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What can be done about new concerns on gun violence in Tucson?

What is the city doing to lower costs and the crisis over affordability?

And how will a new casino make a difference for the city's economic footprint?

We bring those questions to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, next on The Press Room.

Hello and welcome to The Press Room.

I'm Tony Perkins.

Regina Romero is currently serving her second four-year term as Mayor of Tucson.

She and her staff are facing issues ranging from housing affordability to economic security and how to keep Tucson growing in 2026 and beyond.

Mayor Regina Romero, thanks again for joining us on The Press Room.

You announced your support for a deal with Tucson Electric Power for a 25-year franchise agreement.

It includes an energy collaboration agreement that would make sure climate policy is part of it.

Absolutely, yes.

Tucson voters are still going to have their say on this in November.

It's on the ballot.

But what do you like about the arrangement with Tucson Electric Power?

I certainly have my concerns with Tucson Electric Power in terms of their rate increase over at the Arizona Corporation Commission.

Putting that aside, we needed to work on a franchise agreement.

It's how our electricity is delivered to Tucsonans inside and outside the city.

And so we had to make sure that we sat down and negotiated a franchise agreement.

One of the things that our community asked us to do on the Mayor and Council was to have Tucson Electric Power pay for sustainability investments.

So what we negotiated is a $2 million energy collaboration agreement.

$2 million per year not paid by ratepayers with a 2% escalator every year.

And so at the end of 25 years, there's a possibility of having more than $64 million for sustainability.

Weatherization in low-income and vulnerable communities, paying for our Tucson Million Trees initiative, making sure that we're investing in our community and that would be paid by shareholders, not the ratepayers.

I believe in approving the franchise agreement, the energy collaboration is connected to the franchise agreement.

If for one reason or the other, the city of Tucson feels we need to step away from our agreement, then we go back to the drawing board and go back to the voters.

But this is a good agreement.

No other city or town in Arizona has an energy collaboration agreement, and we would become only the sixth city in the country to have a franchise agreement with an attached energy collaboration agreement.

Now, this story has been brewing for months.

We've reported on it.

It has to have others, and there's a lot of people who have different opinions.

There's some opponents who say this is essentially the same kind of agreement that voters rejected with the Proposition 412 a few years ago.

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club, as a conservative advocacy group, says this new deal is just a more expensive version of the old deal.

What is the real difference?

The real difference is that the money used for our energy collaboration agreement, this would be a funding source for our climate action and adaptation plan that was approved by the mayor and council and investments in sustainability, right?

And making sure that we are investing both in homes and in our city to really fight climate change.

And the big difference is that the $2 million plus the escalator every year will be paid by the shareholders of TEP, not the residents of Tucson.

So this is good for the entire community.

And the only way, especially in these times with the federal government not believing in climate change, this is one of the only ways that we could find a funding source for the work we need to do to become a much more resilient city.

A lot of attention this summer on public safety and security.

We've experienced two high profile shootings over the past few weeks.

The first one happened downtown, 100 East Congress, a very busy intersection, a very popular intersection in downtown.

Nine people were shot there.

And the response was for some to introduce some new technology, to bring in a scanner made by a public security company to help business owners identify individuals.

And the second is, why put the burden of security on citizens?

People will ask, why can't the police do that job?

Well, first and foremost, my heart goes out to the victims of the downtown shooting, as well as our small business owners in the area that were traumatized and to the families of Vincent Siqueiros Cameron Capara.

The two incidents reflect societal issues that we as a nation have not dealt with, right?

Homophobia, easy access to guns and mental behavioral health issues.

And so, you know, we have to make sure that we're working together every layer of government to get to the root causes of violence.

And so that's exactly what we're doing with our Safe City Initiative here in the city of Tucson.

Of course, small businesses and the technology that they're trying to use is just one little piece to try and solve a huge issue that governments should be working on, right?

And the state of Arizona has some of the weakest gun laws in the country.

And we always ask both the federal government, Congress and the president, and the state legislature for very specific things.

Universal background checks for every gun sale.

We need safe storage requirement and we need red flag laws that keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals and domestic abusers.

Those three things should not conflict with the right of being able to own guns.

As a matter of fact, the majority of gun owners agree that common sense gun laws will save lives.

And so in the city of Tucson with our Safe City Initiative, we are really taking a look at violence and how it starts.

What are the root causes of violence?

One of our pillars is working.

I've asked our city manager to create an Office of Violence Prevention and Intervention.

And a lot of the work to prevent violence needs to happen upstream with families and with young people.

And so that's exactly what we're going to continue adding into our Safe City Initiative.

I've requested action in this space, but we need every single level of government to fund and find solutions along with mayors like myself around the country.

Okay.

Affordability is another big issue that people are talking about all summer long here in Tucson.

And so we're trying to ease pressure on those who are trying to find a place to live, also trying to deal with childcare and other issues that are accompanying the affordability crisis.

There is a prosperity initiative that was created back in 2023.

So there are still complaints out there.

What impact did the initiative have and how hard is it to stay ahead of this problem?

Well, the affordability issue has been compounding in terms of the lack of attention from the federal government, state, and of course local municipal governments.

And so we, in the city of Tucson, when I became mayor, we had to create a lot of programs and find the money in our budget to create these programs to serve our community.

We created the Housing Affordability Strategy for Tucson.

We worked hand in hand with Pima County to create the Prosperity Initiative.

It is rooted in 13 policy principles that are proven to work and take people and families out of poverty.

And we have been investing in those strategies as mayor, council, and board of supervisors.

Affordability right now, all of the work that we're doing, right, we've created more than 1,200 affordable housing units in Tucson.

We have an incredible after-school program for KIDCO so that families can stay out working.

One of the biggest expenses for families, especially young families, is the cost of a house and rent and mortgage, the cost of childcare, and the cost of transportation.

Those three issues as mayor, I have been completely focused and targeted in.

And so our 1,200 plus affordable housing units are putting people into stable homes that they can afford.

Our free transit is providing transportation to families that would otherwise not have a way to get to their jobs, to get to their medical appointments, to get to school.

And then our after-school program in KIDCO is providing childcare after school so that families can stay working until 6 o'clock at night in a place that is safe.

Pima County is investing in PEEPs, which is a zero to five preschool program.

So we're working together to attack what is generational poverty and what has plagued Pima County and the city of Tucson for more than four decades.

We cannot get it done in seven years, but working together, especially with the state and federal governments and having Congresswoman Grijalva going to Congress and representing us, having UnidosUS, a national organization, creating an economic prosperity agenda that really mirrors the city of Tucson's prosperity initiative, is something that's wonderful because they're advocating nationally for the same issues that we are advocating for here, funding and fighting for to improve the quality of life.

I can say one more thing about this.

It is very hard as mayor to fight against the very strong winds that are coming at us by the federal government.

President Trump has passed major tariffs that had made building affordable housing more expensive, building housing more expensive.

These tariffs have made food more expensive.

The war with Iran that he chose to enter our country into is costing us thousands of dollars every year because of the cost of gas.

As mayor, I can only work on the issues that I can.

We need a president and Congress, a state and county government and the city working together to create the quality of life and the affordability that our families deserve.

We've got a couple of minutes left to talk a little bit about economic development in the city.

Some high-profile projects are in the works, under construction and very visible for people who travel around the city.

One is the casino that is opening off of Grant Road on the west side.

Tell me a little bit about how that is going to add to our economy, sports and entertainment.

That kind of thing is relatively new to Tucson as far as economic development driver.

Well, one of the areas of policy work that I've been very passionate about is figuring out a way on how to create high-wage long-term jobs in our city.

Part of the prosperity initiative or the concern about poverty is that we have not as a region been able to create high-wage long-term jobs and those of the future that are sustainable and can create a good quality of life for people.

And so this particular casino, I was a council member when the Pascua Yaqui Tribe started talking about the idea of purchasing an empty industrial piece of property on Grant and I-10, where we used to have a movie theater a long, long time ago, abandoned huge space.

And so I started saying, "What if we would, as a Pascua Yaqui Tribe, purchase that land right next to Old Pascua, which is a traditional neighborhood and area of the Yaqui people here in this region and build a casino?"

I was a council member when that dream started up and I was part of the council when we gave the go-ahead as a city for the Tribe to purchase the land, work with the late Congressman Raúl Grijalva and Congressman Grijalva really shepherded making that land piece of the Pascua Yaqui reservation so that they could use that land however they wanted.

And so the idea and now seeing the buildings up and all of the investments that both the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the city of Tucson have made in our roads so that we can make that space accessible and safe, it really is exciting because I am a huge believer in the sovereignty of our Native nations and they will be creating thousands of jobs and the investment in our economy and in our city will be seen.

There's going to be hotels being built around the area.

The activity that's going to happen there is really exciting and so that's one in many of the efforts that we want to continue pushing forward.

We created a new office.

It's called Office of Community and Economic Impact.

That's part of the work that we did with Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative that I and the city team got accepted to and that is very specifically to continue working and partnering to create those high-wage long-term jobs in our city.

All right.

We're going to have to leave the conversation there.

Mayor Regina Romero, thank you very much for joining us again on The Press Room.

Thank you for inviting me.

We'll be back with our roundtable discussion of journalists right after this.

We're back on The Press Room with our panel of local journalists.

Laura Holanszky with AZPM News.

Mia Kortright writes for the Tucson Sentinel and Yana Kunichoff from Arizona Luminaria.

Thank you very much again for joining us on The Press Room.

Let's start talking about the issue of poverty and homelessness and some stories that have been written about that locally.

Mia, in your reporting you described some success that Pima County has had in a two-year plan to fight extreme poverty in the region.

You interviewed some people who are involved in these programs in the Sentinel and one of the quotes was, "There are so many people who want to do better.

They just need to be given a chance."

What did you learn?

What did you find out in your reporting?

You know, the One Pima thing you're talking about is actually the latest in an ongoing series the Tucson Sentinel has called "Hot Town, Hard Times" on the subject of homelessness and housing insecurity.

And when Ms.

Robles, who I spoke to at the press conference for One Pima, said that it was something that I've heard over and over and over again since we started this project in January.

I've heard it from homeless people themselves.

I've heard it from people who work with them, social workers, people who do our annual pit count.

Very, very few people want to be living on the streets.

There are numerous government agencies that are trying to find creative ways to do that.

But this is going to be a problem that it's going to take a billion dollars estimated over the next ten years to fully solve.

And so it's going to be an ongoing situation that you'll probably wind up writing more stories about.

I fully expect to.

Laura, we asked Mayor Regina Romero earlier in the program about the shooting at the Venture-N, the gay bar in Tucson's Midtown.

There are always the stories where we learn about the victims of the shooting.

In this case, the recollections that people had to offer were especially moving, and you attended the vigil for the victims.

What was that experience like?

That whole experience was just incredibly emotional, and I still think about it every day.

And it was a great representation of how Tucsonans can come together when they need to be.

And just looking around and seeing family members, former coworkers, and just people who were affected by the shooting.

I wanted to pay tribute to the victims circle around at Catalina Park.

It was just really moving.

It was the first event when I saw journalists crying and holding each other while attending such a tragic vigil.

How many people were there?

It was close to a thousand.

There was definitely a couple hundred, for sure.

Some articles said that it was over a thousand.

It was just incredibly emotional, as I mentioned.

It's always hard as a journalist to put a camera in someone's face who is crying or who is mourning.

Sometimes I just want to be human and say, "I do not want to shoot crying people."

And then I met with Cameron's former colleague, who is also a photographer, and she said, "I talked to Cameron's family.

And they said, 'Feel free to take photos, because that's what he would do too.'"

And that really gave me the reassurance that I needed.

That what we're doing is not of bad faith.

We just wanted to share this very important event with the community.

It's just fascinating.

A really interesting story about loss and love and the way that we remember people from tragedy.

We've had a couple of them here in Tucson this past summer.

Yana, I want to ask you about a questionnaire that had to do with homelessness and the questions for specifically, which population in our city is the most vulnerable or at risk of actually dying as a result of being homeless in our climate, in our weather?

One of the things we found was that they didn't just answer which people would be in that group, but also why.

And that was the real story.

Yeah, so the questionnaire that we're talking about is an effort to talk to unhoused people who are absolutely the most at risk of dying on Tucson streets in extreme heat, and help get those people sort of on the list to eventually get housing.

So it's a tool that the city and county use to assess who needs housing most and who is most at risk of dying on the street and therefore should be brought into housing first rather than assessing housing priority based on kind of like a different and complicated set of risk factors.

And to me what that says is just extreme heat is such a big part of service provision in Tucson that now there's like really key tool.

Like one of the main things it's figuring out is like who is it too hot out here for?

It's not that much of a news story that's out there, but it also was shown that the speed at which people are becoming homeless in our area, it seems to be increasing and outstripping the ability for the city to help the situation.

Yeah, I mean, I think whenever to me, whenever we talk about unhoused communities, we should also talk about the inflow into homelessness because even if you're helping people get off the street and into housing, if people are still losing their housing, whether that's inability to pay or eviction or like kind of any other measures, you're going to have people that are homeless.

So I actually think Pima County and Tucson have both done some work to invest in keeping people in their houses, the price grant, which is like a really big mobile home grant that the city has just, the city of Tucson just agreed to start giving money to Pima to run programs, including emergency eviction legal services.

So I think they're working on it.

And this question up for any of you, the answer, you know, this is a season where the monsoon has been relatively active.

There's been a few more cooler days, not as many difficult heat waves.

But one thing that does happen every year is the factor of whether on the health of the elderly in Tucson, people who are prone to dehydration anyway, as a byproduct of hot weather, they're more likely to be on a fixed income, for example, and they have to face rising electricity costs.

And let me first ask you, is this a more difficult summer for that population, despite the fact that it's a little bit more comfortable for the rest of us?

Yeah, I think there's a few factors that are part of that.

I recently wrote a series about how obviously because of the heat, it's harder to be an older person out there, but also senior serving institutions are seeing federal cuts.

There's more competition for grants.

So some of the extra money that it takes to help people when it's super hot is just less available to them.

Mia, I remember a story that I read that you wrote about some small homes going up in our area, and some micro shelters and I guess a more longer lasting solution to our homeless issue in the city.

You know, it's one of those things.

There's a note of hope there.

I know one nonprofit has already gotten the land and has started raising those for about 25 people, I want to say.

And the University of Arizona's Drachman Institute is still working on another or finding another location.

They were originally planning on raising tiny home or micro shelters at Star Village, which is the city's first city sanctioned homeless encampment.

But because it's still in its pilot phase, the city ultimately decided against that.

The city, I want to say, you know, months ago to a year ago, they altered their zoning codes and building codes to make more room for these types of shelters.

It's a step above a tent.

It's something that I've heard house people say before, you know, even a place to store my stuff and get out of the heat would make a world of difference.

It's just 25 people.

But I, in my opinion, I think, you know, it's a step up.

All right.

Well, that's a really fascinating alternative that we have here in Tucson for the solutions, at least a potential temporary solution to homelessness in our area.

Thanks a lot for all of our panelists.

Thanks to our guests.

And for everyone from everyone here at The Press Room, I'm Tony Perkins.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

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