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 city of Tucson has already taken steps to prepare to annex land that would house Project Blue if the planned data centers are approved.

Also, the ACLU is suing the Pima County Sheriff's Department to learn about how deputies have been communicating with federal immigration officials.

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.

Panel of journalists joining me today includes Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, Yana Kunichoff of AZ Luminaria, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star, and Paola Rodriguez of AZPM News.

Thank you all for being here today.

We had John Washington on the program last week talk about the reporting the two of you had done in finding out that Amazon Web Services is behind Project Blue.

Now you've done additional reporting related to the annexation.

Some of it sounds like, yeah, this is the process that needs to take place, but people are also asking more questions like, are you guys putting the cart before the horse here?

So explain what's going on.

Yeah, so we've been really interested in following every beat of the Project Blue process just because there's so much public interest and so many lingering questions about it.

So our latest story was basically sharing the document that the city has filed to start the formal annexation process of the land, which right now is owned by Beale Infrastructures and would eventually go to Tucson.

So as I understand it, that is a part of the process for the city to discuss at it's August 19th City Council meeting, whether they want to move ahead with this process to determine whether the land owners in the area are okay with the annexation, the primary land owner is Beale Infrastructure, but it is moving the process forward.

And I think in a climate of not enough public trust, people are worried that it's moving too fast.

Yeah, Tim, it struck me that that's the kind of question people would ask that is the city council, I said cart before the horse again, annexation vote hasn't taken place yet, won't for a couple of weeks.

We've already seen a bunch of council members say, I'm not really sure about this.

So when you hear about this kind of thing, does it give you pause as well?

It's another thing that seems a little strange.

Well, yeah, I mean, maybe one way of thinking about this is to think about the council as representatives versus the management of the city government.

And so this is an action by the management of the city government.

And the city manager, Tim Thomure, has appeared rather supportive of the project in his public statements.

And so it's like kind of full speed ahead from the management side, whereas, you know, and I mean that in a bureaucratic way, like just taking the steps, not thinking about, you know, what the vote might be.

Whereas on the representative side, the elected officials are like, well, we're not ready to, you know, annex anything.

So yeah, I think that, you know, the opposition and the council could definitely slow down any process that's begun here.

Yeah, Yana.

- Yeah, and just to say that I think they could vote on whether to take the next step in the annexation process.

And they could also vote to put this back for more study.

They could vote to have more public hearings.

There's a lot of different things the city council could do on August 19th, the next time they will formally are expected to make an action.

But Paul, what are the risks there though?

Well, the risk, I mean, for the being conferred for everyone is that there's a lot of public interest in it.

There's a lot of public fury about that.

I mean, there was a hearing last week where Tim Thomure really had to sort of lay out the city's initial case for it.

And there were lots of people who were very frustrated.

I mean, it was a meeting that was kind of raucous, you know, and where everyone was kind of being difficult.

There was actually calls where people were clearly mad and thought that at one point Tim was lying to them.

You know, so there were lots, I think one gentleman said, "Are you playing me?"

You know, so there's really a lot of pressure to this.

And people were really unsure because there's applicable questions about what the place means.

How much water it's gonna use, how much electricity it's gonna use, which is both a massive, and also how much pollution it's gonna cause.

And there's all really big questions that need to be answered before it moves forward.

Yeah, Paola, what do you think?

-I just think on the other hand, we're seeing hearing from business leaders that are saying like, "We need to have the data center for jobs and the construction jobs that come with it."

And there's this reputation that Pima County has where it's not very business friendly.

And so if, you know, this project doesn't move forward, does it deter future businesses from wanting to build in Tucson?

Yeah, that's the balance we talked about.

Last week, I think the program I brought up the Navajo Generating Station.

It's one of those where it's probably horrible for the environment.

And yet that's an area that really needs jobs and needed jobs.

Is Project Blue similar to that in some way?

Where, boy, if this is a project you don't move forward with, what's the next big thing?

And yet people have justifiable concerns, Tim, about when it relates to water and energy, we're in the desert and we're in a drought.

Yeah, well, I think maybe data centers are a different kind of animal.

We're lucky in Tucson in that we came into this business of data centers after a lot of communities, not just in the United States, but around the world, had dealt with them and come to see the shortcomings of this kind of project.

I mean, I think that's why you see Beale infrastructure coming in with all these offers of building a pipeline, because they knew that they wouldn't get anything if they didn't come in with a decent offer.

That doesn't mean that it's a good enough offer.

But so, yeah, there's a chance that these data centers over the next 10 to 20 years will become obsolete.

So it's really unclear.

This is a huge investment to make.

I wouldn't consider it a referendum on our business climate because of the type of business that it is.

Okay, Paul.

I think that's a really good poi one thing to be clear is like, this is for Amazon Web Services, which is a little bit different.

I think initially people thought it was for AI.

And this has been an industry that feels, maybe even it's a little bit of a bubble.

There's been a lot of sudden building for this, where Amazon Web Services is something that kind of backs a lot of the modern internet.

Lots and lots of services that people use every day rely on Amazon Web Services.

So it'll see whether this is something that lasts for a long time.

But I think Tim makes a great point.

This is an industry that's also unchanging.

And it maybe kind of has a bit of a credibility gap because the industry has often had real problems in other cities it's been, where it looks like these guys are really trying to make, put their best foot forward, but that may not be enough.

I think just one other thing to add too, when we're having this conversation about business within Arizona, I was talking with AZPM's climate reporter, Katya Mendoza, about the types of businesses that are in Arizona and it's really hard to find an industry that doesn't really utilize water in this day and age, right?

We're talking about artificial intelligence, data centers, even farming, mining.

I mean, I think it's maybe more of a question of, are there other techniques that could be used to help lessen this type of usage?

Yeah, another example that came to town recently or is in process is American Battery Factory, which is a battery manufacturing complex that is in process by the airport.

And it does consume quite a bit of water, but a lot less than the data center would.

Yeah, Katya, what are your thoughts on that?

- I think that's a good thing.

Yeah, I think also Pima County does have above average levels of poverty, so I think it is real to say that jobs are needed for this community and for folks to stay in this community, especially with the rising rent prices.

But I think the data center has, is $65,000 is the average wage.

And so I think the question is, in 10 years, what kind of housing will that get you in Tucson if that job is still there in 10 years?

But Tim, your point was interesting about, and I'm phrasing it this way, that you're almost learning from other places.

Phoenix has many, many data centers.

The idea is that maybe what this approach is, maybe the same mistakes will not be made with Project Blue potentially.

Yeah, and the great thing is that Tucson is in a decent negotiating position.

I mean, what do we get out of it?

It's relatively few jobs, a lot of construction jobs for a short period, but then relatively few jobs over the long run.

The bigger thing is the tax revenue that comes with it, which would be in the 10 million range, just for this initial, 10 million per year just for this initial project.

But the truth is, we can do without it.

And so we can drive a hard bargain.

And I don't think we've seen yet a hard bargain driven.

I wanna stick with you on your colleague, Tony Davis reported on TEP's likely need to build a new natural gas plant.

What do you make of that, and how do you think that could affect how people perceive this?

Well, I mean, there's a calculation of climate impacts or air pollution impacts.

And, you know, different parts of the county are saying different things about this.

But the fact is that if they go on to the second stage of this project, then they would have to build a natural gas plant.

I mean, there's so much to unpack in the energy deal, but long story short, there would be additional emissions that result from building this.

And that's not a surprise.

That's gonna be the case all over the world.

But the question is, we don't know really any details of the Tucson Electric Power deal.

And my big question is whether we as a city government are willing to go forward without knowing those details.

And we do know that right now, TEP is asking for a 14% rate hike without data centers.

You know, without anything else, adding huge energy costs in the region.

Yeah, and one thing too, I mean, not to jump for away from electricity, but to talk about water.

I mean, there's also a move already for the city to get water from the Bureau of Reclamation.

They wanna get about 21,000 acre feet very quickly.

An acre foot is just thousands and thousands and thousands of gallons of water.

So it's really meaningful, but it also shows like there's layers of these things that have to be done.

Then all this relies on other places to make this work.

So these agreements all have to be made, not just for the city, but also with other agencies throughout the state.

And even across, you know, in New Mexico, for example, where power is made also, et cetera.

One of the things I love to have all of you do is have you make predictions that I don't hold you to.

Paola, let me ask you about this.

So we've got a couple more public meetings coming up.

We have the first one, as Paul mentioned, which was pretty contentious.

Couple more coming up.

Without saying this will be thumbs up or thumbs down, do you think that these public meetings will actually have an impact on the progress, whether the vote on the council or anything around it, do you think people are actually listening to what the public is saying in these meetings?

I mean, you would hope that, you know, people who are elected into these positions do take into account what their constituents are saying.

So hopefully, however they choose to move forward, I think will be very telling, especially when you look at like Mayor Regina Romero and like the council in general has been really pushing on a climate action plan and Tucson One Water.

And it'll be very interesting to see how their decisions play out in the coming weeks and how that might affect their standing on the council.

Tim, what kind of impact?

Oh, I mean, I think you're gonna see the same, which is a lot of opposition that, you know, to the extent there is support, it's not very vocal and it's pretty institutional embodied in the Chamber and places like that.

So, you know, my question is whether, there's three votes against it right now out of seven.

So it's pretty likely in my opinion that they could sway one additional council member or the mayor.

I mean, my bigger question is whether rather than proceeding to a vote, they will instead kind of go back to the drawing board, try to drive a harder bargain.

And frankly, that's something I'd like to see.

Okay, Yana, your opinion on that?

My count is that there's four council members that are vocally against and maybe have not all said a hard no, but that I just don't see being shifted.

And so I think just in my year reporting on city council, I don't think I've seen anything else where there's so many council people that are just like vocally critical in a really open way.

And I'd also really suggest, I think council member Nikki Lee has done a really good job writing out like all of the questions that remain about this.

And I would, people should check out that resource.

So can we count these people?

So we got, Dahl was the first one.

Yes.

And Dahl's no.

Cunningham is no, Uhlich no, both of those.

Yeah.

Yeah, who else?

I mean, I think Nikki Lee is not made on a no, but I think just like that level of concern consistently.

She has 120 questions on a spreadsheet that she's trying to answer.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if those are gonna get answered.

I think it's also remarkable because Nikki Lee would have probably been maybe the biggest booster for something like this.

She's someone who's done stuff with AI, who's done information security, who's somebody who's kind of been in this realm for a little while.

And so the fact that she's really questioning it, I think for them, for Beale, is a sign they're in trouble.

They really not only need it because they don't have to just convince Nikki Lee, they've got all this convinced the other council members and they have somebody like Dahl who's just said no, and I don't see them shifting him, for example, at all.

And I think the question's also, so there's been the board of supervisors hearing, there's been a public meeting, two more public meetings, including one tonight, a city council study session.

Is there gonna be a new piece of information that could shift someone who is so critical?

And I would be surprised, but would be happy to see it if anyone.

Part of me wonders if it wasn't so secretive from the beginning, if maybe residents would be not as apprehensive to it.

That's fair.

So we've moved to a different kind of government, PCSD, ACLU suing the Pima County Sheriff's Department over this policy related to deputies calling federal immigration officials, your colleague John Washington, Yana, reported on this.

So where are we right now?

Because it does feel as though this is more about, and maybe almost entirely tied to the, how long it takes public records requests to be responded to, which the ACLU is arguing, maybe that means PCSD has something to hide.

Yeah, I mean, I think that having an organization like the ACLU come in and push additionally for records, I think just shines an extra light on places where there might not be a ton of transparency or whereas journals, we haven't always been able to get records in a timely manner.

So my colleague wrote about how the, how local organizers were saying that they were seeing cases where after a sheriff's stop, border patrol, or ICE would come and John put in a public records request, got some information that showed that the sheriff's department seemed to not be following its policy on these stops.

But I do think that this is extra pressure that as journalists, we don't always have the power to bring to a story.

So Paul, Sherriff Nanos is saying that this policy was in effect and he didn't really realize it.

And then they hadn't really been following it for a couple of years, but that's, has people asking questions too, that he's been in the sheriff's department for so long, seems like he should have known something was going on, whether he was following it or not.

So can you give us some background on how this got started?

The idea that even this policy of dealing with the feds, how it got started?

-Yeah, so in 2018, really after the Trump first Trump, during the first Trump administration, there was really a call for a lot of members of the public to really separate how local law enforcement, including Tucson police and the Pima County Sheriff's Department worked with border patrol.

And so there was a federal grants called Operation Stone Garden that was given to the county.

It was funding really to send border patrol agents and Pima County Sheriff's deputies to sort of work together, especially in the kind of remote areas of Pima County.

And there was a huge uproar about it.

And eventually the Pima County supervisors decided to stop taking the grant.

During this discussion, the former Sheriff Mark Napier decided to start counting how often his deputies actually called the agency and really tracking this.

So this is something that started in 2018 and the agency has been doing ever since.

And now one thing to keep in mind, of course, is Napier lost his election in 2020.

Nanos was picked as Sheriff.

He's now won his second term.

And he's also previously, he was the Sheriff and he was an assistant Sheriff under Dupnik.

He's been around for a long time.

And so it's interesting that he has said he doesn't really know this policy.

It kind of comes from maybe Nanos has said this a few times where he's not really necessarily aware of the policie that his agency is operating on.

And also, I mean, one thing too, is that once the request came for them to start for these documents, they changed the policy.

So I guess they fixed the problem.

I'm not quite sure what they were trying to do.

Tim, what do you make of the concept of what, I mean, we can't read people's minds.

I'm not gonna cast aspersions, but how Sheriff Nanos is handling this, because it seems like, yes, he should know.

It sounds as though he's trying to act like, "I didn't know, wait, I did know but we're not doing it."

It's almost like which hand is doing what?

Yeah, well, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

That's for sure.

I think there's also political pressures.

People like him are in a tough political position in the sense that the Trump administration certainly would crack down on any attempt at resistance by him.

I'm not saying that that has been on his mind and not responding to the, or not providing this information, and also the Board of Supervisors and much of the community in Pima County would oppose his deputies working with federal immigration authorities.

In addition to that, and beyond that, there may be culturally an affinity between at least some line law enforcement officers and their federal partners, even if they don't have a formal relationship.

I mean, there's a cultural thing.

You're cops, right?

And yeah, tendency to work together.

Yeah, Paola, I think I'm in the mind for you on this one.

It's not the first time that the Sheriff's Department is apprehensive on giving public records requests.

So whether this is different from past times, I think that's a interesting question.

But as a journalist, I think Yana had a really good point of that the ACLU has a certain level of power that journalists don't have.

And I'll be very interested to see what happens in the coming weeks.

-Yeah, and money.

I mean, money to file a suit is hard to come by in our business these days.

And money to pay for public records.

I know one of our reporters, Hannah Cree, just got one back from the Pima County Sheriff's Department and it was nearly $500.

That's a big bill to fill.

So Yana, is the Sheriff's Department gonna stop taking Luminaria's calls at all?

I would say that there's an inconsistent pattern in the Sheriff's Department taking our calls.

But yeah, I think just like to remember, We- we wrote about a woman named Yesenia who was stopped because she was, she's I believe, sold pupusas at a gas station.

She was stopped because she was driving too slowly and then border patrol was called.

She was since deported to Mexico.

And yeah, I think just like the human cost of people in like a very immigrant community living their lives and what it means that this might be going on.

It just wanted to, yeah.

It's just to like keep that in mind as we're thinking about this.

So Paul, we've mentioned the Trump administration sort of offhandedly with some of these things and their DOJ, US Attorney's Office getting directly involved in a case that Pima County Attorney Conover wants to be involved in.

So now, and this made you stay up late and made you have to wait to eat your dinner, but there were, we were waiting to see if there were gonna be federal charges, Pima County Attorney's Office is waiting, and now there are.

So give us some quick background on what this case entails, what the gentleman is charged with.

So it was a real quickly.

So Julio Cesar Aguirre was involved in an incident in June 30th where he allegedly shot a man and killed him during when he was attempting to carjack his vehicle.

And it was a kind of series of incidents that was involved, it was kind of a whole day.

He ended up getting really injured.

He was bitten by a police dog.

He was taken to a Tucson hospital and while he was there, federal officials came and took him and they took him into their custody and took him to a facility in Pinal County.

Laura Conover, our Pima County Attorney was really frustrated with this because she wanted this to be a local case.

There's almost a dozen victims involved in this case.

She really wanted to keep it.

And the fact that the feds sort of took it from her and took this guy into custody.

And there was a period where they weren't charging with murder.

They were avoiding a homicide charge against him.

And meanwhile, she was moving forward and last week got a grand jury to indict Aguirre on this charge.

So he's actually facing first degree murder.

So the feds were kind of withholding him and even keeping access from the Pima County Attorneys to be able to actually go see him and didn't actually, at one point, the county attorney didn't know where he was.

Yesterday, the feds announced that they had a grand jury charge and they charged him with two crimes, both of which could give him life in prison or he could face the death penalty.

Neither one of these are actually murder, but they're both sort of crimes similar and serious enough that he could face those charges.

So they're moving forward with f against him.

So the county attorney, do we know if she knows where he is now?

The guy with the feds?

-That I don't know, actually.

That's a great question.

I mean, at some point, he's probably in the US Marshals custody.

So there's a few facilities.

It's not that hard to narrow down, but it's interesting how he really doesn't show up in the federal system because he's been bounced around a little bit.

Yeah, and Paola, I'm struck by the federal immigration policy as we've seen.

The Trump administration has been extremely aggressive on this one.

And it's just, this just feels like another one of these things where we're having, there are complaints at the state level that the state bigfoots the county and now we have the feds bigfooting the state.

What do you make of how this is boiling out?

It's an opportunity for the Trump administration to conditioning you the policies that they said that they were going to enact.

And I think when you were looking and hearing from victims about what happened in this case, a lot of them are concerned with the federal government taking over it, where instead of like actual life imprisonment, they're concerned that instead this person would be deported, right?

With the charges, of course, it's a little bit different, understanding how this person could get what Paul was saying, life imprisonment, or even the death penalty.

But I do think there is something to be said about understanding what the victims want and maybe giving them some voice in that.

Tim, in some ways it feels like this person could be like the poster man for the Trump administration, especially undocumented immigrant who apparently has been around in and out various times.

So this is almost like, and guess what?

Now he allegedly murdered someone.

Murdered someone.

Yes.

Yes, so I was just thinking, years back, I interviewed one of the architects of the Trump 2016 immigration policy and he told me that their idea was to adjust the public's perception of undocumented immigrants and that the public had too generous a perception and they wanted to clarify that there's really a lot of killers, criminals, and other bad people.

Well, that was the thrust of the Trump campaign in 2016 and it was again in, well, it has been ever since.

And so these people exist and even if they are proportionally a small percentage of the people who even cross the border illegally, these criminals do exist.

And so this particular guy is someone they desperately want.

Yeah, as a poster child.

I mean, I was surprised that they didn't find, that the federal prosecutors didn't find some way to, I was gonna say create, to come up with a murder charge.

The problem is the federal statutes, you have to connect it to some kind of federal law and it can be hard.

But yeah, so as it stands, the only murder or homicide charge is in the Pima County attorney's case.

But yeah, the feds want him because yeah, he represents exactly what the administration's run on for eight years.

-Yeah, Paul, what do you think?

No, I think that's exactly right.

I mean, one of the things that was really interesting, so he committed the crimes on June 30th and was essentially taken to federal custody.

On July 3rd, the federal prosecutors put out their first press release announcing that he was under federal custody.

So kind of before the Pima County was going to do anything, they were still in the process actually, in some ways of pursuing their grand jury charges.

So the feds have gotten ahead of it.

They really made this kind of a press release.

There's been this sort of interesting back and forth was kind of her complaints and I had one of their officials say, well, this is a, we want this, this is a federal, we're interested in this case and we're not going to discuss this with the media.

We'll be with Laura Conover through the media.

And one thing of course, they didn't announce anything over through the week.

And then Wednesday, of course they announced this, that the grand jury had actually found him.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that they can't talk about grand juries until those happen, but they clearly, the minute that the grand jury had made a decision, they sent out another press release.

Yeah, so this is just going to go back and forth and back and forth.

Only have about 90 seconds left.

Tim, I'm going to put the pressure on you on this one.

So we have primary council votes coming up next week for folks who are following what's going on their ward, but maybe not any place else.

Anything you're looking for that could be especially competitive, interesting, any upsets you're looking for in any of those?

Yeah, I mean, ward six, I would say is a pretty interesting one where it's late in Rockafellow versus Miranda Schubert.

Rockafelow is a Steve Kozachik neighbor and ally.

Kozachik being the long time council member for that ward and a kind of maverick if you could put it that way.

And Schubert is more of a progressive standard, allied with the Grijalva camp and would be a strong ally of the mayor, Regina Romero, and the council majority.

She won the primary and then the general.

Yeah, got any thoughts on this?

I think it's been interesting to see candidates weigh in on Project Blue and that'd be a big part of the conversation around the organizing.

So I think they're kind of already a lively part of the public conversation.

Paul, just a few seconds.

Any thoughts on this?

-I mean, this is something that for all the candidates, they're gonna have to decide.

Project Blue is gonna be done by November.

It's gonna be continuing.

So all the candidates do need to make a stance and show the public where they're gonna live on this.

Paola, briefly, one race to watch?

All of them.

-Okay.

[ LAUGHING ] Every city council vote matters.

Yeah, absolutely.

The election cycle, ah.

All right, thanks everybody.

Yana Kunichoff, AZ Luminaria, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star, Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, and Paola Rodriguez, thank you.

Fond farewell to you.

All the service you've given to AZPM News.

Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

And thanks everybody for joining us for this edition of "The Press Room".

I'm Steve Goldstein, back next week.