month for access to her porn. The OnlyFans account was included in her LinkTree on both her public Facebook and Instagram pages.
According to social media posts, Diallo moved to Arizona around July 2020 after her son was admitted to the University of Arizona. Last March, Diallo attended Gov. Katie Hobbs’ signing of a ban on hair discrimination, legislation modeled after a California law prohibiting discrimination against employees’ hair texture and establishing protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, knots, and headwraps. In a comparison of the photos posted by Diallo and the governor’s office of the event, it appears that Diallo was cropped out.
Diallo’s racial deceit was discovered in 2015, after a Spokane, Washington news outlet questioned her about her parents and her race during an interview about racial justice and racially motivated hate crimes. At the time, Diallo was the NAACP Spokane president and an Africana studies lecturer at Eastern Washington University.
The interaction between Diallo and the reporter went viral. Shortly after Diallo was outed for faking her race, she stepped down as the local NAACP chapter president and embarked on a media tour explaining that she was “transracial.”
Despite all the controversy that arose over her “transracial” identity, Diallo managed in the subsequent years to maintain a sizable following that yielded speaking engagements, artwork sales, a memoir, and a Netflix documentary.
In 2018, the year her Netflix documentary came out, Diallo was charged with welfare fraud for taking over $8,000 in relief by hiding her memoir income. The following year, Diallo agreed to a plea deal to repay the thousands and complete community service.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
