The Three GOP Pima County Supes Roll Over And Play Dead For Their Financial Masters, The Developers. By Emil Franzi THE SIGN AT the back of the Tucson Convention Center room, where the Pima County Board of Supervisors held its recent hearing on development impact fees, was prophetic: "CONCESSIONS." And true to this impromptu motto, the GOP majority rolled over big-time for the development lobby, which also makes up a big chunk of the three GOP supervisors' campaign contribution list. After days of posturing about how much the fee should be for the northwest side "benefit area" (read "place that got raped by uncontrolled, explosive development"), Supervisor Ed Moore successfully motioned for a minimal impact fee of $1,550--not to begin until next October. Also, the supes agreed to set impact fees in five other "benefit areas" to be defined in the next 90 days. It was exactly what the Southern Arizona Home Builder's Association had proposed, except Moore went even further than his masters had dared command and exempted apartments from the fees. So now, if you want to put a single-wide trailer on a four-acre lot in rapidly metastasizing Catalina (which gets zip in new roads, by the way), you cough up $1,550. But if you're Don Diamond with 960 new apartments on River Road, you skate. Nice job, guys. To their good credit, both Democrats Raul Grijalva and Dan Eckstrom voted "no" on this charade. Grijalva wanted higher and more realistic fees; Eckstrom never spoke to the issue. The room held only about 500 people this time, mostly from the development lobby. Apparently the budget for the National Homebuilders in Washington, D.C., is getting a little tight on providing the Astroturf, but you could still tell some of the arguments against the fees were generic and provided via fax from several thousand miles away. Just scratch out Santa Cruz or McHenry County and substitute Pima, and you've got a three-minute speech on the evils of impact fees. Many in the development crowd were testy. It was fascinating to hear them make free market arguments for an industry that has so little to do with genuine free market economics. They all conceded the need for roads in congested parts of town, and many advocated a variety of tax increases to pay for them--ranging from an increase in the sales tax (which Pima County voters have rejected three times by overwhelming margins) to a gas tax hike, to a real estate transfer tax, to a massive bond election paid back via property taxes. They were a lot like those American Association of Retired Persons reps at a federal entitlement hearing: Everybody else ought to pay but us. Of course the one thought that never crossed their greedy little minds is that the cost of supplying infrastructure to new housing is so damn expensive that it's way past time to consider another option--restraining growth. Like Sun Devil Stadium, this valley can hold only a finite number of people. And the first way to restrain growth is to quit encouraging and subsidizing it. Apparently, if SAHBA ran the Super Bowl, they'd keep selling tickets after all the seats were filled, and then order the first folks in to let the last ones sit in their laps. Hey, selling a lot of beer and programs is really what it's all about, and how dare you interfere with a free market by objecting? So besides a higher crime rate, environmental blight, crowded roads and schools, and destruction of a once-decent lifestyle, you can plan on higher taxes. And you can bet growth will continue until the taxes and lifestyle around here get just as bad as they were in California or the East, whence our newest residents are fleeing. We can only pray that when the blight becomes too great and the boom moves on, it will sweep the current crop of land speculators and developers with it. Many of those responsible for the last cycle of building are now in places like Nevada, and many construction workers have become gypsies with little loyalty to any community. Meanwhile, Pima County is planning a massive bond election to cover just a piece of what's needed to clean up after this recent growth explosion. There's a proposed bond issue floating around that calls for $119 million in road construction. That's odd, because it's generally agreed what's really needed now for northside roads alone is about $155 million. And some county watchers are warning if growth continues at its present pace, it will soon take nearly $600 million in that part of the valley alone to relieve the infrastructure stresses. Moore's response was to ask the Board to again consider passing the half-cent tax hike--the one voters have rejected in the past--apparently on top of the bond proposal. And Moore is still babbling about somehow getting all the folks who live in unincorporated areas to form some kind of phony city so they could legally rake in state money and give it to Pima County. Right, Ed--those who don't live in a town have to run out and incorporate and elect some stooge council whose sole purpose would be to pour money into your boot. Ed, we're called "citizens," not "subjects," and we aren't going to re-organize our lives so you can spend more. If one thing's clear about this whole sorry mess, it's the prevailing attitude of our so-called business leaders and those in charge of our politics: Policies are made for the benefit of those who don't live here now, and don't even know yet that they will. Current residents are a secondary consideration, except those involved in one industry--development. Like a Third World country whose economy is built on a single crop, Pima County's economy is driven by one single item. Coffee, bananas, copra, bat dung and SAHBA, they're all the same. And after that hearing, one more thing is clear: Our development overlords own three county supes the same way you or I hold title to a car.

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