With his goofy ideas,Hansen should retireRe: the July 27 column “20 years later, Tucson left with streetcar and desire.”Greg Hansen is calling for a downtown baseball stadium? He’s got to be kidding. It wasn’t that many years before Andy Lopez arrived on the scene that Hansen made the screw-loose suggestion for the University of Arizona to drop baseball in favor of ice hockey.Now when all of the major-league teams have vacated, leaving professional facilities at Kino Sports Complex and Hi Corbett Field, he wants baseball at the end of the trolley line? He was off his trolley then, and he’s even goofier now.And why should the Cats leave Hi Corbett? It’s a beautiful setting with ample parking. Moreover,
True Religion Jeans On Sale, the field has the dimensions of the new Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, so the Cats can plan their attack with that kind of field and goal in mind.It’s time for Hansen to retire.John SchmidtRetired, AlpineBan on hiring smokersis a slippery slopeI personally despise cigarette smoking, and am not able to be around people who are smoking due to allergic reactions to the smoke, but Chuck Huckelberry’s idea of putting a ban on hiring smokers and penalizing current employees is one of the crazier ideas I have heard lately from our administrators.Following Huckelberry’s logic that the county would save money on insurance costs and productivity losses due to missed days, we could extrapolate that ban to the hiring of women who might get pregnant, parents who might have to stay home with a sick child, disabled people who might have to see their doctors, etc., etc., etc.This is discriminatory hiring practice and a huge slippery slope.Jo MoodySubstitute teacher, Tucson$250K for furnishingsdefinitely extravagantRe: the July 27 article “Donors slow to offset costs for Hart’s new UA office.”If University of Arizona Provost Andrew Comrie thinks spending $250,000 to furnish an office is not extravagant, he should venture outside the UA to see what the economic conditions of Tucson are.Does he not know Tucson is in the top five poorest cities in the country?Dave FrysingerRetired, VailRosemont Minewould use scarce waterRe: the July 25 article “West’s groundwater loss ‘shocking.’ ”It’s about the water, stupid! This article underscored the main reason why the proposed Rosemont Mine is a bad idea,
True Religion Sneakers For Women, and underscored the precarious status of our water resources in the Colorado River Basin (including the Central Arizona Project) as we look to the future.Why should a relatively few good-paying jobs and their trickle-down economic effect for the short term be exchanged for the permanent depletion of our groundwater (a nonrenewable resource) and the destruction of the area’s environment?We are not an underdeveloped Third World nation ripe for exploitation by some foreign power. Yet our antiquated mining laws developed for another time and set of circumstances allow a Canadian firm to take the profits and run. In the long term, we will be the big losers.Stanley CurdRetired, TucsonSteller’s thoughtson Ebola bear a repeatCould you republish the column by Tim Steller about the minimal chance of Ebola making it across the border? I would love to see his sneering thoughts on this again. He is always so right.Diane LaughlinRegistered nurse, TucsonTucson lackseducated workforce Re: the July 31 article “Tucson to Tesla: Permit is ready.”It would be wonderful for Tesla to build its battery plant here in Tucson (though it looks like the company has just selected Reno). After all,
True Religion Stella, we desperately need the jobs and tax revenues from those jobs.The problem from Day One is that Tucson and Pima County do not have an educated workforce that would be suitable for a large manufacturing facility. We have a plethora of expensive for-profit beauty and art “colleges” that train people (and create long-term debt) for jobs that don’t exist. Aside from a few major employers, such as the University of Arizona and Raytheon, the people who need work do not for the most part have the skills for sophisticated manufacturing jobs.Education is the key to future economic growth and to help move people up from below the poverty line.Jack ChallemHealth writer, Tucson
