Editor:
As the election season addresses the issues that divide us, all Arizonans should encourage our elected candidates to focus on what unites us: education.
A recent statewide poll conducted by Education Forward Arizona, a nonpartisan education nonprofit, found that the vast majority of Arizonans want more funding for schools and to increase teacher pay.
Meanwhile, we don’t hear politicians communicating how they will invest in and improve our children’s education. This must change.
Here in the Southwest Valley, as in many other areas of Maricopa County, we are experiencing growth. With this comes additional responsibilities to more families with students and continued responsibilities for longtime residents.
We need additional learning space and a greater need for teachers and the variety of staff who support learning for our children.
Looking through the websites for the Agua Fria Union High, Buckeye Union High, Liberty Elementary and Litchfield Elementary school districts, each one mentions recruiting, retaining and training teachers; providing smaller class sizes; continuing extracurricular opportunities for students; school and campus safety; and, for the high schools, continuing and increasing workforce development.
Our community is clear about what we want our state to do: put a qualified teacher in every classroom, give teachers a raise, invest in our schools, and give students more opportunities for career and technical education. It’s high time we and our elected officials make this happen.
What is going to take for the trucker association to realize what they’re doing is wrong. Driving diesel dump trucks 24/7 down Camelback Road in a residential zone, polluting our backyards, is dangerous. They are no different than the 1980s tobacco corporation. They know what they are doing is harmful to our health, but they are putting profit over our health.
Someone will finally have enough courage to take them on in court and sue them for millions, and then they’ll start to come around, especially when they start losing money financially.
Northern Parkway was built especially for this sole purpose, but the Tanner Trucking Company and the rest would rather pollute Litchfield Park and Palm Valley communities. A few trucks a day is one thing, but when there are over 1,000 a day, that is borderline insane. Use Northern Avenue, Olive Avenue or Northern Parkway, all of which do not border housing developments.
God forbid a child tries to cross Camelback Road to reach the Jackie Robinson baseball field and one of the 67,000-pound cement trucks traveling at 50 miles per hour crushes them. It’s only a matter of time. Please stop using Camelback Road.
Ashley Sanchez, Litchfield Park
Source: https://www.westvalleyview.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article_8ce8009c-6a8a-11ed-9934-139bafc0b019.html