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♪ RHYTHMIC BRASS MUSIC ♪ ♪ RHYTHMIC BRASS MUSIC ♪ Welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm your host, Steve Goldstein, coming up with a fight of a proposition 414 and ICE makes its presence felt here in Tucson.

But first let me introduce our panelists for the day.

Yana Kunichoff, AZ Luminaria, Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star, and Zac Ziegler of AZPM.

Thank you all for being here today.

Paul, let me start with you as to what's going on with Prop 414.

The sides are digging in, but a couple of days ago, interesting development to Democratic lawmakers from Southern Arizona, Alma Hernandez, Consuelo Hernandez, came out very strongly against Prop 414.

Are we seeing strange bedfellows with this particular proposition?

- Yeah, I think we are.

I mean, there's just different relationships in different sides.

I mean, you see the Arizona Metro Chamber of Commerce, have really come out against it, but you also see other sides, like the Southern Arizona Leadership Council.

There's parts, one of their gentlemen who's actually with the ASALC is actually on the Pro Committee.

So you're seeing lots of different relationships in different sides.

I mean, it really comes down to how the money is gonna be spent, a significant chunk of it is gonna be spent on its public safety, and then some other priorities.

And there's really a big argument about whether this is gonna be an aggressive sales tax, whether that's gonna hurt people who are at the lower end of the income spectrum.

And so there's been really kind of a shift about who wants to support it and who doesn't want to support it.

It's something that city leaders really want.

It's something that Tucson police really want.

But you see even there, there's just some shifts about whether or not that Prop 414 is enough.

Yeah, those are some important details, exactly, from a political standpoint.

What's it out to you about the people involved in the press conference?

Yeah, as I was helping our reporter who covered it, edit her stories on it, I noticed there was a lot of shots at the city council and Tucson leadership needs to be handling things this way.

The thing that caught my eye was the talk of that.

Alma Hernandez's district overlaps with Raul Grijalva's current congressional district.

I wonder when you see political infighting, maybe she's considering a run for what will be in two years a vacancy.

Yeah, Tim, that's interesting thought, considering the politics on both sides of this.

Well, yeah, I mean, the thing that you have to step back and recognize with the Hernandez trio, there's the two sisters and Daniel, the brother, and the Grijalva faction is that they are constantly at odds.

They are competitors.

And so it's not surprising that they would take a position that's opposed to what the mayor, who is a Grijalva ally, is pushing.

I'm not saying they're being insincere.

They also have, it's politically consistent with kind of pro-business positions that they have generally taken down through the years, but it's also natural.

And yes, the open seat is a looming, looming over all these political discussions.

Yeah, and Yana, the idea of sales tax course being regressive is a major theme of the argument on this.

But I think there were some people who were thinking, well, in order to pay for police and fire and assist those who are unhoused right now, this could be something in a left of center area, could be something that would pass.

But some of these arguments are really making arguments that Democrats would not be in favor of.

How do you see what you're hearing so far?

Yeah, I mean, I do think this has been interesting to see the response from all sides.

I mean, I think that maybe like the most interesting thing that I've heard that I've thought of is a lot of the groups who are mutual aid groups, who work with unhoused communities, who are pushing for more affordable housing and more support for those communities, I think are weighing what do they see as possible harm for more policing or more surveillance that this measure would also invest in.

And so I think it's like an interesting space where the decision that they've made is that even if those communities would get more investment, the possible harm from more surveillance technology is not worth it.

And so they've come out against the measure.

I thought that was fascinating.

- One of the conversations we had last week, we had a pro and a con on Prop 414.

One of the things that was brought up is the idea that if this sales tax passes, that Tucson will have the highest sales tax of any city with more than 75,000 people in the state.

And they don't want that designation there.

And then also the discussion of the RTA to extend that.

Is that keep that sales tax level too?

So in some ways it really just becomes like a lot of discussion to politics these days and economic question, doesn't it?

Yeah, I mean, I think it does.

I mean, one of the things that's interesting about the Metro Chamber of Commerce going back to them is because they were against Prop 414, but in almost in the same news release, they also talked about how we need to support the RTA.

And it's, well, both of them are sales taxes that are used to do investments over long-term.

It's interesting to think of if one's problematic, if 414 is problematic, then what about the RTA?

Which I think is a question maybe we need to talk about is that there's been other kinds of taxes like this, but having them all happen at once, I could see where people would really be against that having it hit in the same.

Yeah, and especially with the sales tax in Tucson where you have half of the Metro area is outside of that limit, all of a sudden, you just have to cross an imaginary line and your sales tax gets a little cheaper.

Maybe it's not a big deal for when you're buying a new jacket, but it's a big deal when you're buying a new car.

For sure.

I mean, another way of looking at this is that the 9.2% sales tax that would exist in the city of Tucson if we passed Prop 414 could be very short-lived.

I mean, we could reject the RTA extension when that comes up, and then we'd be back to 8.7% next year.

Or there are other temporary sales taxes in effect in Tucson that will run out.

Generally, they try to re-up them, but there's a zoo one that I doubt we will be able to-- Yeah, but transportation, I mean, I would think that would not be a great idea to let that one go away.

Sure, but it was intended as a fix, touch all the roads in the city, and so, conceivably, theoretically, at least we'll be starting from a new good grounding point.

Yeah, Yana?

From reporting on both of these measures, I think there's a lot more people are supportive of the RTA taxes.

They can understand the concrete changes it will make.

They can see a road that will be widened, a wildlife crossing that otherwise might not exist, and I think people are just struggling to do that with Prop 414, even as there is this looming reality of what the state flat tax has created, and then the federal budget cuts.

I think there's an economic reality that is really worrying, but I think people are strugglin to feel like there is a benefit to Prop 414 from what I'm seeing.

Yeah, and I may have a selective memory, but the only real temporary sales tax I can remember was when Governor Jan Brewer wanted to have a short-term sales tax to pay for education when we were in the midst of the Great Recession, so I would think, Tim, since you're our columnist on board, I'm gonna ask you to express an opinion.

Okay.

And everyone else can too, if they like.

Does this mix of strange bedfellows and the Hernandez versus Romero, et cetera, does that bode ill for the outcome of this election in March, or because turnout's gonna be low, it may not matter?

Yes, I think so, because as Yana mentioned, essentially there are opponents on the left and the right, so there are the mutual aid groups, the Pima County Green Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Tucson, Brand, a series of groups that alone may be rather small, but they have a critique from the left that may resonate, and I attended a couple events this week about Prop 414 and was surprised to find that among the relative few people who attended, questions from the left about whether too much money was going to police and that sort of thing were prominent.

From the right, I mean, it's relatively from the right, but is the kind of business groups, the Chamber, Tucson Association of Realtors, Arizona Multi-Housing, the Arizona Lodging and Visitors Association, those are the ones I understand are funding the big anti-campaign, and so yeah, they're squeezing essentially the Democratic power structure, the mayor and council really, and the unions, the public safety unions are the real powers trying to push this through, but they are being squeezed.

Guys, any thoughts on whether this hurts it, helps it?

I think just like writing about unhoused communities and housing insecurity, I think like over 13% of people in Pima County are late on their rent at any one point is a recent report that I read.

I just think people, it's like a region that does struggle with poverty, and so I think taking that seriously as a concern, even as the investment might support some of those groups, I just think is important.

Yeah, Paul, earlier this week, longtime Tucson restaurant known for serving Indigenous and Mexican food was visited by members of Homeland Security Investigations.

Instead of ICE officially, I guess, to presumably look into the legal status of employees, you did a great story on this for the Sentinel.

So for viewers and listeners who don't know the restaurant, why is that especially significa to begin with?

What's its history?

Well, La Indita's been around for about 40 years, and it's one of those restaurants that's not only been kind of long-served, but it's family-run, it's been run by the family in the entire time, and they've also really worked with activist groups, other communities, they've hosted lots of things, they've been really part of the community.

They used to be based on Fourth Avenue, then they moved a little bit away, but they're kind of in the same area, and they've just one of those places that's always been part of the heart of Tucson, and so what's interesting is how that, HSI agents, ICE agents, and we'll very quickly say, HSI is ICE.

HSI likes to sort of separate itself as ICE because they're the investigators rather than people who do removal operations, but they're all part of ICE.

And they really came, and they did what's called a notice of inspection, and what that means is it's kind of like an audit, but it's an audit of your employees.

It's saying you need to prove that your employees are legal to work here, and lots and lots of businesses do this, and lots of businesses do this thing called eVerify, which is a federal database that you can actually check with, but you're not required to use eVerify, and La Indita didn't, but they've been keeping their records this entire time, and they were kind of, in a way, preparing for this to happen.

It just happened to happen this week, which caught everybody by surprise.

And eVerify, part of Prop 314, if we were to actually see all of that go into effect.

Right, right, so exactly.

eVerify's been around for two decades, but it's now become required under the new state law.

Before the rest of the panel goes in, I wanna ask, how did the owner describe the scene to you and what it felt like?

She felt really intimidated, because all of a sudden, you have three law enforcement officers show up, and they're kind of there, standing in her lobby, waiting for her.

She came in, essentially, but there was also this sort of comedy of errors, also, at the same time, because these guys had a document that didn't have the right name, it didn't have the right information, and her lawyer basically said, "Well, this looks sketchy," and she sent them back, and they actually, they also didn't know the name of their own lawyer, or their own office that's the legal office, and so they left, and then came back an hour later, to then serve.

Did you also have a quote in there about how, "Oh, you're the first person who's had an attorney here."

Yes, right, exactly, and exactly.

One of the, and of course, she called her attorney, because she has an attorney, a good friend of hers has been in the restaurant for the last decade, and of course, called her up and said, "Can you come down?"

It really shows that ICE is not used to dealing with people who know their rights, and with people who have, maybe have an attorney present, who will say, "Well, let me see the documents."

Even that, there was kind of a funny bit, because the ICE agents didn't wanna talk to the lawyer, because they didn't think she had the right form filled out, which is a form that you use to become a lawyer, an attorney representing somebody in an immigration court, and so even then, they didn't seem to entirely be prepared, or ready to have a little bit of opposition, even kind of a polite opposition, which is, she has to turn those documents in, she has to respond, in fact, today, but she was-had her attorney kind of hold them up a little bit.

Yeah, and you kind of wonder how much this is about the show and having the vehicles outside.

There was the video that [ UNCLEAR ], the Arizona Republic, had on their website a week or two ago of a home raid, where they were actually using one of the SWAT-style vehicles to raid the house, and it seemed to very much so be about putting on that show.

It just kind of takes me back to SB 1070, when you would see Joe Arpaio doing similar things, and you would see raids.

I was in college at the time, and I remember seeing raids in Flagstaff at restaurants, and it was even up there in this small community, with not a ton of media, it was still very showy.

Yeah, and what's interesting about what Paul was saying is that obviously there are a lot of people who are unhappy about the idea of what the Trump administration is doing, the idea that ICE would go to a restaurant like this, but also the idea that there's so much incompetence attached to it.

I'm not sure if that makes it scarier or not, the idea that here's this group comes, and then they're not really quite sure, at least based on who Paul spoke to, just sounds like they didn't know what they were doing.

I think a lot of the dynamic that I have been seeing is that someone sees an authority figure or a van, they're not sure who it is, there's a fear that it's a raid, you find out later that actually it was TPD arresting someone or some other law enforcement agency.

So I do think that these experie people have, there is a lot of fear, but then that fear you actually get more information and see how things play out, I think is giving us a realer understanding of what is happening on the ground and what is legally possible in this moment.

Then I think just like a lot of bluster will tell us, but I also think, yeah, I think just from some of the reporting I've done, I think the question of how different agencies are collaborating with each other, it's like still hard to understand.

And that to me is like the open question about what this means for people on the ground.

What I guess were what, less than a month into the Trump administration were already seeing this like they said they were gonna do, sort of, right?

Yeah, I mean, we have to recognize that this kind of thing was going on before deportation operations were going on, before in large numbers under Biden.

And there was a period right after Trump took office when everything was ICE.

There were rumors rampant about ICE being everywhere.

And it turned out not to be true in the vast majority of cases.

Now HSI is part of Homeland Security, can function as immigration agents, but they don't, I mean, the thrust of their investigations tends to be things like sex trafficking, human trafficking, drug trafficking, that sort of thing.

And to me, it brings to mind the question about the demand on the part of the Trump administration to get more numbers.

And what I understand from just reading news sources is their effort to draw in people, other federal agents, DEA, FBI, HSI could be more HSI participation perhaps.

And you're gonna have people who don't know what they're doing, who fumble because they've never done this before.

And so it leads to maybe more arrests, but maybe fewer good arrests.

And the show, as some of you have mentioned, is part of the point, not necessarily the result, although I'd like more numbers as I understand it.

Paul, does this scare other businesses potentially?

Is this part of it as well?

I mean, I think for a lot of businesses, there's sort of realization that they need to be prepared.

They need to be ready for this kind of audit.

And they need to be, and maybe kind of think about what restaurants they're going to.

It's not clear to me what restaurants, they've gone to lots of places.

I have a good sort of subtle map of where they've gone.

One of the things that's sort of tricky is that there are businesses that have certainly had notices of inspection who have never said anything about it because they don't want to be, they don't wanna be in trouble.

They don't want people to feel like they have people who are working there without authorization.

They're just scared.

And so we don't actually, I think, have a really good idea of how many of these inspections have done.

And we don't really have great historical numbers about that because the agency has really not been good about saying how many notice of inspections does it release.

And trust me, I've asked.

Yeah.

Zac, final thought on this sort of general topic.

I know that The Buzz talked with Tom Horne.

And we're talking about going to restaurants, but there's also a concern about places of worship, schools, what did he have to say about whether parents should start worrying about this?

Yeah, we actually asked them about what you're hearing from districts like TUSD where they say they will comply if there's a warrant.

They will be asking their district attorneys to be present.

And Horne really echoed that point that that's the way to go.

He talked a lot about, you know, I don't want any student to be intimidated or any family to hold a child out of school because they're scared of immigration status.

Kind of surprising from a guy who's a dyed in the wool Republican to talk about that, he was very concerned.

He also did say he doesn't think that if ICE comes into a school, he doesn't think they'll be going after students.

He's thinking there's more of a concern about them going after adults.

And maybe he talked about almost kind of like what you think about with churches where you have people kind of claiming sanctuary in a church.

And you wonder whether he has any influence on that at all.

I mean, he may be wishing that doesn't happen, but doesn't mean it won't happen.

Yeah, yeah.

But it is, yeah, he is backing schools that are going to take the tact of we will do what we are legally mandated to do via the warrant.

Yeah, Tim, I want to spend a couple minutes on another federal related issue and that affects the campus where we're sitting right now on the U of A campus.

And it's affecting universities and colleges all over the country.

We had basically grants, et cetera, frozen by the Trump administration.

A lot of research that benefits a lot of people based on things that are done at universities and it's hitting U of A, it's gonna hit ASU as well.

What are your general thoughts on this and what impact it is having right now already?

I mean, a lot of these things just have a chilling effect, it feels.

Yeah, well, it's not just that.

Definitely it has a chilling effect.

My colleague, Prerana Sannappanavar, who covers the U of A, she is reporting today about jobs lost already as a result of the freezing or cutting of USAID grants.

But that's really maybe the tip of the iceberg is the cliche to use here.

The thing to understand is that universities, research universities like the U of A float on grant funding.

I mean, the U of A preliminarily announced in June or earlier, no, in December, that as of June last year, they believed they had received a billion dollars in research grant funding for the previous fiscal year.

That was the first time ever.

I don't think that was ever confirmed yet and it's not gonna happen again.

So what happened recently is the NIH, National Institutes of Health said, you can no longer charge the high rates of overhead or indirect costs is how it's phrased, that usually come with National Institutes of Health grants.

So let's say the grant is a million dollars for a certain researcher to do a certain project and all its expenses.

On top of that, the NIH has a practice of negotiating with each university an overhead amount.

At the U of A, that's 54.5% right now.

And so as a result, you would also get, what is that, $545,000 in addition to the million for that grant.

Well, the Trump administration wants to cut that down to 15% for all NIH grants.

So that would mean $150,000 instead of 545 in this case, which is a massive effect.

It would be one thing if it could be ratcheted down over time, but to do it suddenly, now granted it's been enjoined by the courts, but if it happens and it could happen when these contracts run out, then it'll have a massive effect.

We've also concerned that the Trump administration might not abide by these decisions by judges as much as they possibly can avoid them.

So that's a very big story to watch and thanks for bringing that up.

Yana, I wanna spend a couple minutes on the reporting you've done, the Pima County Library System.

Last fall, we had Yana to talk about how the public was up in arms that almost secretively, Pima County was looking to close library branches because they were not used enough, they were too expensive, couldn't find enough employees.

And now there's a new survey that has gone out.

What can you tell us about the survey?

Yeah, so it's sort of the survey, sort of the relaunching of this new process to ask what is the future of Pima County Library.

So the report in August, which I saw when it was shared with Jan Lesher, so was public, but I think not fully, I don't think they meant to have it shared widely yet, but it mentioned really big issues with staffing, big issues with the main downtown library and all the upkeep it needs, and sort of this stress on staff for all the social needs that they provide, that the library provides for a lot of communities, including unhoused communities.

So this survey is kind of the official relaunching of planning for the future.

It doesn't have a lot of kind of these existential questions, it asks how often do you go to the library, do you go to talks, how far would you travel for events, but I think it formally means that the library is again planning and it's a way for people to start weighing in.

You had a quote from the Deputy County Administrator, Steve Holmes, "We're not closing any libraries."

So how did this, and with the financial concerns, if you're not gonna close any libraries, what are they gonna do?

So I think actually the library system, because it's funded by a special tax, I think is, it seems like from what I hear is doing well, or I think at least that tax is meeting the needs of the library.

I think the financial constraints, as I understand them are, that Valdez needs, which is the main library needs, has so much deferred maintenance, that it just needs a ton of money to be fixed.

And I think that the question of what happens there, yeah, I think you would just have to go to the Board of Supervisors and ask them to put a lot of funding in for a building that people, I think, believe in emotionally, but that the library says, maybe we don't need as big of a building or other.

Yeah, any thoughts on this, guys?

I will say the spreadsheet in your story, if you're a spreadsheet fan, I love that.

But talking about Valdez, yeah, that building was built in 1990, so 35 years, it's getting a little old.

The other thing that I wonder about is on the library's history timeline, the last bond that they mentioned was in 2000.

I wonder if there is some thought that it's been 25 years without any sort of big bond for a library project, maybe they're starting to try and angle for that.

Interesting, yeah.

Okay, our last couple of minutes, and I'm a political junkie, as maybe you guys have learned, maybe you haven't.

Congressman Siskemani already has a new Democratic challenger, Democrat Joanna Mendoza, child of farm workers, a veteran.

I don't know if any of you guys have dug into this yet, but I was curious that here's a challenger that is not Kirsten Engel.

I don't know, bro, what do you think about that?

No, I mean, I think that's really interesting.

I mean, you know, Kirsten Engel ran twice against Juan Ciscomani and tried real hard, but it couldn't make it happen.

And to have somebody jump out, it's also sort of fascinating.

I mean, we just, we want just one.

His election in November, and he's already facing an opposition in January, they're gonna make him work hard for this seat.

You know, it's a tough spot.

I mean, you know, that part of Cochise County and the part that he has that goes into Tucson, you know, is really kind of a pretty tough district.

It's, you know, he's managed to hold onto it, but you could see that it could slip around a little bit for him.

He really is gonna have to work hard to raise some money and really run against her.

And that maybe she may not be the only competitor against him.

He might also see someone who runs against him from the right.

Well, I'm curious to see when someone like that gets out early, obviously money needs to be raised.

So does that make her, Ms. Mendoza, more of a contender potentially, because she's jumping in early.

I would think so, but you know, who knows what other names, especially bigger names, if bigger names come in, then yeah, then they would have a chance to raise money and make a bigger splash.

She has run for office before for the legislative seat in that area.

I remember covering her and thought she was a pretty decent candidate.

And she has a compelling background in that she's rural.

She's gonna get the urban Democratic votes, but perhaps coming from the rural area, she could also pull some rural votes.

And also in that district, she's a 20 year Marine veteran.

So that could be big when you have two military bases in the area.

Yeah, I mean, Ciscomani, he's in a tough spot.

He's easily won primary elections over candidates challenging him from the right in the last two elections, primary elections.

And then he's eked out victories over Kirsten Engel in the general election.

And the question is, to me, whether in his performance, whether he chooses to act in such a way that he's gonna take the easy way to the general by supporting whatever Donald Trump wants, or to take the hard way to the general, but get a better, easier victory then.

Well, we just have a few seconds, but that's what stood out to me when, once Ciscomani was there, when Donald Trump was signing the executive order related to transgender athletes.

So that seemed like he was trying to go right on that one.

Ciscomani stood up and was happy to have been involved in the co-sponsorship of another bill.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see if he can handle the right or the left.

Panel, thank you as always.

Yana Kunichoff, AZ Luminaria, Paul Ingram, Tucson Sentinel, Tim Seller of the Arizona Daily Star, Zac Ziegler of AZPM, you guys are terrific.

Thanks very much for your time today.

And thank you for viewing, thank you for listening.

Another edition of The Press Room is coming up next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein, enjoy the rest of your night.