Ward 2 Councilmember Paul Cunningham

In last week’s newsletter, I had a short blurb about the tariffs that the President threatened against Mexico. In a Tweet, the President promised a 5% tariff on goods from Mexico starting next week. These tariffs could rise as high to 25% by September according to the schedule in the President’s plan.

We all need to understand what the economic impact would be to raise prices on goods from Arizona’s biggest trading partner.

I’d like to start with a reminder that we will be hosting a Ward 2 town hall on June 5 at 6 pm here at the Ward 2 office (doors open at 5:30).

Speakers will include Diana Alarcon who directs the Transportation Department and Brent Dennis from Parks and Recreation. Diana is still relatively new on the job and this will be her first Ward 2 town hall. Brent came out to the office when we had a community meeting on Ft. Lowell Park two weeks ago.

In last week’s update, I mentioned that the Palo Verde Park Neighborhood Association is working with the Pima Animal Care Center to put on a free microchip event for dogs. This will be at Arizona Beer House (150 S Kolb Road, near Broadway) on June 1^st from 8 – 10 am.

The American Kennel Club states that every year, one third of dogs will become lost. Microchipping them goes a long way to help ensure that your dog will get back to you safely.

We had a number of items that we discussed at Tuesday’s council meeting. One of the less controversial, but important ones, was our age-friendly city action plan.

The American Red Cross and the Tucson Parks and Recreation department invite you to a press conference at the Catalina Pool, 2005 N. Dodge Blvd., on Tuesday, May 7, at 11 a.m., to kick off the American Red Cross Centennial Water Safety Campaign. The campaign launched in 2014, marking a century of swimming safety education to reduce the number of drownings in 50 major cities with high numbers of drownings.

Many of you remember between 2013 and 2016, there was work being done on Houghton Road, especially between 22^nd Street and Broadway. I made sure to give all of you constant updates on the work being done there.

After that phase of the project was complete, you weren’t hearing much news about it, at least not from me. Work has still been going, just much further south of us. Work on a bridge over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks south of Tucson was completed earlier this year and the section between that bridge and I-10 is currently ongoing.

We are quickly catching up with 2020, which means that it’s time for another census for all of us living in the United States. The census is in article one of the Constitution, so it was important to the founders of our country.

The framers of the constitution put it near the beginning because having an accurate count is critical to ensuring that there is equitable representation in congress and in our state legislatures. It has also become important in many other ways as well.