Few places in the country interact with Mexico as much as Southern Arizona, and several of the region’s jurisdictions have taken a collective stand against President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall expansion along the nation’s southern border. Following the lead of the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council and the National Congress of American Indians, both the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Tucson City Council approved a joint resolution standing in opposition to the border wall on Tuesday, June 6.
Unanimously approved by the Tucson City Council and approved by a 3-2 vote by the county board (Republican Supervisors Ally Miller and Steve Christy were opposed), the resolutions state—among other things—that the proposed wall construction stands against the core values of “inclusiveness and tolerance” and will cause “substantial environmental damage” to the region.
District 5 Supervisor Richard Elías, who along with Tucson Councilwoman Regina Romero was the prime sponsor of the joint resolutions, said the day was about standing together with the people of the region to object to the “abomination that is the border wall.”
‘We continue to understand the borderlands because we have lived here all our lives, and know this border wall is in opposition to our values,” Elias said. “We know that the border wall is in opposition to what we share in terms of the business that we conduct. We know that the environmental damage that is going to be done to wildlife, to the fauna, to the beautiful Sonoran Desert that we all share…we have to be the stewards that protect it.”
Both the county and the city have denounced Executive Order 13767, which aims to construct an expanded border wall, and the resolutions also calls for a “thorough and comprehensive analysis of the cost, effectiveness, necessity and consequences of a U.S. border-security policy and this Executive Order.”
The city’s resolution takes it several steps further, calling for the billions of dollars potentially allocated to construction to be instead spent on health care, education, housing, infrastructure repair, alleviating poverty, increasing economic opportunity and “safeguarding the health and well-being of all Americans.” The council resolution also states that the current wall has caused “substantial” environmental damage, and is “and offensive and damaging symbol of fear and division.”
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild called the proposed wall a “terrible” policy decision and a “waste of tax dollars.”
In passing its resolution, Tucson also calls for a cost-benefit analysis, stands in opposition of “continuing expenditure of federal funding directed to private, for-profit prisons for the detention and incarceration of immigrants.”
Most controversially, and drawing immediate criticism from local chambers of commerce, was the city’s inclusion of a section which allows the council to identify companies involved in designing, building and financing border wall construction, and divest from each, as the law allows.
Tucson Metro Chamber President & CEO Mike Varney told the mayor and council in a letter that the chamber and “the business community as a whole” are opposed to the divestiture.
“Many local companies (including many small businesses) compete for and frequently win government contracts,” Varney wrote. “The notion of penalizing any business that may be awarded a contract to work on a component of the proposed border wall or any other lawful project or assignment is extreme and punitive.”
Varney said the council should focus on the issue of the propriety of the border wall and make whatever statement it chooses to make on the proposed construction of that wall. He said the city does not have to include punitive measures “that will only damage local companies in order to make that statement.”
Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Lea Márquez Peterson told the council in a letter that the chamber is also worried about the “cost and effectiveness and potential relationship-damaging” consequences of expanding the border wall, though she expressed concern regarding the council’s “punitive tone” in dealing with local businesses.
“We have many members of our chamber and in our business community who currently work on federal procurement contracts,” Marquez wrote. “The tone of this resolution creates an assumption that if they were to create a component part, advise on design or provide technical skills or labor to build the wall, they would not be able to receive future city procurement contracts.”
Though there are members of the community standing in support of the wall’s construction, Tohono O’odham Nation Vice-Chairman Verlon Jose said it was important to know that there are communities standing together in opposition.
“We are about building bridges, not wall, and we will continue to collaborate with partners because this is bigger than the Tohono O’odham Nation, bigger than the City of Tucson, bigger than Pima County, this is a world issue and we will not stand for another wall to be built on this mother Earth,” he said.
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2017.
Clown City is run by clowns who do clownish things. Film at 11.
The city’s resolution was not unanimously approved. The vote was 6 – 0, with Steve K not present – although he managed to attend the presser/pep rally for the photo opp.
Why doesn’t he worry about the shape of the roads? I know Dick from my County days and he’s a pompus, know nothing idiot. Ask him if he has a wall around his house.
The wall would not deter either country from carrying on “legal” business operations. I wonder if the elected officials can be held responsible for crimes, accidents with injuries and deaths, and wasting of finite resources?
By the way, fix the damn roads!
If it walks like a sanctuary city, and it talks like a sanctuary city…it’s a sanctuary city.
There they go, spending other people’s money again…
CW13, your Soviet masters will reward you with the Order of Lenin if you become more clever. Until then, your masters in the Kremlin will present you with a fake Josef Stalin moustache.
Southern Arizona politicians stand for, and have always stood for, more and more illegal immigration.
To all the fools who have already built walls around their own brains:
1. Don’t you think that pissing away 70 billion dollars (or whatever it will really cost when all is said and done) on a stupid, useless wall would preclude money being spent to fix our crumbling infrastructure, including your precious potholes that you are so obsessed with??? Talk about spending other people’s money!
2. Why is it OK for the City Council to piss away millions of taxpayer dollars handing out huge tax breaks to giant corporations, but when they want to take a moral stand on where our money is spent, y’all get your diapers in a bunch?? Your hypocrisy is breathtaking.
3. There is nothing punitive about this resolution. The contractor can choose to work on the border wall, or choose to seek a contract with the city. Nobody’s punishing them–they merely have a choice to make, just like anybody else.
4. The resolution doesn’t affect the amount of City of Tucson spending in any way, merely where money is invested and which contractors receive money. The city always has some discretion in these matters, regardless of the resolution. The resolution merely establishes guidance in this particular area.
5. Steve K was indeed present at the meeting, but he had to leave before the vote was taken. However, he indicated very clearly at the meeting and at the press conference prior to it that he was in favor of the resolution. Regardless, a 6-0 vote is by definition unanimous, and the support for the resolution in the audience was nearly unanimous as well. When someone spoke against the resolution, there was exactly ONE person in the room who clapped. Each time one of the many civic leaders who spoke in favor of the resolution concluded their comments, the room erupted into applause. In this sense, in passing the resolution, the council has done exactly what it was elected to do–represent the people of Tucson.
The PEOPLE of Southern Arizona stand up to Oppose the Wall?
Where does the author of this article get this BS?
On November 7, 2016 the “People of Arizona” resoundingly elected Donald Trump as President, primarily on the basis of his promise to put up the wall and expel Illegal Aliens from this country!
Left Wingers are Delusional; they think just because they SAY something that it becomes TRUE!
In poll after poll, people resoundingly oppose the border wall, and those numbers are even higher in border states like Arizona, and even higher in border communities like Tucson, Nogales, El Paso, et al.
It’s called data, and it exists irrespective of left, right or in between. People oppose the border wall because they know that it does not work, it is hugely expensive, and it does a lot of damage.
Moreover, even right wing security experts and Republican congressmen have stated very clearly that a border wall is “the most expensive and least effective way of securing the border”, so if that’s all you care about (which seems to be the case for a lot of paranoid old white guys), then you are the one who is delusional if you think the wall will do anything to address the problem.
If you like walls so much, why don’t you move to communist Berlin? (Oh wait–they tore that one down…never mind…)
The wall was a major issue in the federal election. Thus being a federal wall, it passed the only poll that matters. The 2016 Presidential Election. Why would you negate the legal results? Votes matter.
The number of people who still think Trmp got more votes still amazes me…
Trump may not have gotten more votes, He simply won the election. Hillary had too many liberals in too few states. That’s how she lost. By the way did somebody here say he won the popular vote, or did they say he won the election?
There is zero chance that this wall will be built. Anyone who has walking around sense knows that building it is impossible. The Indians have already said there will no wall on their land. Border people, who voted for Trump don’t want it on their land. California will never allow it on their border. There are many places in Texas where buildinga wall is virtually impossible. You wall-lovers have not thought this out. You will all be dead before this wall is built. Grow up. Get over it. Your wall is just silly.
Just curious. What have you got against a more secure America?
You want a more secure America and believe a half-assed wall will do the trick?
I have better Ideas and suggestions for Orange Caligula:
Take Russian interference into US elections seriously. They are not our friends and are laughing at you.
Don’t align our climate policy with the only nation on the face of the earth that never signed onto the Paris accords because its brutal dictator was too busy committing genocide against his own people.
Develop even stronger ties with our traditional allies and treaty partners. Duh, these are our friends.
Read the freaking Constitution and if it’s too complicated, hire a tutor.
Stop lying to your base of low information voters with promises you laugh at behind their backs.
Hire come competent help…you need to stop making a fool of yourself
If you would stop listening to MSNBC, you might learn something.
Never listen to MSNBC and can’t stand Rachel Maddow. Never listen to faux news except for an occasional laugh.
Rick. On further reflection I take back what I said. I’ve read many of your posts in the past. Although I rarely agree with you, you make your points without insults or name calling. You and I will never agree, so let’s leave it at that. I did get a kick out of your remark low information voters. A phrase often used by Rush Limbaugh. Since you seem an intelligent person just answer this. How can Trump succeed when even his own party goes against him? How about giving him a chance. If he fails I’ll be first to bitch. Once again please accept my apologizes.
Tania Pissonme:
Dumbshit Drumpf only won the election because it was rigged by Putin and the people here in the USA who love Putin’s way of controlling people.
If you think differently, you’re fooling one person and one person only. Yourself.
CW
Thanks, I appreciate your comment.
Trump, to me, has proven himself unfit for the office of president, and I don’t use the term unfit lightly. I question his mental health as evidenced by his reflexive and counter-productive tweets and failure to understand he won the election and that the campaign is now over. It’s time to govern. He doesn’t have the intellectual capacity or attention span to understand the world around him, the nature of our alliances and their importance to this nation, or the basic operation of the government he is now in charge of. I can go on but you get the gist.
Back in the 60’s when we were storming the ramparts, we would chant “the whole world is watching” as we were beaten and gassed. Today the chant would be different.
The whole world is laughing.
That’s not good for us as the world’s greatest democracy or for his party which is intent on setting the clock back to when America was “great” (sometime between the end of WWII and the passage of the Civil Rights Act). I am an independent, unaffiliated voter veering between progressivism and libertarianism. I hold the Democrats in the same low esteem as their Republican counterparts. Both parties, each in its own way, are circling the drain which definitely is not a great state of affairs heading into perilous waters with a fool as president and two irrelevant political parties with a stranglehold on electoral politics.
I’m the first to admit if I’m wrong. We seem to have a lot in common. I’m independent too, with no use for either party. Trump was not my first choice but he sure was a better option than Hillary. ( My opinion.) I would love to see him given a fair chance, but I’m not about to hold my breath. Dems don’t like him because he’s a Republican. Republicans don’t like him because he’s not part of the Washington establishment. The elite if you will. They’re scared shitless he’s going to upset the apple cart. He was never going to get the nomination. He did. Hillary was going to wipe the floor with him in the general election. She didn’t. Now all of a sudden these clowns are starting to worry that he may do some of the things he said he would. To my credit I spent the first 35 years of my life in N.Y. I’m far from the brightest bulb out there, but what I am is street smart and people smart. You have to be to survive in that crazy place. I may very well be wrong but, I believe that Trump means well and if given a fair shot he could get things done. We’ll see. Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal. We better hope I’m right or all our asses are going to be sucking muddy canal water.
CW
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Nassau County. Dodgers and then the Mets. I blame Hillary’s hubris for the mess we are in and wish she would now simply sit down and shut the fuck up. (I liked the Libertarians but they had the wrong guy heading up the ticket) … (Weld would have done much better in the general election).
That said and back to NY street smarts: one thing I always liked about us New Yorkers is our uncanny ability to see through a brick wall of bullshit. On Trump we disagree…this guy defines a NY bullshitter …but I will bet you a Nathan’s hot dog he is out in under a year through resignation or indictment and impeachment.
Born in the Bronx. Moved to Plainview L.I. when I was 10. Giants then Mets. Just no Yankees. I’d rather have a sister that’s a crack whore than a brother who’s a Yankee fan. Trump resign? No way. Impeached? Possible. Very possible. Granted it would be on trumped up charges ( no pun intended). Throw in a cone of Nathan’s fries and your on.