TUCSON, Ariz. - With three Democrats competing for that party's nomination in the race to be Tucson's new Mayor the August primary is going to be a hard-fought contest.
KGUN9 interviewed all three of the Democratic candidates, Regina Romero, Steve Farley and Randi Dorman.
Regina Romero says her eleven years on Tucson City Council give her the experience to be the top choice for Mayor---including leading development of an economic development plan to help pull Tucson through the recession.
"We've created more than 21 incentives to help development and steer development in our urban core. And so we've done that very well. We've seen more than 85,000 high wage jobs in the city of Tucson created because mayor and council have been working hard to make sure that we are we've created that prosperity in our city."
Romero says she wants to see incentives to help attract and grow small businesses comparable to incentives the city uses to attract large employers.
“What we need to do is continue investing in our quality of life issues. Continue hiring more police officers, firefighters, continue improving our parks, those are issues that the community wants to see much more road repair, We've done well. But it is only a tiny fraction of what we need to do to continue repairing our roads and creating complete streets to be honest with you.”
Romero is calling for an aggressive climate action plan.
"And we need to install massive solar installations in our city, plant a million trees by 2030, electrify our bus system and our vehicle fleet and create water harvesting projects in neighborhoods because we see pockets of heat islands in our city."
Romero says she's worked to retain more police by improving pay and has worked to raise the minimum wage to $15 for all city employees.
Romero says she worked to build protection for immigrants into Tucson city policies but says the risk of millions in penalties means she cannot support the initiative that would let voters declare Tucson a Sanctuary City for undocumented immigrants.
“We need to continue working to be an immigrant welcoming community, to protecting asylum seekers and refugees. But we do not need to put a target on our back. With the Trump administration, being so aggressively against communities like ours, we do not need to put a target on our back with this particular initiative. It could be financially crippling and, and really affect negatively the people that we're trying to protect."
