Please, please, please build and grow metro Phoenix more. We aren't hot enough yet
To all leaders and policymakers in Valley cities, please, please, please, make more pavement. I am tired of seeing wasted green space and vacant areas not covered with black pavement.
Nighttime temperatures dipped to below 90 degrees the other night. Enough is enough.
Parks and greenspaces serve no purpose and just result in allowing all of our precious heat to escape into space at night, causing air conditioners to cycle off during the night.
You need to do whatever it takes to develop more and ensure that no piece of ground goes unoccupied. Streets, highways, apartment complexes, high-density housing subdivisions (with wonderful heat absorbing block walls), and many more asphalt parking lots.
Get out there and do your jobs, and make certain we develop, develop and develop.
If we don’t get going, we run the risk of losing ground against the heat island effect (our equivalent of the aurora borealis). Think what that will do to tourism and the efforts to grow our population.
And if we don’t move from the fifth- to the fourth-largest city in the country, who is going to use up all the excess water we have? If you’ll excuse me now, I’m late for my heatstroke therapy.
Warren Kotzmann, Gilbert
Stop making a big deal of candidates' veteran claims
Child of the sixties, I can remember when it was unpopular to be in ROTC and the military. Now everyone wants to be a veteran, so much so that the Arizona Republic thinks it needs to vet the veteran claims.
Show me your papers! An entire Republic newspaper story on Chandler Vice Mayor Harris's National Guard service and active-duty discharge document DD214 – possible lack thereof – seems like overkill though. It also seems to be a double standard.
Where, for example, is The Republic's full-length vetting of Andrei Cherny's military service? Does he have a CAR for, example, something you'd expect of someone who volunteered after 9/11.
My other complaint about the story is its apparent contempt for someone who served as a private. Every soldier, airman and sailor matters. Every meal cooked and every tire changed matters. The enlisted men and woman, no matter how humble, are the backbone of America's armed forces.
Jim McManus, Phoenix
High-profile positions aren't the standard of progress
Greg Moore ("Republicans and Democrats agree on one thing: Black voters are key to winning White House") applauds President Biden for "providing seats at the table" for Blacks and then reels off a list of high profile positions filled by Blacks.
Hey Greg, that's nothing but window dressing! That gonna put food on the average black family's table during this period of Bidenflation??
Ken Doerfler, Glendale
Here's the real definition of 'school choice' in Arizona
This is what “school choice” really means. Upper-class families using Empowerment Scholarships to send their kids to private schools see the taxpayers spending more than $11,600 annually per student on their kids ($864.4 million spent on just 75,000 kids).
But people whose kids are attending public schools see the taxpayers paying just $8,800 annually per student on their kids, according to teaching-certification.com.
So, “empowerment” really means taking money from the poor and the middle class and giving it to the wealthy.
Bruce Dockter, Surprise
Didn't know he is what nation's founders had in mind
So, if the “religious right” believes that the Founding Fathers were Christian, then why are they supporting a person like Trump?
Mike Kiehl, Phoenix
A proven program to help Native Americans thrive academically
Native students are underrepresented in American colleges and universities. According to research from the Postsecondary National Policy Institute, only 22% of Native Americans aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, compared with 40% of the overall population.
Recently, 97 students – including 17 from Arizona – representing 19 states and 33 tribal nations, Alaska Native villages and Hawaiian islands took part in College Horizons 2024 in Philadelphia.
College Horizons (headquartered in New Mexico) and the University of Pennsylvania partnered to ensure that Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students have a chance to pursue higher education.
It was Penn’s third time hosting the program, which provided high school sophomores and juniors — 30% are first-generation college applicants — with a comprehensive preparatory program.
Ninety-nine percent of students who participate in College Horizons attend a four-year university and, of those, 85% graduate within four to five years.
With a success rate like this, it’s imperative that we remain focused on programs like this.
Carmen Lopez, Pena Blanca, NM
The writer is executive director of College Horizons.
What’s on your mind? Send us a letter to the editor online or via email at opinions@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Please grow and generate more heat. Phoenix isn't hot yet
