Ronstadt Transit Center Redevelopment Back in Play (Commentary)

Picture of the Peach Properties Proposal, showing the bus lane, for picking up and dropping off passengers, that would replace the current transit center.

Not long ago it seemed as if the long threatened destruction of the Ronstadt Transit Center had been consigned to the dustbin of history. But this is not the case. The City Council voted on Thursday to approve a 168 page redevelopment agreement with Peach Properties, a local real estate firm that plans to raise …

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The Class and Cultural Cleansing of Downtown Tucson Nears Completion

Picture of window of Shot in the Dark Cafe showing "open 24 hours", "we never sleep and neither should you", etc.

In his January 13 column for the Arizona Daily Star, “Downscale spots in downtown Tucson in danger of disappearing,” Tim Steller makes two important points: 1) It’s possible that soon there won’t be any places downtown “that don’t cater to moneyed people”; and 2) The overuse of tax incentives offered by the city of Tucson …

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“Sister” Publications Tucson Weekly and ITB Now Incestuous

Logos of Tucson Weekly and Inside Tucson Business

“Just like Tucson itself, the upcoming TENWEST Festival is both expanding and thriving” opened an article in the October 11th Tucson Weekly, and I had to look twice to see if it was the Weekly I was reading. Tucson, thriving? Who would write that besides a PR firm? But then I looked at the adjoining …

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My Not So Merry Correspondence with our Public Library; or, Virtue Unrewarded

January 23, 2018 Dear Devoted Reader, For a number of years now I have been describing and protesting the intentional degradation of Pima County Public Library as a library (that is, a place that should first and foremost have a variety of books and magazines, as opposed to a place that has meeting rooms, “entrepreneurial …

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The Shadowy Fundamentalist Organization at the Heart of Government (and Mike Pence is a Member)

Picture of Vice President Mike Pence

Given that our new Vice President is a member of the powerful, but shadowy, Washington, D.C. evangelical group “The Family” (officially, the Fellowship Foundation), Jeff Sharlet’s 2008 book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power would seem worth looking at again. And it is hardly a reassuring re-read for anybody already …

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