Policy Priorities

Miranda knows that democracy works best when everyone has a voice. Her vision for Tucson is one where truly inclusive public engagement is not just a formality—it’s the foundation of how we govern.

Safer Streets for All

Miranda understands that transportation is about more than getting from point A to point B—it’s about accessibility, safety, and quality of life. She knows firsthand how vital safe, reliable transportation is for Tucson's working families. For years, she has relied on her bicycle and public transportation to get around—mostly because she couldn’t afford to own a car. Everyday she experiences the same challenges with Tucson’s crumbling and unsafe road infrastructure as the thousands of Tucsonans who cannot regularly use a car to get around.

Miranda believes that Tucson’s streets should work for everyone, but decades of poor design and neglect have left our community vulnerable to traffic violence. Miranda herself has been hospitalized due to poorly maintained infrastructure and struck by a car because of unsafe road design. These aren’t just one-off “accidents” — they reflect a series of systemic failures that have made Tucson the third deadliest city for pedestrians in the U.S. and demand immediate attention.

Since early 2022, Miranda has co-led the Transit for All Coalition and protected fare-free access to our public transit system because she believes that we should not have to pay to get to work or access food and healthcare. With the rising costs of car ownership and the fact that one-third of people do not drive, keeping our public transit system fare-free is essential for making Tucson more accessible and creating a more resilient local economy.

As a Commissioner on the Complete Streets Coordinating Council (CSCC), Miranda advocates for infrastructure that prioritizes safety, accessibility, and sustainability by ensuring Tucson’s Complete Streets Ordinance is properly implemented. As the CSCC Co-Chair, she led the development of Tucson’s Street Safety Improvement Plan, which scoped over $82 million across 411 projects specifically designed to improve bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

With the upcoming vote about RTA Next, Tucson’s transportation future is at a pivotal moment. We need Miranda’s deep knowledge of transportation policy, budgeting, and community priorities on Tucson City Council to ensure that our transportation system is safe and meets the needs of the community.

As your representative on Tucson City Council, Miranda will:

Prioritize funding to repair and maintain existing infrastructure.
Work to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries by making Tucson a Vision Zero community.
Advocate for substantial investments in building a safer, more accessible and functional multimodal transportation network (e.g., improved sidewalk connectivity, safer bike lanes, better lighting, and more frequent transit service) that enables all commuters to navigate our city efficiently and with ease.
Secure sustainable funding to keep Tucson’s public transit fare-free for years to come while also improving transit service.
Ensure accountability and transparency in the implementation of Tucson’s Complete Streets Ordinance.

Housing Justice

Miranda believes housing is a human right and she is committed to solutions that ensure every Tucsonan has a stable place to call home while protecting the character of our neighborhoods. She lived most of her adult life feeling the stress and expense (moving is expensive!) of being in unstable housing situations and seeing fewer and fewer affordable options. Like many who rent their homes, she spent over a decade in Tucson moving every year or two because of rent hikes.

Through these experiences and her years of advocating for housing justice, Miranda understands that the needs of our communities are not being met by the existing housing stock. There are too many working people in Tucson who are struggling to afford housing that allows them to live comfortably and with dignity. And, home ownership remains out of reach for many as rising costs continue to outpace wages.

In 2021, Miranda founded Tucson for Everyone, which focuses on building coalitional support for abundant and attainable housing options, and also joined the Steering Committee of the Tucson Alliance for Housing Justice (TAHJ). Both organizations focus on accessibility and public engagement in local issues and have organized grassroots community support for a wide range of policy solutions over the years, including the passage of the casita ordinance, protecting tenants against source of income discrimination, and supporting humane responses to the housing crisis.

As Co-Chair of the Board of Adjustment, a quasi-judicial body that arbitrates modifications (i.e., variances) to existing zoning and building codes, Miranda has gotten into the weeds of Tucson’s land use laws. She has witnessed the various ways that City code can protect neighborhoods from harmful development and also cause unintended consequences for working families and local businesses through overly complex restrictions.

Miranda understands that we need thoughtful, equitable solutions to ensure everyone in our community has access to safe, affordable homes. While the Arizona State Legislature prevents the City from requiring affordable housing or regulating short-term rentals, we can still make progress locally to address the housing crisis – inaction will not help our neighbors in need.

Miranda knows we can help address the housing crisis by making it easier to build all types of housing through sensible and context-sensitive development, improving tenant protections, and growing the City’s investment in public housing solutions through El Pueblo Housing Development (the nonprofit development arm of Tucson’s Public Housing Agency).

As your representative on Tucson City Council, Miranda will:

Fight displacement by supporting tenant protections and community land trusts.
Advocate for policies that support affordable, middle, and diverse housing options that align with the recent Housing Needs Assessment, such as providing multi-generational housing and options that help people age in place with dignity.
Push for zoning reforms that reduce barriers to building affordable homes within the city-limits (i.e., stop environmentally damaging sprawl) while preserving neighborhood character and mitigating harm to existing residents through incremental development strategies.
Ensure that new housing developments are sustainable, accessible, and integrated with transit and community resources.
Support policies that enable the conversion of existing buildings (e.g., vacant schools) into housing for working families.
Help expand City of Tucson’s Housing First program and support the implementation of the Housing Affordability Strategy for Tucson (HAST) plan.

Community Engagement

Miranda knows that a core responsibility of a city councilmember is providing robust constituent services, which means responding in a timely manner and navigating the City’s bureaucratic web on behalf of residents to find an answer to their problems. Prior to becoming KXCI’s Operations Manager, Miranda spent over 15 years helping thousands of students at Pima Community College and the University of Arizona navigate the bureaucracy of higher education. She is uniquely experienced in managing hundreds of emails a day and helping connect people to services they need.

No one understands Tucson’s needs better than Tucson’s residents. Too many of our city’s residents are left out of conversations because “they don’t vote in off-year elections.” If city residents don’t feel connected to their local government or they don’t feel like their vote matters, we should find ways to change that experience.

Miranda believes that the best policies come from the people they affect. True inclusive community engagement means giving Tucsonans at all income levels a meaningful seat at the table and ensuring their voices shape the future of our city. She knows that effective leaders leave their egos at the door, actively listen to those directly affected by the issues, and keep an open mind to the solutions the community offers.

Through Miranda’s years of organizing, she has demonstrated her ability to work hand-in-hand with residents, grassroots organizations, and various stakeholders (including those with whom she disagrees) to co-create solutions that reflect the needs of the community. She helps ensure that all voices, even the quietest ones, feel welcome to participate and are encouraged to do so.

Miranda is committed to fostering civic engagement in Tucson and making local government more transparent, accessible, and inclusive. Since budgets are moral documents, she wants to grow the work of Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz by introducing participatory budgeting to Ward 6. Through participatory budgeting, Ward 6 residents would directly decide which projects matter most, from park improvements to street repairs, and how the Ward’s budget would get spent within a given year.

As your representative on Tucson City Council, Miranda will:

Make city government more accessible by simplifying access to public meetings, documents, and decision-making processes with multilingual resources, hybrid meeting options, and better public communication.
Engage historically underserved communities by working to ensure that low-income residents, communities of color, and young people are fully included in city planning and policy discussions.
Support grassroots leadership by providing resources for neighborhood associations, mutual aid groups, and other community organizations to strengthen local advocacy and solutions.
Expand participatory budgeting so that Ward 6 residents are directly involved in deciding how revenue from the Ward’s impact fees are spent within a given year.
Regularly report back to Ward 6 residents on her actions, decisions, and the progress being made on key issues.

Community Resiliency

Miranda’s deep love for Tucson stems from its desert beauty, unique culture, and the people who make this city home. Miranda understands that our economy and environment are inseparable—our economy depends on healthy, thriving people, and people need clean air, safe water, and livable conditions, especially as temperatures rise. Climate change is a reality we must face head-on and protecting Tucson’s natural resources, especially our water, is essential to making our community resilient for future generations.

Miranda supports smart growth development policies which protect our natural environment by building within our current urban footprint while protecting neighborhoods. Specifically, she supports using adaptive reuse strategies to preserve Tucson’s unique, historic character while breathing new life into underutilized spaces and improving aging neighborhood infrastructure within the city (e.g., sewer and water lines, sidewalks, roads). By focusing our investment on existing infrastructure, we can avoid spreading city resources too thinly and preserve undeveloped areas that provide essential linkages and refuge for Sonoran wildlife.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most tangible ways to ensure the air we breathe is healthy and free of pollutants. In Pima County, transportation accounts for 43% of greenhouse gas emissions. Miranda is a strong supporter of expanding our public transit system and increasing its service frequency as a strategy for improving our air quality. She also supports the expansion of renewable energy in our community—we have so much sunshine and we need to make solar more accessible to Tucson residents and businesses.

Climate change is not coming to Tucson—it’s here today. Tucson's climate change policies must focus on both mitigating our climate impact and addressing the impacts that climate change is already having on residents. This includes everything from helping lower utility bills by improving the energy efficiency of our buildings to reducing flooding through better stormwater management to protecting workers and unhoused folks in times of extreme heat.

As your representative on Tucson City Council, Miranda will:

Support neighbors along major roads and within Davis-Monthan’s flight paths to mitigate excessive noise pollution from vehicles and planes.
Leverage smart growth policies and right-size parking requirements to combat urban sprawl and preserve the Sonoran desert.
Advance efforts to mitigate our urban heat island through xeriscaping and improve the accessibility of cooling shelters.
Secure affordable access to clean water for all Tucsonans for generations to come by ensuring Tucson’s One Water plan is effectively implemented.
Explore strategies to increase Tucson’s use of renewable energy and divest from fossil fuels.
Ensure that commercial developments are complying with Tucson’s rainwater harvesting ordinance to reduce stormwater runoff and reduce irrigation needs.

Community Safety

Miranda understands that true public safety is about more than just law enforcement—it’s about creating communities where everyone feels safe and supported and their basic needs are met. She is committed to addressing the root causes of crime, improving transparency and accountability, and ensuring equitable access to resources that prevent harm and promote stability. This includes a range of initiatives such as increasing and protecting street lighting, properly maintaining public drinking fountains and bathrooms, and supporting community-led initiatives that promote safety, such as violence interruption programs.

Miranda believes in a future where every Tucsonan—regardless of their zip code—can feel safe walking in their neighborhood, sending their kids to school, and living without fear of systemic harm. Her vision is one of collaboration and care, rooted in the belief that a more equitable Tucson is a safer Tucson. She wants to ensure that public safety policies are crafted and updated with input from historically underserved communities. She supports diversion programs and restorative justice practices that reduce incarceration, provide second chances, and work to deconstruct racist, discriminatory and predatory enforcement.

As your representative on Tucson City Council, Miranda will:

Support investment in violence prevention programs and community resources to address the root causes of crime. This includes working with Pima County to expand mental health services, addiction treatment, and youth engagement initiatives.
Expand funding for Housing First and other programs to assist unhoused individuals and reduce their interactions with the criminal justice system.
Work to strengthen civilian oversight of the Tucson Police Department to ensure transparency and help build trust between law enforcement and the community.
Advocate for better data collection and public reporting on policing practices to identify disparities and improve outcomes.
Ensure Tucsonans have access to 24/7 crisis response services that prioritize de-escalation and care by supporting programs like CARE (Community Assistance Resource and Emergency Services) and CSHW (Community Safety Health and Wellness) that deploy trained professionals to respond to mental health crises and non-violent emergencies.
Promote data-driven approaches to reducing dangerous speeds on our major roadways to reduce and eliminate all traffic-related fatalities citywide.
Actively pursue policies that align with the Prosperity Initiative, a policy guide to eliminating generational poverty that was unanimously passed by the City of Tucson Mayor and Council and Pima County Board of Directors.