The calendar says the monsoon ends Wednesday, and the weekend is running warm and dry ahead of a late-Sunday rain chance. If your windshield has been collecting butterflies lately, there's an explanation below.

Two quick notes before the news

Fourth Avenue. On Friday evening I spoke by phone with chef Maria Mazon, the Top Chef alum who owns BOCA Tacos y Tequila on North Fourth Avenue, about what businesses on the avenue are dealing with right now. Her biggest complaint is the city's parking meters: she says many of them on her block don't work, and that enforcement hours have grown, with meters that once went free at 5 p.m. now running until 7, and Saturdays no longer free. She also raised public safety along the corridor. I've put questions to the city, including Mayor Regina Romero's office, and am waiting on the answers. Look for the interview on the site next week, and a full recap in next Sunday's newsletter.

A side project for the northern suburbs. I've launched roadrunner.town, a small neighborhood bulletin board in the spirit of Nextdoor, minus the noise. Lost dogs, road work, power outages, a good plumber: notes from verified neighbors within about four miles of home, newest first, with no algorithm deciding what you see. It's free, you sign in with an email link (no password), and neighbors see your name and town but never your street. For now it covers Oro Valley, Marana, Catalina, Catalina Foothills, SaddleBrooke, Oracle and San Manuel. If you live up that way, have a look.

What's worth knowing

Two votes on the same Tuesday night, and both came down to the same margin: 3-2 at the county, 4-3 at the city. The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to impose a 120-day moratorium on new data center development in unincorporated areas of the county. Chair Jennifer Allen framed it as one leg of a three-legged stool: the county is rewriting its zoning code for data centers, the Health Department is building a framework for assessing their public health effects, and the moratorium is meant to give staff time to weave that framework into the new rules before any more projects get approved. The updated zoning code is scheduled to reach the board Dec. 15. Supervisors Rex Scott and Steve Christy voted no; Allen, Vice Chair Matt Heinz and Supervisor Andrés Cano voted yes. The same night, the Tucson City Council voted 4-3 to lower the trigger for the city's large quantity water user ordinance from 10,000 to 8,500 hundred cubic feet per month, and directed staff to come back in 120 days with a plan requiring conservation plans from users at 5,000 CCF or more. The three no votes — Council Members Kevin Dahl, Paul Cunningham and Miranda Schubert — wanted a lower threshold and faster action; Dahl had proposed going straight to 5,000. Mayor Regina Romero and Council Members Nikki Lee, Selina Barajas and Lane Santa Cruz made up the majority.

This week we also published an In Depth piece on something a lot of Tucsonans have been noticing: the butterflies. Specifically, American snout butterflies — small, brown, with a distinctive elongated snout and a flash of orange. They've been turning up everywhere from Oracle Road to Rita Ranch. University of Arizona entomologist Katy Prudic explains it as a monsoon effect: a dry July knocked back the tiny wasps that prey on snout caterpillars, then August rains triggered desert hackberry to put out fresh leaves, and caterpillar survival spiked. A few weeks later, newly emerged adults take flight in low-flying swarms — right at windshield level. Prudic said sightings peaked in late August and the flight should wind down within a few more weeks.

A confirmed measles case turned up in Pima County on Friday. The Pima County Health Department said an international visitor who traveled through Southern Arizona developed symptoms after exposure to a previously reported case in Colorado. The patient was at the Banner ER on North Campbell Avenue from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, and is now isolating at home.

What changed around town

The big government story this week is covered above, but there's more from the Sept. 22 meeting calendar. At Rio Nuevo, the district's CFO told the board the district has roughly $725,000 left to commit over the next 12 months after about $22 million in existing project commitments — and collections are running 15% below last year, which CFO Daniel Meyers said puts the district back at pre-pandemic levels. That didn't stop the board from approving $355,368 for a restaurant, club and speakeasy going into the former Zen Rock nightclub space at 121 E. Congress St., with no member opposed. Chairman Fletcher McCusker said the district is in better shape than he feared a few months ago, when monthly collections had dipped to $1.2 million; July came in around $1.6 million, though he cautioned part of that may be delinquent taxpayers catching up.

We also covered our first school board meeting under the Tucson Daily Brief's new school coverage. The Sahuarita Unified governing board voted Sept. 23 to require every district employee — all roughly 900 of them — to file a conflict-of-interest disclosure when hired and every year after that. Board members have always had this requirement; the new part extends it to all staff. The district built an online form so employees can complete the training and the disclosure together. Sahuarita is the first of the school boards we're now covering regularly; you'll find meeting previews for Tucson Unified, Marana Unified, Amphitheater and Flowing Wells alongside Sahuarita in What to Watch.

Elsewhere in government: Tucson Water signed a federal agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation worth up to $125 million to expand the Southern Avra Valley Storage and Recovery Project. The deal funds planning, design and construction to raise the site's annual storage capacity from 75,000 acre-feet to as much as 140,000 acre-feet. And the city approved a $345,000 program called "Ready, Steady, Open" to give grants to small businesses affected by nearby roadwork and construction, funded with American Rescue Plan dollars.

What's opening

The most notable business story this week came from Tucson Spotlight, which profiled Luna Y Sol Cafe in South Tucson. Its owners are Abraham Barajas and Selina Barajas, the same Selina Barajas who took office as Tucson's Ward 5 council member in December and cast one of the four yes votes on the water ordinance above. Abraham said he first thought about opening a cafe while living in Los Angeles; after moving his family to Tucson in 2018, the couple made it happen at 137 W. 29th St., naming the place after their two daughters. The cafe features ethically sourced coffee and a community green space. West Side Biergarten, run by Andre and Silke Linke, also got a writeup from Tucson Spotlight this week — the piece says the spot has been fully booked most nights after a delayed opening, leaning into Oktoberfest with staff in lederhosen and a menu of German food and beer.

On the permits side, three new Pima County food-establishment permits turned up this week: Sacred Hand Beer Co. at 3895 N. Oracle Rd., Sammy's Deli at 1303 E. University Blvd., and Talamazka Sonoran Grill and Seafood at 190 W. Continental Rd. in Green Valley. A health permit usually precedes the doors opening by several weeks, so consider these early signals rather than opening dates.

One thing to watch

The Marana Planning Commission meets Wednesday, Sept. 30, and data centers are on the agenda — again. Commissioners will hold a public hearing on proposed changes to Marana's land development code for data centers, including tighter noise-attenuation requirements and a new rule that would require facilities to have a formal decommissioning plan for when they eventually close. The town has been in the middle of a data center rezoning fight that has already produced litigation, so any change to the underlying land-use rules matters. The commission will also discuss whether to cancel its November 25 and December 30 meetings, which would leave the body without a scheduled session for roughly two months. Anyone tracking a pending application before that commission should pay attention to how that vote goes.

The Tucson Mini

This week's crossword is ready when you are — play it here. It's a 5x5, built for a Sunday morning, and it won't take you long.

Have a good week, and enjoy the cooler evenings while they last. See you next Sunday.

This edition was drafted by Claude Sonnet 4.6 from the 8 daily briefs, 4 meeting reports and 7 filings Tucson Daily Brief published between September 19 and September 26, 2026, then reviewed and edited by Nicholas De Leon with Claude Fable 5.1. Read more about how this is made.