The following is an AZPM original production.

From the radio studios of AZPM, welcome to the latest edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, the Democratic and Republican nominees in CD7's special election emphasize their differences in the final face-off before the start of early voting.

And Tucson Electric Power has filed a request with the Corporation Commission to provide energy to the site that was going to house Project Blue.

But didn't the city council reject the data centers?

A panel of journalists joins me to discuss those stories and more next on The Press Room.

(upbeat music) Welcome to The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein, our panel of journalists joining me today.

John Washington of AZ Luminaria, Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, and Eric Fink making his debut appearance.

Eric, good luck from KVOA.

Thanks for being here.

It's great to be with you, Steve and everybody, thank you.

John, it was pretty clear that Project Blue was not dead, it was not going away despite that unanimous vote by the Tucson City Council.

And yet it's moving forward, at least it seems to be moving forward in a way that maybe people on the fringes were not necessarily expecting.

What's going on with Beale infrastructure, TEP, and the Arizona Corporation Commission?

Yeah, so some of the context here is that, yeah, I think that the city of Tucson, unanimously rejected moving forward to annex the land to provide water.

We knew before that of potential alternative sites where they could build.

We did not know, but I don't think it's anyone's surprise that there were also alternative methods of going forward on the same identified site.

And that seems to be what's happening now.

Along with TEP, Beale, the developer of this project, has applied to the Arizona Corporation Commission to get energy so they can move forward and build.

I think what this calls to mind is there was a rejection, as I mentioned, from the city council, but there was also a pretty widespread clear rejection from the public.

And I think they were rejecting not only the actual end user, Amazon, and the ultimate project of the data center, but they also really didn't like the secrecy with which this was rolled out, the perfunctory review by the county.

And so it seems like maybe they're gearing up for another fight here to push back.

I would like to actually read one of the things that Beale sent to us.

This was after the city rejected the development.

So it says, "Beale supports and actively seeks "community feedback for all potential developments "and respects the community's input on the proposed use, "etc, etc, etc."

So here we see this posturing towards respecting and wanting to listen to the public.

And yet once again with this project, and this has been a pattern since the beginning, since at least 2023, there have been seemingly backroom closed door movements on this, and now we see that potentially this going forward again.

Yeah, Paul, that doesn't seem consistent based on what John is saying in the spirit there.

But before we get to that, I wanna ask you, as it relates to water being such a concern, we heard that phrase, and I think we've all talked about it, water positivity, which people weren't really necessarily sure what, we know what it's supposed to mean, but whether it can actually happen or not.

Water would still be, one would think, a major issue here, even if this request of the Corporation Commission were to go through, yes, energy, but then we'd see rates go up and the water problem still isn't fixed.

So how do you assess what you're hearing the last couple of days?

Well, I think, I mean, it's probably important to keep in mind, like the phrase in Arizona has always been, "Whisky is for drinking, "water is for fighting."

And water has always been a huge issue, and water's gonna become an increasingly huge issue, because we have the Colorado River Compact, Arizona's gonna get less and less water every year, there's less water, we have a pretty lame monsoon right now, which means there's less water that's come here.

So, I mean, you're talking about kind of presenting this in front of people when it's been a hot, dry year, when there's very little water, Arizona's facing cuts, and they're saying, "Hey, we're going to use, "we're gonna use potable water for two years, "and then we're gonna use recycled water, "but we're gonna build the infrastructure to that."

And people hear that and they think, that means there's gonna be less water.

There's a sense that, not only do we have that, we have to deal with the farming, we have to deal with also the mines that are coming in, there's just gonna be less water.

And the question really is, is how much water are these guys gonna use, and how are they gonna guarantee that everyone else in Tucson still has access to water?

Yeah, Eric, what are your thoughts on this?

And where do they now get it?

Where do they now get the water?

With the two years, it was supposed to be two years of potable drinking water, and then Beale had promised to raise $100 million with the 18-mile reclaimed water pipeline.

But the question now is, if you build in Pima County still, where do you get the water from?

Because, at least my understanding, Tucson water's out of that equation.

Yeah, and also Tucson is under an active management area, so they could be drilling, but there's limited amounts of water that can actually drill out of the ground, or they have to replenish an equal amount.

So are they gonna be able to go to another municipality to try to get the water?

Again, we're seeing a lot of questions come up, and not very straightforward answers.

I think it's worth pointing out one of the initial responses from local government, Pima County Supervisor Andrés Cano, called this collusion.

They said that they, again, are trying to do an end run around public desire and public government and push forward on the project.

One question I do have is whether this is the company just doing the process as it was required.

Is this actually a new request, or is this a request that was baked into their process as they were moving through?

And I'm not quite sure about that, which is part of the problem, I think, is that they haven't said, "Well, we already did need to do this as part of the process as we move forward.

We just wanted to make sure we went through the ACC."

Or is this actually them kind of trying to get around Tucson's no vote?

And I think that's sort of the problem.

And I think this comes up again and again and again, we talk about Project Blue, is people don't trust the company because they feel like they're being, for lack of a better word, sneaky.

Yeah, I mean, the request was filed, co-filed, co-signed by TEP and Beale, and it was filed on August 25th.

So this was long after the no vote.

And maybe, of course, this was in the works before that, but they still went ahead and filed it.

I think I understand that they were ahead, this was at a deadline that they had to make.

So they had to file it on this date, otherwise they would completely miss the opportunity.

And I think a day before the City Council rejected Project Blue earlier this month unanimously, I think it was City Council member Nikki Lee who came out and said, "I've been assured by Beale representatives that this project can go forward in the county, not within city limits.

So if we reject it, it's very likely still alive in some form.

But again, I've been here now eight years in Tucson.

I've never seen such organized opposition to something so quickly.

And it was part of your reporting too, John, at the Luminaria with the reveal of Amazon, that everybody seemed to be so opposed so quickly, and the sticking point's going to still be water because it was at those two public meetings that got awfully rowdy.

Did that opposition exhaust itself?

I mean, that remains to be seen.

I mean, this is a very recent announcement that this is potentially back on track.

Also, we've entered it out of the summer era where people are back to school, and it's just a different environment in Tucson right now.

Will they be able to pick up that steam again?

Let's speculate a little bit, John.

So if this behind the scenes, wherever it may be, continues to go forward, what are the real options?

Because there is a feeling, as Paul said, maybe there is a little bit of God in the eyes and cross, and the tease even if the timing looked questionable.

It doesn't feel like, I mean, I'm just speculating, it's possible that a corporation as large as Amazon might just decide to wait out that energy you're talking about, because we've seen that before.

I think we saw this a little wit Let's knock down ESAs, and then ESAs came back strong because the legislature decided they wanted it.

Is that possible in this situation?

I think, certainly it's possible, but I think, again, to Eric's point, it goes back to water, and this is something that is such a precious resource, and as you also point out, Paul, that we have an absolute scarcity of it right now with the low monsoon season, and just being sucked dry everywhere you go.

I mean, there's the border wall, there's mining, there's Project Blue, and ongoing development, industrial farming.

So I think this is an issue that people can get energized again because it's an existential one for this region.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

I mean, we kinda go through where there's this period of people asking to save water.

We are asked to save water, and people are asked to save water and minimize the amount of water that they're supposed to be using, and then that water inevitably gets given away somewhere.

And so there may be kind of a point where Tucsonans are less willing to do that, and also really face, I think, the point of saying this is an existential thing, this really comes down to it.

What happens if there's just fundamentally less water for everyone else in Tucson?

Who gets cut?

And I think that's what it comes down to.

Eventually, someone's gonna get cut, and we see this in the Phoenix area.

Big housing developments have gotten the water, where farmers end up getting the cutbacks.

So I think when you come and ask Tucsonans, who do you want to sacrifice for, I think when people hear Amazon, that's the last person that they're willing to make an adjustment for.

Eric, wrap us up on this one.

Move back to energy from water, though, going back to the TEP, Corporation Commission situation.

There is a concern this is gonna affect consumers, and yet, I mean, how can it not, right?

How can it not, if the 14% rate that's still, to my knowledge, on the table, we could see organized opposition to that as well.

So, yes, it's very much, we believe, very much still alive in southern Arizona in Pima County, but again, water and energy here, how do you marry the two?

Because I remember talking to Tucson City Manager, Tim Thomure, about this, and he said, economic development and jobs, you have to balance that with water, because economic development and growth, you're gonna be using water.

I think we discuss that every week on the Press Room, just this balance of saving the environment, preserving the quality of life, and then are there enough jobs, and is this the way to create those jobs?

Paul, let's move on to this week's debate, featured AZPM serving as host for this final congressional debate between Adelita Grijalva and Daniel Butierez, final debate before the early ballots had gone out.

I'm gonna transition a little bit with Project Blue.

They didn't talk much about it during the debate, but what struck you after the debate?

Then they discussed it, whether data centers are good or not.

Well, one thing I think was interesting, it's probably one of the few things that they agreed on.

I mean, they agreed with each other in a lot of ways about Project Blue, and also about funding Ukraine.

And with this, they both said, we need some kind of regulation.

Now, it's hard to say what that looks like, I think they used the phrase, I wanna say guardrails.

The sense was, there should be something to do, but I don't know how much clarity we got in terms of what would be the federal government's role, coming from a congressional representative, who would say, this is how we're going to manage an AI-data center in Pima County, and what can be the federal government's role?

One thing to keep in mind is the Trump administration has pushed very hard on AI and data centers.

It's really, it's become part of a strategic goal to do as many as possible.

And also, of course, Amazon has a huge amount of wealth, and also, I guess a little bit in his pocket a bit, about how to work with the Trump administration to do these kinds of things.

So, I think it'd be really hard for a representative to say, hey, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't do this in Pima County.

Yeah, Adelita Grijalva said, if I can, I would do some sort of intervention in Project Blue.

But I think the key point here is if I can, that first part, with you mentioned the executive push, there was an executive order in the midst of the Project Blue fight here, pushing for fast-tracking data centers.

I spoke to Daniel Butierez this morning after the debate, and he told me, actually clarified a little bit, that he's not necessarily against Project Blue going forward.

He did not like the secrecy, and he basically is not really staking a position right now.

Eric?

But I guess my question is, what can Congress do at this point?

It seems to be a local issue.

And with everything else that has Congress so dysfunctional at the moment, both sides, are they going to get into a proverbial fight over a data center here in southern Arizona?

Well, I think that one of the things that Adelita Grijalva was saying during the debate and throughout her campaign, really, is she knows that she'd be entering into a minority in Congress, but she does see that there is a role to be sort of a leader and a voice.

She said this repeatedly at the debate for southern Arizona.

So even if she isn't gonna be able to take concrete congressional action or pass a law, she can still put her neck out a little bit and bring some extra attention to some of these issues, which is something her late father did repeatedly.

In example of how we almost plan these things, let's take a look at a clip that actually combines Colorado River water with a little bit of data center reference.

Some of the most creative conservation systems are happening here in Arizona.

And every basin state must contribute to a long-term solution for sustainability and long-term conservation efforts.

But we also have to rein in these corporations.

Our federal government needs to come in and regulate it for things like the Blue Project that's coming in and they're just gonna take our water.

We need that water for farming.

We need it for industries.

We need it for our tribes.

I think it's wrong that companies are just gonna come in and do whatever they want with our water.

Paul, let me ask you, Colorado River water, so vital, and it's going to affect certain things going forward.

What do you think about the emphasis that Goddard didn't get in the debate?

That kind of discussion about environmental concerns here.

Well, I think one thing that's hard is that because when you get to talking about the Colorado River, it gets very dense very quickly, and it's a hard to talk about during the debate.

And it's also, I think, hard to sort of brief, you know, brief your candidate about all the little vagarities of this.

I mean, very short, Arizona is a junior partner, which means that we get the least amount of water and we are facing the big, one of the biggest cuts now, us and Mexico, because we're at the bottom end of this thing.

When it comes down to it, Colorado River is just so vital to so much of our industry to farming.

The whole Yuma Valley is fed by the Colorado River, but also all the Phoenix, you know, Phoenix in this, so the Colorado River project.

So, you know, you see all these things coming at the same time, and you have to try to talk about all those things, but also try to balance, well, what are we gonna do about it?

I think one thing we noted is like, Butierez has talked about the idea of damming the Santa Cruz.

And yes, you can make dams, but the one thing is that water goes somewhere else.

That water, for example, goes into the Phoenix Valley.

That water actually feeds Phoenix also, and, you know, flows through the whole Tucson area.

So how would you even do something like that?

John, historically did Raul Grijalva.

Obviously we know he was an environmental champion.

But one of the things that, having lived in Arizona way too long, most of my life, the discussion was, was there a member of the congressional delegation who regardless of Republican or Democrat was really kind of a water expert in a sense.

Conservative Senator John Kyle was in on that issue.

He was very environmentally sound.

We're gonna protect Arizona's water, tribal water as well.

There's a thought that maybe there isn't someone there.

Is that something that Grijalva potentially could pick up on?

She did mention that there was a recent agreement to make sure that the tribes, and especially in northwestern Arizona, have their claim to the Colorado River.

And she supports that.

But I think both Grijalva and Butierez were really focusing less on the supply side and more on how much water is being used or wasted in some of their eyes sometimes.

In all these things that we mentioned, potential data centers, the mining kept on coming up repeatedly, as did a few times they addressed the border wall too, which about imminent construction will be using vast amounts of water in the San Rafael Valley.

And that's actually why I mentioned the Santa Cruz, because the Santa Cruz flows through the San Rafael Valley, flows out of the mountains goes into Mexico, and then comes back through Nogales.

It's important that we're going to build a border wall across that watershed.

That's a good transition, Eric, before we go to you on this, I just want to see a clip of what the candidates had to say about immigration, what to do with undocumented immigrants, especially those who've come in the last four years as the number that was brought up.

The militarization of our communities is something that we have to fight against.

And what I will fight for is comprehensive, humane immigration reform with pathways to citizenship.

We have people in our communities that have lived here for over two decades.

What's happened is our courts are overwhelmed, they're packed, we don't have enough judges, we don't have enough attorneys.

And those that came in here the right way get moved to the back of the bus, per se, because criminal cases go prior to civil cases.

So Eric, what did you make of the discussion on that?

It was clear, obviously, there were clear dividing lines here based on their philosophies on border security and immigration, which are vastly different issues, but let's all lump them together.

Yeah, and I thought it was an interesting beginning to the debate on immigration and ICE.

And let's face it, this race, as compressed as it is, is to use a sports analogy, you go into the fourth quarter here.

And you saw Daniel Butierez at times in that section get somewhat, if not confused, I think he even mentioned at one point well on the asylum seeker piece of that, that he's not as familiarized or not as up on this as others are, as the immigration attorneys are.

And that's okay to say, we respect his honesty, but is that the route to take when this is bar none, the highest audience you're gonna get in this general election debate because the timeline is so compressed.

And let's face it, he is down and needs a game-changing moment in that debate.

And it didn't happen.

And especially if you're only watching the first 20 to 30 minutes potentially, and you're focusing on that first part on immigration, Adelita Grijalva was in command.

And you can get a sense that she's very, very comfortable in this setting.

She's done it a lot.

She's a seasoned speaker.

She has a lot of experience in that setting.

We know that the way that voter registration is set up in this district, John, that this is a democratic district to be lost, we all be shocked if Adelita Grijalva lost, but did it hurt Butierez in any way that regardless of what his viewpoints are, I guess I'm going back to the Republican primary debate, he chose to use his closing statement to actually say something nice about Raul Grijalva.

He's not gonna be a bomb thrower in a debate like this.

If he's not necessarily prepared or has strong answers on things like asylum, really his only chance, the way politics are these days, is to say something nasty and he really didn't do that.

I mean, what is, they've entered in this final stage of the campaign and I think for Grijalva, it's to seem congressional, not make any major faux pas.

For Butierez, who really has very limited chances just mathematically, is to get his message out.

And he started with talking about homelessness and citing some of his own experience and that is something that he repeatedly returned to and has been one of the central parts of his campaign.

I think he made his message clear there.

As to how effective it may be in winning over any voters, yeah, we'll see I guess.

Yeah, Paul, one thing on foreign policy that came up, which was a disagreement that we didn't realize maybe how broad the disagreement was between Daniel Hernandez and Adelita Grijalva, she came out very strongly.

Did she use the word genocide that relates to Israel and Gaza?

Because she was very strong about what she was saying.

And did that surprise you that she came out there, as that, not that she had that opinion, but that venue she chose to talk about it that much?

No, I mean, I think that it's clear that the sort of, there's a shift in how people are talking about what's happening.

I mean, one thing she was able to talk about is that the UN has said there's gonna be a famine.

There's a famine happening in Gaza.

People are gonna die because of that.

And so she was able to really go for a specific, you noticed during the debate, she also wanted to make sure that she was very clear that she wasn't making this comment because she was being anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli.

She was saying, this is a problem, we need to do something about this.

We need to use, the US needs to use its influence to change the situation or thousands of people are going to die.

And one of the things I thought was interesting, she says to the reporters, somebody said, is this a stronger message?

She said, well, no one has really asked me this question.

And it's sort of fascinating that she might have managed to sort of duck this fairly hard, dense question, really, really comes down to it through these other debates where Daniel Hernandez, of course, really pushed it and actually kind of put in his foot in it with one voter and Bisbee.

And former candidate, Jorge Rivas in the primary as well.

He was the one who actually asked the other candidates to weigh in on it.

The one thing that she, one tactic she used when she was talking about Gaza was she brought it back to a personal level.

And she talked about, you know, seeing kids as a mother of young children is just devastating, seeing kids who are undergoing famine right now.

She did the same about immigration.

And she said, you know, they're attacking and going after, ICE attacking and going after people who look like me.

I think that is why the debate focused on immigration for a full 20 minutes, I mean, more than a third of the entire debate.

People are really nervous about what's going on.

Seeing this immigration as sort of the spearhead for further crackdowns as, you know, evidenced by movements in DC and potentially Chicago right now.

Eric.

And interestingly enough, each question she was asked, she brought it back to the Trump White House and the Trump administration and Southern Arizonans and how it's affecting voters here, not so much her opponent, Butierez.

So I thought that was an interesting dichotomy where she tried to turn everything around.

And yes, if she gets elected, she will be in the minority as Democrats now are in the minority in the House and the Senate, of course, the White House.

But she turned everything around And I thought it was a very strong opening when she said, "They're going after people who look like me."

That was a jarring moment where people took a moment and said, "Hmm."

Yeah.

All right, let's spend the last few minutes on a judge rejecting Sadie Shaw's voter disenfranchisement claims.

19 vote difference between Councilman Kevin Dahl and Sadie Shaw.

Let's just review briefly, Paul.

What was she saying?

Who is she saying got disenfranchised?

And I guess when it's a 19 vote margin, every little bit could make a difference.

I mean, even a tiny little margin is really gonna make the difference.

And what we really get down to is there was a mistake at the Pima County Recorder's office in their database.

They sent the wrong information to the city, which meant when they sent the ballots out, in some cases they sent people ballots with the wrong party member, ballots they didn't ask for.

So there was kind of a little bit of a problem here.

The county and the city tried to kind of work through it, but what it meant was, is a roughly 358 votes, voters didn't get the right ballot or didn't get set up the way they were.

And so Shaw's argument was, hey, these could be my voters.

And then when we went through the court case, there was 58 people who got the wrong kind of ballot and 18 people who were really affected.

The judge just wasn't convinced by their arguments.

When it came down to it, they just didn't show their case that these were gonna be her votes and that these people were actually going to go vote and didn't vote because of what happened with the Pima County Recorder's office.

And in fact, we learned in the hearing that only three people affected out of those 70, out of those potential 76 voters tried to actually vote.

In fact, we had one witness who said, well, and I came back in August 1st and my ballot was underneath the pile of mail and hey, it happens to all of us, right?

But it wasn't a super strong argument and ultimately the judge tossed it out.

So John, what's the difference if one were to be in office in terms of, I'm thinking generational difference between Kevin Dahl and Sadie Shaw, is that the difference?

Do they agree on 99% of issues?

They do agree on a lot of issues.

Recall that Kevin Dahl was the single, the lone no vote on the wash ordinance to ban camping and washes.

Homelessness was the central part of Sadie Shaw's campaign and finding exactly where the daylight lies between them is a little bit difficult.

I think it is generational.

I think they come from different perspectives, but in a number of cases, they ultimately come to the same side of the issues.

I mean, Dahl is also an environmentalist.

He very much was against Project Blue.

Sadie Shaw was clear on that during the campaign as well.

So, and we see this increasing progressive turn in city council.

Would there be a substantive difference if Shaw got it instead of Dahl?

It's not exactly clear to me to say.

Yeah, Paul, we just have a few seconds left, but in your Sentinel story, you mentioned that the new primary election had Shaw won the case would not be held until 2026.

And I was trying to figure out, does that mean Dahl would stay in office until the primary election?

That would have...

Essentially, Dahl would stay in office until next March.

At which point they would have another primary.

And then we would of course go forward to the general election, which wouldn't happen till May.

And so we really wouldn't end up with a new city council member until May of next year.

And the city was really said, noticed that, and this is gonna cost a significant amount of money and really put a long delay in this, which is one of the reasons that the judge said, hey, maybe this doesn't disenfranchise voters.

It disenfranchised the voters who did vote in this election.

And then Friday we will get recount results we presume.

Correct.

Okay.

Paul Ingram, Tucson Sentinel, John Washington, AZ Luminaria, Eric Fink, Eric, you did a great job first time.

Thank you KVOA.

It's great to be here.

Thank you all for being here on the Press Room.

Thank you for joining us for the Press Room as well.

Back next week, I'm Steve Goldstein.

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