Curt Prendergast

Tucson

Reporter at Tucson Agenda

Reporter for the Tucson Agenda

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Articles

Listening in

1 week ago | tucsonagenda.substack.com | Joe Ferguson |Curt Prendergast

It started as an innocuous email for several thousand people living in southern Arizona. Rep. Juan Ciscomani was going to hold a telephone town hall in a few minutes and you were invited to listen and ask questions. We got invitations late, but more on that in a minute. The Republican Congressman from Tucson spent an hour taking questions from locals on potential cuts to Medicaid, Elon Musk’s role in DOGE and how Congress is responding to the fast-paced changes by the Trump administration.
The calm before the storm

2 weeks ago | tucsonagenda.substack.com | Joe Ferguson |Curt Prendergast

Over the next five months, the race to fill Raúl Grijalva’s seat in Congress will capture the nation’s attention. In a narrowly divided Congress where every vote holds incredible weight, this once reliably blue district in Tucson will become a battleground. We expect to see both Democrats and Republicans flood the race with massive political funding, each side eager to secure a win in one of the only special elections in the country.
Standing room only

2 weeks ago | tucsonagenda.substack.com | Joe Ferguson |Curt Prendergast

Our advice if you want to attend one of the two Tucson City Council meetings today is to come early. The agendas are chock-full of big-time issues and we expect a full house, especially for the night meeting where free transit proponents are expected to lobby the Council to find the money to keep the program alive.
Never a dull moment

2 weeks ago | tucsonagenda.substack.com | Joe Ferguson |Curt Prendergast

Even though we took last week off, the political world just kept right on turning, didn’t it? How rude. But what can you do? These are crazy times. While we were taking care of all the business and planning tasks that tend to pile up at the Agenda last week, President Donald Trump threw the global economy into disarray with tariffs, based on dubious math (potentially calculated by ChatGPT), and even floated the idea of an unconstitutional third term.
Bored at the border

3 weeks ago | arizonaagenda.com | Curt Prendergast

The U.S. military is unleashing the dogs of war on the southern border. Gone are the days of governors sending National Guard troops to help Border Patrol agents with paperwork or hands-off surveillance. They did it to score political points, of course, but there was usually at least a hint of recognition that they were taking an extraordinary step, and there were always strict limits on what troops could do. No longer.
At the threshold

4 weeks ago | tucsonagenda.substack.com | Curt Prendergast

The question for every local official in Arizona over the past few months has been “Where do we draw the line on homelessness?”Until last June, that wasn’t a question they could do much about. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling held back officials in Tucson, Phoenix and other cities in the West. But a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer opened the door for cities to crack down on homelessness.
Border bills

1 month ago | arizonaagenda.com | Curt Prendergast

Only a handful of border-related bills made it through the first wave of winnowing at the Legislature. But they would pack quite a wallop if they become law. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has already told lawmakers that many of their hardline policies are dead on arrival at her desk. With that in mind, Republican lawmakers have little incentive to wrestle with whether border bills from their fellow Republicans are actually good policy.
Banner tightens visitor policies for flu season

1 month ago | tucson.com | Curt Prendergast

The onset of flu season nationwide prompted Banner Health to clamp down on allowing sick and young people to visit patients. Starting Monday, Dec. 28, the Banner-University Medical Center and UMC-South will not allow people with fever, cough, vomiting, or diarrhea to visit patients, Banner Health said in a Dec. 23 news release.
Louis Taylor, 4 years after freedom from Pioneer Hotel fire case, accused of armed robbery

1 month ago | tucson.com | Curt Prendergast

Louis Taylor, who served four decades in prison for the downtown Pioneer Hotel fire in 1970, was arrested Thursday in connection with an armed robbery. Tucson police arrested Taylor, 63, after video surveillance at the Riverpark Inn on West Cushing Street showed him walking behind the counter where the clerk was standing and demanding money. Taylor took an undisclosed amount of money in the robbery in June, police said, and assaulted the clerk with a baseball bat, causing minor injuries.
Decades in prison for Tucson couple who imprisoned children

1 month ago | tucson.com | Curt Prendergast

The husband and wife convicted of keeping their three daughters imprisoned in their house were sentenced to 58 years and 20 years, respectively, in prison on Thursday. Fernando and Sophia Richter were found guilty in December of three counts each of kidnapping and child abuse. Fernando Richter, stepfather to the three girls, was also convicted of two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.