🚌 From Bus Fares to Business Wars: Paul Cunningham and David Cohen's Take on Tucson's Challenges | MORNING VOICE
City Councilman Paul Cunningham and accounting mogul David Cohen expose establishment thinking on homelessness, policing, and "business-friendly" policies
Based on the Morning Voice for 5/27/25, a daily radio show in Tucson, AZ, on KVOI-AM. Analysis and opinions are my own.
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
🎙️ A local radio show 📻 featured two powerful Tucson men 💼 talking about city problems like homelessness 🏚️, crime 🚓, and transportation 🚌. One is a city councilman 👔 whose dad was also in politics 🗳️, and the other runs a big accounting company 📊 and sits on lots of important boards 🎯.
They suggested solutions like making people pay bus fares again 💵 to control who rides transit, creating special camping areas for homeless people ⛺, and making it easier for businesses to build things without community input 🚧.
But they never talked about why people become homeless in the first place 🤔, how climate change affects our city 🌍, or why some neighborhoods get more resources than others 🏘️. Their conversation showed how people in charge 🏢 sometimes see problems differently than people who actually experience them 👥.
🗝️ Takeaways
🎯 Establishment perspective dominates: Both guests represent generational power transfers (political dynasty, business succession) that preserve existing arrangements
🚫 Missing voices: 90 minutes of civic discussion avoided climate change, racial disparities, income inequality, and immigration impacts
💰 Transactional civic engagement: David Cohen's community involvement philosophy reveals how elite philanthropy serves business development
🚔 Punitive solutions to poverty: Cunningham's public safety approach criminalizes survival rather than addressing root causes
🚌 Car-centric transportation thinking: Despite transit discussion, focus remains on road reconstruction over sustainable alternatives
🏠 Aesthetic approach to homelessness: Problems framed as visual blight rather than housing affordability crisis
💧 Policy complexity masks wealth transfers: Water rate discussion reveals how "cost-based" pricing generates surplus revenue from county residents
Behind the Mic: Conservative Tucson's Power Players Reveal Their Blueprint for Our City
An analysis of privilege, policy, and political palaver from the airwaves of establishment Tucson
On a Tuesday morning that began with Memorial Day platitudes and ended with baseball banter, Tucson's conservative talk radio offered a masterclass in how the comfortable classes discuss the uncomfortable realities facing our desert city. "The Morning Voice" on 1030 AM became an unintentional window into the minds of those who shape policy from boardrooms and council chambers, revealing as much through their silences as their speeches.
Host Ted Maxwell, with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to friendly audiences, welcomed two pillars of Tucson's establishment: City Councilman Paul Cunningham and accounting mogul David Cohen. What emerged was 90 minutes of conversation that perfectly encapsulated how power talks to itself about the rest of us.
Opening Act: Patriotism as Performance
Maxwell's Memorial Day opener struck the predictable notes of military reverence before pivoting to nationalist chest-thumping that would make a bald eagle weep red, white, and blue tears.
"The American flag is the only one," Maxwell declared with characteristic certainty, "that when people anywhere in the world see it, the first thing they think of is freedom and democracy."
Tell that to the families in Yemen, Gaza, Iraq, or any of the dozens of countries where American "freedom and democracy" arrived via drone strike or military intervention. But hey, why let global reality intrude on a good patriotic moment?
Maxwell's assertion that America represents "250 years of self-rule" that "hasn't existed for that kind of time anywhere in the world" conveniently erases the inconvenient truth that for most of those 250 years, actual self-rule was limited to white, property-owning men.
Apparently, enslaved people, Indigenous nations, women, and immigrants were just decorative elements in America's great democratic experiment.
This kind of selective historical memory sets the tone for everything that follows—discussions that consistently center on the experiences of those who have benefited most from existing arrangements, while treating everyone else as problems to be managed rather than citizens to be heard.
Paul Cunningham: Dynasty in Denim
The Weight of Political Inheritance
Cunningham's segment began with genuine emotion about his recently deceased father, George Cunningham, whose political career spanned decades of Arizona governance. The councilman's voice carried real grief as he described his father's approach to public service:
"He just took it so seriously... you cannot benefit through public service on a personal level."
The Yardhouse story perfectly illustrates this principle. When former Tucson mayor Bob Walkup graciously paid their restaurant bill, Cunningham's father immediately instructed his son:
"Make sure you talk to Mike Rankin tomorrow,"—the city attorney—to ensure no gift clause violations occurred. "I mean, he was dead serious," Cunningham recalled. "That's kind of my dad's idea about public service."
It's almost quaint, this obsession with $50 restaurant tabs when we live in an era where corporate lobbyists routinely spend thousands wining and dining legislators, and mayors are flown to Middle Eastern countries. But sure, let's worry about the optics of a former mayor buying dinner.
Yet this anecdote reveals something deeper about how the political class operates. These aren't chance encounters—they're part of a social ecosystem where current and former officials regularly break bread together, sharing insights and influence in settings far removed from public scrutiny. The integrity lies not in avoiding these relationships but in managing their appearance.
Public Safety Through Rose-Colored Handcuffs
When Maxwell steered the conversation toward public safety, Cunningham's responses revealed the limitations of technocratic thinking divorced from systemic analysis. His magic number—820 commissioned officers plus 180 Community Service Officers—emerged from calculations about ratios and coverage rather than questions about what kind of safety communities actually need.
"Right now we've got a situation where we've had multiple issues at bus stops over the last few months," Cunningham observed, describing incidents of violence and open drug use that have made some people "take a second chance of taking the bus."
His solution? Potentially reinstating bus fares—not to address the underlying causes of these issues, but to control who can access public transportation.
Because nothing says "compassionate governance" like making poor people pay for the privilege of traveling to low-wage jobs while wealthy folks zip past in air-conditioned SUVs.
The councilman's discussion of homelessness revealed similar blind spots. He acknowledged that "some of our shelter beds... are taken up by people who actually have income and actually work" but framed their presence as a problem rather than evidence of a housing affordability crisis. Maybe—just maybe—when employed people can't afford housing in your city, the problem isn't their use of shelter beds but the economic system that creates such desperation?
Cunningham's proposed solutions read like a greatest hits album of punitive liberalism: "controlled camping zones," faster processing through "community court," and stricter enforcement of "parks and washes ordinances." He speaks the language of compassion while proposing policies that criminalize survival.
Regional Transportation: The RTA's Shell Game Exposed
The conversation about Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) reauthorization inadvertently exposed one of Tucson's most frustrating policy failures. While Cunningham diplomatically discussed finding "a pathway to make a deal for the RTA that works for everyone," he carefully avoided mentioning the obvious: the RTA has been a raw deal for Tucson from day one.
Let's state what the councilman won't: Tucson pays more into the RTA than it gets back, while projects promised decades ago remain unfinished despite the authority sitting on millions in reserve funds.
Cunningham's focus on ensuring Tucson gets a "fair share" of transportation revenue reveals the fundamental problem. After two decades of RTA taxation, the city still has to fight for equity in a system it largely funds. His preference for "modernization renewal of our existing roads" rather than the flashy new projects sounds reasonable until you realize it's basically asking for scraps from a table Tucson set.
The real scandal? The RTA's broken promises to city residents who've been paying taxes for projects that remain perpetually "in planning." While suburban communities got their shiny new roads and interchanges, Tucson's arterial improvements crawl forward at bureaucratic speed. Meanwhile, the RTA maintains healthy cash reserves that could fix every pothole from Miracle Mile to Valencia tomorrow if they chose to prioritize urban infrastructure over regional empire-building.
When your "regional partnership" consistently shortchanges the region's largest city, maybe it's time to call it what it is: suburban welfare funded by urban taxpayers.
David Cohen: Capital's Cheerful Champion
The Gospel of Giving Back
Cohen's segment began with the origin story of Beach Fleischman, his accounting firm, which has grown to over 200 employees across multiple states. But more revealing was his philosophy of community engagement, learned from co-founder Bruce Beach: "If you're good to the community, the community will be good to you."
This transactional framing of civic involvement—scratch the community's back and it'll scratch yours—reveals how elite philanthropy often serves business development as much as public good. Cohen's impressive resume of board positions (Ronald McDonald House, Tucson Children's Museum, Southern Arizona Leadership Council) reads like a networking strategy disguised as altruism.
Not that there's anything wrong with enlightened self-interest, but let's call it what it is rather than pretending it's pure civic virtue.
The Aesthetics of Inequality
Cohen's critique of Tucson's "visual appeal" provided a masterclass in how the comfortable classes view urban challenges.
"Have you never driven into the city from Speedway or Grant from I-10?" he asked Maxwell. "It's awful. It's awful."
His horror at "shopping carts on the corners" and homeless individuals at bus stops reduces human suffering to an aesthetic problem that hurts business recruitment. When Cohen noted that other cities have "figured out" homelessness by making it invisible, he casually admitted these approaches might simply push problems "out of sight" or "somewhere out of town."
Ah yes, the old "clean up for company" approach to social policy. Because nothing says "compassionate community" like sweeping poverty under someone else's rug.
"We were just in San Francisco two weeks ago," Cohen recounted, "and everyone talks about San Francisco, three-quarters of the city where we walked and we drove. Didn't see it. Didn't see the shopping carts on the corners."
This observation perfectly captures the tourist's perspective—judging cities by their best-maintained districts while ignoring the displacement that creates such sanitized experiences.
Business-Friendly or Community-Hostile?
Cohen's call for the government to "learn to say yes instead of no" reflects the classic pro-development narrative that frames any regulatory oversight as anti-business obstructionism. "Say yes to things," he urged. "Yes, let's figure it out. Or yes, I want this business here."
Because clearly what Tucson needs is more rubber-stamping of development projects, fewer environmental reviews, and less community input. What could possibly go wrong?
The irony runs deep: Cohen praises his own decades of community involvement while simultaneously arguing for streamlined processes that would reduce community participation in development decisions. This tension reveals how business interests often view public engagement as an obstacle rather than a democratic necessity.
The Silences That Speak Volumes
Perhaps most revealing was what remained unspoken during this extended conversation. Despite discussing homelessness, public safety, transportation, and economic development, neither guest addressed:
Climate change's impact on Tucson's habitability and economy
Income inequality driving housing unaffordability
Racial disparities in policing and economic opportunity
Environmental justice concerns
Immigration's role in Tucson's economy and character
It's remarkable how ninety minutes of civic discussion can avoid mentioning the most pressing challenges facing our community. It's like discussing ocean navigation while pretending hurricanes don't exist.
The Generational Handoff
Both guests embody smooth transitions of power—Cunningham from his father's political legacy, Cohen from firm founder to "senior advisor." These seamless successions suggest institutions designed to preserve existing arrangements rather than adapt to changing community needs.
Cunningham's revelation that his grandmother immediately recognized Barack Obama as "the one" in 2004 hints at political intuition that transcends partisan boundaries. Yet his current positions suggest that whatever progressive potential existed in his evolution has been constrained by institutional pressures and class position.
It's almost tragic—the son of a man who worked across party lines now trapped in the amber of technocratic incrementalism.
Water Wars and Wealth Transfers
The brief discussion of differential water rates revealed how policy complexity can mask wealth transfers. Cunningham defended charging county residents more for city water while acknowledging the revenues would fund "climate resiliency and infrastructure upgrades"—essentially making rural residents subsidize urban improvements.
Producer Matt Neely's pointed questions about revenue allocation exposed the shell game:
"If you're telling me it's more expensive [to serve county residents], this differential water rate is more than an offset. Is it not?"
Cunningham's response—essentially admitting the policy generates surplus revenue—confirms that "cost-based pricing" often means "profit-generating pricing."
Nothing says "regional cooperation" like making your neighbors pay extra for the privilege of keeping your pipes flowing.
What This Means for You
If you're a Tucsonan who rides the bus, rents an apartment, or works for wages rather than collecting dividends, this conversation offers a glimpse into how policy gets made in rooms you'll never enter. These aren't mustache-twirling villains—they're well-intentioned people whose perspectives are inevitably shaped by their positions in systems that reward conformity over challenge.
The problem isn't their individual character but the structural arrangements that ensure policy discussions happen primarily among those insulated from policy consequences. When housed people discuss homelessness, car owners plan transit systems, and business owners design worker protections, the solutions inevitably reflect the solvers' rather than the affected communities' priorities.
Hope in the Desert
Despite these limitations, there's genuine cause for optimism. Tucson's growing diversity—cultural, economic, and generational—ensures that no single perspective can dominate for an indefinite period. New voices are emerging in neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools, bringing fresh perspectives to old problems.
The conversation captured on "The Morning Voice" represents one viewpoint in our community's ongoing dialogue about its future. But democracy thrives when that dialogue includes all voices, especially those speaking from experience rather than observation, from struggle rather than success.
Change occurs when comfortable assumptions collide with uncomfortable realities. As housing costs rise, temperatures climb, and inequalities widen, even the most insulated voices will eventually confront the need for systemic rather than cosmetic solutions.
Want to stay informed about how power really operates in Southern Arizona? Subscribe to Three Sonorans on Substack for regular analysis that centers community voices over establishment perspectives. Your support keeps independent journalism alive in the desert.
What Do You Think?
The voices heard on "The Morning Voice" represent one slice of our community's conversation about its future. But what perspectives were missing? How might these discussions sound different if they included:
Transit riders rather than just transit planners?
Renters struggling with housing costs rather than just property owners?
Workers facing wage theft rather than just business owners seeking "flexibility"?
Young people inheriting climate consequences rather than just those who created them?
Share your thoughts in the comments below. What solutions would you propose for the challenges discussed on this show? How can we ensure that policy discussions include the voices of those most affected by policy outcomes?
The airwaves may belong to established voices for now, but the future belongs to all of us—if we're willing to claim it.
Quotes
Ted Maxwell: "The American flag is the only one... that when people anywhere in the world see it, the first thing they think of is freedom and democracy." Context: Memorial Day opening, promoting American exceptionalism
Paul Cunningham: "Some of our shelter beds... are taken up by people who actually have income and actually work. And we can't seem to get them at least a favorable lease." Context: Discussing homelessness as resource allocation problem rather than housing affordability crisis
David Cohen: "We were just in San Francisco... three quarters of the city where we walked and we drove. Didn't see it. Didn't see the shopping carts on the corners." Context: Praising cities that make homelessness invisible to tourists
Paul Cunningham: "We need more resources to properly clean buses, work on bus stops, and shore up the budget for the city. So the reinstatement of bus fares definitely warrants discussion." Context: Proposing to charge transit users to solve transit problems
David Cohen: "The city needs to learn to say yes instead of no... I think many people perceive the city as being business unfriendly." Context: Arguing for reduced regulatory oversight of development
Paul Cunningham: "We're just trying to... take a look at either a hundred-acre wood or somewhere else, where we actually do have some type of controlled camping zone." Context: Proposing containment rather than housing solutions
Names Mentioned and Context:
George Cunningham (Paul's father): Former Arizona legislator and gubernatorial chief of staff, described as having "full integrity" and taking public service seriously
Bob Walkup (former Tucson mayor): Graciously paid restaurant bill for Cunninghams, prompting ethics consultation
Mike Rankin (city attorney): Father's go-to contact for ethics questions, always called as "one word"
Bruce Beach (Beach Fleischman co-founder): Taught Cohen that "if you're good to the community, the community will be good to you"
Rodney Glassman (former councilman): Resigned to run against John McCain, remembered for viral "Sweet Home Arizona" moment
Bob Stump (former state senator): Invited George Cunningham to Washington, but he "wouldn't leave Arizona"
Janet Napolitano (former governor): George Cunningham served as her chief of staff
Jan Brewer (former governor): Later told George he should have stayed when she became governor
John McCain (former senator): Ran against Glassman
Barack Obama (former president): Paul's grandmother said "he's the one" about Obama in 2004
Chuck Huckleberry (former county administrator): Mentioned as providing municipal services that discouraged incorporation
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