Tucson Mayor Regina Romero is up for reelection. Why she thinks she deserves another term

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, the city's first woman and Latina leader, is running for a second term in the November election.

Romero was elected in 2019 after 12 years on the City Council for Ward 1, the city's West side. She was raised by immigrant farmworkers in Somerton and was the first in her family to graduate from college.

What issues is she running on?

Romero's campaign website lists five main priorities: making Tucson climate resilient, supporting housing affordability, investing in infrastructure and parks, improving the city's economic development, and supporting small businesses.

Other candidates: Who is running against incumbent Tucson Mayor Regina Romero?

Who is she running against in the Tucson mayoral election?

Romero is running against three candidates.

Janet Wittenbraker is the Republican candidate. She is a long-time Tucsonan who works as a contract administrator.

Ed Ackerley is the independent candidate. He is from Tucson and has had a long career in advertising and teaches at two universities.

Arthur Kerschen is the libertarian candidate. He hails from Snowflake and works as a lab technician for Pima Community College.

How Romero has addressed road infrastructure improvements

Romero said that, as mayor, she has helped attract millions of dollars in investments for many of Tucson's most pressing issues, including road infrastructure, public safety, housing and climate change adaptation.

The poor quality of roads has been a major issue in Tucson. Years of neglect have worsened the problem, she said.

"We've been struggling as a community to find enough investment to deal with the decades-worth of needs that our community has. … It didn't happen in four years; it happened in decades' worth of neglect," she said.

To address Tucson's road needs, Romero said, since her election as mayor, the city started investing millions of dollars from the city's general fund instead of just using the Highway User Revenue Fund, a pool of money from taxes collected at the state and federal levels that cities typically use to invest in roads.

Romero said she also led efforts to have Proposition 411 passed.

Proposition 411, passed by voters in May 2022, extended a half-cent sales tax for 10 years, generating a total of $740 million for street improvements and safety projects.

Romero also touts a long list of actions she has undertaken to address the threat of climate change, including developing a climate action plan, pursuing federal funds for lower-emissions buses, and passing changes to the city code to require charging stations for electric vehicles at new commercial and multifamily developments.

Transforming how Tucson addresses public safety

Romero said she disagrees with the "antiquated perspective" that hiring more police officers is the simple solution to solve Tucson's complex public safety issues.

"It's proven it's not working. So, let's try and find a new way, a new solution to offering our community safety, health and wellness," Romero said.

Romero said she worked with the City Council and the police chief to develop Tucson's Community Safety, Health and Wellness Program with input from the community.

The program provides a civilian response to nonemergency calls and coordinates across agencies and community organizations to address issues related to mental health, substance use, and poverty, according to Tucson's website. The community safety plan also prioritizes getting people living on the street into housing.

Two years after its launch, according to an article in the Arizona Daily Star from February 2022, the program was still working to get off the ground. The mayor did not respond to a request for comment on how the program has progressed in the 20 months since.

Efforts to combat gun violence

Romero said Tucson has seen decreases in gun violence in certain high-crime areas because of the Place Network Investigations strategy, which was implemented during her time as mayor.

The strategy is an evidence-based holistic public safety model. It includes the Tucson Police Department working to uncover crime hotspots and networks, reaching out to residents, and increasing collaboration between local government departments, community leaders and businesses.

This strategy has been implemented in three sites across the city, which has seen gun violence decrease between 77% and 80% throughout these areas.

What do her supporters say about her?

Romero supporters have said she has a good track record of advocating for working families and marginalized neighborhoods.

Since her election as mayor, she launched an initiative to plant one million trees by 2030, supported moves to make public transportation affordable and accessible, and focused on finding solutions to Tucson's affordable housing crisis.

Supporters have also applauded her focus on climate change and environmental issues, including helping keep more water in Lake Mead by agreeing to leave part of Tucson's Colorado River allocation in the reservoir over the next three years.

What backlash has she received?

Romero's critics attacked her continuation of a mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic after former Gov. Doug Ducey lifted state-wide mask requirements in June 2021.

She also received backlash when she prohibited a thin blue line from being painted outside the Tucson Police Department after allowing the words Black Lives Matter to be painted on North Stone Avenue and hanging a Black Lives Matter banner from City Hall.

Reach reporter Sarah Lapidus at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com.

The Republic's coverage of southern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. Support Arizona news coverage with a tax-deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Here's why Tucson Mayor Regina Romero thinks she should be reelected