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Predicting the weather

Daniel Egan recently noted how bad local weather predictions have lately become. It’s not your imagination, and it’s not due to any lack of skill on the part of forecasters, but because of DOGE funding cuts to the NOAA and the National Weather Service made earlier this year. Henry Brean’s July 14 article describes exactly how these budget cuts eliminated the 5AM weather balloon launches that provide the most reliable monsoon storm predictions.

This is just a tiny example of how the Trump administration’s contempt for science and competent management is eating away at our lives and futures in ways we won’t fully recognize until it’s too late. If he’s even perceived as being successful in his current bid to take over the Fed by threatening its governors, the value of our money and whether or not we have jobs will become even less predictable than monsoon storms.

Paul Dailey

East side

Americans beware

Why are Americans just sitting by and allowing Donald Trump to turn our country into “Nazi Germany”? He has gotten control of Congress, stacked the federal and Supreme Courts, has replaced all of the military heads of the Armed Forces with individuals who have expressed loyalty to him, has sued and/or threatened all of the large law firms so that they will not participate in litigation against him, has filled his Cabinet with incompetent, unqualified, blindly loyal flunkies, has renamed or reconfigured many of the valued American institutions and universities, and has hung huge posters of his face all over Washington, DC. He is using the courts and the armed forces to punish people, cities, states, and organizations who are not loyal to him. Perhaps most worrisome is the fact that he has created his own Gestapo (ICE), and he has declared martial law in parts of America and has deployed troops into American cities.

Dale Pelton

Northwest side

Kudos for a fact check

I'd like to make two points.

First, my profound thanks to George Timson (Soldiers in Cities, Aug. 27) for his fact-checking of committeeman O'Brien.  

Second, although everyone is entitled to their opinion; an opinion based on misinformation, disinformation, or no information is not only worthless but potentially harmful to those folks that accept it as fact. That is the business model of social media outlets.  I can get that for free.  George Timson has done this essential fact-checking of an opinion piece for the Star. It could have been an LTE as well.  Others have done the same time and again, they know who they are, and I thank them as well.  I implore the Star to either provide some semblance of fact-checking of letters that appear in their pages, or failing that, provide a disclaimer that a questionable LTE or opinion piece may need fact-checking.  

"If you see it in the Star, it is so."  

Don Schmidt

Oro Valley

LTE challenge response

Johnson poses a simple idea: “Actually account for the taxpayer dollars the government spends.” What is the daily cost for the National Guard occupation of LA & DC, even though crime rates are at an all-time low? What is the cost to deploy troops at the border? What are the costs of Trump's DOJ to file frivolous investigations of Trump's political enemies? Where is the report of ICE costs to detain and deport people? What is the monthly cost to service the national debt?

Johnson states, “Teach our children to read, write and do math.” ����ֱ��'s voucher system absorbs 53% of ����ֱ�� education funds and serves approximately 8% of the state’s students. Public education suffers. ����ֱ�� spends significantly less per pupil $10,315 in 2025 compared to the national average of $15,633. ����ֱ�� is dead last in spending on education (See Law Journal for Social Justice). If Johnson wants to teach students, then he needs to support an increase in the Amphitheater School District bond elections.

Richard Wood

Midtown

Let's save our children

In light of Minneapolis' recent tragedy, we now say, "Another mass shooting." This phrase has become more and more familiar as we attempt to deal with the aftermath of a shooter that should not have been able to purchase a gun. One would think we'd have learned our lesson with earlier mass shootings. I wonder what it will take before America decides there are too many guns on our streets and too many people easily able to purchase them. Are we still laboring under the Wild West philosophy, "A gun is protection from rustlers"? Well, now our children are being "rustled" or in more factual terms, murdered. It's a bit too easy to lay the blame on the mentally ill. Let's lay the blame where it belongs: on the proliferation of guns. Anyone who still believes in the misinterpreted Second Amendment to the Constitution, needs to listen to the parents of dead children.

Lollie Butler

Midtown

World-class transit

I have heard it said, if you want to get to know a place, ride the bus. As a lifelong public transit user, in large urban centers and small towns, I find Tucson to be a vibrant community with a world-class transit system. As a new transplant in 2022, I've had only a fare-free experience, thank you! On a recent crosstown ride from Rita Ranch to Tohono Tadai Center (routes 450 and 17), I felt the ease of sharing this resource with others going about their day. Mothers watching their children get off at school, then riding on to PCC. Folks heading to customer service work, elders making a slow way somewhere (sometimes just one or two stops). The driver deployed the front ramp five times for wheelchair and assistive device users. I saw at least five distinct nationalities. Tucsonans with groceries, or possibly their life possessions, and all of us kindly making room for one another.

E. Day

North side

Back to the drawing board

I’m pretty sure I heard this correctly. In case you missed the Grijalva-Butierez “debate,” you might like to know that Daniel Butierez made a novel proposal regarding the Santa Cruz river: “How about we start blocking it up and let that water soak into the ground instead of just letting it run down into the ocean?”

Yeah! How about that? Since the Santa Cruz River is dry most of the year, I’m guessing Butierez is suggesting damming it up to trap monsoon water. Makes one wonder why this was never thought of before. Oh, wait! Now I remember! The 100-year flood of 1983 earned us a major disaster area designation by President Ronald Reagan when Marana ended up under water — literally. Although turning Tucson proper into a large recharge basin promises to solve our water issues, it seems a bit fraught with otherwise undesirable consequences.

Robert Gavlak

Midtown

Please tell us where you stand, Jo

Congratulations, JoAnna Mendoza. You're a leading contender to be the next Democratic candidate for ����ֱ��'s 6th Congressional District. If you're nominated, I hope you win. Ciscomani has to go.

But I'm concerned that we know so little about you, Jo. Where do you stand on Gaza, Palestine, and Israel? Taxing the rich? Health care for all? Protecting Social Security and Medicare and the VA? Citizens United? Sensible gun laws? The list goes on. 

I know you're a single mom and a vet, and you're from Eloy. That's great. But what else? Your website says nothing about where you stand on issues. Donors put up a million bucks for you right off the bat. You have endorsements from top Dems in AZ and loads of organizations. But we need and deserve information. And vision. And passion. And integrity. I hope those are things we will see in you soon. 

Tom Buchanan

East side

A modest proposal

We have yet another mass shooting. Democratic attempts to address the problem have either been ineffective or, when somewhat effective, have been sunsetted, as in the semiautomatic weapon ban. Other attempts by the Democrats have been stymied, as in closing the gun show loophole and enacting red flag laws.

President Trump has promised to make our country safe and has utilized the military in the streets of some cities in an effort to achieve that goal. I therefore propose that President Trump and the Republican Party be given free rein to end the epidemic of mass shootings in this country by whatever means necessary. I will sit back and await the results.

Chuck Nathan

West side

Trump and the Founding Fathers

Recently, Trump said that you don’t go to war with a country 15 times your size, referring to the difference between Ukraine and Russia. Forgetting the inaccuracy of the size comparison, one wonders what Trump would have told the Founding Fathers about the American colonies taking on the vast and wealthy British Empire. Of course, his opinion would have depended on his personal relationship with King George III and the possibility of business deals, not a matter of principle, domestic security, or national self-determination.

Paul Minnis

East side

You got what you voted for

We're hearing a lot of "I didn't vote for this" from Trump voters. Oh, yes, you did. You were warned about Project 2025, but chose to ignore it. You thought you were voting to own the libs and to attack black and brown people. You voted for innocent children to be incarcerated without warrants and to end due process. You voted for crops to rot in the fields as workers leave farms. You voted for inflation and the tariffs we are all paying. You voted for health care to be taken away and for people to get sicker. You voted for this tanking economy so the rich could get richer. You got exactly what you voted for.

Mary Zimmerman

SaddleBrooke

Operation Safe Streets

No one likes crime. Crime exists in all cities — Red and Blue. Operation Safe Streets (Safe Streets Violent Crime Initiative) is a national response to crime.

Since 1997, Operation Safe Streets, in numerous cities, have provided a multi-agency (city, county, state, federal- not National Guard) response to high crime areas. The multi-agency response will saturate a specific area for 1-30 days, looking for any criminal violation. After this time period, they would move to another area. Crime will move to other areas to avoid been detected. So Operation Safe Streets officers would move also.

Operation Safe Streets has been conducted on the east side, south side, UA area, Downtown and Miracle Mile area. It was a successful response with "various agencies working together" to address the “communities needs”. Several years ago, US Marshals were sent to “work with” Chicago police to deal with the gangs.

However, during the COVID lockdown, the responses lapsed. These need to become active again to help reduce crime — in all cities.

Ray Bynum

Northwest side

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering in ����ֱ�� will not end until we remove the flaw in how our supposedly Independent Redistricting Commission members are chosen. That flaw is allowing the Governor to choose the pool of candidates from which the IRC and its Chair are chosen, without adequate guardrails.

We need a state-wide initiative to pass a law or even change the AZ Constitution as follows:

1) The law must require that Appellate Court Commission membership (comprised of independents and members of the two major political parties) must have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.

2) No one who has ever been a member of either major political party can be counted as an Independent for purposes of membership in the Appellate Court Commission.

3) No candidate for the IRC Chair can have ever been a member of either major political party.

This is the only way we will be able to have a truly fair, non-partisan Independent Redistricting Commission.

Lee Stanfield

East side

Conover reveals her true colors

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover offered a 31-year-old man, who entered an elementary school in January 2025 with a gun and a knife announcing that he wanted to "hurt the kids" by doing a mass shooting, a sentence of only 12 months as part of a plea deal. No wonder that the Tucson Police Department and others publicly questioned Ms. Conover's prosecutorial judgment in offering such a lenient sentence to someone who had a violent intent to harm children.

Ms. Conover's actions also explain why the United States Attorney's Office intends to prosecute Julio Cesar Aguirre, a 42-year-old migrant who has been charged with shooting a man during a carjacking attempt and who earlier was deported to Mexico after serving an ����ֱ�� prison term, on federal charges. Better that than turning him over to a soft-on-crime County Attorney.

Roger Taft

Northeast side