2021 Tucson City Council Election Ward 3 Candidate Guide

Kevin Dahl Visit candidate website Raised in Arizona, I am a longtime conservation leader dedicated to protecting and improving the community. Starting with an ecology club in high school I began a lifetime of environmental work. My career included being executive director of Native Seeds/SEARCH and Tucson Audubon Society. Today, I work for National Parks Conservation Association protecting national parks and in Arizona. My family have called Tucson home for 38 years. My wife Bam Miller is a retired TUSD Special Education teacher and neighborhood association president. I am supported by many elected Democrats, including Rep. Raul Grijalva and Pima County Board Chair Sharon Bronson.

Lucy LiBosha Visit candidate website I joined the Army at seventeen and became an Airborne Paratrooper. After serving and earning my Masters in Art Education, I moved to Arizona, where I’ve been for the last twenty years. I’ve taught thousands of children as a math teacher in the Nogales, Sunnyside, and Tucson Unified school district, where I currently work. I’m also a licensed realtor, but my passion is for community service. I formerly served as a union rep for the American Federation of Teachers, was a board member of BICAS, and more recently, a member of the Complete Streets Coordinating Committee. I also teach bike safety classes to children and adults.

Kevin Dahl Climate change, which is also the most important issue around the world. We need aggressive action and leadership to deal with record breaking heat and our dwindling water supply. From skyrocketing utility bills to adverse effects on housing to healthcare, climate change impacts everyone. It is not too late to act together.

Lucy LiBosha Ward 3 has some of the highest rates of poverty and if you drive around its boundaries it’s not uncommon to see things like homelessness, substance abuse, and mental illness manifesting around the lives of our ward 3 residents. Even the so-called middle class of Tucson is having a difficult time surviving in the current housing and job market. We need to invest, connect, and uplift ward 3 and all of Tucson---but we must do it responsibly so that revitalization doesn’t lead to gentrification.

Kevin Dahl I am grateful for the quick, decisive action of Mayor Regina Romero and Council Members to follow the best science. Tucson acted to provide vaccinations right away and implement mask mandates and incentives. I support what they did and are doing.

Lucy LiBosha I think that our city government's response has been better than most. However, I wish we would have been slower to relax the mask mandates since it is one of the most successful mitigation strategies that we can employ.

Kevin Dahl Yes to ADUs as long as the ordinance includes adequate protections for neighbors about parking, size, height, and occupancy. The goal of creating more affordable housing, better opportunities for families and aging in place, and more infill is a good one, but the ordinance must prevent this being just a boon for out-of-city investors to create more mini-dorms in the university area. The historic status of neighborhoods that have achieved this must also be protected.

Lucy LiBosha I support ADUs and “streateries” as long as these programs are accessible to everyone in Tucson.

Kevin Dahl We have a housing crisis in Tucson that is only going to get worse if we don’t take action immediately. There are many options I am excited to explore as your council woman and they start investing more into Housing and Community Development. We need to create more affordable housing opportunities, invest in neighborhood-led community land trusts, and create programs that help low income people become homeowners. We can’t keep letting developers ruin the market for working class people, so we should create stricter policies that target house flippers that prey on marginalized neighborhoods.

Lucy LiBosha Tucson should continue is existing housing programs, but should do more to buy vacant and distressed housing that can be used to house additional people in need.

Kevin Dahl There are so many, but an easy one is more rainwater harvesting. Annually, 27% of our potable water use in Tucson goes to outdoor landscape. Much of that could be supplied with simple infrastructure and redesigning our yards to collect and store rainwater – which by all accounts is much better for plants than tap water. The resulting vegetation, especially in those neighborhoods currently lacking trees and vegetative cover because it is expensive to do with city water, would create a carbon sink, cool the area (helping to mitigate rising summer temps), and help save precious potable water for other uses.

Lucy LiBosha It’s no secret that low income neighborhoods have less green infrastructure. We can curb the impact of climate change and lower the heat index in our neighborhoods by planting fast growing native trees like the beautiful Palo Verde and others. Furthermore, if we install rainwater harvesting systems on all of our city buildings, homes, and neighborhoods, it will sustain our green infrastructure, lower the temperatures of homes, and beautify our landscape. I would also like us to build responsibly, and use materials that have been used historically to combat heat, helping us be less reliant on electricity to keep us cool or warm.

Kevin Dahl Tucson Parks and Recreation Department needs more funding to better serve young people. Expanding its after-school KidCo program would help more working families and provide a safe, learning environment for students who must wait for their parents to end their workday. We need more pools, and more open times for pools. Providing recreational opportunities and also access to outdoor green spaces and wild places is so very important for childhood development, and is especially important in underserved neighborhoods.

Lucy LiBosha We need to invest in our parks and neighborhood centers so that young people have a safe place to go where they can take music and art classes, play sports, get homework help, and have access to computers and the internet. So many rec centers around town are closed to children or have had their programs slashed over the years. That is not fair to kids and not fair to families who have depended on rec centers as a tool for their children's success. We also give families more access to affordable housing, food, resources, and good paying jobs so they can live comfortably. Let’s create the conditions where upward mobility is possible.

Kevin Dahl We need more citizen oversight, with community-based review of controversial policy actions, like the Sentinel Event Review Board that was convened to review the facts and circumstances that lead to the tragic death of Carlos Ingram. We need transparency, dialog, and engagement with communities of color on how policy impacts them. And we need to hire more mental health professionals to work with policy in responding to situations where their expertise would be helpful.

Lucy LiBosha We have to rethink the idea of public safety so that it works to increase public health. We can do that first by reallocating some of the police budget to housing and community development and social services, since under investing in these areas have been proven to increase poverty, crime, substance abuse and homelessness. Police officers are inundated with calls that they have vowed to not respond to, so let’s use this as an opportunity to hire more social workers and people trained in crisis response who can be available 24/7 in case of emergency. More importantly, we need to end qualified immunity and make sure that taxpayers aren’t paying for any settlements resulting from police misconduct.

Kevin Dahl Transportation and road improvement takes dedicated funding, and our last RTA (which implemented a sales tax for transportation) left Tucson holding the bag for projects that are not likely to be completed, didn’t allow for flexibility, and short-changed maintenances that many Tucson neighborhoods have crumbling roads. The next RTA must be better. I support Tucson negotiating for one that fits our needs and results in a 21st Century transportation plan for our town. I would like to see more emphasis on maintenance, more public transit (more frequent, tree-shaded bus stops), and infrastructure that makes it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Lucy LiBosha The roads in Ward 3 are unsafe for drivers and pedestrians alike. I’m interested in exploring how restructuring the RTA could bring the city of Tucson more money to improve our transportation and pedestrian infrastructure. Right now there are nine regions that represent nine different seats on the RTA. Tucson by far carries the weight since we have the biggest population and tax base, if the RTA had a weighted voting system and funds were distributed more equitably in regard to need and population we would be better able to improve our roads and develop pedestrian infrastructure quicker and more efficiently.

Kevin Dahl I support dark-sky approved lighting for every new and replacement installation. Tucson is the heart of world-class astronomy, which advocates for this. It is also efficient, in that any light that is directed up into the sky does nothing to help light what we need to see.

Lucy LiBosha It’s disappointing that many of the features mentioned above have yet to be initiated since they are all so critical in helping working class people get around the city. We need to make it easier for people in every ward to enjoy the businesses, public resources, and culture that’s unique to each part of the city.

Kevin Dahl This is my short list in no particular order: Blue Willow, China Szechuan, Eegees, Baja Café, Pastiche, El Guerro Canelo, Taqueria Juanitos, Upper Crust Pizza, Loving Spoonful, Rosa’s Mexican Food, and Barrio Charro.

Lucy LiBosha Smokey Mo’s!