The meeting opened with a warm welcome to members, guests and mayoral candidates by President BOB.
BOB reviewed the agenda for today’s meeting explaining that it is a regular RCOT meeting. The pledge and song were done with a video of a wonderful young lady singing the national anthem.
President BOB introduced and thanked Brent DeRaad, with Visit Tucson and AZ Lodging and Tourism Assoc., who sponsored the candidates debate. Brent spoke to the important financial contribution tourism plays in the Tucson economy.President BOB reviewed the ground rules for the debate. This included that after the candidate's times is over, if they do not stop speaking their microphone is cutoff!
The debate was moderated by Lorraine Rivera with AZ Public Media who worked with RCOT on this debate. The candidates in attendance were Ed Ackerley, Randi Dorman, Steve Farley and Regina Romero.
The debate covered numerous topics important to the Club and the Tucson community. Primary topics that were discussed included; roads/potholes and transportation, water, development, sustainability, city worker pensions, sanctuary city, public safety including police and fire and annexation. As a general statement, all of the candidates agreed that while our roads are terrible, they do not support more taxes for roads. Rather, they believe the city has the funds and needs to reallocate and relook at how funds are spent for road repair and replacement. The debate was informative and provided some insight in the each candidate's approach, position and understanding of key issues facing the city of Tucson.
As is our tradition, each candidate signed a book for the Make Way for Books library.
As a reminder, RCOT meetings are now being live streamed on Facebook Live. The meeting adjourned at 1:20pm
